• Welcome to the new COTI server. We've moved the Citizens to a new server. Please let us know in the COTI Website issue forum if you find any problems.
  • We, the systems administration staff, apologize for this unexpected outage of the boards. We have resolved the root cause of the problem and there should be no further disruptions.

Additional Chargen Options

L

LMB

SOC-3
IMTU, I'd like to give my players additional chargen options. Some jobs/careers are just begging to be made (like bounty hunter) and I will if I can't find a decent one, but I'd like to ask the community if anyone knows of additional chargen options either official or fan made that are out there?

And/or if anyone has ideas for interesting ideas for new careers.
 
If you use MgT then Book 5: Agent (official) and Spica Career Book 1 (licensed) offer very similar (thematically) careers for bounty hunters. Mechanics-wise, the Spica bounty hunter uses only core rulebook skills and benefits, whereas the MgT book one can land a few book-specific bonuses (cover identities, info neworks).

Honestly I'd suggest you choose which sourcebook to obtain based on how much you'd use the rest of the books, as both versions of the bounty hunter are playable: the Spica book has extended (d66) event tables for all corebook careers, and has diverse careers covering various other options. Simple, but everything there is useable, plus lots of pre-generated NPCs.
Book 5 has a variety of Agent-specific careers, with specific mechanics to quantize things that would otherwise be GM fiat/solved through RP: sections on criminal investigations, trials, spy missions, bounty missions, spy equipment, and a few odd ship designs.

I don't want to start a debate about the book's value, but just for reference as to where you might want to spend your money, I personally find some of the rules in this book convoluted rollplaying which I'll practically never use; YMMV.

On a positive note, the section on Bounties has useful tables for generating and handling bounty missions, and though I can't ever see myself using the Trust mechanic as it is built in the book, it gives a useful reference point to establish a PC's relation to their employers at mustering-out (except that once the game's going I'd stick to the PC's actions as the reference point, not the arbitrary number and skill check tables; once again, YMMV).

I guess it depends if you want an all-purpose book (many careers, tables, and NPCs) (Spica) or one that lets you generate bounty missions and lets you build toys for the PCs (with the prototype equipment section) (MgT).
 
lolnoobzor said:
On a positive note, the section on Bounties has useful tables for generating and handling bounty missions...
Click to expand...
That's interesting. One of the big problems with vanilla Traveller bounty hunters is the high cost of interstellar travel, which makes Real Life bounty hunting a very poor fit for Traveller bounty hunting. You need those who offer bounties to be willing to pay a lot more than is needed in the Real World (Unless you confine the campaign to a single world, of course). So I'm curious to know how that is handled.


Hans
 
Thanks for the replies so far!

I should have perhaps mentioned that I play CT, but I'm willing to adapt other versions to my needs, so keep 'em coming!
 
Rancke2 said:
That's interesting. One of the big problems with vanilla Traveller bounty hunters is the high cost of interstellar travel, which makes Real Life bounty hunting a very poor fit for Traveller bounty hunting. You need those who offer bounties to be willing to pay a lot more than is needed in the Real World (Unless you confine the campaign to a single world, of course). So I'm curious to know how that is handled.


Hans
Click to expand...

Well, taking a closer look at the bounty section (never had a chance to use it yet tbh) I'm actually quite dissapointed; it's all too much rollplaying to me: what I thought were tables to generate mission parameters are actually tables to roll through the entire mission. A few of the tables can (and will, if I ever try a Cowboy Bebop-style campaign) be repo'd for mission generation, so I guess there's that, and the table you'll be interested in is obviously the rewards table. It actually doesn't make a lot of (read: any) sense the way it's presented by virtue of being rolled after the mission's accomplished, since it's in the rollplaying part of the bounty missions...
But the table looks useable as is, you just want to house-rule fairly positive modifiers (I'd eye-ball a +1/expected jump to target) for any mission likely to take the players to another system, with other significant modifiers for the severity of the crimes, so the players have a chance for something left after maintenance costs. Space combat aside, a group of bounty hunters in a Type S should be the most effective set-up for this, thanks to minimal maintenance costs and fairly good astrographic access. A free/far trader will need to use that cargo space pretty efficiently so it doesn't become a money sink, or become a Q-ship so it can hit high-bounty pirates.
But this really irks me, in that instead of providing a neat series of tables to generate the small-fry runs between the GM-created 10 MCr bounties, which is what I expected at first glance, it's a system to roll your way through missions...

At least writing this and looking closely at how the book's system dissapoints me has given me a few ideas on how to design a proper framework for basic bounties. I'll try to come up with something for us during the next few days, if I can make it work! I have a marked bias towards imagining space bounty hunting like in Cowboy Bebop, but I'll try to make it fairly generic, even if CB is awesome :D
 
The Spica Career Books 1 & 2 are awesome for MGT. MGT core CGen is pretty good, too. The combinations is loads of nifties.
 
LMB said:
IMTU, I'd like to give my players additional chargen options. Some jobs/careers are just begging to be made (like bounty hunter) and I will if I can't find a decent one, but I'd like to ask the community if anyone knows of additional chargen options either official or fan made that are out there?.
Click to expand...
I just did a quick search of the magazine article database over at rpggeek using the terms "character generation" and found a ton of other careers for various versions of Traveller in old magazine issues.

More specifically, searching for "bounty hunter", I found Traveller chargen systems in Third Imperium #3, White Dwarf #70, and Stellar Reaches #4. That last one is for T20 and is available on-line.
 
Spica Career Bk 2 also has a career called Secret Police if you want another take on the Agent character. Doesn't help much with the Bounty Hunter option however.
 
As a GM, I liked the randomness and mini-game within the game for MT, but also liked the players to be able to be less whimsically held by the dice. And of course, 'dying' during chargen was pretty absurd.

I ended up with a hybrid leaning more towards TNE choice, with some of the randomness from MT in there along with brownie points able to influence it. The worst that could happen was maiming/injury leading to career change.
 
We've had a number of threads where CT careers from various other sources were discussed... I'll look them up later, as I have no time right now (I have to head out of the house an hour ago). :rofl:
 
Our Tinker,Spacer,Psion,Spy supplement has 18 alternative Traveller careers including a couple, Law Enforcement Officer and Espionage which would provide fine backgrounds for a bounty hunter character.
 
Police Career in Challenge 30. Basic and Advanced Character Generation for CT.

Star Cops by Terrance McInnes Dragon #113, September 1986.

The same article appears as Cops! A TRAVELLER Police Character Generation System by Terry McInnes in Different Worlds #46 May/June 1987.



Additional character generation articles for Classic Traveller that I have:

Pre-enlistment skills in TRAVELLER®
The Space Gamer #79, March/April 1985

I’m a Doctor, Not a… expansion of Medical skill
The Space Gamer #47, January 1982

Poltroonery, Courts Martial, and the ICMJ alternate system for failed survival in military careers
JTAS #10


b=basic system, e=expanded system

e Competitive Citizens Expanded Character Generation for Traveller’s Citizens of the Imperium
The Space Gamer #70, July/August 1984

e Terrorists in TRAVELLER Creating terrorist characters for Traveller
The Space Gamer #46, December 1981

b The Stellar Diocese The Clergy in the TRAVELLER® universe
Dragon magazine #101, September 1985

e Swords and Stars The expanded Barbarian career in TRAVELLER® game.
Ares, Winter 1983

e Space Age Espionage spies, of course
Dragon magazine #120, April 1987

b Dead or Alive The Bounty Hunter as a Career in Traveller
White Dwarf magazine #70, October 1985

b The Underworld Some Shadier Interstellar Services assassins, bounty hunters, intelligence, thieves
Different Worlds magazine #33, March/April 1984

e Rogues of the Galaxy An expanded TRAVELLER® character class organized and individual criminals
Dragon magazine #97, May 1985

b Journalist Character Generation
Traveller’s Digest vol. 1-no. 2, 1985

b More Careers Six new classes for Traveller cavalry, artillery, technician, engineer, reporter, civilian
Different Worlds magazine #15, October 1981

e Skyport Authority port operations career
JTAS #19

e The Imperial Academy of Science and Medicine university education for characters
JTAS #22

b The Irklan religious sect character career, far-future Thuggees
JTAS #23

b The Sword Worlders humanati culture & career generation
JTAS #18


b Character Generation System Creation making your own career & generation tables
JTAS #15



More articles from White Dwarf magazine (I don't have these):

issue) article name

19) Criminals: an additional livelihood for Travellers
22) Robe and Blaster: Upgrading Aristocracy in Traveller
25) The Self-Made Traveller: Optional Skill Acquisition
27) The Imperial Secret Service
31) Prior Service in Traveller: alternative character generation
59) CORE: Consulary Office of Reconnaissance and Exploration
63) Imperial Trooper: new characters



4-page thread on careers: New Careers?
 
Last edited:
There's a bunch of career possibles at Freelance Traveller - cutting and pasting only the career entries from http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/chargen/index.html shows


 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

B
Other new full-book careers for CT.
2
Replies
31
Views
3K
BlackBat242
B
A
Jumpspace Institue
2
Replies
21
Views
1K
TamsinP
T
A
Mark Lucas' Deckplans
Replies
11
Views
685
AlHazred
A
S
Experimenting with Hop Drive
2
Replies
39
Views
983
whartung
W
Spinward Scout
MGT Only: Making a competent Psion in MgT2e+
Replies
0
Views
614
Spinward Scout
Spinward Scout
Back
Top