Belters - how?

[robject]

So, yes, Belter is rather iconic.

Archetypes vs Skills

At least partially, the T5 careers are archetypes. They are career umbrellas, wide enough to encompass a lot of specific careers. So for example, T5 doesn't have a "Doctor" career. These are narrow, so narrow that they are more nearly skills. So T5 allows a skill title, like Doctor, to be attached to multiple archetypes. An Army Doctor. A Naval Doctor. A Noble Doctor. Even a Rogue Doctor.

But Belter doesn't have any representation at all. Can we have an Army Belter? Probably not. But, maybe I can see a Citizen Belter, a Scout Belter, or a Rogue Belter. I note that Belter doesn't seem to work well as an archetype in this manner: it's a stretch to see a Belter Doctor. 'Belter' is not a big umbrella.

That doesn't mean Belter shouldn't be an archetype. And I'm not saying it couldn't be, and indeed that there may be others that are missed and needed. But I am showing you how the archetypes were chosen.

Prospectors

The umbrella term might be Prospector, which is one of the variations of the Scout career, along with Explorer, Courier, Hunter, Runner, and Messenger. I also note that Prospector is an armor type, and by definition (p.264) "The system adds survey and search tools to a hostile environ capability". I suspect "Belter" therefore is missing from the alternate names for the Scout archetype.

I note that Prospector is missing as a skill.

As a type or subtype of Scouts, I can see a need for an events table specifically for prospecting -- as well as the other Scout subtypes.

 

[rancke]

So, yes, Belter is rather iconic.

Note that there are at least two different kinds of belter archetypes. One is the individual who prospects and mines asteroids. That's the kind featured in CotI. The other is the individual who lives in an asteroid belt. A belter civilization, like the one from Larry Niven's Known Space, will have plenty of citizens who never mined an asteroid let alone prospected one (That's not to say that mining asteroids won't be the mainstay of most, if not all, belter civilizations; just that a in a decent-sized population a lot of belters will be doing other things). An 'inside' belter living in a habitat with artificial gravity might not ever put on a vacc suit.


Hans

 

[Timerover51]

I have the following skill columns. As you can see I need one more skill column. I am thinking sciences but that is taking up by academic. I also thought ship operations which would have a bunch of ship base skills and than delete those from the other columns and add more odd skills. Any other ideas?
1 Personal
2 Academic
3 Service Skills
4 Vocation
5 Advance Education
6 Business
7

I dug out my Citiizens of the Imperium supplement, and I will see if I can find my Belter game. I have some ideas, and just want to know if you would like me to post them.

One thought that I have for your 7th Skill column is, for lack of a better term, Off the Wall Skills, simply skills that a character class would not qualify for normally, but would be handy to have at times.

 

[Timerover51]

For that matter it would be nice if there was a 'Scout School'. As it is if I want something like that I have to send the character through the Naval Academy and then spend a term in the Navy before transferring.

I am working up something like that for my own Traveller universe, derived from the Scouts, Supplement 6 book. In that Universe, the Scouts function a bit like the US Coast Guard does now, along with running the X-Boat service and doing the exploring. The US Coast Guard does have it own academy, and also training schools for the enlisted men. I will have to see what Traveller 5 does with Scouts to see if what I am working up can be adapted to T5.

 

[GrayPennell]

I have finished my T5 Belter character generator if you want a pdf of it let me know.

 

[David Johansen]

Can't you just do it with Citizen or even Craftsman? They're both pretty open ended.

 

[PVernon]

I have finished my T5 Belter character generator if you want a pdf of it let me know.

Oh Yes please!

pvernon2001 at yahoo.com

 

[esampson]

Can't you just do it with Citizen or even Craftsman? They're both pretty open ended.

I thought about using Citizen. Craftsman doesn't seem to work as it is too focused on building things. Unfortunately Citizen looks a little bit too generic to me. It's more of an 'average Joe' kind of thing while Belters probably don't represent the average person all that well. They don't just work 9 to 5 and go home when the day is done and have weekends off.

Instead they probably tend to work 16 hour days, 7 days a week, with protracted downtimes when they make planetfall. When they make a mistake it doesn't tend to be the 'get yelled at by your boss' or 'find a new job' kind of situation. People, including them, can easily get killed if they make mistakes and I would speculate that more than one careless rookie has found himself 'walking home' courtesy of the veteran crew members (i.e. dumped into space so that the only hazard he poses is a navigation hazard).

 

[GrayPennell]

I thought about using Citizen. Craftsman doesn't seem to work as it is too focused on building things. Unfortunately Citizen looks a little bit too generic to me. It's more of an 'average Joe' kind of thing while Belters probably don't represent the average person all that well. They don't just work 9 to 5 and go home when the day is done and have weekends off.

Instead they probably tend to work 16 hour days, 7 days a week, with protracted downtimes when they make planetfall. When they make a mistake it doesn't tend to be the 'get yelled at by your boss' or 'find a new job' kind of situation. People, including them, can easily get killed if they make mistakes and I would speculate that more than one careless rookie has found himself 'walking home' courtesy of the veteran crew members (i.e. dumped into space so that the only hazard he poses is a navigation hazard).

I agree with this view. I made C3 as the main characteristic with C5 as the secondary in my Belter Character. This reflects both the long hours of working in hazardous environments and the high amount of technical training they must have. it could have been C2 and C4 but I think with training anyone can operate under these conditions so its about staying power and education. The skill selection table reflects this training.

In the risk reward section I included injury and sanity lost as well as negative modifiers on the mustering out roll. The mustering MD is to encourage players to keep in the character class. Miners work until they drop or strike it big.

 

[Timerover51]

You can download the JTAS number 3, which has the article and flowchart for Belt Mining, at DriveThruRPG for $1.50. Looks like they have the entire series available for download, which is a very good thing to have.

Edit Note: You can download the entire set of 1-24 as a bundle for $22.50. That would be a very wise purchase for anyone interested in fleshing out the game.

 

[Timerover51]

For those interested in constructing a Belter community, you might want to check out the National Space Society website covering space settlement.

http://www.nss.org/settlement/menu.html

Quite a lot of good information there for ideas and use.