Character Experience

[robapol]

Hi All,
Just found these forums! My RPG'ing experience is primarily CT and RQ Ed2. Unless I missed it, my only gripe with CT was the lack of an in game experience system. I know one could get another char with Instructor to teach a skill at -1 lvl, but I'm sure that other than this there is no other means of progression?

Is this an topic that will be added to T5?

Thanks
RobP

 

[robject]

You're in good company, Rob. There are a number of people on COTI who also prefer an experience system for Traveller, and have posted their house rules regarding same.

Because skill levels are relatively low (compared to RuneQuest), T5's experience system is slow, roughly equalling 1 skill level per year of development. The rules for improvement (skill or characteristic) may resemble T4's, or may not. In short: better than CT, but not a major feature like skill improvement in RQ.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by RobP:
Just found these forums! My RPG'ing experience is primarily CT and RQ Ed2. Unless I missed it, my only gripe with CT was the lack of an in game experience system. I know one could get another char with Instructor to teach a skill at -1 lvl, but I'm sure that other than this there is no other means of progression?

Welcome aboard!

LBB2: Starships, pp. 42-3, includes an experience system that allows improvement of physical attributes, education, skills, and weapon skills, so yes, Classic Traveller does indeed have an experience system.

 

[aramis]

BGG: That's not an "Experience System." It is "Character improvement" but not "Experience."

Especially since of the options for skills, they all involve massive down time, and make no relevance of what the character has been doing!

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by Aramis:
BGG: That's not an "Experience System." It is "Character improvement" but not "Experience."

Sure it is! Says so right at the top of page forty-two, see? Experience.

Originally posted by Aramis:
Especially since of the options for skills, they all involve massive down time, and make no relevance of what the character has been doing!

Something like putting more skill points into a skill that you've never used in d20?

I kid, of course, but in truth many "experience" systems provide general character rewards rather than improvement in the skills the character actually uses in-game - the D&D thief who never disarms traps or deciphers script but gets better anyway comes to mind. I like that the CT system rewards specific study rather than general adventuring.

Bye-the-bye, the only one of the CT character improvement schemes that requires "massive downtime" is the "technical school" option, which I encourage players to front-load [i.e., spend four more years after mustering out to take that (skill)-2 before the actual game begins].

 

[Arthur Denger]

One procedure for experience skill improvement used by our ref was to award characters a specific Skill-0, based upon their wishes or direct actions, then if that skill was being developed by adventuring as the CT campaign progressed, it would increase to 1, 2, and so on over time. We found this worked pretty well, because even starting out, one could avoid large negative DMs associated with absence of skill, yet it did not overbalance the character in game terms.

I think the awarding of an 'experience/talent points' system in Traveller is a mistake; it directs the players' attention away from the adventure and encourages the hack and slash dungeon crawl mentality.

 

[robapol]

This is one thing that I think RQ2 did right. In that game the more you used your skills the better you became at them. Unlike the very limited AD&D in RQ2 you could concentrate on any of the available skills that you wanted to improve.

That said RQ2's rules, especially on the combat front are extremely detailed and can slow the game down.

RobP

 

[travlar]

Originally posted by Arthur Denger:
I think the awarding of an 'experience/talent points' system in Traveller is a mistake; it directs the players' attention away from the adventure and encourages the hack and slash dungeon crawl mentality.

That could be taken care of by giving experience for things other than killing. If you want to encourage avoiding fights, than you could give experience for that.

 

[flykiller]

I think the awarding of an 'experience/talent points' system in Traveller is a mistake; it directs the players' attention away from the adventure and encourages the hack and slash dungeon crawl mentality.

my observation as well. in experience point systems the ever-present background goal is the acquisition of more powers for the character. more money, more levels, more psi, more skills, more skill levels, typically acquired by killing something. the adventure itself becomes merely a means to character growth. traveller is a welcome relief from that.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I generally give a skill/stat point (or 2 skills at level-0) as a "birthday present", and sometimes 6 months later I let them have another level-0 skill or upgrade one to level-1.

You can't give more without needing to change chargen.

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I think the awarding of an 'experience/talent points' system in Traveller is a mistake; it directs the players' attention away from the adventure and encourages the hack and slash dungeon crawl mentality.

my observation as well. in experience point systems the ever-present background goal is the acquisition of more powers for the character. more money, more levels, more psi, more skills, more skill levels, typically acquired by killing something. the adventure itself becomes merely a means to character growth. traveller is a welcome relief from that. </font>[/QUOTE]I take it you have never played a merchant.

More Cargo means more Money.
To buy bigger ships.
To carry more cargo.
To earn more money.
To buy bigger ships ...

I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
Arthur

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by atpollard:
I take it you have never played a merchant.

More Cargo means more Money.
To buy bigger ships.
To carry more cargo.
To earn more money.
To buy bigger ships ...

I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

I can't speak for anyone else, but you just described most of my characters pretty succinctly!

 

[flykiller]

More Cargo means more Money.
To buy bigger ships.
To carry more cargo.
To earn more money.
To buy bigger ships ...

heard of games confined strictly to that. never seen one though.

 

[sgbrown]

Originally posted by atpollard:
I take it you have never played a merchant.

More Cargo means more Money.
To buy bigger ships.
To carry more cargo.
To earn more money.
To buy bigger ships ...

I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
Arthur

No it's not about the ships! It's about the weapons!
You make more money
To buy better weapons
To make more money
To buy better weapons ....
(or at least that's what the Mercs keep saying. The engineer types keep telling me it's not about ships or weapons - it's all about high tech gadgets)

 

[Sturn]

On an experience system:

I use my own set of home-crafted rules to play Traveller. In my ever-evolving game system, skill level requires a number of "XPs" to raise it one level. 1 XP to raise a skill to level 1, 2 more for level 2, 3 more for level 3, etc (harder and harder to raise a skill level, like 2300AD if you every played it).

A simple XP system like this could be used for CT or T4 with the referee awarding XPs for repeated or outstanding use of a skill. But, I would apply maybe a 5 XP cost per skill level for a CT or T4 system since higher level skills do NOT take more time to learn in their character generation systems. Simply keep track of XPs awarded to individual skills by putting tick marks by them on a character sheet. When say 5 is reached, raise the skill 1 point and erase the tick marks.

 

[Arthur Denger]

Originally posted by atpollard:

I take it you have never played a merchant.

More Cargo means more Money.
To buy bigger ships.
To carry more cargo.
To earn more money.
To buy bigger ships ...

No, I never was; but my old business partner was, and his career seemed to follow that progression, all right; there was always an ever-bigger carrot (er, starship) tantalizingly dangling just out of reach.... I'm sure Lee's still plying his trade somewhere in the worlds. Probably has his own fleet, by now. Myself, I never quite had that level of devotion to the god Acquisition. My career took a different path.

Oh, sure, I did some speculative trading early on (there's only so much you can wedge into the cargo hold of a Sulieman-class), but once I had the capital, it was time to build a business, to stretch my new, longer legs, to do some real travelling. I did find that bigger ships also amounted to bigger headaches, and especially when it came to crewing them: you can't deal with any two crewmembers in the same way. By the Outer Void, I enjoyed the uncertainty of it, though! of wondering what I'd find in the next system on the chart, and the one after that.

Probably would still be doing it, too, if I hadn't been reactivated. At the time, I really resented it; it put my business concern right into the fresher. In retrospect, though, I'm sure it saved my life. It made me the man I am today.