How do your players Professions affect your games?

[gcbright]

Hi,

Ever since I noticed Tbeard99's note that he was a lawyer, I have wondered how having a lawyer in his group might affect the game.

In our games, players professions really do color some aspects of our games in very cool ways.

A women in our group has her Masters in Nursing, so she just didn't like the crisp clean way medicine worked in traveller. Now in our games, we have no generic drugs. Each drug is manufactured on different worlds, have different side effects, drug interactions and overdose effects.

A constant subplot with her pc is to check out the pharmacology of each planet visited and fully research the drugs before restocking the ship's medicine cabinet. She also publishes a newsletter (that is how we justify using her drug resource in our other games)

It is also interesting how such a minor thing just adds a little flavor to the game. (No, I don't want that healing drug, it gives me a rash, I prefer brand X).

So does the real world background of your players flavor your campaign and if so how?

Thanks

 

[far-trader]

The only time I recall ever seeing external expertise overtly applied inside a game was ages ago. It wasn't profession, simply knowledge. And it wasn't Traveller. It was D&D. So it may not be at all what you're looking for...

Someone in the party fell off a high cliff. The mage of the group immediately declared he'd cast Feather Fall on them to slow the decent and save the character. That was why he had the spell after all. The ref was ready to accept it and all looked rosy...

...then another player pulled out a pocket calculator, and after a couple quick clicks announced that by the time the mage cast the spell the falling character would have already gone splat at the bottom. It was kind of funny in a way.

It took the game publishers several years to correct the casting time of that spell so it would actually work in such a circumstance.

 

[BlackBat242]

Well, when I was first playing RPGs in general, it was with my fellow Marines (air wing mostly).

We really tended to organized tactics & quick decisions/actions.

In a OrcCon Traveller tournament in LA in 1985 (I think), we blew the mind of the Ref. There were 4 of us (who regularly played together... AD&D, Traveller, Gamma World, Champions) in one 8-player tournament session.

We were all in the stolen grav-limo, heading back to the ship with the stolen android, being pursued by the local cools.

At a certain point, when we crash-landed the grav-limo, the Ref had everyone write down their next action... without any consultation between the players.

When he read our 4, his jaw dropped. Just from what we had learned of each other's characters' skills and knowledge during the session, we all declared our own parts of a well-planned break-out/evasion/cover-fire sequence that allowed all of us to reach our ship and escape the planet.

Without talking or reading each other's notes. :smirk:


Similarly, we all played Twilight 2000 a bit differently than the civilians we sometimes gamed with did... I wonder why?

 

[Ran Targas]

My latest group is all engineers so details are everything; physics and chemistry better be right or the illusion is broken and the game suffers.

I did have a doctor player once who insisted on treating traumatic injuries despite not having any medical skill; band aids and aspirin are one thing but gun shot wounds are another.

 

[savage]

Player Characters

The first time my wife, an analytically educated refined woman played we started with Shadowrun and handed her a street urchin character. A bath for this individual was almost a weekly event. Her life was her cargo van and survival. We also pointed out that staying in character resulted in point based rewards at the end of each session.

Interesting response... she made it her own and dropped the rhetoric of day to day life in favor of playing the character. Crispy always has an a sentimental meaning for her. So the same should apply to any Traveller campaign. Point our that this is role play and story telling... not reality.

 

[aramis]

I'm a Substitute Teacher... when I was playing in a BTVS game, my GM had old-fashioned arena scheduling... with punch cards... for a game supposedly set in 2005.

He also had rules that violated HIPPA compliance for the school nurse (My character).

Now, most of my players over the years have been military or at least JROTC or CAP cadets. So almost all of us have a decent knowledge of guns, rank systems, and military customs and courtesies.

I'm also an SCA court herald... so when we play Pendragon, or Traveller, Courts of the Nobles are pretty well handled. Now, mind you, not all courts look like proper courts... but when they don't, it IS on purpose.

Most of my friends have studied at least 2 martial arts each (not counting Gun-Fu), so we tend to appreciate realistic martial arts. Several of us studied armed martial arts. We also appreciated the Street Fighter RPG... proving we can enjoy Chanbarra... but we usually like to have any detail in the system at least make sense.

 

[gcbright]

Nothing like playing with Marines!

Well, when I was first playing RPGs in general, it was with my fellow Marines (air wing mostly).

We really tended to organized tactics & quick decisions/actions.

Similarly, we all played Twilight 2000 a bit differently than the civilians we sometimes gamed with did... I wonder why?

There is nothing like playing with marines to get really good SOPs (esp. air wing). Back when I started traveller, our Friday night group was down at Cherry Point NC. Half civilian, half air wing marines. Our first ten min. of any session were to assign combat roles for when trouble started, always worked like a charm.

Thanks

 

[ThunderChilde]

BTRC published an operatives field manual, as a civilian student of the military, I have found it invaluable on several occasions. All thought out SOP can be the glue that holds a team together, for some people its as replelent as a skunk.:nonono:

On a seperate point, I loved Street Fighter when we were playing it. I am not a big fan of the rest of White Wolf's games, SF however rocked. So did the supplements, its nice when they add to the game but don't overshadow what came earlier(Palladiumo.

BTRC: Blacksburg Tactical Research Company, Milleniums End and related products like Guns! Guns! Guns!, which I am given to understand was a source for FF&S.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Half civilian, half air wing marines. Our first ten min. of any session were to assign combat roles for when trouble started, always worked like a charm.

Could you write some of that up and post it, please? I'm sure that kind of info would be great for beginners or people without combat training.

 

[Darkhstarr]

Not much, I'm afraid. I'm an accountant by schooling. Then I got into hotel reservations, now I'm a mail clerk for an insurance company.

My hobbies & reading have had more influence, seaborne transportation, piracy, diplomacy, archaeology, anthropology, paleontology & being a member of the L-5 Society back in the 70's.

 

[epicenter00]

It doesn't really influence Traveller as much, but I used to play a lot of Twilight: 2000 with military and ex-military types. The game's a thousand times better with them around, trust me (the polar opposite, the civilian military wannabe is bad news). The interesting part for me wasn't so much that they knew realistically what soldiers in the field really have (as opposed to what was on the charts in Twilight) but more how RL soldiers actually behave.

It reminds me a priceless moment when this ex-colonel was GM'ing a game of Traveller. My character had hacked into to local Imperial Marine comm-net while some other party members were trying to sneak into the facility. Of course, one of the players totally screwed up his stealth roll, but in our group we have a rule that says really bad screwups with 'uncertain' skills like stealth that result in 100% confidence you've done a good job. So sure enough, the player is told he's confident he's well-hidden. Then I hear:

"Hey! Hey guys! Ishkaar shut the f**k up! Guys, you see that out there?"

"Yeah, guy like 2km out?"

"Yeah. Can we shoot him?"

"I dunno. Where's the sergeant? Sarg...SERGEANT!"

"F**k if I know. Anyone authorized to call an officer? Are we at war yet?"

"I dunno. You want me to shoot him?"

"We have a com to an officer? Can I get clearance to shoot him? He a civilian?"

"I dunno, you think he's hurt?"

"I'm not going out there to ask. Someone go do it."

"I don't think we're supposed to leave 100m from the Trepida, are we?"

"I don't know. Are we? Where's the sergeant?"

 

[Garyius2003]

Could you write some of that up and post it, please? I'm sure that kind of info would be great for beginners or people without combat training.

Here is a good start for you. Go to: http://www.stevespages.com/page7c.htm

Then download FM 7-8, FM 3-90, and if you don't read anything else get FMFM 6-5

 

[kafka47]

Careers, strangely, enough have not really affected the conduct of play despite my best efforts. I think most people enjoy just playing Travellers - nomadic individuals who have turned their back on their parochial planet bound existance or simply a job in the Service - whatever that happened to be and engaged with the larger universe.

 

[atpollard]

It reminds me a priceless moment when this ex-colonel was GM'ing a game of Traveller.

I love it!