How many career templates should be in the core rules?

[Echo]

Well, I'm getting ost on the sticky thread, so I thought I'd start asking some more questions/raise discussion points about the game itself in some new threads.

This one is: how many career templates should there be. The different editions have always varied the numbers from too low (Classic Traveller) or too high (TNE). The original miltary careers (Army, Navy, Scout, Marine) really need to be there, but the question is how many non-miltary careers should there be? My feeling is that they were nearly right in T4, but it missed out on a couple of careers that I thought were important - Medical and Engineers. I guess then, my choice would be:

Army
Navy
Scout
Marine

Noble (politician)
Merchant (business, corporate)
Scholar (any academic)
Medic (Doctors, nurses and chemists)
Engineer

Agent (any law enforcement, legal, or journalistic profession)
Rogue (any non-legal profession)
Entertainer

Any others?

 

[Golan2072]

I think that 12 careers would fill most useful roles:

Marines
Army (including planetary surface/air personnel as well)
Navy
Scouts (including hunters as well)
Merchants
Belters
Rogues
Nobles
Scientists (including doctors and engineers as well)
Barbarians
Citizens (including workers, bureaucrats and so on)
Pirates (AAARR! YE MATEY!)

 

[atpollard]

At the risk of being stoned for heresy, why are Army and Marines two distinct Careers? Book 4 managed to treat them as basically the same.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

At the risk of being stoned for heresy, why are Army and Marines two distinct Careers? Book 4 managed to treat them as basically the same.

No, they've always been treated differently. Marines need some space-based skills that the GROPOs don't, for example.

 

[Rover]

While the individual Marine or soldier may have similar training and skills, the services have different roles.

Marines are the fighting branch of the navy and are ship based, are considered a smaller-lighter, more mobile fighting force. They are self contained and will provide their own air support. Army is land based and carries heavier equipment and relies on other services for transport and support.

The Maries are sent in first, the point of the spear, and hold things till the Army arrives in far greater numbers.

In Traveller a Marine is the navel fighting force and will do boarding parties and ship board security. The Army will land on a planet and conquer and occupy.

 

[Tobias]

No, they've always been treated differently. Marines need some space-based skills that the GROPOs don't, for example.

That's true, but what he meant was that in Book 4, Marines were basically rolled into Army chargen as a subset.
Since I am in favor of splitting some of the careers into sub-careers, this should be done in RTT as well. (For example, the Mercenary careers could be split along the lines of the combat arms a la Book4, but each combat arm would be formatted as a separate basic career with shared ranks and the possibility of transfer.)
To answer the question: I would like a large range of careers in RTT. 18, like in MT, seems like a good number. On a related note, the presentation of information in MT is also good.
An additional thing to look at is the consolidated CT chargen that CotI's own Golan2072 has made.
I would especially like a good selection of pre-career options (college etc.) to be available.

 

[Valarian]

How ever many Mongoose feel they should include in the core rulebook.

 

[pendragonman]

At the risk of being stoned for heresy, why are Army and Marines two distinct Careers? Book 4 managed to treat them as basically the same.

LET THE STONING COMMENCE! Oh, wait, we burn heretics, don't we?


WHERE IS MY FLAMETHROWER! WHERE IS MY PGMP-14? BURN! BURN! BURN! :devil:

In Traveller a Marine is the navel fighting force and will do boarding parties and ship board security. The Army will land on a planet and conquer and occupy.

We have Marines in our belly buttons? And they can do boarding combat?:rofl:


While I understand the desire to try to put Marine chargen under Army rules ala book 4, the Marines do need to be separate. After all, if we follow your example, anyone who flies a spacecraft is just a subset of either naval or merchant careers, so you only need one or the other and not scouts, navy, and merchants as separate chergen choices but as a sub career of "spacer".

Would you think that was a bad way to go? I know I would.

 

[Echo]

OK. Belters, Barbarians and Pirates.

Would you not think that Belters are pretty much the same thing as Scouts, in terms of training?

Are Pirates not a type of Rogue?

Are 'Barbarians' a career at all? Who's going to train them skills?

I can see Engineers and Medics being included with Scientists - but neither of them actually are scientists, technically speaking.

Moreover, I see the ship's engineer and ship's medic as pretty useful professions to have on board a space craft. The 'Scholar' career, that I suggested before, would also incorporate things like historians, clergy and philosophers as well as theoretical scientists. I sense, the 'field science' career is, again, covered by Scouts.

Having a general 'Workers' career might be useful as well, though I'm not sure many would want to play it. .

 

[Tobias]

OK. Belters, Barbarians and Pirates.

Would you not think that Belters are pretty much the same thing as Scouts, in terms of training?

Maybe, maybe not. But I think a career should not just be a mechanic to assign skills to characters, but also provide some backstory. It evokes a much
more vivid image if you say "I was a Belter" than if you say "I was an exploratory spacefarer".

Are Pirates not a type of Rogue?

Wouldn't say so... no more than Navy is a type of Army.

Are 'Barbarians' a career at all? Who's going to train them skills?

Their tribesmen, I guess.

A general "Worker" or "Citizen" career would be nice, even if only to create NPCs. Similar to the "Prole" career in AM4.

 

[Echo]

I'm not sure about that. To me a 'belter' is an exploratory spacefarer.

Barbarian and pirates, also, just seem too specific and non-careerish to me.

I dunno, I guess that I just don't want too much prolification of career templates.

 

[AndrewR]

Scout != Belter

To me, the difference between a Belter and a Scout is that Scouts not only explore new star systems, but new <i>planets</i> as well. Belters are miners, and while they often strike 'virgin' territories, they are there for the mineral wealth, not the scientific value. The problem with lumping them together is implying that a Belter can do the same job as a Scout, and vise-versa, and I disagree with that.

I'm rather hoping the RTT version allows for more cross-career characters. In previous versions of Traveller you rolled one careerpath, and if you wanted to switch careers you started playing the character at that point of transition. I think it'd be fun to roll a character that's already served in several careers.

Anyway, my two credits...

 

[aramis]

MT's Hard Times explains the role of the StarMerc... and the pirate career is really a decent enough representation of that role.

Marines and Army differ in their function in Traveller, as well as their organizational system. The US Marines vs US Army? Well, they keep getting more and more focussed on on-shore actions....

Belters are not scouts, nor are scouts belters, but some of each overlap... Scouts find stuff; Belters exploit stuff; IISS are Postal Service and Census, not truly "scouts."

Barbarians are an excellent "Pre-Ind Hunter-Gatherer" type. The skill set in Supp 4 makes it clear these guys are being trained and working on their homeworlds. (A PC of mine, "Chief Wazui", started the campaign by being rescued from a local predator by the "Sky People"... a group of Ne'er do wells in a type R...)

 

[pendragonman]

Are 'Barbarians' a career at all? Who's going to train them skills?

Granted Barbarians have very little in shipboard skills, but nothing says they can't have knowledge of water powered items, forging techniques, advanced hand to hand combat, muscle powered missile weapons, bardic skills, diplomacy, leadership, small unit (and some large unit) ground tactics, primitive artillery, some knowledge of ballistics and civil engineering (at a low tech level, of course), languages, carpentry, metalworking,...

Their teachers are the elders of their tribes. Just like how Earth's Mongols, Vandals, American Indian, Huns, and let's not forget the ancient tribe YOU are derived from. Barbarians, if they are to be a PC, need a chargen.

 

[atpollard]

An underlying assumption of Classic Traveller is the existence of some form of mandatory service (the draft). If one desired to preserve that “feel” (particularly in light of the proposed Star Ship Troopers tie in), Character Generation might more properly entail three careers:
1. Pre-Enlistment Options – College, Belter (start at 16 IIRC), Flight School, etc.
2. Mandatory Service – Army, Navy, Scout, etc.
3. Post Service Career – Academic, Merchant, etc.
Obviously some characters would skip a step and others would remain in the service, but the option exists to leave the service and start a new career.

Or just drop the service/draft concept and “let the career templates proliferate”.

 

[Echo]

I think that is almost how I see it, really.

Things like 'Belters' and 'Barbarians' aren't really career options - they are cultural backgrounds.

Maybe the chargen should include three tiers:

*Cultural Background (Pre-enlistment) - Noble, College*, Outback, Spacer, Urban.
*Service training (Not compulsary) - Army, Navy, Marine, Scout, Medic.
*Non-service careers (Not compulsary)- Merchants, Scholars, Entertainers, Agents, Engineers, Rogues.

* Variable types of college to choose from, including flight school, etc.

The trick is allowing characters to stay within just their 'cultural background' for skills progression should they want - players could choose to not follow any 'career path'. Instead, they can keep on collecting skills from their cultural background template if they want.

 

[Tobias]

Things like 'Belters' and 'Barbarians' aren't really career options - they are cultural backgrounds.

No, I don't think so. Belter is a job. You mine asteroids for valuable stuff. You don't need to hail from an asteroid belt to do so and on the other side, most people from asteroid belts aren't belters.
Barbarian is slightly different, because it's a really broadly defined field of "members of pre-industrial societes", but it's what you want to have to play a character who has so far had no contact to interstellar society.

 

[Echo]

So really, Barbarian is a cultural background - with experiences developing skills in survival.

The 'Belters' thing still seems a little too specific - maybe 'Industrial' would be a better name for the career - it could incorporate 'Engineer' too.

Like I say, a lot of this could be handled by effectively extending 'Cultural Backgrounds' as 'career' options. On the same basis, if people can continually return to college to keep on picking up skills, then this negates the need for a 'Scholar/academic' career option also.

So, here's what I suggest:

Cultural backgrounds: College (Academic), Noble, Rural/Outlander (inc. Barbarians), Urban, Spacer.
Service Careers: Army, Navy, Marine, Scout, Medic.
Non-Service Careers: Merchant, Agent, Industrial, Entertainer, Rogue.

Like I say, players could choose to progress through all three options, but they could just stick with one tier if they want to. They might never move beyond their 'cultural background' status, but just collect their skills as farmers, or scholars or what-not as they wish instead.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Granted Barbarians have very little in shipboard skills, but nothing says they can't have knowledge of water powered items, forging techniques, advanced hand to hand combat, muscle powered missile weapons, bardic skills, diplomacy, leadership, small unit (and some large unit) ground tactics, primitive artillery, some knowledge of ballistics and civil engineering (at a low tech level, of course), languages, carpentry, metalworking,...

Don't forget that Barbarians are not necessarily cavemen. Any TL below about 4 could be considered "Barbarian" (see John Carter of Mars ).

 

[Fritz_Brown]

At last!

Loads and loads of desires from Echo

Have you been looking at my draft chargen, Echo? If not, please do. It includes backgrounds similar to what you are saying, and combines several of the possible careers - before breaking them out by specialty. I haven't finished with numbers yet, but I'm getting there.

A general "Worker" or "Citizen" career would be nice, even if only to create NPCs. Similar to the "Prole" career in AM4.

See above (especially the "Citizen" career).