University before Career

[JudgeThorn]

Greetings:

I'm sure it has to be in the book somewhere and I may just have glossed over it, but:

If I generate a character that goes to University, prior to joining a career, what class am I? please list page reference number in reply.

Also, say this character goes through OTC, would I then have to have him/her go inot a 1 term Prior History before continuing on to the Masters and Doctorate programs? The Book seems to indicate I do...

Thanks for any help on this citizens...

 

[Shadowdancer]

Sorry, I do not have my T20 book here with me at work, but your first question has come up frequently. The answer is: While attending university, the character can take levels in any class for which it qualifies. For example, if you meet the requirements for an Academic, you can take levels in Academic. If you meet the requirements for Professional, you can take levels in that. If you meet the requirements for Noble, you can take levels in that. Rogue and Traveller are other common possibilities, although it might require a little explanation as to how you picked up those levels.

I guess it depends on how you see your character's backstory, and why that character is attending university. And what you and your ref work out.

 

[tjoneslo]

It does not actually say anywhere in the book exactly how to apply the experience gained by either the university or the prior history. This is a limitation of the D20 license.

Do the steps in this order:
1) roll up a character, select race.
2) Assign class, apply first level class bonuses.
3) Attend univerisity.
4) Apply experience gained as if you were adventuring. (i.e. go up levels, multi-class if you wish, etc).

Note there are some limitations on class based upon prior history chosen (and vice versa).

 

[zephyrus]

One could infer that going to university could be to a military college which would cover the various services. a general military colledge with OTC representing the Military Acadamy.

 

[kaladorn]

Originally posted by tjoneslo:
It does not actually say anywhere in the book exactly how to apply the experience gained by either the university or the prior history. This is a limitation of the D20 license.

Could you explain exactly what you mean (ie in what way is this the case) by the last sentence there?

 

[kaladorn]

Originally posted by tjoneslo:
It does not actually say anywhere in the book exactly how to apply the experience gained by either the university or the prior history. This is a limitation of the D20 license.

Could you explain exactly what you mean (ie in what way is this the case) by the last sentence there?

 

[zephyrus]

the D20 Liscence (which is even more restrictive than the simple Open Gaming Liscence) <forgive my spelling errors>. does not allow other publishers to include rules for character generation or more simple, cannot tell you how you apply experience to level a character up or roll up stats etc. Thus they cannot tell you what to do WITH the experience, just how to get it. Considering the nature of the char gen in Traveller its a fine line to walk reguarding what they can and cannot get away with legally.

 

[MichaelL65]

Short answer: Whatever class you darn well please (other than barbarian). Most of the service classes have the OTC as part of the college (but you cannot continue beyond your bachelor's degree before serving a term in the service).

Generally, I would say your best bets are professional or academic if you are going to college. You get the most skill points that way, and it makes sense that you are spending your time studying and not learning to be a better shot (thus the lower BAB for those classes). If you take OTC, take your first level as academic/professional then future (or alternating) levels in the service you are entering when you finish.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Judge Thorn:
Greetings:

I'm sure it has to be in the book somewhere and I may just have glossed over it, but:

If I generate a character that goes to University, prior to joining a career, what class am I? please list page reference number in reply.

I came across this problem when I was struggling with the T20 chargen system when I first got the book - it's one of the many things I found incomprehensible about it.

When I asked about it here, the consensus seemed to be that you're not actually in any profession when you're 18, even though you're told to start off with a class. The logic is that you're just 'that type of person'. So you go into university, take your skills etc in whatever class you want (again, reflecting what 'type of person' you are - so if you spend your third year as a rogue then that just means you were up to no good on campus), and then come out and actually start your career in whatever profession you wanted (though again, you can multiclass...).

I think it's all ridiculously confusing - particularly as the 'type of person' and 'actual profession' classifications have the same name, and the fact that you basically HAVE To multiclass to get any decent skill set. This is the main reason why my copy of T20 is gathering dust on a shelf at home.

 

[MichaelL65]

So what do you have against multiclassing? People change their interests, they figure out a way of life wasn't for them, or change is forced upon them. In my own real life I've been a traveller, an academic, a cleric and a professional. Multiclass is about as real as anything.

90% of the time I chose what skills I learned too - quite unlike the CT tables of infinite randomness.

My first house rules came after generating my first character in CT.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by MichaelL65:
So what do you have against multiclassing? People change their interests, they figure out a way of life wasn't for them, or change is forced upon them. In my own real life I've been a traveller, an academic, a cleric and a professional. Multiclass is about as real as anything.

For one thing, I think a game that relies on separating people into classes in the first place shouldn't allow multiclassing, since it gets around the whole point of having people being good at different things. If you're multiclassing, you may as well remove a whole layer of complexity and ditch classes completely, and allow players to choose whatever skills or feats they want from a common pool.

The other reason is that T20 explains it in a phenomenally confusing manner. The fact that the names are the same for the 'lifestyle' and the 'career' - so you can actually be in a term in the Scouts, but you can actually take classes in Rogue, Academic, Merchant, and Traveller and nothing at all in Scout for that term. Which strikes me as being utterly crazy.

I'd either say 'right, you're in the Scouts (or whatever), so you are taking all your levels in Scout (or whatever)' or just have a generic 'adventurer' class that can access all the skills and all the feats and ditch the class system completely. The middle ground just doesn't work for me at all. I don't really have anything against the idea of changing skills and careers over time (because obviously that happens), I just don't like the concept of multiclassing in terms of game design.

And also, you have the odd situation in T20 of having to choose a class before you enter university, despite the fact that you actually aren't in ANY class then. In fact, I think if anything you should be purely an academic if you're in University, because well, you're an academic .

 

[Shadowdancer]

Originally posted by Evil Dr Ganymede:
In fact, I think if anything you should be purely an academic if you're in University, because well, you're an academic .

What about a trade school or some other vocation-based training?

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Paraquat Johnson:
What about a trade school or some other vocation-based training?

I guess that highlights the whole problem with this. At university you could learn *anything*. restricting it to a different 'class' per year is a somewhat clunky way of doing things. I think that ideally it'd makes more sense to say that you shouldn't even HAVE a class in the system til you leave university or start your career.

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

I guess it's different strokes for different folks.

I have no problem wrapping my mind around the difference between CLASS, and CAREER.

I wonder if you weren't right about having a Generic 'Traveller' Class and doing it that way.

However the existing t20 system works okay for me. Perhaps because I've been exposed to D&D throughout it's evolution (probably played more D&D than Traveller) -- As well as intensely loving Traveller. To Me, T20 manages to use the D20 mechanics to capture the Traveller feel, very well.


About university. I think it can be used to represent ANY kind of schooling.

If your player want's to be a Military Academy Grad, make him pass OTC, label it a B eng or Bsc, have him take at least one level of professional in order to get some skills appropriate to the degree and mabye let him take a level of the service class he is entering, or waive the cross class penalty for some minor service skills.

If your player is a trade school grad, have him level up in a something that makes it easy to get the skills of his chosen trade.

I once let a University Grad, take his levels in Rogue. His degree was just paper, he cheated his way through school.

 

[EvilDrGanymede]

Originally posted by Garf:
I have no problem wrapping my mind around the difference between CLASS, and CAREER.

Like I said, I think it would have been a lot less confusing if they'd used different names for the 'classes' and the 'careers'. Or even if they'd used the D20 Modern class system (Strong hero, Smart hero, etc) and overlaid the T20 career system (Scout, Academic, Rogue etc) on top of that (has anyone tried doing that?). I think basing a sci-fi T20 on a fantasy D&D rather than on D20 Modern cripples the game.

 

[Nearside]

d20 modern is an interesting take on classes vs (or rather WITH) careers, but the the T20 character gen system is trying to keep the feel of the original CT system whilst merging with the d20 system (not modern, which wasn't really around when the t20 development was going on, as far as I know).

I think they succeeded. It's different - my players haven't really had experience with this kind of generation before, but they liked it.

No character generation system is perfect, this one, IMHO, is pretty damn good though.

 

[themink]

I didn't like the entire prior history/high level/ massively multi-classed result so I made some (subtle) changes for my players.

They started at first level at the start of the campeign! They got to choose their starting age as well so the pilot was a 40 year old veteran, the supercargo was an 18 year old newbie - It comes down to roleplay choices and everyone seems OK with it so far. We may be starting a new campeign shortly (with more guns) and this time I'll give them a choice of how they want to roll up the characters. But even with the choice I won't let them choose the "Any level you want" system that is standard t20

 

[Drakon]

This was the exact argument I was having with my son. He does not like the entire prior history stuff, because as he claims, it means say a 40 yr old vet with a snot nosed 20 year old college student. Unbalanced game, the old guy ends up with massively more skills, skill point stamina points, etc.

 

[Despasian]

This was the exact argument I was having with my son. He does not like the entire prior history stuff, because as he claims, it means say a 40 yr old vet with a snot nosed 20 year old college student. Unbalanced game, the old guy ends up with massively more skills, skill point stamina points, etc.

...which makes absolute logical sense!

The 40 yr. old VETERAN (with LOTS of life experience), would seem pretty ridiculous, if he DIDN'T have a hell of a lot more skills and knowledge than that snot-nosed kid.

Where I disagree with your son's arguement is: the prior history set-up doesn't MEAN anything has to happen.
The 'system' doesn't decide the age/skill levels of the various characters....the Players do!
(by deciding how many terms to serve within whatever guidelines the referee sets).

Wanna play a young hotshot with ROOM to learn? Fine.
Or...a grizzled veteran with dtons of practical knowledge, even if he can't jump walls carrying a PGMP anymore...also good.

If it looks like a problem, the referee can just set a cap on the number of prior history terms his particular campaign's CharGen will have.
As long as it's decided ahead of time, and applied uniformly, no problem.

Despasian

 

[binky]

Ultimately T20 character generation really isn't much different than that which appeared all those years ago.

The more terms you served, the more skills you got but the older you were. The way of doing it may be different, but the result is fundimentaly the same... and very Traveller.

The fun comes when you try to port Traveller to a system that doesn't have levels and where all starting characters are roughly equal, like Chaosium's Basic Role Playing system (as used in Runequest II and Call of Cthulhu). Do you allow characters to be any age but have roughly the same experience (dependant of stat rolls) or do you craft on some form of prior history system?

I'll let you know when I've figured it out

- Neil.