What would you do different?

[lspitz]

re Lumper vs Splitter: That's a good point -- fewer skills often implicitly include a wide number of specializations.

Mike and I both come from the same Old School. While the Book 1 list does feel too short, I think it still works -- especially for old farts like me who just want to play Traveller and have fun with it. Others need more detail.

MegaTraveller handled the problem by using cascades, which works, but I feel that MT went overboard on the list itself. I don't need to see "Halberd" in an official skills list.

I agree, the LBB1 list does feel a little bit short, but it works. You have to be willing to interpret things broadly and flexibly when there's no explicit skill for what you're trying to do- say, welding, or water-skiing. But a good group of players with a congenial GM will not have a problem with that.

Cascades are a nice idea. They help provide flexibility while keeping the basic career tables reasonably small and clean (which, to me, is a really important consideration). They're a good character customization tool, and they lend themselves easily and painlessly to houseruling if your campaign has particular needs not covered in the official rules. In the end, though, they're susceptible to the same sort of feature creep as the main skill tables. You're just kicking the can down the road. I think this approach, even at its worst, is still a lot less cluttered than jamming every possible specialized skill choice individually into a career table.

But again, it boils down to how many or how few skills you and your players want/need in order to be happy with the game. Think there's too many? Lump some together and eliminate others altogether. Think there's too few? Expand an existing cascade skill or create a new one. I can't speak for anybody else, but personally I don't want a great deal more complexity than CT offers out of the box. I do want a little bit more, and part of the beauty of the original CT design is that it's easy enough to add what I want, without breaking things or having to rewrite the whole chargen system.

 

[robject]

Think there's too many? Lump some together and eliminate others altogether. Think there's too few? Expand an existing cascade skill or create a new one. I can't speak for anybody else, but personally I don't want a great deal more complexity than CT offers out of the box. I do want a little bit more, and part of the beauty of the original CT design is that it's easy enough to add what I want, without breaking things or having to rewrite the whole chargen system.

It's difficult, because chargen relies on the skill list, so it has to be "big enough" but also "flexible enough".

In other words, chargen has to use a just-broad-enough skills list. From there specializations can take care of the group's individual needs.

 

[PFVA63]

Something like a Career skill could work, as long as the GM doesn't let it become a hat that dispenses an infinite supply of rabbits. If your scientist character is an astrophysicist on Tuesday, he shouldn't be a marine biologist on Wednesday.

I don't mind the use of broadly defined generic skills (and CT already has a couple built in, like Jack-o-T) within reason. It cuts down on the paperwork. And I'll admit, the point at which I draw the line on the need for lumping vs. splitting is pretty subjective.

Playing Devil's Advocate here: it's instructive to ask yourself what happens when you apply the Career skill concept to CT careers that historically have specific skills defining them. Would you be comfortable if your Marine had a generic "Career" skill instead of Gun Combat, Tactics and Battle Dress? It is possible to make an argument that no career needs explicit skills defining them; Marines can do "Marine stuff", Scouts can do "Scout stuff", Bureaucrats can do "Bureaucrat stuff", and we all know what those are, right? How far can you pare down the skill list before you reach a reductio ad adsurdum?

Loosely/broadly defined skills have their place, but personally I'm uncertain about whether they make good skills to define a character's career. I can foresee a lot of arguments about character abilities between the players and the GM, and I don't think you want to go that route if it's your character's primary career skill.

Hi,

I have actually considered the possiblity of doing something along the lines of "Marines know Marine Stuff" and "Scouts know Scout Stuff" perhaps with the addition of "but for each term they get a chance for a +1 to a certain specialty".

That way a Marine that had served at least 1 term would get the die roll equivalent of being at a "skill level 0" in doing stuff that you'd expect a Marine to know, plus they'd be the die roll equivalent of a "skill level 1" in whatever their specialty is (such as a ground combat/infantry like equivalent, an mechanised vehicle crew, or a support weapon crew, etc).

However, in the end, this seemed to be getting away from a "Traveller" way of doing things, and I figured it might be better suited to a non-Traveller type setting/ruleset.

 

[mike wightman]

I have a house rule that does something like that, and I would include it in my version of CT revised

For every term you have served you can take level 0 in a skill from the skills lists you have access to, in addition to the default level 0 skills mentioned as at the referee's discretion.

 

[McPerth]

Hi,

I have actually considered the possiblity of doing something along the lines of "Marines know Marine Stuff" and "Scouts know Scout Stuff" perhaps with the addition of "but for each term they get a chance for a +1 to a certain specialty".

That way a Marine that had served at least 1 term would get the die roll equivalent of being at a "skill level 0" in doing stuff that you'd expect a Marine to know, plus they'd be the die roll equivalent of a "skill level 1" in whatever their specialty is (such as a ground combat/infantry like equivalent, an mechanised vehicle crew, or a support weapon crew, etc).

However, in the end, this seemed to be getting away from a "Traveller" way of doing things, and I figured it might be better suited to a non-Traveller type setting/ruleset.

To represent that, when I've been referee (mostly MT) I've always assumed that any character had all service (even if used Advanced Chargen) skills at 0 just because he had served in that career. So there were no scouts or naval characters with no knowledge about VaccSuit, marines with no knowledge of brawling, etc...

See that this is the way MgT treats basic training on the first career a character enters...

I also used previous career experience as modifier in some non skill related tasks.

 

[PFVA63]

To represent that, when I've been referee (mostly MT) I've always assumed that any character had all service (even if used Advanced Chargen) skills at 0 just because he had served in that career. So there were no scouts or naval characters with no knowledge about VaccSuit, marines with no knowledge of brawling, etc...

See that this is the way MgT treats basic training on the first career a character enters...

I also used previous career experience as modifier in some non skill related tasks.

Hi,

That's kind of what I was going for too. It always strikes me a bit odd when you get some characters without some basic skill that it would seem that they should have at least some minial familiarity with.

In some ways I've actually thought that maybe you could break things into "skills" and "something else" (maybe "traits" or "general abilities" or something). That way if a character grew up on a frontier world he/she could have a "frontier living" trait/general ability just for having lived a reasonable length of time there which could be used to cover a wide range of "he/she probably knows at least a little about hunting, fishing, catching small game, wilderness survival/camping, etc and as such in situations like that they should be treated the equivalent of having a skill level 0 at that task (or greater if they have spent alot of time there)". That way the actual skills list could maybe be more limited and maybe more directed at trying to cover specific stuff.

 

[Jame]

I agree with a lot of what PFV and Mike Wightman say on the first page. My addition would be to modify the tech assumptions somewhat, using GURPS 3E as a base (Traveller is too broad at the low TLs and too specific at high ones), and rewrite some of the equipment to match.

Oh, and anagathics would be cheaper, in price at least. They're good being as uncommon as they are. Though extra-cheap ones would be available also, and they might just have the "cheap vs. inexpensive" clause added in ... that is to say, some of the extra-cheap ones would be hazardous!

 

[Fox's Master]

Outstanding Ideas

This is truly the repository for great ideas. A colleague and I are developing an old-school PnP RPG and this conversation ostensibly serves as good market research on the aspects gamers want in their RPG. Our main goal is to make a game which is fast and accessible...something in which you can generate a robust character quickly and get into the action!

 

[HG_B]

Our main goal is to make a game which is fast and accessible...something in which you can generate a robust character quickly and get into the action!

I'm 1/2 way through my own design based on what my FRPG players want in a SF RPG. Char Gen will be a lot faster than Trav while using a similar skill system and no character leveling.

 

[Fox's Master]

Congrats HG_B

HG_B,

We're at the 50% mark for the Design Phase (Genre; Select Die -Type(s); and CharGen Options, including Abilities/Skills). Then, we have our work cut out for us in terms of the Writing Phase (Length and Narratives); Formatting Phase (Length/Book; Column Or Paragraph Layout; Photos; and Tables); and Print Phase. As my other friend and I ran a successful Kickstarter Project this year and we'll have an expansion one later this year, we'll use KS for this project, as well.

At some point, I'll certainly reach out to you for a review/playtest if you're amenable. With nearly 40 years of combined military experience working in overseas locations and with the special operations community, we're writing about what we know.

Cheers,
Joe

 

[HG_B]

HG_B,

We're at the 50% mark for the Design Phase (Genre; Select Die -Type(s); and CharGen Options, including Abilities/Skills). Then, we have our work cut out for us in terms of the Writing Phase (Length and Narratives); Formatting Phase (Length/Book; Column Or Paragraph Layout; Photos; and Tables); and Print Phase. As my other friend and I ran a successful Kickstarter Project this year and we'll have an expansion one later this year, we'll use KS for this project, as well.

At some point, I'll certainly reach out to you for a review/playtest if you're amenable. With nearly 40 years of combined military experience working in overseas locations and with the special operations community, we're writing about what we know.

Cheers,
Joe

Sounds cool. BTW, I know from people inside the industry that PDF is where the RPG $ are at. I suggest a paragraph layout so that pages can be read top to bottom in one go. This works much better for e-reading devices and computer. Two or more column requires one to scroll up & down. With paper you just flick your eyeballs. Not so for screen reading.

 

[Fox's Master]

Excellent point!

I'm a wargame playtester for Strategy & Tactics magazine so I see the column format all of the time...thanks for the recommendation.