Generating Traveller Characters

There are always some interesting discussions over on COTI, and I am sort of participating in one about reinventing Traveller. Of course, what with at least 5 mainline versions, and several Cepheus versions, Traveller has been reinvented probably a couple dozen times by now. Yet I always go back to the core Classic for my gaming. I just take a few rules here and there to shake things up.

One of the core tenants of Traveller character generation is that originally it was completely random. Nothing really new there: most RPGs at the time I believe were mostly "roll the dice, and this is what you get" with then some choices similar to picking a career. Where Traveller had a significant difference is that the character generation was in essence a way to level up your character. It was, and still is, a game unto itself. You have to weigh getting older or possibly dying against getting more skills, and possibly more benefits. After a while, at least with Classic, you can generate a character in a few minutes that has lived for decades before playing. 

It is that pre-game experience that to me is most interesting. While initially I just rolled and wrote down the results, after reading how others interpreted the die rolls, I realized you could read a lot into those rolls. 

Barely made survival roll: you were cocky or something horrible happened that term. Missed a promotion - didn't suck up enough or just goofing off. Even the skills told their own story and could lead to a richer back story than just mere die results. Picked up gambling - spent a bit of time behind the barracks or in the seedier parts of town. Gaining strength from personal development and you were hitting the gym a good bit that term. You can embroider an entire history from those rolls.

This randomness, similar to world and system creation, for me opens up my imagination and lets me create a character that I never would have thought of. I know I've posted this before, but I really do like the fact that you don't always get what you want but you get what you need. 

And in the end, it is all about the role-playing. I've previously mentioned the 1 term barbarian player we had in a game. We all had fun - even though that barbarian did not have a lot of skills, in Traveller (or really any RPG) that is not necessarily limiting. You can try to do anything, you may have less of a chance to succeed, but you can still try. In the end, he actually played a pivotal role in the entire game.

Now, I do have some house rules to help players who want a bit more agency over their character creation. While I do like the stats roles RAW, I'll often allow one additional roll to replace any existing stat, players choice. If the player wants it, I let them roll then pick the skills table they would like. This does allow them to finesse their characters a good bit. And a final one from the Deluxe Cepheus (which is not Traveller for certain, at least for me in terms of its character generation) I will allow the player to exchange a benefit roll for a rank promotion. 

And I would be remiss if I did not include the instant background builders from the various events that Mongoose introduced (at least that is the 1st place I saw that, and Cepheus has used that technique as well). Those life events are interesting and can add more nuance at the expense of only have a few to roll against (once I seemed to roll the same event every term, I house ruled that the 3rd time it happened I could re-roll or, if it was a d66 roll, swap the dice). 

Some of my January character challenges does this - take a look at Ghon Davtell for an example of reading between the rolls. 

I've also read that the original premise for Traveller characters was that they would only be used for a few sessions, enough to complete the initial story arc. New games and you would roll up new characters. I don't know if that is true or not, though it could be supported by the Classic having no way to improve yourself after exiting the service you were in. I want to say the instruction skill in Book 4 was the 1st time there was a way to learn new things outside of service. But not 100% positive - guess I'll need to get my old books back out and take a look!

And finally - my solo game has pretty much stalled. Just not as much fun as playing with actual people who do things you don't expect. I may try to get back into it, but I feel it was not really going anywhere other than me rambling. Oh wait, this is me rambling as well.