Like Dungeons & Dragons, Traveller assumes that a new character is generated through a series of dice rolls – 2d6 in this case rather than 3d6 – for each of his six characteristics (Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education, and Social Standing). The results are recorded, in order, on a character sheet. Book 1 of Traveller recognizes the possibility that these random rolls may result in "a character with seemingly unsatisfactory values." However, the text states that "nevertheless, each player should use his character as generated," since
The experience procedures and acquired skills table offer a genuine opportunity to enhance value, given only time and luck.
This is true. Most characters, over the course of the terms of service, will gain one or more bonuses to certain characteristics, which will raise them higher than the initially generated scores. However, the 1977 edition of Book 1 – and only this edition, so far as I can tell – does include an "escape hatch" for players who are still unhappy with the characteristics they've rolled.
Should a player consider his character to be so poor as to be beyond help, he should consider joining the accident-prone Scout Corps, with a subconscious view to suicide.
Considering the poor survival rate of Scout characters, I find this amusing.
The 1981 edition had a milder version: "Should a player truly consider the character so poor as to be beyond help, the low survival rate of the Scout Service may make it the best career choice."
ReplyDeleteThanks for that information. The Traveller Book, whose text is similar to the 1981 edition, does not include even that line.
DeleteI vaguely remembered something about the scouts! I must have had the 81 release. I love these minor variations between editions.
DeleteOops, I missed that this text had changed in The Traveller Book (and Starter Traveller which mostly used The Traveller Book for its text) in my Section by Section Comparison. Now updated... For reference:
Deletehttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1jsH-EgKvaR0mdbtJMj_Xj7X3TcYyZTqQGf-Gwu58PX0/edit?usp=sharing
This is great! There's a lot more changes/additions in the 81 version than I would have guessed. I'd thought that 81 was 77 with just a few errata corrections.
DeleteYes, I never even understood there were changes until I started reading Christopher Kubasik's blog. I have done a similar comparison for RuneQuest 1st and 2nd (1978 and 1979), actually my idea for a comparison originated with discussion of RQ1 and RQ2, but I ended up doing Traveller first. Sadly I can't share the RQ comparison as Chaosium feels like it infringes on their copyright, but there is a similar amount of difference between RQ1 and RQ2 which again, most people thought was mostly a minor typesetting and errata cleanup.
DeleteI'm surprised and a bit disappointed that Chaosium has taken that stance. Comparing excerpts between editions seems to fall clearly within the "fair use" guidelines. And even if it's not 100% clear, your work only serves to popularize and promote their products and doesn't endanger their copyright in the slightest.
DeleteThey were bothered by the quantity of excerpts. Despite that I did not include things like the entire weapon tables, or when comparing the maps, just chose a portion of each map.
DeleteMy notes do not provide enough information to mark up one edition of the game to get the other.
They did offer that if I put in extra effort to paginate it and add a table of contents and other stuff that they would publish it, but that defeats the potential dynamic nature of the document when someone points out a difference I missed (like the "suicide by Scouts" option in CT '77 and '88 but not in TTB or ST).
Yeah, and that's very much a reminder that you haven't lived until you've died in character generation.
ReplyDeleteThat would make a great recruitment poster for the Scout Service:
ReplyDelete“Does your life suck? Join the Imperial Scout Service, you’ll probably die.”
"Find A Personal Rebirth In the Scout Service"
DeleteThe funneling of early RPGs is aways intresting, a few characters will die in the first hour. So by the end of an adventure every one has a good characters in terms of roles but the danger of the world has been inpressed on every one.
ReplyDeleteThe Scouts were always a trade off between how long will I survive (if I do) vs. how many changes will I have to get that Scout Ship.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that S-class scout/courier was as sweet a start to Travelling as was on offer, and well worth some suboptimal or fatal career attempts. Or some funny business with the dice.
DeleteOptionally use the Classic Traveller Character Generator with some special parameters, for example:
Deletehttps://ffilz.github.io/Gaming/travellercharactergenerator.html?history=verbose&muster=ship&personal=always&vehicles=1977&service=scouts&minscore=9999&hunt=ship
Will guarantee you a scout with a ship, possibly a 1-term scout. &muster=ship makes it use the mustering out benefits for material benefits until it gets a ship, the &hunt=ship means it discards any character that doesn't wind up with a ship (which implies it survived also...), &service=scouts and &minscore=9999 force the character into the scouts, no enlisment roll.
This option is really cool if the GM wants a group to have a scout ship because it saves time, and guarantees no funny business on the way there. The tradeoff is the player doesn't get to select the skill tables to roll on.
Funny business with the dice? I do NOT know what you are referring to!
DeleteCompare and contrast that with the advice for Hopeless Characters in Gamma World (1e): When a player is particularly unlucky with his dice rolling for his character and most or all basic attributes are below average, the referee may, at his discretion, declare the character unsuitable for GAMMA WORLD adventures and allow the player to create a new character to take his place.
ReplyDeleteFollowed of course, by the iconic illustration of the Hopeless Mutant with hands for feet and feet for hands and a trumpet vacuum for a nose. I based an entire Cryptic Alliance on this paragraph and picture. An informal poll on a GW Facebook group revealed that the overwhelming majority of GMs favored using the discarded character as NPCs in the PCs lives, be they friend, foe or family member.