Monday, April 21, 2025

Traveller Distinctives: Character Generation

I've often mentioned a classic Traveller computer program that I first encountered years ago and that I use as a time waster. The program faithfully recreates the game's character generation system and I've always found it a fun way to spend a few minutes. Of course, one of the reasons I find it so enjoyable is that, like Traveller's character generation system, it's an exercise in risk management, luck, and ambition.

Where most roleplaying games treat character generation as a more-or-less straightforward process of choosing (or rolling) ability scores, picking a class/profession, and selecting skills or equipment, Traveller invites the player to step into the shoes of his character long before the campaign even begins. The character isn't just a blank slate with a sword or a spellbook. He is a veteran of one of several possible interstellar institutions: a former Marine, a merchant officer, an "Other," whatever that is, with a past. And that past is determined through a series of career terms, each one a gamble.

Do you reenlist for another four-year hitch in the Navy? Making Captain comes with a +1 SOC and those additional rolls on the skill tables are tempting. Plus, your mustering out benefits could use a boost. But there's always the chance that this time, the dice won't be so kind. You might fail your promotion roll. You might fail to get any useful skills, leaving you four years older with little to show for it. You might even die.

There it is. The most infamous and distinctive element of the design of classic Traveller: your character can die during character generation. Even people who’ve never rolled up a Traveller character have heard the jokes. It’s a legendary bit of RPG lore, often recounted with equal parts amusement and awe – and for good reason. This single, brutal mechanic has played a big part in defining the game’s reputation for nearly half a century.

Of course, not everyone finds it funny. For many gamers, the idea of losing a character before the adventure even begins feels not just strange, but cruel. Why spend time building a character only to have him die on the metaphorical launchpad? But that very unpredictability, that razor’s edge between possible glory and oblivion, is what gives Traveller its edge. Character generation isn’t just prep; it’s your character's first adventure. It’s a gamble, a dare, a high-stakes game of chicken with the dice. And that’s exactly why I love it.

You can muster out early with a safe, if unremarkable, character. Or you can go for one more term, hoping for that coveted rank, that ship benefit, that skill. But with each term comes a greater risk of injury, aging and, of course, death. And when you roll that fateful snake-eyes on the survival roll, even with the +2 DM for a high Endurance score, that's it. You're dead. Roll again.

Later versions of Traveller, beginning with MegaTraveller and continuing into Traveller: The New Era and the Mongoose editions, have sought to blunt the edges of this system. MegaTraveller, for example, included "brownie points" the player could use to influence dice rolls in his favor. Mongoose, following an option present even in the original rules, replaces death with injury or a mishap on a failed survival roll. These modifications are understandable from a certain perspective, but I think they miss the point entirely. The original system's ruthlessness is not a flaw; it's a feature.

In Traveller, your character doesn't just have a backstory – he earns one. Every skill, every benefit, every rank is the product of risk. The characters who survive are often quirky, sometimes underpowered, occasionally broken, but they're also often memorable and utterly unlike the kinds of characters I'd have chosen to make. The character generation system breeds an emergent narrative, where the highs and lows of the dice suggest a life of triumphs and setbacks, filled with enough hooks to seed a dozen adventures.

I also think this system encourages risk-taking even in players. They become gamblers, daredevils, and strategists, all before the campaign even starts. Each reenlistment roll, each attempt at promotion or benefit, becomes a choice weighed against the threat of death. Do you settle for a safe, mediocre career or roll the dice one more time for a shot at greatness? It trains players to think in terms of trade-offs and consequences, to live with the results of their choices, and to embrace uncertainty. In doing so, it sets the tone for the entire game. Traveller is not about balanced builds or power fantasies; it's about living by your wits in a vast, indifferent universe.

This, to me, is one of the glories of classic Traveller. It's a game that understands that sometimes, the most compelling stories are forged not in a carefully "balanced" system, but in the chaotic, glorious churn of a couple of six-sided dice.

That's why I keep playing that little program and continue to find it so addictive. It's also why, when I've refereed Traveller in the past, I've never considered eliminating the possibility of death from character generation. It's not that I enjoy punishing players, but mostly because I think it's fun. It's a rite of passage, a crucible that produces not just numbers on a sheet, but living, breathing science fiction adventurers in the far future. To strip away that danger, that gamble, would be to rob Traveller of one of the things that makes it truly distinctive. Why would anyone ever want to do that?

21 comments:

  1. Jim Hodges---
    I've never heard of anything like that. Character generation being perilous?

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  2. Dungeon Crawl Classics attempts something similar through its zero-level funnels. Each player begins with four "characters" who are, at this point, a collection of ability scores, a profession (as distinct from *class;* this is stuff like "farmer" or "cobbler"), and one or two items. Those characters are then thrust into a brief meat-grinder adventure. Most are expected to die, but those who survive will be altered in various ways, in possession of some odd artifacts, and have a history full of quirks and hooks. Only at this point do the players name them.

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    1. That's an excellent comparison and I should have thought of it.

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    2. Until you get trapped in the purgetory of 0 level characters constantly missing attack rolls loop. In the end only to be rewarded with a gaggle of characters with no party cohesion.

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  3. While I understand what you are saying, since the entire point of character generation is to cough up a character to play with, and since no matter how many times a character dies during creation the player is going to make a new one until they end up with something to play with, death does seem like a bad mechanic. An other type of penalty would be fine, because you would end up with the mandatory goal object, the character to play. "Start again" is just telling you spend more time rolling dice before you get to interact with the other players.

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    1. By convention, dead PCs were handed over the the referee to serve as (living) NPCs — a considerable boon in the era before online character generators made it trivial to roll up characters. Thus, in a broader context, the process, even when it resulted in a death, still contributed to the campaign.

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    2. The Traveller universes are populated by the living dead, lol

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    3. That is a fair point. For those who want a Traveller character and not have to re-roll if it dies, and you're open to a pretty random character, you can always use the online character generator and click until you get a living one: https://ffilz.github.io/Gaming/travellercharactergenerator.html?history=verbose&muster=split&personal=always&vehicles=1977

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  4. Indeed, it’s the best part of the game. I can’t help but wonder if the concept for character creation came about after the limitations of the 2d6 mechanic were fully realized.

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    1. I doubt very many players would agree with you. A game where character generation really was the best part of the game wouldn't be worth playing. Nowhere to go but down.

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  5. Aside from the risk of death, the characters have so much personality, whether it's a thing about marines because they weren't good enough to get in the corps, or twelve years in the army without a sniff of action, or winning a string of medals but still not seen as officer material, they are ready to start a fight with their new shipmates, because there's a real history there.

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  6. The presence of mishaps instead of death on a failed survival roll is a less brutal system but it does wonders for establishing a theme of veterans reintegrating into society after becoming disabled.

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  7. I think it's great that Traveller has an entire mini-solo-game in character creation - I think backgrounds should be woven and not picked, and actually entire random if can be - we don't get to pick our birth station in life, why should our characters? But death at the end of the prelude? That's just plain stupid.

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    1. If you want an RPG with a fascinating "character gen as a game unto itself" I recommend Amber Diceless. It's diceless, but that doesn't make it predictable because your fellow players will be bidding against you in multiple auctions to determine their rankings in physical and magic prowess - or they may sit out on the bidding and spend their budget on a long list of perks and extra, or they may play it cagey and let an auction play out, then pay the same points as any given slot (call it X) and wind up sitting between that rank and the next one down (X.5, basically) - but no one will know they've done so until they're tested in a confrontation. Watching different player psychologies in action during the process is a lot more engaging than rolling dice on a lifepath.

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  8. James, would be great to see you develop something similar for Thousand Suns, since the better 2d12 mechanic would still allow for effective ongoing character growth after mustering out, unlike 2d6.

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  9. I enjoy generating PCs using Bat in the Attic’s Interactive Classic Traveller Character Generator. I think this (generator) was also influenced by James of Grognardia and Frank Filz (see above). I use it like playing solitaire to help pass the time when needed. It's great at helping run numbers and better understanding Traveller’s probability systems. While experiencing PC death during chargen can be frustrating, it can also provide great elation, especially when you finally get a character up to term seven and mandatory retirement, and it’s a keeper.

    But more importantly than providing a means of whiling away the hours or helping one better understand some math, it helps create memorable PCs with awesome backstories. Granted, you have to connect the dots yourself and provide them some creative juice, as it were. But interpreting the random results has created some of the most interesting and entertaining PCs I have had the chance to make for just about any/every TTRPG system I’ve ever played.

    Case in point, Alexander L. Jamison. What an incredible backstory woven together from a handful of random dice rolls. You don’t get that in other RPGs, not the same way. I really love interpreting all the results: which career, draftee status, enlistments, survival, commissions, promotions, terms, ranks, skills, nobility, mustering tables, retirement pay, scout ship, free trader, etc.!?

    Traveller stands out for me as a one-of-a-kind RPG regarding chargen and backstory development, and I appreciate Mr. Miller for introducing it to us. Thanks, Mr. Marc and crew at GDW!

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    1. Yes, Rob took the generator that I had enhanced from Paul Gorman's original, added Supplement 4 and added a nice GUI front end to it.

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    2. Making Sense out of Nonsense is what I love about random character generation.

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  10. Ya know what bugs me? No? Fine, I’ll tell you: it’s when a game is designed with particular mechanics, a particular setting in mind, a particular vibe, or theme, or whatever, and a bunch of people start whining about it.
    Traveller: man, that’s the gig! It helps make it its own cool thing. It sets the tone for the whole game!
    For the: “it’s not fair! My character….” crap, I say, “Hey! Go play something else! Traveller is dark and gritty and uncaring. That’s obviously not your thing. Go ‘Build’ your anime superhero. Or your Captain Kirk, or Luke Skywalker. There’s plenty of systems out there to do that, but please stop whining, crying about, or worst of all: offering suggestions to ‘Fix’ Traveller.”

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    1. I wouldn't perhaps have phrased it quite as ferociously, but I agree with you. It irks me no end when people try to "fix" games by removing everything distinctive about them.

      I recall, a few years back, on a forum for an indie video game I'm partial to, a dude showed up declaring himself a "professional video game developer" -- because unverifiable credentialing is a great internet pastime -- and provided a bulleted list of thirty or so ways to "fix" the game, all of which amounted to "get rid of all the stuff that's different from every other CRPG on the market." When we tried to tell him that those things were why we *liked* the game, he called us "toxic" and huffed off. :-)

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  11. The problem with Traveller was that if you died, you just restarted chargen. It's not like you had to go home and not play that night. There was no real-world negative to dying in chargen, so why not push to achieve the max?

    Hence, the not uncommon situation of having a party full of grizzled vets who'd all won the Starburst for Extreme Heroism. "Oh, you DON'T have a starship named after you? well...ok, I guess we'll let you play, but that's kind of lame..."

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