fiat_knox: silhouette of myself taken at sunrise (Default)
[personal profile] fiat_knox
The Game: Traveller
The publisher: Mongoose Publishing
Degree of familiarity: I've been a Traveller fan for years, but this version is new to me.
Books required: Just the core rulebook.


I'm going to start with a Traveller character concept, a Rogue character. In fact, my character iis a bit of a Stainless Steel Rat type: a habitual thief who uses the technologies of the modern world to assist her in her larcenous plans.

The one thing I'm not going to do, however, is to throw my girl down the career path of the Rogue - or, indeed, the Drifter. How can you retire from being a bum?

So, right then. I think I'll start by making this girl an Agent to begin with: then, with a sense of irony and tragedy, an event in her life turns her entire existence around and forces her into the life of a Rogue, a classic case of a gamekeeper turned poacher.

So, then, let's see what's on p. 5 of the Mongoose book. First step: characteristic generation. I know the book says roll 2D six times in turn ... bollocks to that. I'm going to roll 3d6, seven times. Ignore the low rolled numbers, and choose the lowest rolled stat to dump.

The numbers I roll are as follows:-

1, 3, 5. Ignoring the 1 gives me 8.
1, 1, 3. Ignoring the 1 gives me 4.
4, 4, 6. Ignoring the 4 gives me 10.
6, 3, 1. Ignoring the 1 gives me 9.
2, 5, 6. Ignoring the 2 gives me 11.
2, 5, 5. Ignoring the 2 gives me 10.
1, 5, 5. Ignoring the 1 gives me 10.

Right. I will dump the rolled 4. That gives me 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 and 11. I want my character to be fast, wiry but most of all smart - the highest score, 11, goes into Intelligence right off. Putting the 10s into Dexterity, Endurance and Education gives my girl the right blend of wiriness, agility and overall knowledge to match her quickness of wit. That leaves Strength and Social Standing as the dump stats - and since I want my girl to be as adept in social situations as she is defusing an alarm system, the 9 goes into Social, leaving her with 8 Strength. Still above the average, but that's good enough for me.

Characteristic DMs are:-

Strength +0
Dexterity +1
Endurance +1
Intelligence +1
Education +1
Social +1

Next, selecting one's skills and assigning one's career. As stated, I don't want my character to have the Rogue career in her life. The aim is to give her a legitimate career from the outset: then, at a certain point, a radical life event forces her out of that career and into a life of crime.

Essentially, since I know what's going to happen in her life, I'm going to go for the option of choosing life events, and minimise the randomness of dice in the decision making.

So, then, let's start with homeworld and skills. I'm going to go for my character starting from a high tech, high population world. I'm giving her Computer-0 from the off. Her other background skills are going to be drawn from 3 + her Education bonus of +1, so she has 4 skills to draw from. I'll give her Art-0, Carouse-0, Engineer-0 and Language-0.

Now, her Career. In effect, my character will have one career, and it will last her five terms before her forced retirement from the service.

And the service I choose for my girl is Agent.

She's a cop. Fresh faced and bright eyed out of Police Academy, in a neatly-pressed uniform with shiny buttons, my girl is ready to take on a career in law enforcement. Protect and serve, and all that.

This is her Basic Training term. She's 18. She aces the qualification requirement of Int 6+. As this is her Basic Training, she learns all of the skills in her Service Skills table at level 0. So that's Streetwise-0, Drive-0, Investigate-0, Recon-0 and Gun Combat-0. She already has Computers-0.

Next ... the dreaded Survival roll. I have to roll End 6+. That's 6or more, and I add my End DM to the roll. I roll 6 and 3. She aces the first term. Advancement next: she needs 6+ and her Int DM is added to the roll. She rolls 11; with her +1 Int DM it's really pretty much a given she passes, moving on up in rank to Corporal and automatically advancing her Streetwise to 1. She also gets an advancement skill roll. I roll 5. Melee-1.

Now for Events. This first term, I roll a 7. Ooh. Life event. I roll another 7 - a new Contact. Her first, and it's going to be her first Confidential Informant. Her eyes and ears on the street. That ends her first term.

No aging roll at 22, so we move straight on to the second term, her first non-rookie term on the street. Start with the survival roll: she gets a 7., and survives this term's tough trials.

Time to roll for Skills. I roll on the Personal Development table and get a 6. She learns Athletics-1. I pick a Speciailty of Endurance: she needs this for those long foot chases pursuing perps.

Now the advancement roll, for which she rolls a 5 - she scrapes through this by the skin of her teeth, only her intelligence pulling her through. But she does get a promotion, to Sergeant. No benefits, but she does roll on the specialist skills table again. Another Melee. Melee-2.

Events table. I roll 11, and get a bonus of +1 to Investigate from befriending a senior officer. She is now at Investigate-1. I could have chosen a +4 on the advancement roll, but I chose the skills boost instead.

And that's the end of term 2. Now, term 3.

Survival roll, I roll 10. Check. I roll for her Advanced Education, seeing as she has this shiny high Edu of 10; I roll 2. She learns Comms-1, and spends some nights in Control. "Hailing frequencies open, sir."

Advancement. This is fun. She barely scraped through that glass ceiling last time. What happens now? I roll ... another 5. Damn, this girl's really having to work it. The skill roll comes up Stealth-1. No benefits for her promotion to Lt., but at least she gets to kick some ass and ask questions later.

Now, term 3's event. I roll 8. She goes undercover. Roll Deception 8+. My girl doesn't have Deception, so she faces an untrained penalty of -3 to the roll. I roll an 11. She barely scrapes through. She may roll on any of the Citizen or Rogue specialist tables for a skill. A 5 on the roll, and the Thief speciality, and I get Deception-1. Handy.

So where are we so far, skills wise? She has Art-0, Athletics (endurance)-1, Carouse-0, Comms-1, Computer-0, Deception-1, Drive-0, Engineer-0, Gun Combat-0, Investigate-1, Language-0, Melee-2, Recon-0, Stealth-1, Streetwise-0.

No aging rolls just yet: she's only turned 30.

Term 4. Once more with the survival roll, and this term I roll a 5. Add her Endurance, and she scrapes through by the skin of her teeth. Whatever she earns from this term, she'll have deserved it ... and I roll 5 on personal development, giving her an Int of 12 and an Int DM of +2.

Advancement; I roll 10. That'd be a 12 with her new Int DM, but she aces this one and gets a promotion to Detective, with the benefit of a shiny new point in Investigate (investigate-2) and a roll of 4 giving her Stealth-2.

So where are we now? An Int of 12, Art-0, Athletics (endurance)-1, Carouse-0, Comms-1, Computer-0, Deception-1, Drive-0, Engineer-0, Gun Combat-0, Investigate-2, Language-0, Melee-2, Recon-0, Stealth-2, Streetwise-0.

The events table throws up a 5. My cop gains 1d3 Contacts to go with her existing CI. I roll a 6; that yields a result of 3. She now has 4 Contacts.

But now she is 34. Her first aging roll. (I hate these things). I roll 11; with a DM of -4, that's a comfortable +7, and no aging reductions this term.

So, on to term 5. My character's final term. Again, I roll a 5; my character scrapes through. I roll 1 on the Service Skills table; Streetwise-1. Advancement, I roll a 2. She not only blows her chances for advancement; her roll falls below 5, the number of terms of her career, so she's out the door. Her final event roll suggests a reason why: I roll a 3. The investigation she was running took a dangerous turn, and so she was forced to make an urgent roll of Streetwise 8+ or Investigate 8+. I get a 10, so my character can choose to raise one skill: Deception, Jack of all Trades, Persuade or Tactics. She goes for Jack of all Trades; it'd be cool for her not to get caught quite so flatfooted next time she has a skill test for a skill she doesn't have. The aging roll is a 10; with the -5 Dm, it's a comfy +5, and again no aging problems.

So she lives to fight another day. But she saw something she didn't like during her last assignment, so she throws her badge and piece at the chief and walks away from her career, to throw in her lot with thieves and robbers because they're a more honest lot than the top brass she's been forced to deal with.

Characteristics: Strength 8, Dexterity 10, Endurance 10, Intelligence 12, Education 10, Social Standing 9. Agent (Law Enforcement). 38 years old. 5 terms.

Skills: Art-0, Athletics (endurance)-1, Carouse-0, Comms-1, Computer-0, Deception-1, Drive-0, Engineer-0, Gun Combat-0, Investigate-2, Jack of all Trades-1, Language-0, Melee-2, Recon-0, Stealth-2, Streetwise-0.

She has four Contacts, and six rolls on the benefit table. She'd have had seven, but she blew the last term. She has retirement pay of Cr. 10,000. I roll 1, 5, 6, 3, 6, 4 - I choose Scientific Equipment (for Investigate), Cr. 10,000, +1 Social, Cr. 5,000, another +1 Social, Weapon. I choose a gun. Her handgun. Specifically, her Service sidearm. I'll work out what that it later, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was some variant on a standard nine mil autoloader.

So. Retirement pay of Cr. 10,000, Cr. 15,000 in cashy money, a piece, a forensic kit and Social of 11. She takes the Investigator skill package, and I give her a final skill of Sensors-1, to go with the kit.

My girl's final stats:

Characteristics: Strength 8, Dexterity 10, Endurance 10, Intelligence 12, Education 10, Social Standing 11. Agent (Law Enforcement). 38 years old. 5 terms.

Characteristic DMs: Strength +0, Dexterity +1, Endurance +1, Intelligence +2, Education +1, Social Standing +1.

Skills: Art-0, Athletics (endurance)-1, Carouse-0, Comms-1, Computer-0, Deception-1, Drive-0, Engineer-0, Gun Combat-0, Investigate-2, Jack of all Trades-1, Language-0, Melee-2, Recon-0, Sensors-1, Stealth-2, Streetwise-0.

She has four Contacts, Cr. 15,000 and her sidearm.

I've got to add some final finishing touches to my character, though, to bring her to life. What is her name? What does she look like? etc.

My character is an Imperial citizen of Zhodani descent. Her mother was a Zho refugee who fell in love with a Darrian, and who gave birth on an Imperial world. She chose a Darrian name for her daughter, so my character is called Gemima Dearborn Medrahasintlas.

Physically, she is slightly built, with dusky skin and long, straight brunette hair - courtesy of her mother's genes and her father's lanky build. Gemima has a sexy smile and dark eyes. She always seems to know what you're thinking, but that's more to do with her inquisitive nature than any particular psionic legacy. Gemima knows that her mother was a psi, but never bothered to get tested herself.

She left the Force in good stead, and can call upon some of her fellow cops for information on private cases she might want to investigate, but for the most part she now prefers the seedy company of the rogues she once busted. If they found out she was a cop, they might take exception to fraternising with the enemy, but she will likely cross that bridge when she comes to it.

And that's my first chargen attempt for LJ.

March 2025

S M T W T F S
      1
234 5678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031     

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 4th, 2025 01:41 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios