Mostly true…
This one: https://ffilz.github.io/Gaming/travellercharacter.html (which is my documentation page that leads to Paul Gorman’s Online Traveller Character Generator which I have expanded) didn’t originally. I did add a “cheat” mode that allows you to select a single skill (and even a minimum level of that skill).
It’s handy for generating an NPC that has a particular skill while making the rest of the NPC random.
I started adding cheat modes because I had players who wanted a ship that somehow always came up with a 7-term Scout. I suspected they were using the online generator and hitting refresh until they got the character they wanted, not necessarily stopping on the first character that got a ship. So I added the cheat codes that let you ask for a character with a ship (and you can refine it so you choose Scout or Merchant) but otherwise is random. The result is this to get a Scout:
So of course the one I just generated is a 7-term Scout, but here’s a 2-term Scout with a ship:
Scout Ren Yang 78A7A4 Age 26 - 2 terms Skills: Gunnery-1, Laser Rifle-1, Medical-1, Pilot-1
Benefits: Scout Ship, Cr20,000
I actually found the generator made some poor assumptions, like it always took the first 3 benefit rolls as cash which means that it took at least 4 terms to get a Scout with a ship.
Some 13 years ago, fueled by folks who were looking back at original games, I decided to abandon D&D 3.x and start playing original games, and playing them more as originally written with random character generation and all the warts. Sure, I’ve made SOME changes, and if someone really is unhappy with the character they get, then they can roll another (I actually welcome folks rolling several Traveller characters and picking their favorite). I have found gamers quite receptive to this.
One reason I left designed characters behind was that it often seemed that players would design some “perfect” character for their interests, and then they would write a short novel for their character history. The result often looked like a “done” character who had already accomplished all their goals. I play RPGs not to follow some pre-determined story, but to find out what happens. And finding out what happens is more interesting to me when it includes a random starting point.
But I get that others enjoy more control over their character. If you’re that type, you probably won’t like my games and that’s fine. There’s plenty of folks running games that you will enjoy. The more game styles out there, the more folks who will find the hobby interesting. And we all get to talk about our hobby together and almost always find something in common and benefit from some of the same games and supplements.
Frank
From: xxxxxx@simplelists.com [mailto:xxxxxx@simplelists.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 4, 2020 2:37 AM
To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
Subject: Re: [TML] Pilot position
Almost forgot;
All the online chargen prgs I've encountered also allow the user to pick skills.
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On Thursday, July 2, 2020, 03:37:02 PM MST, Frank Filz <xxxxxx@mindspring.com> wrote:
I had not seen “pick your skills” until the past few years poking around the boards. No one who has played my games has expected to pick their skills (well, I suppose some might have, since my gaming is either play by post or Roll20, I don’t require people roll their characters up in front of me).
For the way I play, I don’t think I’d like having players pick skills, it would seem to lead to too much optimization.
Frank
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Rolling to determine skills is probably, in my experience anyway, one of the most ignored rules.
Just about everyone I know/knew much, much preferred to pick their skills.
Even the few Trav computer games (the MicroProse ones were my favs), let you pick skills.
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