On 29 Jan 2017 at 11:56, Timothy Collinson wrote:

> > A Colonist ("You are building a new life on the a recelty settled
> > world that still needs taming") is extremely unlikely to know how to
> > use a gun unless they're Rank-6, where it's automatic (apparently
> > colonial leadership is throughh the barrel of a gun).
>
> Hah! I can well imagine it is on occasions.
>
> I don't disagree with the colonist thing though generally - although
> you might argue that there was a difference between a worldtamer type
> and the boots on the ground getting construction/admin etc done.

Sure, there might be - that's why it wouldn't be automatic. The thing is, no type of Gun
Combat is on the colonist tables. So they are all apparently techs, admin, and builders.
Yet the blurb tells us they're often going to be 'first in' colonists on wilkd planets.

> That's it, across a lot of Traveller.  Combat really isn't the be all
> and end all.  And I get no shortage of people wanting to sign up to my
> games - embarrassingly so on occasions.

Of course it's not, and I accept that my experience is not everyone's, but from what I've
seen and heard most games involve some at some point. The LBBs gave all PCs level-0
with some or all (depending on printing) guns and melee weapons for a reason.

> But on your wider point, I've never let the rules bind me on what I'd
> allow players to "trade" for in character gen as long it's reasonable
> and becomes part of their character.

I don't either - back in the CT/MT days letting people roll the d6 for a skill and then
choose which table it was from was a common house rule. However, when discussing
published rules giving them a pass because I can make a house rule for them seems
unreasonably kind, given that in the end any set of rules gets a pass if this is the case.

> oooh, thanks for reminding me of the skill packages.  I often forget
> them when I'm putting together a 'set' of characters for TravCon or
> publication, but I was thinking that maybe this year I'd hand out the
> Zhodani characters as usual and then let everyone pick one additional
> psionic Talent from a list that *won't* be the core rulebook Talents.
> (The hardest bit seems to me to be writing scenes/plots that let them
> utilize the Talents they have - or should I just be doing the usual
> kinds of things and letting them come up with the application of
> skills and Talents to the tasks in hand?)

The former makes sure the talents will see use, the latter more often (IME) results in
truly awesome and surprising play.