Inkwell Ideas Free World Map and Hexographer Pro

Some questions came up about 2 of Inkwell Ideas products, the Worldmap.jar and Hexographer Pro. I am in no way affiliated with Inkwell Ideas but I do own both products and think very highly of them. I though I would do a short overview of the 2 of them if you have more questions and I will do what I can to answer them.

First is the free world map generator which you can get from here. It is a Java app so just about anyone should be able to use it. It looks like this.

Uggh to small here is a link. Across the top you can set the hex width, planet size, Land percentage, Mountain percentage, Vegetation percentage and Temperature. Hex Width I believe is in pixels, Size is rated from 9 to 35 so I don't know what that means and the rest are rated as Min; Low; Med; High and Max. When you start it it always generates a map then you fiddle with the drop downs and hit the recreate button and get  a map.

I didn't think you could edit the map because I own Hexographer so that is where I did my editing but the strip of symbols under the map are the editing tools. Like hexographer it is easy to use, click the hex you want to add to the map than click the map hex you want to change. When you are satisfied you can export it to Hexographer, export as a PNG, Load one you have made before or save the map in the native format of the world map app.

With Hexographer pro you can open the world map you saved and it looks like this.

Again sorry for the size here is a link I have dual monitors which doesn't help with the image size. As you can see Hexographer Pro doesn't have the clipping issue the free version does. I should add this is a different world map than the one above. There are tons more stuff you can do editing wise in Hexographer than World map including changing the entire Icon set so you can do B&W

Notice that custom icon sets replace the standard hexes so if you don't have an alternate of a certain terrian it stay the base one, jungle in this case. Link here
For another example is Red Kobold's Calligraphy icon set link Here

There is a ton more hexographer does but I need to get ready for work so here is a quick list
GM only flag so you can make player maps from your map
Attach notes to each hex
Draw shapes (polygons)
make zoomed in maps from you main map
You don't have to start from world map it has a built in world map template
add text
add lines
Whine over on the forum and the designer will do his best to help you, really have seen it happen.
Any questions and I will try my best to answer with screen shots if I am at home.

Supplement 4 Belters

The next career is Belter which I am handling as a specialty of the Merchant career. This career has two oddities about it, it starts at age 14 and the survival DM is the number of terms served. The age will be ignored as no one starts as a Belter, as for the terms I am going to say prior terms in Merchants do count because realistically chances to make it through a single term is fairly low.

I had thought a lot about whether Belter should be under Scout or Merchant. My view of the Belter is a being that surveys and analyses planetary bodies to determine their content. That sounds like something the service tasked with mapping the universe should be doing. I chose Merchant instead because the end goal is profit not to see what is there. I also am going to use the existence of this career to flesh out how the Scouts work though. The Imperium picks an object in a system to place an Imperial Consulate (IC) and expends some effort on that one place. The rest of the system doesn't rate an additional effort by the Imperium leaving it to the government of the world with the IC to develop the system as it sees fit. This is why atlas's only list the one UPP for the main world and from my previous ideas almost any visitor to the system is going to start and stop at that main world to check in and out with the IC.

So to get a transfer to Belter from regular service is not easy a high DEX is somewhat helpful but a bigger bump comes from having a slightly below average or higher INT. Coordination and speed are helpful but it is more helpful to be able to analyse data and react to it.

Survival (or the lack there of) is not easy. This service makes the Scouts look like a stay in the penthouse of a 5 star hotel.There is no bonus to the roll for any stat just for how long you have been doing it. With my modified careers you start with a 7+ in the worse case (Merchant for 1 term then going into Belter for the second) which is not a good chance. It seems that GDW's view was loners don't stand as good a chance as members of a group which is pretty sensible.

There is no commission or promotion and no 2 skills per term either so a Belter won't have as many skills as a veteran of another service. I am unhappy with this but am not sure if it is worth tinkering with the rules. I am thinking of adding a 5+ on 1D6 to get a roll on a table 1. Prospecting 2. JOT 3. Vacc Suit 4. Electronics 5. Mechanical 6. Grav Vehicle each term.

The reenlistment roll means the Imperium doesn't see the value in paying people to do this for long. It is only slightly better than a 50/50 chance you can continue. So they do want people poking around in the various systems but the payout for the Imperium isn't high enough to keep people on the payroll to do it.

The material benefits table has Low; INT; High; Weapon; Travellers and Seeker. The two passages come from the separation lottery, Weapon is participation in the service tournaments and INT from having spent time thinking for yourself. Travellers Aid membership seems a little out of place only because it doesn't show up in the basic careers except in the Navy and Marines, probably while poking around you found something more interesting than a mineral. The Seeker is the only ship you can get for free that I don't see as a distraction to play. It is to small to turn into an effective pirate or carry enough cargo to turn the game into an economics model though it can carry enough to pay for itself removing that burden from players minds. Also being a Type S the Scouts no longer wanted means it can break down whenever the GM wants it to without him being to much of a dick.

The cash table is not a thing to bring joy to the heart looking at it two chances for nothing, one pocket change, one average and two chances at big bucks. At least there is chance to gain Gambling so you can get a +1 because it isn't to likely you are going to retire from the Belters to get it the other way.

The Personal Development table has the 3 Physical stats; Gambling; Brawling and Vacc Suit. I am okay with the gold rush in space vibe of this.

Service Skills has Vacc x2; Prospecting x2; Forward Observer and Ship's Boat. I am okay with Vacc and Prospecting you are going to spend a lot of time in Zero G and Vacuum and your goal is to find stuff to mine. Forward Observer? I am dubious about the prevalence of situations you are calling orbital fire missions. Ship's Boat might make sense except the apparent craft of choice is a starship not a pinnace.

Advanced Education 1 has Ship's Boat; Prospecting x2; Electronics; Mechanical and Instruction. Electronics and Mechanical I can see to keep you Seeker functional but Instruction? Yes any service is going to need for it's more experienced members to teach new comers and the basic careers predate this skill so it could be that is why they don't have it but I am not convinced you would receive a teaching degree looking at rocks.

Advance Education 2 has Navigation; Medical; Pilot; Computer; Engineering and JOT. All of these make sense to me although I think JOT should be more prevalent throughout all four tables.

Also all Belters get Vacc Suit-1 which makes a lot of sense to me particularly as I am using Vacc Suit to represent familiarity with Zero G as well.

Supplement 4 overview and Pirates

Sorry for the Long Blog night I have been working 1st, 2nd and 3rd shifts as required and frequently all in the same week and it has killed off my ability and desire to think for recreation and coherently. As a summation this is a post in a series I am doing going through Starter Traveller and defining MTU by what I am encountering. I decided that the 12 careers in Supplement 4 are open to characters after they first serve one term in one of the 6 careers in ST.

Before dissecting the generation rules I read the rules section to see what (if anything) GDW changed with the addition of Books 4 and 5 and their expanded character generation. They didn't change the basics at all as far as I saw. Interestingly it must have been written before the revision of the LBB's because my version says most characters have a natural skill of 1/2 with weapons as opposed to the skill - 0 of the revised rules. They also decided there was not a draft if you tried one of the 12 careers covered. If you failed to enlist you tried somewhere else. 3 Careers meant you had no experience with guns but oddly everyone is assumed to be able to use blade weapons passably well. In the notes under the cash table it says anyone who has retired can add one to their rolls but this isn't mentioned in the rules section. <shrug> I see no reason to not allow it. Otherwise nothing changes from ST.

On to the Pirate career. MTU sees character generation as time spent in service to the Imperium so it is a stretch to come up with government pirates. A case has been made for privateers raiding non-imperial shipping but that would be the Navy not Pirates in my view. I had stated that characters who enlisted in the Navy or Merchants could try to get in to the Pirates in their second or higher terms and thinking on this some more I am going to add Scouts as well. This is because it is another service that has starships and a crew could go bad and start shooting up the galaxy. My premise is that this career represents a vessel in imperial service that acts against imperial interests for personal gain. This could be a Type T using its authority as a naval vessel to board an civilian merchant ship and steal its cargo, or the whole ship. A Merchant Marine vessel that kills off passengers who have something the crew desires. Or even a scout who has been in his Type S all alone a little to long and blasts ships trying to skim from a gas giant he has decided to preserve.

Enlistment is a greater than half chance to succeed which I am okay with only because I can see this as more a corruption issue than wild eyed cutlass wielding bezerkers. I find it odd being from middle class or lower will make it more likely you can succeed again feeding into my view of citizens not being all that loyal to the imperium as an institution. A high endurance gives you a bigger edge which I admit I am at a loss for explaining.

Comparing survival to the 3 base services the Navy and Merchants share the same roll and DM and as a Pirate you will be a little less safe and you need to be smarter to get the DM. Compared to the Scouts it is safer and an Intelligence of 8+ replaces an Endurance of 9+. Maybe the saner Scouts become Pirates rather than the crazier ones.

I was thinking of keeping the commission and promotion rolls of the original services because it isn't like anyone is admitting what they are doing but I decided not to. Rank in the Pirate career is a "shadow" rank. If you serve in the Navy and get to Commander then become a Pirate you start at Pirate rank 4 but any further promotions don't affect your Naval rank similarly for the Merchant Pirate. Scouts don't have any complications as they don't have a formal rank. Pirate rank is a representation of trust in the underworld society that needs to exist to get rid of ill gotten gains not an acknowledgement of skill and service to the Emperor. The suspicions and rumors of your activities will stall out any legitimate chance for advancement.

It is much harder to stay in the service as a Pirate than the base services. Every 4 years you have around a 50-50 chance of your career ending. I like this actually. The survival roll represents getting caught and the high reenlistment represents rumors of your shady behavior catching up with you.

Mustering out benefit table provides Low; Weapon; +1 Int; nothing; -1 Soc; Middle and Corsair. Weapon seems to take the place of the more specific gun or blade of the basic careers and still holds up as participation in the separation tournaments. The two alterations make sense quick thinking to pull off your schemes and rumors to destroy your standing with society. Middle and Low passages are pay outs from the separation lottery. Finally the Corsair. I never could wrap my head around who was building these things in canon. Only Pirates get them and you need a class A starport to build them, heck there is an official class name for them. However looking at the performance specs they make a descent customs ship for the Navy, Priority transport for the Merchants and a more capable ship to enforce scout interdictions so I am okay with them.

The cash table is sub-anemic so you aren't going to get rich as a Pirate. Even with the +1 you still have a chance to get nothing and without it you get nothing 1/3 of the time.

Personal development in the Pirate career can increase your 3 physical stats; Gambling; Brawling and Blade. Anyone choosing this as a career likes to gamble with their life why not cards as well? Brawling and Blade could be because if your breaking the law discipline might be harder to enforce resulting in a hands on approach to settle disputes.

Service skills are Blade; Vacc; Gun; Gunnery; Zero-G Combat; and Gun. The only one I see the need to comment on is Zero-G Combat. Here is were trying to integrate later works and the LBBs cause trouble. How do Marines not have this skill? Or the Merchants and Scouts? It is a plausible skill but I don't think I am going to use it instead it will be subsumed into Vacc Suit. I think Vacc Suit training is much more likely to occur or represent familiarity with a lack of gravity as well as a non-breathable atmosphere.

Advanced Education 1 has Streetwise; Gunnery; Engineering; Ship Tactics; Tactics and Mechanical. Streetwise is necessary to get rid of whatever you pirated. Gunnery, Engineering and Mechanical you need to keep your ship flying. Ship Tactics is another later skill I am not going to use. Situations calling for it will use Pilot instead. Tactics I am okay with as it is a more combat intensive service.

Advanced Education table 2 in this case further encourages me to change how you get access to the final table. Your BA in Art History qualifies your to learn advance skills as a Pirate? Using a system that doesn't have a way to go to college? However that will be a post for after I finish the careers. Navigation; Pilot; Forgery; Computer; Leader; and Electronics are what is on this table. Forgery and Leader are worth noting. Forgery assists in both getting stuff and getting rid of it after you have it and Leader is not available to the base three services. I mentioned under Navy that I believe this is a conscious decision as all the major upheavals in Imperial history have pretty much been caused by naval admirals so the Imperium doesn't provide leadership classes as a general rule. I do think they train leaders just not as a general skill available to all service members. Interestingly I think this is the first service to escape the papery fist of Admin.

Starter Traveller, supplement 4 interlude

I am planning on using the careers in supplement 4 as "advanced" careers. Everyone serves their first term in one of the basic 6 careers and if they reenlist successfully they can try and go into one of several optional careers or continue with the basic one. You would also continue in the basic career if you fail enlistment in the optional career. Rank carries over into the new career and you muster out of your final career, although I am mulling over picking from any benefit table you served in. I had thought there was a basic career in Law Enforcement but I can't find it outside of MT and I am not interested in adding special duty to all careers and don't want to have it for just one career so I guess I will skip it or make my own.

Here is my proposed advance or optional careers and the reasoning for why they are split up the way they are.

Navy: Pirate. As I am deliberately coming up with a setting where there are internal rivalries I am thinking some naval vessels go rogue. If enough of the crew is from one world or faction they could start targeting "enemy" shipping using trade war as cover. Unlike normal piracy there wouldn't be survivors from these attacks and less money to boot as it is to damage the economy of a rival world. A failed survival roll is death in this service.

Navy: Diplomat. The Imperium believes in presenting a fierce face to all it's neighbors so it's diplomatic corp is largely military personal.

Marine: Flyer. The marines are tasked with base defense and aerospace defense not the navy which operates starships. In the case a marine flyers aircraft adds ship's boat to the list of choices for aircraft.

Marine: Diplomat, As with the navy.

Army: Sailor. A specialized planetary combat branch.

Army: Barbarian. Either raised on a low tech world or assigned to one this is meant to be a guerrilla force and able to function with limited to no support.

Scout: Scientist. This would be a more long term on world investigation of a system. I am underwhelmed with the science a scientist can learn and am going to have to think about how I want to change the skill table for this career.

Scout: Hunter. The study of a biosphere and the use of eco-tourism to support conservation efforts.

Merchant: Belter. A specialized field of commerce which the Imperium has an interest in keeping mega corporations from dominating as it encourages more wildcat exploration.

Merchant: Pirate: In government service as a merchant this is more in the line of smuggling than boarding actions however a failed survival roll indicated death as a merchant pirate as well.

Other. Rogue: This is either a life of crime or of crime fighting as the skills work equally as well for both sides.

Other. Bureaucrat: The faceless cogs that keep the giant machinery of the Imperial government working. I can't fathom actually wanting to play one of these but who am I to judge.

All services: Doctor. You can never have enough medical professionals.

All services: Noble. Because all that matters is who your parents are for this one.

Starter Traveller Post 6, Weapon and Vehicle skills

Okay I really don't like the individual weapon skills, they don't seem to make a lot of sense to me. However with the everybody has skill 0 in everything I am okay with it as it stands. Imperial Conscription has the first 4 weeks covering firearms and melee combat, the second 4 weeks covering ISO (Imperial Standards Office) electronic and mechanical iconography and vehicle controls, the final week covers standard computer UI elements.

Weapon skill Changes:

Melee skills can be divided up into attack and defense DM's.

Gunnery is any vehicle mounted weapon and also includes using sensors to locate targets.

Vehicle skill I feel should be a little broader than it is including repair of the vehicle you know how to operate. I am also adding Animal to the categories as there are more than enough worlds who's technology level make them a primary source. All instances of Air/Raft; ATV and Ship's Boat are replaced by Vehicle. The categories are now

Grav
Ground Contact
Ship's Boat
Watercraft
Submersibles
Hovercraft
Animal
Lighter than Air
Propeller
Jet
Helicopter
Vacc Suit

I am inclined to treat these categories like Zero level skills with characters having a more specific specialization. Mostly this is because I have a lot of material on specific vehicles so I don't think I will (I am looking at you 101 Vehicles). I may instead let the Player designate 1 vehicle per year as you guessed it Equipment Qualified. Instead of it being a positive DM it would be used to reduce any penalty by +1. So you would get Vehicle, select Ground Contact and pick 4 specific vehicles (Horrinon Tracked ATV; Jak Rabbit wheeled Automobile; Shackleton Tracked ATV; Dyncha Strider).

Starter Traveller Post 6, Basic Skills

Here starts the heavy lifting in dealing with ST. I am slightly hostile to the skill set as presented. There is a huge (IMHO) difference in the scope of the various skills and yet they all take 4 years to gain. Each one of the basic skills seems to have its own rules governing it's use which I find annoying. I was thinking of trying to use them as presented but I like to have a little continuity in the way games I play operate.

The task system has in the past on the board generated an impassioned response. I don't discount the points expressed during that debate however I like to be able to consistently handle situations. I know there is support for the "make up a roll and go with it" style and for some it is valid not for me. It is annoying to end up feeling like similar situations had wildly divergent requirements depending on the GM's mood and I don't want anyone in one of my games to end up feeling that way. Also it is easier for me to look at a situation and think that is very difficult rather than try and figure out the percentage chance of success on a bell curved 2D6 roll. I am going to use this one by Paul Elliot on Freelance Traveller which gives me the framework to quickly and consistently set difficulties and retains the skill mods as presented. Mr. Elliot's thoughts on the skill tables mirror my own which I will cover at the end of character generation.

My problem with scope is best expressed by comparing Mechanical and Steward. Mechanical skill covers the use and repair of any mechanical device, Steward covers cooking. Huh? So I will be proposing expanding what some skills cover to make them a little more useful. I will be placing skills from later books under skills from ST to keep the list short and using the Equipment Qualified on block to indicate skill areas the PC has.

The Basic skills and there expanded changes in MTU

Administration: no change

Bribery: This is going to be more the skill to get someone else to do something for a character rather than the more narrow offering money to break a law. Coercion or Persuade might be a better name for the skill. Carousing and Liaison will be replaced by Bribery if I need to change published material.

Computer: No Change
Electronics: No Change
Engineering: No Change
Forgery: No Change

Forward Observer: Seeing as you need to detect the target, contact the firing unit and not die to accomplish this it will cover Recon; Communications and Stealth.

Gambling: Includes how to game the various government lotteries and other sweepstakes like elements of Imperial life.

Jack of All Trades: No Change

Leader: Broadened to cover interaction with all subordinates not just troops. Like all social interaction skills it is hard to game. People in general will follow someone who acts like they are in charge and this skill represents having that presence.

Mechanical: No Change
Medical: No Change

Navigation: The use of ship's sensors to analyse planets and other astronomic objects (Survey Skill). Also Communications skill.

Pilot: Also adds Communications and the use of sensors to detect things relatively (in space terms) close to the ship.

Steward: Getting a positive interaction with another being. Not just feeding a passenger this will be used when dealing with any being. It is the skill in verbal and non-verbal communication to get another to like you. Examples are obsequies behavior around an arrogant self important prick or telling fart jokes to 12 year old boys.

Streetwise: This used to gain acceptance into any insular group not just criminals.

Tactics: No Change
Vacc Suit: No Change

Starter Traveller Post 6, Skills - Default or level 0

Sorry for the delay that whole real life thing was bothering me. I am planning on using Supplement 4 Citizens of the Imperium but before I go into those careers I wanted to deal with skills.

I have an issue concerning the scope of skills in CT. On one hand you have Engineering which covers the use and repair of Jump Drives; Reaction-less Maneuver Drives  and Power Plants and on the other you have Body Pistol which covers accuracy with a specific kind of automatic pistol. Oh, did I mention it takes the same amount of time apparently to learn both? Later incarnations of the game added more skills to the 54 (not counting the cascade skill titles only the ones under them) which I am reluctant in most cases to use.

I have been thinking on what a skill of 1 means. For most things I think a skill of 0 is what the average person has to perform their job. This is because you don't have skill 0 in everything but no skill at all. A skill of 0 is something you can do with no negative modifier whereas a no skill starts at -3 on the roll. Also I have noticed that home world skills from later editions are level 0 not level 1 contrasted with service skills. The note about default skills in the rule book describes them as "orientation to the skill by an experienced person" so it does imply some training or experience.

In an earlier post I had noted GDW seemed to making a game for larger than life adventure. Character generation doesn't seem to support this though as you get random stats and limited control of what you career is or how long it lasts. Then skills are semi-random as well with your control limited to picking which four sets of six skills you will be randomly awarded. Add to that the generally low number of skills and levels in skills basic character generations produces and it seems unlikely you will end up with heroes instead of plucky comic reliefs.

If however the average person has a skill of 0 in their job a skill of 1 becomes much more heroic. Having more experience with the D20 based linear progression it is easy to fail to see that is in no way related to the progression on a 2D6 based system. The base roll of 8+ is around 40% (I think being to lazy to look it up) for someone with a skill of 0, a skill of 1 changes it to 7+ (50%) and no skill changes it to 11+ (something under 10% I think). It also helps the GM with NPC's if you need to do them on the fly.

Lets veer off and look at TAS form 2 for the moment to bolster this premise. I am thinking of block 17 "Equipment Qualified On". This is different than skills because they are listed in the various block 18s. So what can we use this block for to add to the game? Battle Dress is in the ST game but the skill is not being covered under Vacc Suit and needing at least skill 1 to use. I have difficulty seeing the Merchant Service training it's members in use power armor no matter how much Vacc Suit training they get. So if you are a Marine (in MTU the only service that uses this) you put Battle Dress in block 17 and use Vacc Suit skill as listed, anyone else has 0 skill with a powered integrated weapon and armor system.

Also it is a way to give a skill outside of the normal gun/car recommendation. For instance the Engineering section of a starship has the chief engineer (Engineering skill 1) and J tech (skill 0 block 17 J Drive), M tech (skill 0 block 17 M Drive) and a power tech (skill 0 block 17 Power Plant). In the Engineering example block 17 is used to indicate when the skill 0 applies and when it doesn't. The skill 0 guys only avoid the -3 penalty when trying an engineering task related to their training, the J tech gets the -3 trying to use the M drive as an example.

You can use skill 0 in addition to the character improvement system in the rules. The systems available to train your character after character generation is done are difficult which they should be as it is really hard to pick up a mastery of a skill or change how you live enough to impact the characteristics. Level 0 can be used for "Starkiller is going to teach Potato Head piloting when we are on our ship" and after a period of time Potato Head get Pilot - 0 and puts Type S in his block 17. Potato Head (after escaping a bad movie) can fly a Scout/Courier with no penalty or bonus but not a Type A Free Trader. The idea is to still have skill 1 be noteworthy but let characters have some sense of advancement in an easier to implement way.

Well that last post was a ray of sunshine wasn't it?

Bleah, I didn't care for where my review of the Other service ended up. I am okay with how I got there and the interpretations I made however it is not a pleasant view at the end. Which shows this is a valid way to approach making the OTU into MTU.

My favorite character class in D&D is the Paladin and I generally try and run for players who want to be heroes. Bet you wouldn't see that from the last post would you? I didn't expect when I started these posts that I would be developing as much setting material while doing them as I have.

I started with the idea no one leaves their own world but the universal draft means almost everyone does.  Because it is a draft it is seen  as a burden like taxes rather than a display of patriotism. So you get forced off world to serve the Emperor in whatever way he sees fit down to  what you get trained to do.

The Imperium heavily encourages all kinds of lottery and or gambling. Join the service and hope to win the open slot lottery to keep your job because nothing about you improves your chance to stay in. All done in your service? Spin the wheel o' benefits and maybe win a life of moderate income or get nothing. Hey! Ho! reach into the hat and draw what skill area the Imperium has decided you will be trained in.

It is also a more paranoid Imperium than I originally envisioned with the 3 military branches looking at local governments and each other with a wary eye. My view of nobles has changed as well. There are going to be a lot more Knights than I suspect in most campaigns, 1 for every 250 people. This is because everyone has a local noble they can run to if they have a problem they can't fix otherwise. So every world government knows they can do mostly whatever they like but there are a bunch of people they have no control of and who are not bound by planetary laws running around.

The Scouts and Others are the Imperium having people they can point to and go "See we really do care". Both of them seem to me to be groups with non-specific mandates to fix whatever happens along without a dedicated organization to back them up. Leading Scouts to JOT and Others to less than legal means to solve issues.

The separation games idea for mustering out along with the lottery elements gives a very Romanesque bread and circuses feel I am okay with. The Imperium is less about solving individuals problems than distracting the population away from said problems. The emphasis on random chance and distraction gives an impersonal feel leading to a population with little regard for minor laws.

All of these actually enhance my premise to a great deal. Mustering out is the start of your adventuring because before that you where serving your required duty. The randomness of character generation can be used to explain people feeling like the end of an imperial career would be the start of them having some control of their own life. So the Imperium is good everyone has a job and skill but it isn't likely anyone is really impassioned by a system that give very little input in the direction their life takes.

Starter Traveller Post 5, Other

The last of the services is the inspiring named "Other". There is an effort made in the description to try and say it isn't just criminals but GDW still puts criminal in the description as well. This career might be a heavier lift than the previous ones as I don't see the Imperium being so dystopian as to have public service criminals. I am thinking it is actually the social service organizations of the Imperium.

I follow +Joe Johnston guide to posting principles found here (https://plus.google.com/+JoeJohnston-taskboy/posts/4k23o9MsKrQ) which I feel necessary to point out before getting into a further explanation. This is an attempt at a gameable setting and not a commentary on economic issues or morals of any socio-economic group. So the Imperium has a social services safety net for those who are trapped at the very bottom for whatever reason. Normally it is left to world governments to see to the well being of their citizens but through the office of the local noble anyone can seek assistance. What was envisioned originally as a fail safe has frequently turned into the only assistance available. Without getting into the why citizens end up in desperate circumstances it is enough they are there. I postulate a somewhat dark vision that in most societies when you hit bottom it is extraordinarily difficult to get back on your feet. So the Others deal with a embittered population with little hope watching everyone else have a decent life. Unsurprisingly this creates a violent situation and with nothing to lose, one rife with crime.

It is almost impossible not to volunteer for this service which I view as a need for people rather than having low standards.

Survival is on par with the Army and Navy so you aren't working in the safest conditions. Problem solving ability (high INT) will help you out probably by actually figuring out ways to have a lasting positive impact on your clients life.

You have no chance to get ahead in a the service. So rather than the Imperium being your boss it is the local noble. I think of this as somewhat akin to being a staffer for a local politician.

It is a somewhat safe long term career but not a guaranteed life time job. Budget cuts are always out there.

Material Benefits are Low;INT;EDU;Gun;High and nothing. The low passage in this case seems to me to reflect the best gift a grateful community can afford rather than the lottery award of the previous services. No change in game terms but worth highlighting for the PC. The characteristics being only +1's implies limited funding to me rather than lack of interest. Gun would mean some Others enter to separation contests to try and recruit or to honor their patron noble. The high passage seems more a gift from said patron noble than the service lottery. And no award at all is just depressing but indicative of the hopelessness this service represents.

The Cash table is markedly lower except the two highest entries with Gambling offering the highest cash award of any service.

Personal Development is STR;DEX;END;Blade;Brawling and a reduced SOC. So you face situations where you need to be able to respond physically. Blade and Brawling show that violence is common and Others need to take care of themselves. The reduction is SOC is unique in that no other service reduces a characteristic as an "Award". It also covers being judged by the company you keep.

Service Skills are Vehicle;Gambling;Brawling;Bribery;Blade and Gun. Vehicle here could mean a stint in Mass Transit. Brawling, Blade and Gun reflect the violence of the areas worked in or perhaps self defense instructor. Gambling means familiarity with the various lottery systems in the Imperium and showing the clients how to use them to try and escape. Bribery is a reflection on the reality of corruption and how to get things done.

The first Advanced Education table has Streetwise;Mechanical;Electronics;Gambling;Brawling and Forgery. Streetwise should be to Other as JOT is to the Scouts, you can't help people who don't trust you. Mechanical and Electronics could mean infrastructure maintenance. Gambling and Brawling have been covered which leaves Forgery. I can't come up with a positive way to spin this one so instead I am thinking it shows the length Others are driven to to try and help.

The 8+ Advanced Education table has Medical;Forgery;Electronics;Computer;Streetwise and JOT. Medical can represent first aid or free clinic service. Forgery and Streetwise are covered above. Electronics can mean infrastructure or maybe refurbishing cast off equipment. Computer is kind of necessary no matter what you are doing in Sci-Fi. JOT is also appropriate for the career I am envisioning, making do with whatever you have.

So here we have the people tasked with helping the most desperate members of a society. They are expected to face violence and trained to respond to it. The service also teaches them that the lottery is a viable option to improve their clients lives. It fosters an attitude of the ends justifying the means by teaching bribery and forgery although it is not actually training by the service more than likely more experienced Others showing how to get things done. Also it shows you can lose out by joining with no reward for service and the average person lowering their opinion of you.

Starter Traveller Post 5, the Merchants

The given description of the Merchants is voided by my choice that it is a government service.

The service is a picky as the Scouts to get in voluntarily and oddly has the same two characteristics as DMs. However STR is the minor and average or higher INT is the higher bonus. So there is a fair amount of grunt work but a quick mind is even more helpful.

Survival is equivalent to the Navy and Army leading me to believe piracy and hijacking attemps are more common than most GMs play it. The DM is an average INT so most of these situations can be avoided by keeping your eyes open and your wits about you.

Commission seem to be handed out to anyone who can write their own name in block letters with a crayon given the extremely low roll and a DM for slightly below average INT. So just about everyone in the Merchants is a 4th officer and having rank in the Merchant service won't impress anyone.

Promotion on the other hand is ridiculously hard more so than even the Marines and only exceptionally bright (high INT) PCs get a DM. No one respects a 4th officer but most people know 3rd officer and higher are people you should not discount.

Only the Scouts are a more secure career than the Merchants which is probably why it is so fiendishly hard to get ahead in the service. It is just a fact of life than you need more people doing stuff they have been told to do than people to tell others what to do.

Material benefits are Low;INT;EDU;Gun;Blade;Low and Free Trader. Hmmm, to be unkind the service gives out leftover promotional passage tickets. Both characteristic mods are +1's the first service that doesn't have a +2 so personal improvement isn't stressed to much. The gun and blade means they service does have it's pride and participates in the separation duels. Free Trader I have mentioned I am not wildly thrilled with how mustering out starships work but am still unsure how I will change it.

The Cash table is a little on the low side but not remarkably so.

The Personal Development table provides STR;DEX;END;STR;Blade and Bribery. Interesting that you can't develop the one characteristic that gives you a DM after enlistment. Also no EDU or SOC however they like them husky in the Merchants. Blade combat fits in with my as yet not completely defined reasons people on a starship fight with swords. Bribery goes along with my view that the average person have a lopsided divided loyalty between their world and the Imperium. Seeing as the Imperium reserves the authority to regulate space law and there is rivalry between worlds customs regulations get little respect.

Service Skills are Vehicle;Vacc Suit; JOT;Steward;Electronics;Gun. The first three are useful to anyone in space. Steward is a necessary Merchant skill and useful when dealing with other intelligent beings. Electronics without Mechanical on the same table indicates the Merchants have to fix more higher tech devices than lower tech or more massive equipment. Finally Gun Combat indicates are fair amount of their on world interactions have the potential to go dramatically bad.

The first Advanced Education table has Streetwise;Mechanical;Electronics;Navigation;Gunnery and Medical. Streetwise is portrayed as the ability to deal with insular strangers which makes sense seeing as it is unlikely Merchants will be on the homeworld in most cases. Mechanical and Electronics are to be expected although it appears mechanical training is not provided as a general training and electronic problems are seen as more likely. Navigation being a general availability skill I find an oddity. Gunnery goes along with my view that unfriendlies are fairly common. Medical makes sense as I am sure any service dealing with the general public wants as many first responders as possible.

The 8+ Advance Education table has Medical;Navigation;Engineering;Computer;Pilot and Admin. Medical is valued highly enough to be on 2 tables as is Navigation. The Navigation showing up twice leads me to think a certain paranoia about misjumps and barristry (ship's officers stealing their own ship). The next three would indicate the Merchant's are picky about who learns skills that can control the movement of the ship. Navigation can plot a course but you need Pilot to get you there and Engineering to make the drives work. Admin shows that paperwork is universal.

And finally 1st Officers are all trained to steer the ship which is pretty handy.

So in MTU the Merchant service is picky about it's volunteers but once you get in you can have a pretty stable career. Providing you don't screw up you will become at least a low ranking officer bit advancement is hard. Life in the service is a little rough and tumble and a certain tendency to solving problems with cash is common place. As a cost cutting measure it would seem the service buys low bid electronics but mechanical systems are top notch. Merchants are fitness buffs with more social or intellectual pursuits not being encouraged. With the lack of advancement it is uncommon to get training in the officer skills.

Confessions of an Andre Norton Fan

If you don't know who Andre Norton was don't feel too bad for an author who won every award Sci-Fi / Fantasy there is she is pretty unknown. I count myself fortunate to have found her when I did in what they now call my tweens. I believe that her relative obscurity may be due to her chosen audience of early teens. First and foremost she was a storyteller who made believable characters in interesting situations. Anyone playing Traveller can't go wrong reading her "Solar Queen" stories because you will see the influence they had on the Merchant career which is next up and why I am gushing in an embarrassing fashion. You will also see hints of the scouts as well.

Oddly my love of her stories directly ties to my failed efforts to run in the past. Although the common lie in RPG introductions that playing is like acting out a novel adds to it. I have never played or ran a session or campaign that was anything like a novel. Not that that is bad it is just that analogy should never be used. RPGs are much more like real life a chaotic mess of half baked ideas and bad decisions that are irritating and utterly fascinating. Anyways MTU Merchants will be nothing like the Free Traders of Ms. Norton because it is a government service with its manpower drawn through (partially at least) a draft.

I also felt the need to point out that the only starships in MTU are book 2 ones. There is no Book 5 extension to the construction system and I am still undecided about the expanded book 2 options out there as of yet.

I also view the rates for the various passages and freight services as government mandates. No one can charge more or less than the rates set in the rules. However there are two changes I will be making. Passage rates are per Parsec not per jump so there is a reason for commercial ships to have higher jump numbers. This is because of the huge volume jump fuel takes up. Why would the big companies make high jump number ships and only earn the passage rate once when if their ships could be jump one and make several passage fees for the same journey. Customers may think that would be a great idea but they still need to travel so I don't see companies feeling the pressure to provide that convenience. Much like rent companies will charge as much as they can not what people want to pay. It also adds to the Megacorp vs little guy vibe in that only the big guys can afford ships that can make jump 4 and the rich and famous can afford to pay 40,000 to take passage on them. This makes passages awarded at mustering out worth hanging onto as well. Yes you can cash them in for 80% of a 1 parsec journey or keep it in case you need to go along an xboat route and suddenly it is worth 4 times as much (not in cash though).

The other is the Merchant Prince change to cargo. Mostly this is because I am underwhelmed with there being only 36 items traded on the interstellar stage. If it becomes necessary to the story I can specify what the PCs are schlepping around other wise it is just as easy to know it is 3,700 cr / ton Ind TL 7 goods from Ruie.

Hopefully if you don't immediately understand some of the things I decide going through the Merchant service this post will provide some insight.

Starter Traveller Post 5, Scouts

My favorite of the services perfect for those with the self preservation instinct of severely depressed lemmings. The Scouts are according to the book explorers; mappers and mailmen.

They are hard to get into voluntarily though not as hard as the Navy or Marines. The desirable traits are quick thinking and more importantly strength. Erm, well yeah. I am going to go with Scouts being solo. A lot. 2 of their 3 iconic ships are one crew vessels so they need to be able to lug, push, pull and shove stuff around. I think I should have tried to get more sleep because my scouts have an optional enlistment procedure. If you can win an arm wrestle versus a scout you're in. This is to give a sense of a quirky service portraying itself as having a sense of humor.

Survival is a 50/50 proposition with END being the bonus characteristic. Easier to explain in that if you are usually by yourself you probably need to go on short sleep while fighting off diseases as you explore new worlds. And holding your breathe can be real handy on Xboats.

Reenlistment is almost a given which means if you get in and can stay alive you can retire from the Scouts also suggesting they don't care about age.

Material Benefits are Low passage; INT; EDU; Gun; Blade; Scout Ship. If you enlist in the Scouts you like to gamble with your life so low passage is the only way to go <shrug>. Both characteristic bumps are +2 so you will come away from your service knowing a ton of stuff and being able to come up with solutions to problems. Scouts complete against the Army Marksmanship teams and in the Navy and Marine sword duels. Finally we come to the first player ship, the Scout/Courier. Great for adventurers next to useless for traders. I am trying to come up with a ship benefit thingy so all the players who get ship benefits can pool the benefit to get a single party ship. So far I am failing. I am also thinking of replacing the various ships with something else so the GM has a powerful motivator to start the campaign.

The Scouts are generous with separation pay with the best payouts in the services.

Before we get to the tables it is worth noting that Scouts get 2 skills per term not one. I am not buying the official because they don't get commission or promotions explanation but there are plenty of other services that don't either just scouts. I see this as a policy to keep Scouts from going nuttier than they are while zipping around in space by themselves. I also think it is presented as a kind of competition with their peers rather than as a directive.

The Personal Development table offers every characteristic except SOC replacing that with Gun Combat. So the Scouts don't mingle with the right people. It is also the only place to get a combat skill so the Scouts are not a paramilitary organization. Even the Merchant Marine is more bellicose than the Scouts.

The Service Skills table means the Scouts favor Air/Raft; Vacc Suit; Mechanical; Electronics; Navigation and JOT. Air/Raft means Vehicle to me, Grav Vehicle if you are going to be picky I am not. Vacc Suit is pretty important to people in space and going to any kind of world. Mechanical and Electronics make sense for an organization sending a bunch of people off by themselves in starships. Navigation being down on this table makes sense. Every Scout gets Pilot-1 but without Navigation you aren't going any place that doesn't have a course tape available. And JOT I see as the quintessential Scout skill try anything in any situation because they end up in all kinds of situations.

The Advanced Education table has Vehicle; Mechanical; Electronics; JOT; Gunnery and Medical. The first 4 make sense as they did earlier and add emphasis that Scouts are expected to make do on their own. Gunnery is acceptable because they are in small ships that are still worth millions so people probably try and take them. Medical is available to all Scouts because have you seen their Survival roll, just saying.

The 8+ Advanced Education table has Medical; Navigation; Engineering; Computer; Pilot and JOT. Engineering and Pilot complete the making a starship run skill set so are not revealing in their presence although I am thinking of replacing the first Adv Edu Vehicle skill with Engineering so it is available to all Scouts and putting either Blade/Gun or Brawling here. Medical and Navigation were covered above and JOT appears again. So I am not alone in thinking it is the Scout skill.

Mentioned elsewhere every Scout is a trained Pilot. I am a bit perplexed by the Pilot skill in it is the necessary FTL skill but Navigation is how you plot the course between systems. <shrug> We'll get to that when we hit the starship section.

This leaves me with the impression of a frat house rather than a military service or government department. The Scouts have tasks assigned but not jobs or even defined missions. They attract competitive people who can't work 9 to 5 at the same job and have difficulty with a traditional boss-worker environment. At odds with this is the detached duty mentality, once a Scout always a Scout constantly subject to recall. In MTU officials are used to going "Hey you were in the Scouts right? I have this problem". For the general public it means they wouldn't find it odd for a Scout to be just about anywhere asking about stuff. The lack of social mobility also means they are seen as average Joe/Jane and approachable although the reputation for being "odd" can hinder them.

Starter Traveller Post 5, The Army

Let us start with an unrelated real life whine, I hate working day shift after having gotten used to overnights. It completely screws up my ability/desire to analyse RPGs. With that out of the way lets move on to the Army.

It is the easiest military force to volunteer for and has markedly lower characteristics to qualify for DM's on just about all the rolls. Where as it would be easy to just see it as having lower standards my premise of every (again let me emphasize every) 18 year old in the Imperium is required to serve in some way make me think otherwise. I see this as a deliberate decision on the Imperium's part. Train a insanely huge number of beings to kill other beings who come to a world uninvited. The army is not going to station very many (if any) people on their home world so important worlds will have a large number of armed and trained people from somewhere else loyal to the Imperium (most likely) rather than local government. Also to foreign powers Imperial worlds are probably stuffed full of trained militia. It is less a matter of not being picky as it is having such a crap load of troops. The Imperium isn't as nervous about the Army as the previous two services because they are pretty much stuck on one world.

Okay so it is fairly easy to get in and the traits a tested for are DEX and END so the exam is probably a very physical one.

Survival is the same as in most services excluding the Scouts and the slightly more dangerous Marines. Interestingly it is EDU that gives the DM suggesting a lot of time spent in field training with those lessons covering knowledge rather than tactics.

A commission is fairly easy to get with END giving the bonus. To me this suggests a desire to put people who give everything they've got and then a little more are put in charge.

Promotions are also markedly easier to come by and the DM is for EDU. So the Army is the only one of the big three military services where who you know or are related to doesn't impact promotion. Not immediately gameable but something for a GM to keep in mind on inter-service relationships.

And the kicker the Army is the service you are least likely to be able to continue in. There is no DM for reenlistment and a 7+ is a 50% chance you get shown the door. So the Army is the young person's service.

The Material Benefits table is Low; INT; EDU; Gun; High; Medium and SOC. I am going to revise my earlier take on the passages and say every Imperial registered ship that can carry passengers is required to offer some quantity of free passages. These are pooled by the bureaucracy and awarded by lottery on separation explain how an Admiral ends up with a low passage and feeding into my idea of the Imperium encouraging gambling. The EDU bump is greater than the INT one so the Army is big on facts more than process. The Gun award is interesting because the first two services award Blades and the Army a firearm, they show off the manual of arms and target shooting while processing out. And finally the SOC award is only +1 not the +2 of the Navy and Marines so I see there is a distance between the Nobility and the unwashed masses of the common man's service. Is the hand of the Iridium Throne at work here?

The cash table doesn't really speak to me much other than the high end rolls give less cash than the previous 2 services.

Default skills means everyone is competent with a rifle and LT's are trained with SMG's. This suggests to me the Army wants it's members killing their enemies at range and in close quarters it's leaders should be in the middle of the fray.

The Personal Development table has STR; DEX; END; Gambling; EDU and Brawling. Interesting the Army gives more general knowledge training than the Marines. Considering the low likelihood of retirement the brass pushes soldiers toward an associates type of degree.

The Service Skills have ATV; Air/Raft; Gun Combat; Forward Observer; Blade Combat; and Gun Combat. I have stated my dislike of ATV now let me add Air/Raft which should be Grav Vehicle, screw it both should be Vehicle. Blade Combat isn't to far fetched if you think about it with the amount of training in blade combat going around anyone with only Blade-0 is going to be shredded meat if an enemy gets close. I suspect I am adding T4 rules here and if that is the case be ready for a house rule to add them in.

Both Advanced Education tables are exactly the same as the Marine ones and I don't like it. It isn't any of the skills or which tables they are on just that they are exact duplicates. When I am done with the first take on the Careers I am planning on going back and doing a comprehensive reworking of the tables these two are at the top of the list.

So My Imperial Army is a huge force broken up into mostly battalion sized units scattered through out the Imperium. Soldiers don't serve on their home worlds but the Imperium does try and have regional units for cohesiveness (or siege mentality your pick). It values physical attributes giving a DM 3 times as opposed to twice for the Marines. It is easier to get commissioned and promoted but very hard to make a career of. So there is a up and out nature to the Army get 'em in, put 'em in charge and then get rid of them. The sheer size of the Army serves as a diplomatic tool similar to the rest of the world being aghast at the US civil war mobilizing as many troops as it did. Being willing to pull that many citizens out of society says something to anyone thinking of getting belligerent.

Before I start with the Eldritch rulebook

I said I was going to go through Eldritch Role playing page by page to get my thoughts in order for my next campaign but I need to do something first. Avalon Games has a series of PDF's offering advice on "How to.." various aspects of running and playing RPG's. The one titled "How to run a Great Campaign" contains some pretty good stuff the most important for me was to start where you plan on ending. Sounds crazy but if you read the PDF it makes sense. Obviously the dream of the next "Greyhawk" or "Forgotten Realms" is strong in DM's but a more realistic goal (particularly for working adults) is a single story at a time. If the story and gaming group works well you can just start the next one where you leave off.

Why one story at a time? Our hobby in general seems to attract the insatiably curious (and possibly easily distracted) so there is always some G+ post popping up that fires the desire to game that event. If you plan out a whole world and everything in it something else is always going to be there tugging at your interest. I call it the shaken key ring syndrome which anyone with toddlers will laugh while being slightly offend by. I can't take any credit for this concept as many RPG's have in the introduction or advice to the GM section the advice to start small. Too bad people rarely read those sections.

Eldritch has a default setting that does the grunt work of here is the continent level geography and some ancient history to work off of. It also has a really awesome premise that lets you add anything to it, we'll get to that in the section of the book.

 +Michael Desing (who writes some good games as well) has advocated for some Latin phrase I am to lazy to look up right now meaning starting in the middle of the action which I am going to follow. The first action will be on a stretch of road between two points that the party is on for a pregame reason. I will list some points I am going to need answered as I review the rules and get set to play.

1) A bad guy who is more than attack/defense/hit points. This is the End Encounter bad guy for the story arc.
2) Significant places that reoccur like the "home" town and big city where you would need to go to get special stuff.
3) A red herring or three minor story lines that happen in the area of the big one with the possibility of getting confused with the main story.
4) Allies as full people and antagonists who may or may not be part of #1's evil plan.
5) Ways to have players play Eldritch rather than a different D&D. Fantasy RPG's can to often be straight jacketed into the party of 4 Fighter/Cleric/Thief/Wizard because it is how we think of them. Eldritch (and many others I suppose) allows you to not be held to this and it is up to the GM to come up with ways to encourage players to explore an alternate way, or not if they so choose.
6) Coming up with a usable player's guide to convey the tone of my game. Bram Stoker would run a different game than C.S. Lewis.

Hopefully this will help if you don't quite understand what the heck I am babbling while I go over the rules.

Starter Traveller in order post 2

The next section is GETTING YOUR FEET WET a high level view of the overall system. Ummm, even though this section is longer than the two I talk about in my first post I don't really have anything to say about it. It is a well written snapshot of what Traveller can be which I have no quibbles with so I am going to move on. If you are just starting with Traveller give it a read as it does bring up some reoccurring themes.

REQUIRED MATERIALS is up next and seems quaint and nostalgic considering I am posting to a blog as a way to get organized enough to run a VTT game. A few things strike me though concerning players knowing the rules and imagination. It isn't as annoying to explain what a total newbie needs to do in CT as in a lot of games because there aren't many rules. The relative lack of rules (as opposed to 3.5 and it's derivatives) encourages (IMHO) players to ask more frequently can I do this?

As for imagination I think my fantasy background actually inhibits me somewhat because I am more used to thinking about the possibilities offered by a world as opposed to an entire universe. So I need to try and make each location different than the others. It is very seductive to have every starport and world be the same if an adventure isn't fleshed out for that world. Realistically however I am not going to be able to make all 440 systems of The Spinward Marches a fully developed as your average D&D campaign so what is my goal? I have a fairly extensive library of fiction; history; DVDs and RPG stuff so I am planning on assigning an inspiration source to each world.

For instance Esalin is going to have "Casablanca" as my inspirational source. This doesn't mean space nazis per say but instead I have a reason to watch one of my favorite films and try and create a sense of a paranoid population with little respect for the terribly corrupt government. Also the natives resent both the Zhodani and Imperial outsiders. Because you can't tell who is a disgusting mind reading freak by looking at 'em there is a large group of people trying to flee the Zhodani empire but unable to get passage into the Imperium. I think I mentioned I am better at adapting things than creating whole cloth so this seems like a way to get a different feel for each world without an enormous amount of work.

To take the place of scrap paper and index cards I am going to shamelessly shill for people who have never heard of me. Cherrytree is a super awesome free windows and linux based app. It says it is for note taking however it is easily a lot more than that. Roll20 or Roll20 in Google Hangouts go without saying although the free ScreenMonkey from NBOS is an alternative I am still mulling over.

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS is a necessary section with no reason to discuss.

CONDUCT OF THE ADVENTURING SESSION is mostly a primer on how to run any kind of RPG with some Traveller specific mentions. "Don't split the party" kind of stuff is routine if everyone has played an RPG but if you have some neophytes it would be very worthwhile before the session (and ideally one on one through email/IM) to cover. Why do it away from the game session? Because it is mostly because of meta-game reasons you don't do them and things that take away from being in game are probably best dealt with outside of the context of the game.

One thing mentioned I need to work on is passage of time and tracking the flow of information. If the party blasts it's way out of say Heroni/Rhylanor  a low tech backwater off of the main xboat network I need to have an easy way to track when the info gets where. Mostly because it isn't going to be reasonable that they will be anonymous. The "Blatant Lie" is the ship that fled and the crew roster will be accessible to the authorities. Besides if I don't screw it up the fun potential of this is huge. The PCs get up to typical naughtiness on a low pop world off the main line and it takes 3 months for word to hit the Xboat network and it takes another month to catch up with them. I can say without fear they won't remember that they did it and will get the best dumbfounded expression when confronted. I am exploring ways to actually do this however and am leaning toward outdated day planners from the local dollar store.

Before starting the campaign I am going to have to come up with how long news takes to travel from the subsector capital to each world in the subsector so I only need to know when the alert reaches a capital not track it for each world individually. Again I am trying to come up with a way to use a potential awesome way to make the game different from real life but balance it against the amount of time and attention I can devote to a game. I also think I am going to use Google's IM version of hangout to send secret notes to players because the whisper feature of group chat isn't as convenient as having a different window for each player and with chat history it is a good way for players to have access to stuff their PC's should know without having to ask me while the game is going on. That isn't clear but I mean have a instance of the chat window for each player.

Starter Traveller Post 5, The Marines

Okay we touched on why the cutlass could be important enough to warrant every Marine knowing how to use one so we are ready to do this thing. The Marines are carried aboard naval ships; secure navy bases and guard starports. First thing I am going to change is removing the general guarding starports role. Starports are going to be civilian commercial installations and guarded by civilians also you would have squad sized independent units spread all over D and E starports across the imperium and that makes no sense.

Moving on to the tables the first thing we see is the Marines have the highest enlistment number in the game (only Doctors match it) which could indicate a smaller highly selective force. I am going with the key quality being political reliability. The Imperium has the Marines watching the Navy to make it harder for the next Admiral Plankwell. I don't see this as a SOLSEC kind of explicit mission though more along the lines of indoctrination, sorry, service history stories. What is and isn't a lawful order; idealized role of the military in the Imperium and how it is the responsibility and sacred duty of the armed forces to guard against internal as well as external threats (the Marines are just better at it). Why would the emperor lose sleep over the Navy? It is the only branch that can threaten the Imperium rather than just a world the unit is stationed on. As for DM's to enlist the minor preference is for quick thinking and a major bonus for a high strength.

They get shot at more than other services with only the semi-suicidal Scouts having a higher Survival roll. Endurance gives the bonus on this roll. This goes along with my premise of the reliable service in that the Marines get sent in first because they will do what is in the Imperium's interest and then a more permanent solution is put in place if need be. Being able to operate on less sleep and resist supply deprivations is handy if you are a member of a smaller force operating in hostile territory.

Commissions are hard to come by and again we see the military forces preference for knowing facts as the DM comes from EDU but anyone with the standard schooling should be able to get the bonus.

Promotion is also difficult and it matters who your family is as the DM comes from SOC although being from a moderately well off family is good enough.

Reenlistment is, like the Navy, not a sure thing.

As stated above every Marine has Cutlass - 1 and on earning a Commission they get Revolver -1 a more mechanically reliable sidearm than an automatic pistol.

The cash table has an oddity in that the lowest roll is twice what the naval character would earn and the two highest rolls are less than the corresponding naval reward.

The material table is the same as the Navy with 1 distinct difference Marines get a +2 INT and a +1 EDU which is the reverse of the Navy. So throughout their service Marines are trained more on reacting to a situation rather than rote knowledge of a topic.

The Personal Development table only allows for improvement of the three physical characteristics adding Gambling; Brawling and Blade Combat in place of the mental and social characteristics. This has the effect that either a Marine can use 3 tables or all 4 decided at the generation of characteristics which is why I am house ruling in the ability to always replace a skill roll with +1 EDU. Gambling I was going to gloss over as we all know what it is but on reflection I think I will use it to add another detail to the Imperium. The state encourages gambling in its population. My own state in the US has a very profitable lottery and I can see the Imperium doing the same kinds of things. I already hinted that the TAS benefit was awarded like a lottery so why not make it official? I don't see penny ante poker in the barracks giving you a 3,000 to 10,000 cr bump on each cash roll either. Brawling and Blade Combat are reasonable considering what the Marines are supposed to do.

Again I think of the Service Skill table as those things the Marines consider core skills to carry out their mission and we have ATV; Vacc Suit; 2x Gun Combat and 2x Blade Combat. ATV I am looking askance at because I think it is a left over from the 1977 set of rules and should be Vehicle skill. I (oddly considering the boulders of salt I accept elsewhere) have trouble with something covering Wheeled and Tracked Vehicles in the same skill when they are split elsewhere. Vacc Suit makes sense as does Gun Combat. Blade Combat only deserves another mention because it is more commonly gained than Gun Combat.

The first Advanced Education table has Vehicle; Mechanical; Electronic; Tactics; Blade and Gun Combat. Vehicle as I said is more sensible to me than ATV which by the way you can't select when you get Vehicle. I had thought Ship's Boat was available under Vehicle but it does not appear to be so. Mechanical and Electronics are fine, someone has to fix stuff. Tactics is also a necessary skill. Gun and Blade don't need any further discussion.

The 8+ Advanced Education table has Medical; 2x Tactics; Computer; Leader; and Admin. The only standout here is Leader and it is only worth mentioning because it isn't a naval skill. So my premise of some paranoia concerning the Navy holds merit. The military knows how to train for leadership potential and chooses not to emphasize it for naval officers.

I have problems with the skill set available to the Marines. It is missing 2 skills I am not willing to buy the Marines wouldn't have, Ship's Boat and Forward Observer. They are supposed to board enemy ships and/or assault enemy worlds but they can't fly themselves there or call in fire support? I think not. I also think they should have Gunnery as I am not planning on using Book 4 so artillery isn't an available skill otherwise. So I am replacing ATV with Ship's Boat and the second Blade Combat with Forward Observer this leaves an equal frequency of Gun and Blade Combat in the tables. I like the idea of Gunnery but I am not sure what it would replace although I am leaning toward it belonging on the 8+ table I don't want to eliminate anything or reduce the chance of Tactics. Any opinions?

Now to try and sum that all up. The Marines look for Imperial patriots and subtly encourage them to watch out for the other branches rising up. Their missions are either boarding actions in deep space or being outnumbered defending bases or being the first to assault an enemy world. They are also oriented toward psychological warfare by emphasizing closing to hand to hand and hacking people up. They place little emphasis on non-combat skills preferring to focus on killing or getting to a place where people need killing.

A brief interlude about sharp and pointy things

Next up is going to the Marines and that means a service that makes sure everyone knows who to use a cutlass but not a rifle and their Lt's get revolver training. Seriously what is up with all the swords and knives and other D&D crap? I wish I could remember who said/wrote an explanation of why high tech societies using ancient tech weapons I could live with was but I don't. The gist of the premise was there is so much technology stuff on a starship that bullets and energy beams flying around would cause all kinds of collateral damage that could be fatal to everyone on the ship. Damage the controls of M Drive and off you go into an orbital body or the deep dark. Unplanned jump anyone? Runaway power plant to ruin the day? That's just the engineering deck. Now add that you are in a vacc suit/combat armor with restricted vision in the tight close range of a starship interior and it becomes more likely intended or not hand to hand becomes more common. Also as I seem to think I read somewhere else humans find the idea of being attacked with a knife much more frightening than a gun. I fear it was a police show where I heard it so it could be total BS but I could see someone trying to hack my arm off rather than shoot me being more terrifying.

Most of this is me trying to come up with a reason worth suspending disbelief and still using the rules as presented. Let me be clear in that I am not saying the Marines or anyone else for that matter are going in without guns. The nature of shipboard combat gives a the reason so many people know how to kill you with a knife or sword or spear. Any one buying this because I am still underwhelmed. More so considering most times the character spends 4 years of their life and said primitive weapon is the most noteworthy skill they pick up.

Starter Traveller post 5, career types Navy

For the next couple of posts I am going to go through the careers in ST and Citizens of the Imperium Supplement 4 and the Law Enforcer which I think is in a JTAS and I know is in MT. I will look at what the game says; skills available and the Mustering Out benefits and how I am going to apply them in my view of the Imperium. Keep in mind I have decided that all pre-game career generation is in service to the Imperium which has a universal conscription and no provision for enlisting as anything other than rank 0 scrubbo no matter the service or UPP of the character. How sincere the stated goal of universal employment and skill training is remains up in the air as does the claim all the services promote on merit. Starting with Starter Traveller itself here we go.

NAVY
The service is described as patrolling space defending society from lawless elements and foreign invaders. Meh, that works. From latter works we know there are Imperial Fleets; Imperial Reserve Fleets and local squadrons. During character generation service is with an Imperial Fleet only. People go from the Imperial navy to local (world) navies or noble huscarles but everyone starts serving the Emperor. It is harder than average to volunteer for the navy with Intelligence offering a slight bonus and Education offering a bigger one. Which using my take on the UPP means knowing a bunch of stuff by memory. The naval entrance exam therefor is a grueling test covering a very wide swath of possible knowledge relying mostly on concrete facts rather than problem solving.

Survival indicates it is moderately dangerous with an Intelligence DM showing quick thinking is key in avoiding what dangers come up.

Commission is where nepotism makes its first appearance it is friggin' hard to get a commission from the ranks and Social Status is what gives you a leg up. A little more thought and it seems likely to me the Emperor wants his fleets controlled by people tied to the future of the Imperium most closely which means his feudal vassals the nobles.

Promotion is a little less likely than average and again the Education DM implies giant tests of facts rather than problem solving. The difference between the difficulty in gaining a commission and getting promoted is significant on a 2D6 roll so once you get rank it is possible to advance.

However the reenlistment is not conducive to a long career. Having no DM for reenlistment makes me even more content with the everyone gets drafted idea because the career system does make your career end kind of arbitrary in there is no way to improve your chance to continue.

Mustering out of the Navy gives you an equal chance for the best and worst kind of travel; improved mental agility; a really significant bump in the crap you know; Blade combat and finally membership in TAS. If you made it to Rank 5 or 6 you can zip into the peerage with +2 to SOC  on every 6. Passage vouchers can be used on any ship at any time so I am thinking they are awards by a grateful company/vessel to the crew a of a naval vessel for a rescue of some kind so it is a civilian perk not government one. The Intelligence and Education increases represent the years of living under naval expectations and what they train their people for. TAS is weird to me because if you don't get it mustering out it would cost 1 Mcr. So I think of it as a partnership between the Imperium and TAS in a kind of lottery if you get TAS you could goof off never working again by cashing in your high passage for 8,000 a month for life. The Blade reward is an actual bladed weapon (and skill 0 if not already possessed) with additional awards being different weapons or +1 skill in the same weapon.

This benefit has always mystified me, why the sudden knife fights at the end of your career? True you can view it as something that took place during the career and it is a mechanic of the game that awards it at the end but there is a stranger possibility that occured to me. Combine my belief the Imperium gives the option to return you to your homeworld at the end of enlistment and TAS giving 16% of naval personal the million credit prize upon leaving the service with humankind's fascination with individual conflict and we have the campaign enhancing and creepy TNS exclusive traveling retirement tournaments. If you take up the offer for returning home you travel along on your way home participating in televised first blood duels amongst the various services. Kind of an olympic reality TV recruitment propaganda campaign with TAS getting revenue from broadcasting and the services getting tv exposure to boost enlistment. And this GM enhances his setting where the Imperium is tone deaf to how it can appear not to care about individual citizens, everybody wins! The final high rank getting a noble title also adds to my earlier supposition the Imperium wants those people capable of leading a fleet loyal to the current structure of the Imperium.

The cash table just comes out odd as you can get between 1000 and 150,000 credits with gambling skill of any level being the only DM. <shrug> I got nothing.

However I would suggest and am going to see if it is worthwhile to have each roll represent something worth at least a sentence of backstory. Sitting here writing a blog this seems a good idea actual rolling needs to be done to see if is worth it.

On to the skill tables. The personal development table gives an equal chance to increase any of your characteristics, meh.

Service skills I have always taken to represent the most common tasks that need to be performed and the Navy has Ship's Boat; Vacc Suit; Forward Observer; Gunnery; Blade Combat and Gun Combat. Hmmm, looking at this it seems to me the navy does a lot of boarding actions as all except Forward Observer are useful for this. It also seems the Navy routinely bombs land based targets. If we take my point of view these are the skills the Navy expects its members to need it indicates a fair amount of unequal contests ie piracy and uprisings.

Moving on to the first Advanced Education table we get Vacc Suit; Mechanical; Electrical; Engineering; Gunnery and Jack of all Trades. Vacc Suit makes sense in that the first thing ships are going to do if combat seems likely is depressurize their interiors. The next three seems to indicate keeping the equipment on the ship running is important. Gunnery has shown up twice as well because the Navy is there to shoot stuff when you come down to it. Finally the oddball skill of JOT which is poorly explained leading to really interesting debates on the G+ group on what it should be used for. I am leaning toward it being a DM pool that can be used on any roll and resets every gaming session in addition to the stated level-0 in all other skills.

Finally the is the 8+ Education Advance Education table which I again believe can be explain by that most beloved of bureaucratic tools the standardized test. You have to test to get into the technical schools for these skills Medical; Navigation; Engineering; Computer; Pilot and Administration. Making these skills harder to get would imply the Navy wants more control over the people capable of doing them and looking at them they are the ones which will have an effect on a whole ship rather than the personal on the ship individually.

Not to be ignored are the two rank awards of +1 SOC each as you rise in rank again supporting my view the people able to lead a ship into a fight are the ones the Imperium wants tied to the current status quo.

So we end up with a service that is moderately difficult to get into, really hard to get rank in and probably not one you are going to retire from. While in you spend a lot of time in Vacuum and fights. The more prestigious jobs involve you with keeping the ship going. You also spend a huge amount of time taking tests checking how well you memorize stuff. If you can get a commission you can get promoted and will move in higher and higher circles of society as you do. When you get out you get somewhere between lame and decent money and recognition through free tickets an exclusive membership most people dream about the way we do about winning the lottery and the possibility of some media exposure getting in sensationalized combats with sharp things. If you got high rank chances are good you will receive a title. Applying this to ship design theory I see naval vessels as having the bridge (and senior officers) separated from the rest of crew, every vessel having small craft and at least a few missile weapons for bombardments.

Eldritch RPG by Crossroad Games

Having recently started a series of posts to get ready for a possible Traveller game I discovered sharing with the G+ community is going to make it better by getting views other than my own. I decided to try it with my next Fantasy game as well. My favorite Fantasy RPG is Eldritch RPG by Crossroads Games. It is simple to play and run and the first game I ran on Roll20 was pretty fun before the real world intruded and brought it to a close before any of would have liked. What I am planning on doing is going through the rules as presented in the book giving my take on them (and soliciting other opinions). In the interest of transparency I am an online friend of one of the authors +Eldritch Role Playing Game Dan Cross although I have no ties to the company.

Who the heck am I? I am a 50 year old guy from Massachusetts who has been playing RPG's since I got the Holmes Blue Book in freshman year in high school. I will try and avoid terms like OSR, rules light, story telling and the most common terms thrown around these days because I have noticed they seem to mean something different to each person. <sigh> I will try and expect to fail to convey a sense of the game my expectation of failure has nothing to do with the game. It really is a game that is best played rather than described because it is really intuitive to play but when you describe it it doesn't sound like it. At it's core everything has a die (or series of dice) assigned to it and you roll those dice to exceed a target number. It is a point buy classless system which awards points to improve your character's die sizes or ranges rather than gain levels. There are a bunch of default very broad skills that everyone start with a D4 in and you build your character by increasing the size of the base die or refining the skill with a die in a narrower subset of the skill. For example everyone has Melee D4 which covers any form of beating the snot out of each other with something standing toe to toe. You decide your character is better than average at it so you can bump the D4 to a D6 or D8 or you have a picture of a guy with a walking stick which he uses in combat so you could add a D4 in Bludgeon or Bludgeon D4 and then 1 handed club D4. If Example Guy is standing in a bar holding a short sword (because his party is harassing him all the real heroes use sword) and all of a sudden a gang of orcs attack he rolls a D4 in combat as he retreats toward the umbrella stand. Disarmed he picks up a stray war hammer and starts using D4+D4 until reaching his ebony walking stick when he starts dealing a D4+D4+D4. These are called Ability Die Chains (ADC) and are the core of the system. ADC are simple and flexible letting you to create whatever you want to play without the need for a ton of rules.They all follow the same template extremely broad field / Specialty applying to a lot of situations/ Mastery applying to most cases the PC's can be prepared for. As for GMing the game it is a matter of how much crunch you want to use. There are rules for most of the common fantasy situations but you also look at the situation pick a difficulty and randomly generate a target number.

Having actually run the game and most players I had having no experience with system at all I can tell you explaining was less helpful than just playing. The GM needs a basic idea but not a mastery which is why I am going to go through the book cover to cover to actually know the rules rather than think I know them. The way I did character generation was to ask what the player wanted to play without explaining the rules. Refined a backstory with the player to put them in the game world and then I built the character and did a final tweak with the player. This worked really well with me and the players having fun and them ending up with more than just a fighter or wizard or cleric. You will get different results depending on your group but it is a method to think about. Crap that was a lot of blabbing to say Eldritch works really well to develop a concept and then figure out the rules to meet the concept.

The hardest thing about playing or running Eldritch is accepting it is as easy as it is. This came up over and over again with both me and most of my players continuously over complicating something because we were use to more traditional games. If you find yourself thinking you need to looks something up in the book you are probably overthinking the situation. However there are rules you probably won't memorize right away, disarming (Melee and Ranged) the spell system (not hard but you can make any spell you can imagine) and some other things related to doing movie hero kinds of stuff. Because the system leans more toward a cinematic level of play than realistic.

And rereading this confused mess I am sadly unsurprised I met my expectation of failure. It is a really, really fun game that is easy to play and run which if you are looking for something new I think is worth a look.

Starter Traveller post 4

Oddly there are a couple sections before discussing the types of careers so I will deal with them first. MUSTERING OUT is pretty straight forward with the exception of the restriction of no more than 3 rolls for cash. Given my premise that the pre-game careers represent service in a government job I postulate this is a restriction put in place because of popular demand in reaction to a portrayal of more than a certain amount as an insider scam to inflate government employee benefits unavailable to the private sector. I am okay with this as it fits my idea of a tension between the average person and the Imperium as a whole.

AGING is a painful thing to contemplate what was completely reasonable to me before I was 30 is insulting now that I am over 50. What I am talking about is the rules saying you start your downhill spiral at 34. I am not a biologist so this can be true and if I am honest I can admit I noticed after 25 there were things I could no longer do. Most of those things I now view as foolish like excessive alcohol consumption and failure to sleep which adds to the feeling of unreasonable persecution in the game. Mechanics wise and story wise I can't see a need to screw with it though but I want to. Weirdly there is the implication you are stuck with a character until that character dies or turns 66. Or maybe not so weird as character generation is pretty much presented as playing the hand of cards you are randomly dealt. Regardless I don't think anyone is going to be surprised I have no intention of enforcing this rule and there by encouraging a campaign derailment from player disinterest.

NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS is the final section before we get to the career type overviews. Seemingly somewhat out of place it is placed here I believe because the GM is supposed to roll them up as full blown characters. Decidedly different than most other games but not terribly difficult to do ahead of times in traveller.

Crown Prince Paulo announces sweeping new Imperial progam

Traveller News Service 038-718 Capital/Core 0508-A586A98-F
Crown Prince Paulo today announced that with the completion of the X-Boat network another sweeping new Imperial program would begin universal conscription. "During her regency my ancestor Empress Arbellatra not only searched for a legitimate heir but also commissioned detailed and in depth sociological studies to try and understand what drove the instability in imperial society that allowed the civil war to continue as long ans as pointlessly as it did. After bowing to the wishes of the Moot and the subjects of the Iridium Throne at large and accepting the crown and all it's burdens these studies started reporting results. The central reason was the Imperium was seen as a force that acted on the average citizens life but cared little for them. Directed to find a way to overcome this fallacy two projects were begun the first was the X-Boat network so the concerns of the people could be heard and addressed in a timely fashion no matter how far from Capital and the second was a means to give everyone a personal connection to the Imperium and provide training in a career to allow them to have a fulfilling life. In pursuit of the second goal every citizen regardless of social position will upon attaining their majority be required to serve the Imperium for 4 years in some capacity. Hand in hand with the Nobles of the Moot a wide variety of career paths are available and will not only provide a solid skill for the individual but also a way to improve the quality of life for the Imperium as a whole. Further details are available from your local noble.


Traveller News Service 038-1018 Capital/Core 0508-A586A98-F
On the 300th anniversary of universal conscription the University of Sylea held a symposium on benefits gained from it and lessons learned during its implementation. On the whole the academics found it a positive program leading to a more cohesive sense of belonging and proving a workable way of the long talked about universal employment at least for 18 to 22 year olds. Some quibbled with it distorting the fundamental free market system that forms the foundation of Imperium. The most heated moment came when it was asserted the lessons from the program where used in the Psionic Suppression's as asserted by Albert Croale in Crisis of '99. This theory has never been proved and is hotly denied by Imperial Officials but remain popular with the fringe conspiracy theory crowd.

*Traveller News Service; Capital/Core 0508-A586A98-F; X-Boat; Arbellatra; Iridium Throne; Sylea; Psionic Supression's; Albert Croale and Crisis of '99 are all the intellectual creations of GDW and I am in no way claiming any rights to them or their usage. I believe I am following fair use but if I am not please let me know and I will delete this post

Starter Traveller part 3 with a guest appearance by Supplement 4 and MT

First off don't forget where you put your glasses it can delay things like reading and reviewing game rules. The next section is DIE ROLLING CONVENTIONS which doesn't relay anything controversial or worth extra comment on. CHARACTERS, ah now we get to something worth some consideration. First thing I would like to mention is TAS form 2 and maybe ID cars from Supplement 12 Forms, you should consider using them as a visual cue that you are playing Traveller. It may seem silly to some people but any subtle minimal effort required assistance to help players slip into the Third Imperium is welcomed by me. Even with my limited computer skills I can convert the PDF to an image file and then with minimal effort create a personalized card as a piece of digital bling at very least I think I will do this with the Imperial Draft Registration Card from the JTAS bundle. Not much real use but neat at least to me.

INITIAL CHARACTER GENERATION covers generating the base UPP; naming and possibly a title due the character. I had thought about allowing assigning the rolls as desired but upon reflection I think rolling in order is closer to the intent of the game and should allow for a better reflection of a modern too far future reality. We get the body we are born with and it is difficult, though not impossible, to change it too much; we have opportunities to chart our lives but outside forces heavily influence what skills we end up choosing. But I don't want to role play my life you say! and you shouldn't, however what this can be used to do is make your pudgy 48 year old ex-merchant even more heroic when he is holding the doorway of the Basilica of Ste. Besophere on Focaline against a squad of Vargr raiders to save the Nuns and Orphans inside. You are going to end up with a character who probably won't have stats as high as you would like and lacking the skills you want but if you and your players can get the right mind set it will be that much more awesome because they don't.

I have to pick some nits with the some characteristic definitions specifically Intelligence; Education and to a lesser degree Social Standing. Intelligence is described as "corresponds to IQ" which I find less than helpful from the stand point of playing the game. I don't know enough about the scale to use it in game terms instead I believe it is better thought of as a measure of how quickly a character can process and use information. Die rolls and characteristics should only really come up in dramatic situations so it is only game relevant when you are under the gun so to speak. How about a situation like the poem in Adventure 3? In case like that it is more a matter of mental discipline anyone with access to a Google like service can get the needed information but not everyone will when instead there are kitten videos they could be watching.

Education can be thought of as what degree you possess but I tend to think of it more as the amount of crap you retain, your built in Google result as it were like knowing the phrase "Damn the Torpedoes!" actually refers to mines not what most people would think of as torpedoes.

Social Standing is generally ignored unless the PC has a title and I am not entirely sure how to use this stat during a game. I am thinking about a DM in social situations relative to the each person involved. Two people of SOC 7 I think will relate better to each other because of a common style of upbringing than a SOC 2 thug and a SOC A debutante but I am not sure how much effort is involved and if it would be worth trying to figure out.

A final characteristic I am of two minds on is PSI or psionic strength. Should it be generated when the character is created or only when they have it tested? In the first case a player knowing their character has a high strength will probably cut their career generation short and push to find an institute right away. On the other hand it would suck to put in all the effort to find an institute only to have a PSI of 2. I am inclined to generate it at the start because players having this knowledge can be explained by their character having flashes of a 6th sense throughout their life. In a society that knows psionics are real it is a reasonable goal. Also getting bounced after one term can be explained as rumors and suspicions the PC is one of them dirty mind freaks as a spur to exploring the whole psi prejudice if that is desired by the player and GM.

ACQUIRING SKILLS AND EXPERTISE are the general rules for a PC's prior career and allows some speculation on how to use them to make the Imperium different than today. I plan on another post covering my thoughts on the 19 different careers available (6 in ST, 12 from Supplement 4 and 1 from MT) but I will say I am not a fan of the expanded careers. As I said earlier I like the idea of our plucky heroes (or comic reliefs) dealing with situations without having the optimal skill set or high levels of skills which the expanded systems get around with many more skill levels on the whole. If we start looking at the prior career system from a distance it does provide a very different way a government could try and run things.

With no higher learning options it seems the Imperium has decreed 18 to be the age of majority and apparently has mandatory Imperial service. I am inferring this from the start at 18 and enter a career as a simple member with no automatic officers, the Noble career is not part of this discussion as it is unique. So you turn 18 and try to pursue a career that is of interest to you but if you fail in that you get "drafted" even into non-military and perhaps non-governmental careers. I like this idea to make the Imperium different everyone who turns 18 (again lets skip the two careers that start at 14 for now) must serve at least 4 years in a branch of the Imperium. It means the Merchants become the Merchant Marine service instead of corporations and tramp traders to start which also explains how to enforce the fixed rates for passages and cargo. Also everyone starts as an equal level nobody and has to earn a commission into the officer (or leadership) ranks in a real or propaganda meritocracy.

The DM's allowing the simulation of the advantages various characteristics can provide. This also can quiet down  the justifiable complaint of why only 1 career  can be pursued. In my Imperium the pre-game career is your obligation to the Emperor and after that you start the rest of your life. So the Emperor has pirates and rogues? I suppose I could try and justify it but instead I think I will defer those until I am going through my takes on the different services.

Next is the most common house rule the muster out instead of die in generation rule. I am going to let the player make the call on which option they want to use on this after all if you do have a dreadful set of characteristics there is no reason not to allow suicide by scout enlistment as an option.

As for gaining skills I am really torn. I am leaning toward using the MT skill tables in place of the ST and supplement 4 ones. This is because I am much happier with the random roll to get a skill area and then the player picks a specific skill from a list. If you don't have MT let me give an example instead of getting "Pilot" you would get a table result of "Space" from which you pick one skill out of pilot;navigation;communication;sensor ops or computer (not sure that is an accurate list I don't have the books with me). So why not just use the MT system of basic character generation? It is tempting however  I am not convinced the increase in number of skills would end up adding to the game "feeling" I mentioned at the start of this post. Special duty for more skills sounds cool but then you add the extra skill for distinction and you can really bulk up how many skills you get per term.

Now I am aware that it is easy enough to end up with a character that didn't enlist where the player wanted them to enlist and have only two skills neither of which are flashy or exciting and that this isn't a great way to get the player to buy into the game you want to run. On the other hand I do like the "feel" it gives the setting. I will use two additional house rules one is a player can always choose a +1 in EDU in place of a skill roll to dodge the annoying no more skills than INT+EDU which is rarely a problem in basic character generation and any survival or reenlistment roll that is 4 or higher than required earns distinction and a bonus skill roll. The final thing this section mentions is retirement and I will use a modification someone else had suggested but I can't remember who to give them credit for it. Retirement pay is the amount given times the final rank.

Holy crap that is a wall of text. So keeping in mind the point of this series of posts is to use the rules to have a setting that is different without needing a ton of work to accomplish we can have the following points to consider.

1) Every Imperial citizen is an emancipated adult at 18

2) Every citizen must serve the Imperium in some form for at least 4 (optionally 2) years

3) How you serve and what training you receive is determined by the needs of the Imperium not personal choice

4) Everyone is more or less equal in the eyes of the Imperium to start.

So Bob Farmerson turns 18 in Hayseed City on Regina and gets a notice to report to the office of his Imperial Noble where he is briefed on his options and applies for a career. In a couple weeks he leaves for either the service he applied to or for one the Imperium picks for him and does 4 years work in a field that best suits the needs of the Emperor. This suits my goal of having a government that is omnipresent but impersonal