The next career is Diplomat which I had originally limited to Marines and Navy but on further thought it is an option for the Army as well. This has an impact on both the aims of the diplomatic corp and the view of the Imperial Government held by non-members. I am not implying that the diplomatic goals are all militarily oriented but that military posture is the most important thing to the Imperials. Conversely it means outside powers are probably wary at the very least and have a more militant posture than would necessarily be the case if approached differently.
It is not easy to join with a higher education level being helpful but having the right family and friends is much more helpful. Survival is virtually guaranteed with a not very needed bump from having a good education. A commission is not terribly hard to get those who can think quickly have an edge. A promotion on the other hand is very hard equal in difficulty to the Navy again the friends and family plan helps your chances. Your odds of keeping your job are better than all three of the base careers although retiring can't be counted on.
When you muster out you can get low passage; Int; Edu; Weapon; Soc; high passage and/or Traveller's Aid. So the Diplomatic corp competes in the more intellectual Separation Games but also fields teams in marksmanship and fencing. Also working with the right people can get you ahead in society, let you travel in style and possibly get on one of the high prize games. As for cash it is the most lucrative service as of yet. I have expanded my vision of mustering out to be a huge game show spectacle that all services have their members compete in during their final 6 months of duty. The various awards represent training or actual prizes won.
Onto skills with a preamble. Diplomats get Liaison as a default skill and can get Interrogation; Recruiting and Instruction from the skill tables and none of them are base skills. None of these seem valuable enough to me to add to the game. There are only interpersonal skills in the base skill list. Bribery covers getting someone to do something against their self interest. Leadership is inspiring confidence or at least obedience in underlings. Steward covers operating as or in a subordinate position. Finally Streetwise is functioning in a hostile social group. So I am replacing Liaison with Streetwise to represent being comfortable with strangers and strange customs. Interrogation is replaced with Bribery to represent offer a personal benefit to outweigh any loyalties. Recruiting becomes Leadership as it is being the kind of person that attracts followers. Instruction is replaced by Steward because it is the last one. Seriously though learning a new skill is covered without the need for Instruction and I think Diplomats should be or at least have the opportunity to learn how to deal with any social situation.
The Personal Development table has another add on skill I missed Carousing which I am replacing with Steward. So you get Str; Edu; Int; Blade; Gun and Steward. Strength is a little odd seeming to imply training in resisting abductions attempts perhaps. The mental traits are handy in social situations. The 2 combat options make sense as Diplomats will be outside Imperial borders so self reliance in holding the embassy is a good thing. Steward is good for making your boss think you are a good little drone. The Service Skill table covers those skills the service uses most frequently Int; Vacc Suit; Vehicle x2; Gambling and Computer. Okay, that doesn't make a lot of sense but we'll work with it. Intelligence is thinking quickly so that can be useful, Vacc Suit is plausible because Diplomats spend a great deal of time traveling in space (also it is the same as cloth without being seen as armor). Vehicle can mean the lower ranking diplomats operate as chauffeurs a lot. Gambling is endemic in Imperial service and Computer is valuable in any technical society. The first Advanced Education table is more along the lines of the service skill tables for the services I have done so far. It offers Forgery; Streetwise; Bribery; Leadership; Steward and Admin leaving me with the impression of a service without an abundance of scruples. Forgery and Bribery are both underhanded and illegal ways of achieving your objective, Streetwise isn't necessarily dealing with criminals just those suspicious or hostile to you, Leadership and Steward are more dealing with your own people and Administration is dealing with the multi-part overlords of all. The restricted Advanced Education table has Streetwise x2; Admin; Computer; Soc and JOT. So you are dealing with foreigners more frequently, an increased involvement with paperwork, feathering your own cap and dealing with whatever comes up using what you have at hand.
Meh, I don't hate what I came up with but it doesn't do much for me either. It would appear that the Imperial Diplomatic Corps is a somewhat shifty and paranoid group that emphasizes awareness that you are among strangers and you should look for weak links to exploit. Being one of the few services to offer leadership training they do value bold thinking while also jealously guarding the perks of rank like being driven around and being deferred to.
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Return to Starter Traveller
No longer being one financial setback away from homelessness I stumbled on my old series of blog posts going through Starter Traveller and Supplement 4 to extrapolate a version of the future using the rolls as presented. I had managed to get through the base 6 careers and did the first two in supplement 4 which I was using as secondary careers that opened up after an initial enlistment in one of the 6 basic careers. The next one up is the Sailors open to Army personal who have reenlisted and then succeed in an enlistment roll. My thinking is the Army is tasked with fighting on a worlds surface and the Sailors specialize in an environmental subset of a worlds surface. To summarize the Navy fights in space over interstellar distances and the Marines fight to control the approaches to a planet.
The Sailors are more selective in who they accept with a slightly higher roll and higher stats to get a bonus to the roll. They value endurance and Strength with the latter having a higher effect. The survival rate is the same however the Army gets a boost from a fairly mundane level of education and sailors get a bump from a better than average Endurance. The chances for commission and promotion are the same but a high endurance helps to get a commission in the Sailors as opposed to the Army's Education and both feature a bonus from Education for Promotion although the Sailor's need a higher stat to get the bonus. Finally if you get into the Sailors you have a better chance to keep your job needing a 6 as opposed to the Army's 7. Looking at mustering out we see Low Passage; +1 Edu; Weapon x2; High Passage x2 and if you are rank 5 or 6 +1 Soc. So they can win the base line passage in the Separation Games and the service is equally competitive in the blade and marksmanship contests. On the higher end of the scale Sailors seem more welcome in the better social circles with High Passages and the chance to move up in the world at least socially. Their mustering out pay is identical to the regular Army.
Skill advancement is odd in that you do not get an automatic Watercraft - 1 unlike Flyer who all get Aircraft - 1. The Personal Development Table has +1 to the physical stats; Gambling; Brawling and Carousing. So the Service doesn't promote education as a way to advance in life. Like most branches of the Imperial government they promote gambling. They train their members in unarmed combat implying much of their work is more law enforcement rather than combat. Carousing isn't one of the Starter Traveller skills and I don't really see it offering much to the game beyond Steward or Streetwise the 2 closest matches. Harking back to the impression of a law enforcement component it gets replaced by Streetwise. Service skills are Gun; Commo; Fwd Obs; Vehicle x2 and Battle Dress. Keep in mind I am viewing these as the skills the service needs most to perform it's job. Gun Combat isn't surprising for any of the armed services. Communications is another skill not in Starter Traveller and also one I don't see a pressing need to add I am replacing it with Navigation which covers the operation of sensors as well as going from point A to B. Forward Observer is a sensible skill for a service operating vessels armed with stand off weaponry. Vehicle as opposed to the more specific Watercraft of the next table fits with my premise of this being a subordinate branch of the Army in that they could be trained to operate any vehicle and most vehicles operate on or near the worlds surface. This can also account for Aircraft Carriers and Amphibious Assault ships. Battle Dress exists are an item in Starter Traveller but not a separate skill and I can't see why the branch of the Army specialize for aquatic missions would be the only branch to get it. It is replaced with Vacc Suit to represent the most common version of diving suit. The first Advanced Education table has Watercraft; Electronics; Mechanical; Gravitics; Navigation and Demolitions. I am somewhat at a loss to rationalize why the service would provide a more restricted version of Vehicle as an Advanced skill. Keep in mind that Vehicle has Watercraft under it so you are twice as likely to achieve this using the Service Skill table. That being said it isn't unreasonable that the service would specifically train people in the operation of watercraft so I won't change it. Electrical and Mechanical are both necessary to operate any kind of vehicle. Gravitics is another added later skill I don't see as adding much value so it become Engineering which covers fusion power plants the most common source of power. Navigation is also a sensible skill even with its interstellar applications. Demolitions is another addition that seems way to narrow a skill when using the Starter Traveller set given the small amount of skills you are likely to get. I am replacing it with Gunnery so the earlier Forward Observer skill has some use as otherwise there is no way to get experience in firing heavy weapons in the Sailors. The final Advanced Education table provides Medical; Vehicle; Streetwise; Computer; Admin and JOT. Medical; Computer and Administration are reasonable for any service to value enough to provide training for. The generic Vehicle as opposed to Watercraft strikes me as odd although not enough to change it. Streetwise seems to reaffirm my view of the Sailors operating as a paramilitary police force with specific train in infiltrating underground groups. And JOT strikes me as a program to train people for unconventional problem solving.
And now the part I have enjoyed most doing this posts, what can we interpret the various rolls to mean? Looking at the skills you can earn it strikes me that the Sailors are them Imperial occupation force. The Navy gets you to the System then the Marines get you a way to land the Army on the world. After the Army eliminates organized resistance they plop down some subs and carriers to support a few divisions of Amphibious troops and leave. The prevalence of vehicle rather than Watercraft means (to me at least) the most common craft the average member of the service operate are not watercraft at all. I am aware submarines can exists undetected for extended periods of time but they cannot retake a world or even materially impact an occupation force on a global scale. This means the water is the best place to keep your occupying troops as it would be extremely difficult to mount even harassing attacks versus ships either underwater or 100+ klicks from the nearest shore. Again with vehicle being so prevalent most sailors are more frequently traveling by something other than watercraft. Brawling being as likely as Gun Combat implies it is as desirable not to kill a target as to just shoot them, you can't kill your way to being popular with the locals. Streetwise (even before my addition) implies that the service trains people to move about in situations where they will be mistrusted but still need to get information which seems like a good thing for an occupying force to know. It also explains train for JOT as no other of the Armed Services provide it.
The Sailors are more selective in who they accept with a slightly higher roll and higher stats to get a bonus to the roll. They value endurance and Strength with the latter having a higher effect. The survival rate is the same however the Army gets a boost from a fairly mundane level of education and sailors get a bump from a better than average Endurance. The chances for commission and promotion are the same but a high endurance helps to get a commission in the Sailors as opposed to the Army's Education and both feature a bonus from Education for Promotion although the Sailor's need a higher stat to get the bonus. Finally if you get into the Sailors you have a better chance to keep your job needing a 6 as opposed to the Army's 7. Looking at mustering out we see Low Passage; +1 Edu; Weapon x2; High Passage x2 and if you are rank 5 or 6 +1 Soc. So they can win the base line passage in the Separation Games and the service is equally competitive in the blade and marksmanship contests. On the higher end of the scale Sailors seem more welcome in the better social circles with High Passages and the chance to move up in the world at least socially. Their mustering out pay is identical to the regular Army.
Skill advancement is odd in that you do not get an automatic Watercraft - 1 unlike Flyer who all get Aircraft - 1. The Personal Development Table has +1 to the physical stats; Gambling; Brawling and Carousing. So the Service doesn't promote education as a way to advance in life. Like most branches of the Imperial government they promote gambling. They train their members in unarmed combat implying much of their work is more law enforcement rather than combat. Carousing isn't one of the Starter Traveller skills and I don't really see it offering much to the game beyond Steward or Streetwise the 2 closest matches. Harking back to the impression of a law enforcement component it gets replaced by Streetwise. Service skills are Gun; Commo; Fwd Obs; Vehicle x2 and Battle Dress. Keep in mind I am viewing these as the skills the service needs most to perform it's job. Gun Combat isn't surprising for any of the armed services. Communications is another skill not in Starter Traveller and also one I don't see a pressing need to add I am replacing it with Navigation which covers the operation of sensors as well as going from point A to B. Forward Observer is a sensible skill for a service operating vessels armed with stand off weaponry. Vehicle as opposed to the more specific Watercraft of the next table fits with my premise of this being a subordinate branch of the Army in that they could be trained to operate any vehicle and most vehicles operate on or near the worlds surface. This can also account for Aircraft Carriers and Amphibious Assault ships. Battle Dress exists are an item in Starter Traveller but not a separate skill and I can't see why the branch of the Army specialize for aquatic missions would be the only branch to get it. It is replaced with Vacc Suit to represent the most common version of diving suit. The first Advanced Education table has Watercraft; Electronics; Mechanical; Gravitics; Navigation and Demolitions. I am somewhat at a loss to rationalize why the service would provide a more restricted version of Vehicle as an Advanced skill. Keep in mind that Vehicle has Watercraft under it so you are twice as likely to achieve this using the Service Skill table. That being said it isn't unreasonable that the service would specifically train people in the operation of watercraft so I won't change it. Electrical and Mechanical are both necessary to operate any kind of vehicle. Gravitics is another added later skill I don't see as adding much value so it become Engineering which covers fusion power plants the most common source of power. Navigation is also a sensible skill even with its interstellar applications. Demolitions is another addition that seems way to narrow a skill when using the Starter Traveller set given the small amount of skills you are likely to get. I am replacing it with Gunnery so the earlier Forward Observer skill has some use as otherwise there is no way to get experience in firing heavy weapons in the Sailors. The final Advanced Education table provides Medical; Vehicle; Streetwise; Computer; Admin and JOT. Medical; Computer and Administration are reasonable for any service to value enough to provide training for. The generic Vehicle as opposed to Watercraft strikes me as odd although not enough to change it. Streetwise seems to reaffirm my view of the Sailors operating as a paramilitary police force with specific train in infiltrating underground groups. And JOT strikes me as a program to train people for unconventional problem solving.
And now the part I have enjoyed most doing this posts, what can we interpret the various rolls to mean? Looking at the skills you can earn it strikes me that the Sailors are them Imperial occupation force. The Navy gets you to the System then the Marines get you a way to land the Army on the world. After the Army eliminates organized resistance they plop down some subs and carriers to support a few divisions of Amphibious troops and leave. The prevalence of vehicle rather than Watercraft means (to me at least) the most common craft the average member of the service operate are not watercraft at all. I am aware submarines can exists undetected for extended periods of time but they cannot retake a world or even materially impact an occupation force on a global scale. This means the water is the best place to keep your occupying troops as it would be extremely difficult to mount even harassing attacks versus ships either underwater or 100+ klicks from the nearest shore. Again with vehicle being so prevalent most sailors are more frequently traveling by something other than watercraft. Brawling being as likely as Gun Combat implies it is as desirable not to kill a target as to just shoot them, you can't kill your way to being popular with the locals. Streetwise (even before my addition) implies that the service trains people to move about in situations where they will be mistrusted but still need to get information which seems like a good thing for an occupying force to know. It also explains train for JOT as no other of the Armed Services provide it.
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