https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Soc4GrlymzY

Fucking Traveller again... I'm sure you old bastards on here will love this shit.

This seems to me like a game of chess would look if you got a couple of people who'd never played but just read the rules.

He seems not to have learned to game under a competent GM, and thus never learned the various little things you do to make games start and run smoothly.

Who?

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1053970https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Soc4GrlymzY

Fucking Traveller again... I'm sure you old bastards on here will love this shit.

Goddamn. Kill me now.....

Those characters sounded interesting.  

And definitely easier to play then some procedurally generated product of a point buy system, where you half-heartedly put your points into a whole lot of things with no real idea what they're going to add up to  - or you do know what you want - but can't do it anyway because there aren't enough points to go around.

A disgraced noble who joined the military got scarred and then abandoned on an alien planet for two years.  I know how to play that guy.  He's interesting.

Quote from: TJS;1053980Those characters sounded interesting.  

And definitely easier to play then some procedurally generated product of a point buy system, where you half-heartedly put your points into a whole lot of things with no real idea what they're going to add up to  - or you do know what you want - but can't do it anyway because there aren't enough points to go around.

A disgraced noble who joined the military got scarred and then abandoned on an alien planet for two years.  I know how to play that guy.  He's interesting.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.  

Also, that video triggered me.

Go through this list of options and pick the character type you want.

Now that I've set expectations and you have decided what you want to play, make a character by going through this lifepath system that doesn't really give a shit what you picked.

Wow, my players aren't happy. What went wrong?

Quote from: TJS;1053980A disgraced noble who joined the military got scarred and then abandoned on an alien planet for two years.  I know how to play that guy.  He's interesting.

That was what struck me (watched this last night) - guy rolls up an awesome character background that many pulp/military SF novelists would be proud of, and abandons the game because he didn't get to be a noble living a life of luxury. WTF?

Quote from: Sable Wyvern;1053985Go through this list of options and pick the character type you want.

Now that I've set expectations and you have decided what you want to play, make a character by going through this lifepath system that doesn't really give a shit what you picked.

Wow, my players aren't happy. What went wrong?

The problem lies in the first statement, not the second. That statement reflects a long-standing misunderstanding of Traveller, even among some of its long-time fans. The careers do not narrowly indicate the character's status at the end of character generation, but the starting point for character generation and a resulting broader set of possible outcomes. So the expectations set are inaccurate because the participants misunderstand what the careers imply.

for a different example, consider the Merchant career in Classic Traveller (CT) Bk1. The stereotype for a merchant PC is "mortgaged Free Trader". For some people that is "quintessentially Traveller", but that is statistically the least likely outcome of the Merchant career. It is in fact the least likely outcome of CT Bk1 chargen as a whole.

The solution?

1. Forget your assumptions from other games.
2. RTFM. All of them. (Bk 1-3 is a quick read, if you have CT.)
3. Know your probabilities.

Quote from: RandyB;1054014The problem lies in the first statement, not the second. That statement reflects a long-standing misunderstanding of Traveller, even among some of its long-time fans. The careers do not narrowly indicate the character's status at the end of character generation, but the starting point for character generation and a resulting broader set of possible outcomes. So the expectations set are inaccurate because the participants misunderstand what the careers imply.

for a different example, consider the Merchant career in Classic Traveller (CT) Bk1. The stereotype for a merchant PC is "mortgaged Free Trader". For some people that is "quintessentially Traveller", but that is statistically the least likely outcome of the Merchant career. It is in fact the least likely outcome of CT Bk1 chargen as a whole.

The solution?

1. Forget your assumptions from other games.
2. RTFM. All of them. (Bk 1-3 is a quick read, if you have CT.)
3. Know your probabilities.

I was pointing out the problem with the GM's approach, not suggesting the game does this. Traveller is not a game where you decide exactly what your character is going to be prior to commencing char-gen, so starting chargen by asking everyone to decide exactly what their character is going to be is stupid.

I was also annoyed about the discussion of ship cost, especially the suggestion that the characters would just sell the ship and retire.  How uncreative do you have to be to give them paid-off ship with no strings attached?  Off the top of my head:

* The ship was used in some piracy and is pursued by several governments
* It has a hidden cargo aboard that a crime lord wants
* The ship has a reputation as being cursed (or the scene of a massacre, or used in some religious ritual, or it's a lemon) that prevents people from wanting to buy it.

You could get at least one adventure out of that alone.

The PCs can always be employees, of a merchant or survey corporation  or a government that owns the ship. Or a noble house etc.

A self-described shitty GM is shitty at running a Traveller game. What's there to talk about?

Quote from: S'mon;1054010That was what struck me (watched this last night) - guy rolls up an awesome character background that many pulp/military SF novelists would be proud of, and abandons the game because he didn't get to be a noble living a life of luxury. WTF?

This is a guy who's worried that his players will sell the ship and retire, after all.

Retire. A PC. Before the first game session.

Quote from: Pat;1054036This is a guy who's worried that his players will sell the ship and retire, after all.

Retire. A PC. Before the first game session.

There's a story of a player who figured out how to "win" Shadowrun, I think 3rd edition:
"At character creation, I take priority A for resources, that gives me 1 Million $. With that money, I buy a lifelong middle class lifestyle. And DONE! My character doesn't have to work any more and retires! I just won the game! Of course, I can't play this character, so I make another one. Let me see... I take priority A for resources and buy a lifelong middle class lifestyle. And I just won again! This game is easy..."