Traveller: Part 2 - Character Creation

Let's build a character. Part two of my series on Mongoose Traveller Second Edition (MGT2). Today we go over character creation rules.

Guest starring The Gang and Jack the NPC

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
3:03 Let’s Build a Character!
3:46 Characteristics
5:46 Background Skills
7:13 Term 1 Pre-Career Education
9:33 Term 2
13:52 Term 3
15:31 Term 4
19:19 Term 5 with Injury
24:08 Term 6 with Ageing
26:13 Mustering Out
30:06 Connections
32:53 Skill Packages
34:28 Starting Equipment
35:16 Character Done
35:25 Meet Jack
37:34 Rules Not Mentioned
38:07 Alternate Creation Methods
38:48 Closing

[marekjurko]

Mongoose made a deal of their lives sending you those books. Those videos (with great emphasis on this one) are going to be a great boon for getting people to try Traveller.

[swaghauler]

"Getting old sucks."
It's not just the age, it's the mileage too.

[RIlianP]

How was your game? "My character died during character creation of old age, he lived full life."

[jeffjones]

A zero in a skill means you know just enough to be dangerous to yourself and others.

[EvilDMMk]

Seth: in going to say intelligence where I mean intellect.
During term 2, calls the intelligence assignment intellect...

[Skysaber]

"Doors and corners. You go into a room too fast, kid, the room eats you."

[OriginalWarwood]

My favorite story built by one of my players is the noble debutant, turned Medical Doctor, who took a job with Doctors Without Borders, but was imprisoned and learned demolitions while a political prisoner. Not what the player planned, but she loved how it built the story framework for her to fill in.

[jccusell]

The character building in this game is better than a lot of full role playing games.

[shayulghul]

Dang, Traveller has the best zero-session mechanic. The Connections rule is a great idea. I'd love to try this with other RPGs.

[Olothur]

Odd enough, I find that making a player character in the Traveller RPG system is a solo game by itself. Amount of randomness and decision making and keeping records, while trying to connect all the dots into a coherent backstory is very fascinating.
I recommend trying.
I remember that when I checked the 2e rulebook (considered GMing a sci-fi game and looked for a specific ruleset), i've made 3 or 4 characters just for the fun of it.

[sj]

Please, don't ever apologize for video length. Your content is great! Entertaining and very informative. Your Call of Cthulhu series is what convinced me to give the game a try!

[MonkeyJedi]

In the before times, when Traveler has only its first edition, my friends and I would create characters between D&D weekends. We never played, because nobody was interested in running a sci-fi game at the time. But we created a battalion of travelers. Yeah, some were maimed beyond recognition, and some were utterly useless individuals, but they tried dammit.

[Ger]

I love the fact it's Jack. I feel now we are closer to Jack the npc. Good on you for that sir.

[dcinabro]

Boy does that bring back memories. Has anyone ever done a Traveller style character creation for medieval fantasy? It would be cool to be able to have a grizzled veteran fighter and magic school flunk out thief in a party.

[CaydenSworn]

Never played Traveller, but I've gone through character creation solo like it's its own game. Very fun, probs my fav character creation system in a TTRPG.

[grechaw]

I spent a couple of years of my youth making traveller characters and ships. Never even olayed the game. This is great memories.

[thechevyferrari]

YES!!!! You've been hyping up the Character Creation so much, I've been waiting for this vid for so long.

[Xplora]

Lent my oldest the first edition books. Forgot about this. It’s so interesting that this is so different to the 5e D&D approach and it’s EQUALLY deep and engaging but this doesn’t crush the newbie who doesn’t know how the feat tree works. Just make it happen. Let the dice decide and play the characters that the Cosmos has given you!!

[theemperormoth]

Character Creation is honestly what made me fall in love with Traveller, even though the Referee kind of played fast and loose with the system from start to finish.
The way the game build's your character's backstory is such a great boon to people who would otherwise not know where to start or if their start is even appropriate. But with Traveller, I ended up with prestige, losses, and a goal.

(The following is me gushing about my first Traveller character and my overall favorite character in any RPG. All of this came about with help from the base events Traveller character creation gives you).

The character, Rot'Qi was a sort of Mantis man character (we were all newbs so with the exception of the power gamer in the group, our alien races were all cosmetic/RP related) who was a minor noble/knight on his planet, and since I was/am a fan of Warhammer's Bretonnia, the planet was stuck in a feudal stasis that was broken recently by contact with the Imperium (Japan-style; technological/social angst about their puny place in the universe, etc.).

Rot'Qi's character could be summarized as "ASSSSHOLE!!!" but still *very* dedicated to honor and the duty of nobility (his starting career, as I rolled 10 SOC, which my Ref/I didn't know exactly how to calculate in actual play). He became known for fighting off a rival in duels (in both the actual CC and the test CC we had before when the ref was getting used to the system), and I ended up deciding that the rival was a daughter of 2nd generation nobility who really had a lot to prove (and thus couldn't stand the pompous character I was invested in playing).


However, Rot'Qi ended up getting played by an unknown courtier and had to leave the planet in exile, losing his noble title. This pretty well crushed him, motivating him to enlist in the Imperial Army (as I assumed it was at the time), wishing to prove his worth in battle or failing that, die and rid the sector of his shame (the war he ended up fighting in ended up being the same one two other PCs were fighting in...on the other side XD). However, the rival back home ended up missing their old game and he ended up finding solace in her, the two ending up being an informal couple (the relationship life event). This lit a sort of fire under his ass and gave him the gusto to whip his unit to fight until they could leave the planet.


When the adventure began, he regained the same arrogance that got him into some HILARIOUS pratfalls in actual play, but his goal was really to get a noble title and, thus, the permission to marry his girlfriend and get real happiness (and the arrogance would have lessened had the campaign actually lasted).


Whoo, what a wall. I hope you like this small story. Thanks for the video Seth, I hope more people get into Traveller because of it, it's as good an rpg as an rpg can get.

[jacobmartens]

This sounds like an awesome game, but I'm 34 and I don't think i can emotionally handle the existence of that aging table.