Dead Is Dead ... Maybe

My fellow grognards may burn me in effigy but this post has been cooking for a while.

If you're going to play Classic Traveller then you roll up a character and take your chances. You may end up with a bunch of snake eyes for stats, or a one term wonder or see your Grand Admiral of the Stars nerf his survival roll and start rolling again as playing an impervious memorial statue is not your thing.

I never went with the fail a survival roll and you get mustered out after two years, no skill rolls or benefits for that term. It's called survival roll for a reason.

However I also understand players wanting characters who are hotshots, femme fatales and badasses. Having a character you've spent time crafting die or having one with worse stats than you, the player, can be a let down. So I offer the following system as a compromise.

You can still die.

You can still get shitty stats.

You could still be a one term wonder.

But not all three. Not likely. Not if you're smart.

I propose you start charges with a fixed number of character points. Say four points, three if you're in the Scouts. You'll see why in a minute.

Each point lets you succeed at a roll. You can even decide after the roll if you want to negate it and merely succeed by saving a point.If you're a Scout you can take automatic success in survival rolls and breathe easily, for three terms. Another use of character points would be dictating your roll for skills or benefits or even promotions.

So we make chargen less of a crapshoot and more of a resource allocation game. Do you succeed at promotion that last time and then take a chance on dying? Do you become a high ranking officer with few useful skills (not that this happens for real, ever!)? Do you take chances for many random skills but have a living breathing Scout? Do you save up all your rolls and wind up with a paid off merchant ship?

This could be a good compromise as I can see no one being satisfied with it. Of course you can set as many points as you wish for players and even make them 'pay' for them in little ways. You use a point for a promotion and it means you called in a favor and owe someone. You burn a point to survive and you wind up being cyborg at Simon-Kirby Memorial. What can go wrong?

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