Wherein your humble scribe presents a group of characters for (classic) Traveller. All of these were rolled up by-the-book from Book 1: Characters And Combat and/or Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium.
For years Logan “Fitz” FitzLogan was one of the more notorious con men in the Claybourne Subsector, but he’s been straight ever since his last conviction was overturned due to technical issues surrounding the case. He was last seen traveling in the company of a couple of lovely graduate students and a retired Army Major with a thing for guns, but the Alliance Patrol keeps losing their tracer on him somehow. Surely that’s just a coincidence.
Logan “Fitz” FitzLogan
877596 Age 34 4 Terms (Service: Rogue)
Streetwise-2, Forgery-2, Computer-1, AutoPistol-1, Liaison-1, Carousing-2
Cr110,000
Natsuko Coats
8A69B9 Age 30 3 Terms (Service: Scientist)
Computer-3, Electronic-1, Dagger-1, AutoPistol-1
Cr51,000
Jennifer Rebryk
886CB5 Age 26 2 Terms (Service: Scientist)
Computer-1, Jack of All Trades-1, AutoPistol-1, Medical-1
Cr12,000
Maxwell Lozyk
A87768 Age 30 3 Terms (Service: Army, Final Rank: Major)
Rifle-1, SMG-1, Shotgun-1, AutoRifle-1, Carbine-1, Mechanical-1, Electronic-1, Air/Raft-1
Cr22,000
Speaking of the Claybourne Sector, are you familiar with the star-system generation rules for GURPS Space? Inspired by Traveller, perhaps, but a bit more . . . involved.
You know, I flirted briefly with GURPS Traveller back in the late 90s, but I just used system info I’d already generated for Classic Traveller. So I never quite descended into the madness that was the GURPS Space system generation rules. Ultimately, I never really liked GURPS all that much. It was just too fiddly – and I say that as a long-time Hero System proponent*. I hated the 1 second combat rounds and the insane obsession with details that always seemed to annoy me more than they enhanced my experience at the table. Of course, I’m a pea-brained narrativist who hates moving miniatures around a battle mat, so what do I know? 🙂
I’m guessing you had some deeper experiences with those GURPS rules, G-Man. Care to share some war stories?
* I should note that, to me, the Hero System reached its absolute pinnacle with 4th edition (the Big Blue Book). Subsequent editions just got too GURPS-y for my tastes. Actually, now that I think about it, the real pinnacle of Hero was just before 4th, when the standalone games like Justice, Inc. and Fantasy Hero ruled.
Ah, GURPS war stories. How aptly put . . .
In GURPS defense: they put out some really great books of source material. I collect ’em still (can’t get my hands on the Conan one, though). Some are kinda meh, but all in all an excellent resource, not just for RPG material, but creative writing, helping the kids with history reports, etc. And with sidebars!
Now on to the horror: my old, tyrannical referee announced midway through a fantasy campaign that we were all making a “grand conversion” to GURPS. And it (generally) sucked. The “fiddly bits” really got in the way. I won’t go on about my beefs with chargen and the magic system in deference to any GURPS-fans who might be reading this, but just the mention of “quick contest of skill rolls” makes me cringe to this day.
Bar none, there was more rule-book flipping in GURPS than any other system I’ve played (and I played Aftermath, folks). One evening the ref introduced the Martial Arts book and thus ensued the most adjudicated, roll-for-every-goddamn-nuance combat I have seen. I think an unarmed combat fight between a couple opponents took two to three hours. It could have gone faster, mind, but the rules just seemed to encourage lawyering between player and ref.
About this time I began to experience the phenomenon of *toe-cutter* sessions. They’d go like this: it’d be two in the morning and we’d either be bogged down with the rules or a general lack of inertia, and I’d start thinking about cutting my toe off. If I did this, I reasoned, I could be in an ER in less than fifteen minutes, and the damn adventure would be over. I mean, really, what did that toe ever do for me.? It was just a useless little knob of flesh. Mocking me, almost, by staying attached.
Needless to say, I quit playing with that ref shortly afterwards.
Oh yes–I loved the old Hero system, too. Seems paradoxical after griping about GURPS being convoluted, but you had to love that character-building system. Endless fun.
I know it seems paradoxical, but I don’t think it actually is. Hero and GURPS, for all their similarities, are very different in reality. Hero never, ever required a bunch of rules lookup when I played it.
You are absolutely correct about the sourcebooks. SJG used to produce some amazing things on that front.
That definitely sounds like a Ref issue at its core, but god knows that the game system can aggravate those tendencies. The guy who used to run GURPS most often in my main group wasn’t anywhere near that annoying, but the game itself fostered more than its share of trouble. I never quite thought about cutting off a toe, but I think I was pretty close on more than one occasion!