rld (02/16/83)
I have GM'ed a group of D&D players at work here in PY, and also a couple of friends at home in Traveller, and written a character generation program. I'll send you a copy of the program (runs on 4.0, I havent tried it on 5.0) on request, if we can establish a workable path through the network. About your questions: 1) I don't know of any sure rules about aging of characters. My impression is that the risk of losing a point on physical characteristics is worth it for getting more skills. The games is really oriented toward the possesion of skills, and it's practically impossible to gain skill after you start playing. What Traveller needs is an experience point/level advancement thing like D&D. 2) I've never used the Mercenary or High guard rules, so I don't know. Medic-3 is supposed to be equivalant to M.D.! I have trouble deciding how to apply non-combat skills to activities. Especially perplexing is the Jack-of-all-Trades skill. I had a player (with JoaT) who thought it meant he could do anything at all at skill level 1 anytime. In other words, level 1 Everything. I couldn't allow such a strong skill to play with the others, so I put vague restrictions on how much Joat would count. In practice, I decided at the moment depending on what he was trying to do. 3) We never used ship-to--ship combat, its too complicated and not of interest top the hack-and-slashers. Personal combat is more popular, that way you get to see the blood, and an individuals effort seems to count for more 4) I haven't added new skills, but I did add a new Service. It's called the Researchers, and one got +DMs for high intelligence, was more likely to gain in Education, Computer, Administration, Engineering but rarely saw any type of combat skills. One could even lose strength due to the sedentary, indoors lifestyle. The entry level is called TA, but a character can get promoted to MTS, Super, Head, Director, Ex.Director ... Bob Duncanson pyuxnn!rld