SPOTS - Several Pages of Traveller Stuff

13.August 2015

Making Characters for Convention Games

Some hints for preparation

extrem glaring action for some crowded hours

If you referee a Traveller Adventure on a conventions, you have to prepare characters that fit to your adventure and you have to prepare beautiful character sheets. This is the start of a small series that gives rules, hints and forms for Convention Player Characters (CPCs).

Recently I prepared some CPCs that were used in two adventures on conventions. Everyone, who created more than ten characters with the rules of Mongoose Traveller, MegaTraveller, or Classic Traveller knows that this rules of creation are a solitary game of its own. This rules for character creation give an strong statement for the style and the flair of the whole game. Together with the rules they give a practical background and tell how the game universe works indirectly. For this reason it is important to prepare them carefully. The (solitary)rules of character creation are worth to be explained and played on conventions. On the next convention I will try and report of it.

CPCs operate in a different context than PCs, so preparing them one have to consider some details.

• There is never enough time on a convention so your CPCs have to work at once.
• The CPCs have to fit to your adventure. Adequate skills and equipment have to be at hand and fixed on the character sheet.
• The CPCs need enough details to become complete and interesting characters to play with.
• Too many details can prevent gamers to adopt their CPC easily. So the CPCs are not allowed to have many details.
• The character sheets should be made in a beautiful way. All important information must be found on the first glimpse but avoid to overcrowd the sheet. The player should feel comfortable and welcome to the game with this sheet.
• The CPCs must be balanced. Old veterans have significant more skills and resources, but are elder and less attractive. Young characters must have less skills and resources but are still playable. (A typical 22 year old character has only six skills at level 0 and one or two skills at level 1. This is all he needs to work, live and have fun in the universe – see IMTU)

I made my CPCs with the rules rules of Mongoose-Traveller but I tweaked or bent them. I rolled some additional information of the Characters (i.e. their homeworlds) and others I determined by selection instead by roll.

Steps for CPC-Creation

1. roll for type of figure (d66 stereotype table)
2. determine the attributes by buying them
3. roll for a primary and a secondary motive (d66 motive table)
4. roll for homeworld and deterine the background skills (d66 homeworld table for the local sector)
5. use the MT rules to determine the background, career and history of the character.
6. outline a short and suitable biography trimmed for the group and the adventure
7. make a cool character sheet

The next weeks I will write about these points in this blog.

… hold on Travellers …