Service Mindsets IMTU
See more updated stuff here: http://festeria.blogspot.com/2006/06/more-on-services-in-festrian-space-and.html
So, based largely on the Book 1 CharGen requirements and common results, I'm gradually putting together a framework for what Traveller Services are like, and what they produce.
These are off the cuff, and I'll edit them more, but:
Navy: The best connected end up here if they're not tough enough for the marines. Can't fly for beans, but espirit up to here, and it's not like they need that many really good pilots except out on the frontier anyhow.
note: This is derived from my current effort to roll up Book 1 Navy pilots. Navvies usually get mustered out after two or three terms without a commission; if I get a pilot, more likely than not he's Pilot-1 and that's it. So really experienced pilots are very, very rare in the Navy, and one would expect them to get snapped up and sent to the frontier fleets. One result of my observations? Navy Patrols in the home subsectors of the Festrian Empire are virtually all under 30, and virtually all skill-1. They can get away with this because their ship's software is always top of the line: A patrol cruiser should always be shooting at +4 (predict 5, gunner interact) and evading at -5 (M/E 6).
Marines: The best connected end up here if they're not smart enough for the navy. Can't shoot for beans, but they're great in a boarding party. The cutlass comes out, run.
Army: If you can't get into the Marines or Navy, you might get drafted here. They train you up quick with the guns because they can't afford to keep you on salary more than a term or two.
Scouts: Anyone who wants to fly but isn't smart enough for the Merchants, or just plain suicidal, comes here. They can all fly, but they can't maintain their own ships. The live ones, anyhow.
Merchants: The smartest all end up here if they want to fly, and get rich.
Other: It's not that everyone who isn't in service is scum. It's just that the services are really the only way to get offworld, and if you're not in service, you need to bend a few rules.
So, based largely on the Book 1 CharGen requirements and common results, I'm gradually putting together a framework for what Traveller Services are like, and what they produce.
These are off the cuff, and I'll edit them more, but:
Navy: The best connected end up here if they're not tough enough for the marines. Can't fly for beans, but espirit up to here, and it's not like they need that many really good pilots except out on the frontier anyhow.
note: This is derived from my current effort to roll up Book 1 Navy pilots. Navvies usually get mustered out after two or three terms without a commission; if I get a pilot, more likely than not he's Pilot-1 and that's it. So really experienced pilots are very, very rare in the Navy, and one would expect them to get snapped up and sent to the frontier fleets. One result of my observations? Navy Patrols in the home subsectors of the Festrian Empire are virtually all under 30, and virtually all skill-1. They can get away with this because their ship's software is always top of the line: A patrol cruiser should always be shooting at +4 (predict 5, gunner interact) and evading at -5 (M/E 6).
Marines: The best connected end up here if they're not smart enough for the navy. Can't shoot for beans, but they're great in a boarding party. The cutlass comes out, run.
Army: If you can't get into the Marines or Navy, you might get drafted here. They train you up quick with the guns because they can't afford to keep you on salary more than a term or two.
Scouts: Anyone who wants to fly but isn't smart enough for the Merchants, or just plain suicidal, comes here. They can all fly, but they can't maintain their own ships. The live ones, anyhow.
Merchants: The smartest all end up here if they want to fly, and get rich.
Other: It's not that everyone who isn't in service is scum. It's just that the services are really the only way to get offworld, and if you're not in service, you need to bend a few rules.
posted by Jwarrrlry at 8:44 AM
1 Comments:
This is all true! It was funny when I really started thinking about the attitudes towards the various service branches encoded in those character generation tables.
My father was an Air Force recruiter when I was a kid, and he'd often take me to the office with him. The building had offices for all branches of the service, and the way they ragged on one another...the stereotypes were pretty much what you find in Trav (minus the starships, of course).
I like the bit in the added note on Navy characters. The comment on the Other profession is pretty much spot-on, as well.
In my own experience, I'm finding that Merchants are the best at making immediately useful PCs, and Army is probably the least successful at it. They're all well-balanced by those tables, however. The more I examine it, the more I really think the CT character generation system is a brilliant piece of system design.
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