Today I’m making another Traveller character. After the original boxed set, there were several official and otherwise expansions to character creation. Books 4-7 created a more complex system to create Army and Marine characters (Book 4: Mercenary), Navy characters (Book 5: High Guard), Scouts (Book 6: Scouts), and Merchant Characters (Book 7: Merchant Princes). These do year-by-year instead of term-by-term character creation, resulting in more detailed and often more skilled characters.
A more straightforward expansion that mostly expands the career options, making the Other career largely irrelevant, is Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium. This is a selection of NPCs, including 8 heroes and villains from well-known stories. Before all the characters are twelve sets of tables for new careers: pirate, belter, sailor, diplomat, doctor, flyer, barbarian, bureaucrat, rouge, noble, scientist, and hunter. The following NPCs were generated with these tables and grouped by career. This is similar to Supplement 1: 1001 Characters which included characters from the original Book 1: Characters and Combat careers.
I covered the method in detail yesterday, so I’m going to generate a character using one of the supplemental tables without explanation. Check the prior post if you need details on the method. Rolling characteristics I get an initial UPP of 348A74.
I don’t qualify for Noble, which can be entered without an enlistment roll but requires a Social Status of 10+. Scientist gets a +1 for an IQ of 9+ against an enlistment target of 6+. Rouge gets a +1 for SS 8- and a +2 for EN 7+ against a target of 6+. Pirates get a +1 for SS 7- against a target of 7+. Belters get a +2 for IQ 6+ against a target of 8+, but the survival is 9+, whose modifier is terms served. Finally, Doctors get a +1 for IQ 8+ against a 9+.
The choice of Rogue looks like my best bet. Pirate might be another option and has the advantage of a Position/Promotion system which can yield more skill rolls. The book does not mention the two skills per term for careers without advancement, of which there are five: Belters, Doctors, Rogues, Scientists, and Hunters. Based on that, I’ll go for Pirate.
A roll of 6+1 gives a 7, and I barely become a pirate.
In the first term, I get a 4 for survival, but I get a +2 for IQ 8+, leading to 4+2 for a 6, the exact survival role. I get a 6 with no bonuses against a 9+ for a position and make no progress. Finally, I roll a 3 against re-enlistment of 7+ and am dropped off at the nearest starport.
Guess I should have gone rogue, although 3 wouldn’t meet the 5+ relist roll either.
I got Brawling-1 as a pirate, and I have two skill rolls from my one term. I’ll take one each on Service Skills and Advanced Education. A 5 on the former gives me Zero-G Combat-1. A 2 on the second gives me Gunnery-1 (ship’s weapons skill).
I get one mustering out roll. I’ll take it as cash. A 3 nets me a mere 1000 credits.
The last thing is a name. I think a good name for a failed pirate would be Barrett.
Instead of an index card character sheet, let’s present Barrett in the official Traveller form.
| Barret | 348A74 | Age 22 | 1 term pirate | Cr: 1,000 |
| Brawling-1, Gunnery-1, Zero-G Combat-1 |
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