Azri Drakara Career Path: Merchant House...

Good Afternoon, All:

Given that the Traveller System Reference Document lacks details for the common career paths, publishers are encouraged to come up with their own versions that fit their campaign setting concept. Several publishers have released a number of career paths under the Open Gaming License, the most notable being the two Career books by Spica Publishing.

For the Azri Drakara campaign setting, this opens up new opportunities to create career paths for character development that encapsulates my campaign concepts. Below is an example of one such career path, this one aimed at Merchant Houses. This career path generates members of Merchant Houses, the largest commercial enterprises found in the Dracosian Republic.

Note that the Mishaps and Events tables are not included, as I'm still experimenting with how I want to do those in the Azri Drakara campaign setting.

Career	Merchant House
Qualifications	Int 5+
Survival
Broker	Edu 5+
Security	End 7+
Trader	Edu 6+
Advancement
Broker	Int 7+
Security	Int 5+
Trader	Int 6+
Skills and Training
d6	Personal Development
1	+1 Dex
2	+1 End
3	+1 Int
4	+1 Edu
5	Gambler
6	Melee (gun)
d6	Service Skills
1	Advocate
2	Broker
3	Carouse
4	Comms
5	Persuade
6	Vacc Suit
d6	Advanced Education (Edu 8+)
1	Admin
2	Advocate
3	Computers
4	Diplomat
5	Medic
6	Social Science (any)
d6	Specialist: Broker
1	Admin
2	Advocate
3	Broker
4	Deception
5	Drive (any)
6	Persuade
d6	Specialist: Security
1	Gun Cbt (any)
2	Gunner (any)
3	Mechanic
4	Melee (any)
5	Vacc Suit
6	Zero-G
d6	Specialist: Trader
1	Astrogation
2	Engineer (any)
3	Mechanic
4	Pilot (spacecraft)
5	Sensors
6	Steward
Ranks and Skills
Rank	Broker	Skill or Benefit
0
1	Broker	Broker 1
2	Senior Broker
3	Administrator	Diplomat 1
4	Senior Administrator
5	Planetary Director	+1 Soc
6	Executive Director
Rank	Security	Skill or Benefit
0	Crewman
1	Ensign	Gunner (any) 1
2	Lieutenant
3	Commander	Tactics (naval) 1
4	Captain
5	Commodore	+1 Soc
6	Admiral
Rank	Trader	Skill or Benefit
0	Crewman
1	Ensign	Steward 1
2	Lieutenant
3	Commander	Advocate 1
4	Captain
5	Commodore	+1 Soc
6	Admiral
d6	Material Benefits
1	Weapon (melee)
2	+1 Edu
3	+1 Int
4	Weapon (ranged)
5	1d3 Ship Shares
6	1d6 Ship Shares
7	1d6+3 Ship Shares
d6	Cash Benefits
1	3,000
2	7,000
3	15,000
4	15,000
5	30,000
6	60,000
7	70,000

Enjoy,
Flynn

Missing Traveller OGC: Career Paths, A Discussion...

Good Afternoon, All:

With the exception of the Scout career path, the Traveller System Reference Document (TSRD) provides no additional information on career paths. Therefore, any publisher seeking to publish such details must either create his own Open Game Content or make due with a reference to the core rulebook and leave it at that.

As you well know, I'm not the kind of guy that would leave it at that, particularly if I want to someday have a Player's Guide to Azri Drakara. That pretty much means that I am obliged to create my own career path write-ups for the Azri Drakara campaign setting. Of course, that begs the next question: What career paths should I create for the setting?

Below, you can see a list of the various career paths that my personal favorite versions of the Traveller system. Obviously, I want to provide the basic career paths for the Azri Drakara setting in such a manner that traditional Traveller character concepts can still be created, but I don't want to violate the Closed Content clause of the OGL. The names of the career paths are Open Game Content, since they can be found in the TSRD, and more information can be extracted with a little difficulty from the Open Game Content from Traveller T20, but really, a lot of this is just going to be my own creation.

The core career paths from Classic Traveller:

• Army
• Navy
• Marines
• Merchant
• Scout
• Other

The career paths added to Classic Traveller via the Citizens of the Imperium supplement:

• Barbarian
• Belter
• Bureaucrat
• Diplomat
• Doctor
• Flyer
• Hunter
• Noble
• Pirate
• Rogue
• Sailor
• Scientist

The core career paths from MegaTraveller:

• Army
• Barbarian
• Belter
• Bureaucrat
• Diplomat
• Doctor
• Flyer
• Hunter
• Law Enforcer
• Marine
• Merchant
• Navy
• Noble
• Pirate
• Rogue
• Sailor
• Scientist
• Scout

The core career paths from Traveller T20:

• Academic
• Army
• Barbarian
• Belter
• Marines
• Mercenary
• Merchant
• Navy
• Noble
• Professional
• Rogue
• Scout
• Traveller

The core career paths from Mongoose Traveller:

• Agent
• Army
• Citizen
• Drifter
• Entertainer
• Marine
• Merchant
• Navy
• Nobility
• Rogue
• Scholar
• Scout

Given the commonalities, I am inclined to start with the following core career path list:

• Academic (Doctor, Scholar, Scientist)
• Central Security Service (Agent, Law Enforcer)
• Colonist (Barbarian, Citizen, Hunter, Professional)
• Merchant House (Merchants)
• Public Service (Bureaucrat, Diplomat, Noble)
• Republic Rangers (Scouts)
• Stellar Navy (Navy, Marines)
• System Defense (Army, Flyers, Sailors)
• Traveller (Belter, Drifter, Rogue)

If I had to go with an even smaller list, I'd just use Merchant House, Republic Rangers, Stellar Navy, System Defense and Traveller, since these reflect the contents of the original core career paths from Classic Traveller.

What do you think?

With Regards,
Flynn

Missing Traveller OGC: Weapon Damage Tables...

Good Afternoon, All:

In continuing to address missing Open Game Content from the Traveller System Reference Document (TSRD), this time around I am addressing personal weapon damage. Much of this is simply generalized from my thoughts on Stellar Quest weaponry, but with damage dice appropriate to the 2d6 Open Gaming System found in the TSRD.

Melee Weapons
Weapon damage seems pretty consistent with the following approach, based on weapon size.

Table: Meleee Weapons By Weapon Size

Weapon Size	Range	Damage	Example
Diminutive	Melee (close)	1d3	Under-sized dagger
Tiny	Melee (close)	1d6	Dagger, unarmed attack
Small	Melee (close)	2d6	Short sword
Medium	Melee (reach)	3d6	Long sword
Large	Melee (reach)	4d6	Great sword
Huge	Melee (reach)	5d6	Over-sized great sword

I will likely use the following chart for determining what weapons a particular race may use.

Table: Weapon Usage By Creature Size

Description	Small Creature	Man-sized Creature	Large Creature
One-handed, light weapon, concealable	Diminutive	Tiny	Small
One-handed, light weapon	Tiny	Small	Medium
One-handed	Small	Medium	Large
Two-handed	Medium	Large	Huge

A more flesh-out example of a weapon's table will likely appear in this blog at a later date, but this will serve as the basis for it.

Ranged Weapons
Ranged weapons determine damage based on what propels the projectile, or in the case of advanced weaponry, what delivers the damage itself. As there are two general sizes of personal ranged weapons, one-handed (pistols) and two-handed (rifles), damage is determined based on weapon size as well.

Table: Ranged Weapons By Size And Power

Weapon Size	Damage	Example
Muscle-Powered	2d6	Throwing dagger, bow, crossbow
Gunpowder, pistol	2d6	Pistols
Gunpowder, rifle	3d6	Rifles
Gunpowder, shotguns	4d6	Shotguns
Gauss, pistol	3d6	Gauss pistol
Gauss, rifle	4d6	Gauss rifle
Energy, pistol	4d6	Laser pistols
Energy, rifle	5d6	Laser rifles
Fusion/Plasma, pistol	5d6	Plasma pistols
Fusion/Plasma, rifle	6d6	Plasma rifles

Hope This Helps,
Flynn

Missing Traveller OGC: Weapon Ranges Table...

Good Afternoon, All:

As a publisher of Traveller products, one of the things I find the most frustrating about the Traveller System Reference Document is that much of the specific information related to the mechanics of weapons and combat is missing. I understand that this is intended to require publishers to make vague references to the Traveller core rules, thus insuring that Mongoose Publishing continues to have strong sales of their core book, at the very least. However, I feel that such hamstrings me on specific projects, and so I have been creating Open Game Content of my own to cover the absent material.

For example, the Traveller System Reference Document does not have a range table for personal combat. Now, to be fair, the Mercenary System Reference Document does contain a parabolic weapons range tables that slipped past the censors, giving us an idea of how it should look. In that same document, we also see a few weapon stat tables, which give us a format we can use, if we want to maintain consistency. However, as a publisher, we cannot simply duplicate the material that is considered closed content in our own books, so I cannot copy the range tables to include in my own products. Instead, I'll have to come up with my own, if I want to include them.

With that in mind, I'm going to take a step back and describe the difficulty of each range category as a Task Resolution difficulty rating. This harkens back to my MegaTraveller days, giving me a sense of nostalgia, yet it also creates a system that is consistent with the rules as they are written, and thus easy to grasp. Looking at the current core rules (closed content) and converting the penalties and bonuses to the best fitting task descriptors, I come up with the following range table for use in my games and my own published material:

Table: Personal and Space Weapon Ranges

Weapon Category	Personal	Close	Short	Medium	Long	Very Long	Distant
Melee (close)	Average (+0)	Difficult (-2)	--	--	--	--	--
Melee (reach)	Difficult (-2)	Average (+0)	--	--	--	--	--
Ranged (thrown)	--	Average (+0)	Difficult (-2)	Difficult (-2)	--	--	--
Ranged (pistol)	Difficult (-2)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Difficult (-2)	Very Difficult (-4)	--	--
Ranged (rifle)	Very Difficult (-4)	Difficult (-2)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Difficult (-2)	Very Difficult (-4)
Ranged (shotgun)	Difficult (-2)	Average (+0)	Difficult (-2)	Difficult (-2)	Very Difficult (-4)	--	--
Ranged (assault weapon)	Difficult (-2)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Difficult (-2)	Very Difficult (-4)	Formidable (-6)
Ranged (rocket)	Very Difficult (-4)	Difficult (-2)	Difficult (-2)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Difficult (-2)	Very Difficult (-4)
Space (missile)	Difficult (-2)	Difficult (-2)	Difficult (-2)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Difficult (-2)
Space (short)	Difficult (-2)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Very Difficult (-4)	--	--	--
Space (medium)	Difficult (-2)	Difficult (-2)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Difficult (-2)	Very Difficult (-4)	--
Space (long)	Very Difficult (-4)	Difficult (-2)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Difficult (-2)	Very Difficult (-4)
Space (very long)	Very Difficult (-4)	Difficult (-2)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Average (+0)	Difficult (-2)

That should do it. It changes the odds in a few places, but puts the emphasis on the skill system, which I think is appropriate. That, and it places all of the range tables in one location, where it will prove more useful when resolving combat.

Hope This Helps,
Flynn