Thanks to GDW and to Loren Wiseman and to Edward Swatschek for the
opportunity to add to the game, and to make our voices heard.
In part one, you have a disagreement between three-year and four-year
terms in one of the paragraphs about a third of the way through. (I know,
it's almost a trivial error, but my experience has been that data
disagreement is harder to ferret out.)
Social Standing:
Why not make SS something more meaningful in terms of character generation?
The general concept outlined below is that one's initial social standing,
as well as homeworld (good addition there, guys.) helps determines what
careers options a character has. Here's my idea (in rough form):
1. Roll SS in the usual way. (If I read this right, its 2D6-1.) This
gives a value between 1 and 11, unmodified.
2. The number of career opportunities available to a newly-generating
character (if the career is not already agreed-to) is equal to the sum
of the different ways that SS or less could be rolled. That is:
For initial SS of: You get this many possible careers:
1 1
2 3
3 6
4 10
5 15
6 21
7 26
8 30
9 33
10 35
11 36
You might choose to set it up so that you get between one and eleven
opportunities. Alternatively, you might choose to set it up so that the
number of opportunities is equal to the possible ways that number could
be rolled. (That is 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, 5-5, 6-6, 7-5, 8-4, 9-3, 10-2,
11-1.) This would represent a societal pressure to perform according
to your station in life.
Of course, all of this depends on how many different career paths actually
exist, and how many (and which) are available on a character's homeworld.
Obviously interstellar security is out for a TL6 homeworld (with
exceptions, of course).
You could use the numeric listing to order possible career paths. For
example, "outlaw" is number 1, and is always available, even at SS 1.
Likewise rogues, belters, pirates, and so forth will be low-numbered
careers, while courtesan, dandy, and noble will be high-numbered careers.
Other paths will fall where they belong. In fact, you could place Navy
careers more highly numbered than army careers to obviate the SS check on
the enlistment roll.
You could make the number be the highest-profile career available. Then,
if enlistment fails, the character can proceed to lower and lower-profile
careers until somebody takes him (her/it) or (he/she/it) becomes and
outlaw.
I'm happy to discuss this in more detail, if you want to.
- --
Richard Johnson ([email removed]) ([email removed])
If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything.