Friday, March 2, 2012

Fantasy Traveller - Career Tables

Having written up magic for Fantasy Traveller, the time has come for career tables. I'm looking at seven careers, each with three specialties, as follows:
  • Arcanist
    • Sorcerer -> Combat magic specialist
    • Warlock -> Black magic specialist
    • Wizard -> Lore and court mage
  • Man-at-Arms
    • Constable -> Investigative warrior
    • Soldier -> Standard 'fighter'
    • Mercenary -> Fighter with mercantile, deception, and dirty tricks
  • Noble
    • Courtier -> Diplomatic specialist
    • Knight -> Noble warrior; cavalry / leadership specialist
    • Magistrate -> Investigation and diplomacy specialist
  • Peasant
    • Craftsman -> Making things, haggling
    • Farmer -> Farming, animals, surviving out in the sticks
    • Sailor -> Sailing, navigation, fishing, fighting pirates
  • Priest
    • Cleric -> Face priest; social skills, mace, prayers
    • Monk -> Lore, divine magic, unarmed combat
    • Templar -> Priest militant
  • Rogue
    • Assassin -> Poison and minor magic specialist
    • Minstrel -> Jack of trades plus art
    • Thief -> Standard rogue
  • Wilderlander
    • Barbarian -> Wilderness warrior / viking
    • Druid -> Wilderness priest
    • Ranger -> Hunter / explorer
This first pass through probably isn't going to do event tables, mishap tables, and reward tables; just skills, survival, advancement, and quals.  Expect a separate post for each of these, unless I get really zealous.  I feel that this particular mix hits the core 'D&D' classes that people expect, plus Noble and Peasant, which are important for maintaining the Traveller notion that sometimes, PCs are civilians (or start out that way).  Also note that this career set, much like the one in the Mongoose Core, is subject to expansion; I'd love to later expand Sorcerer to its own career with three specialties (say, Battlemage, Spellsword, and Wild Talent).  Same goes for Barbarian, which Platonic Solid handled well with Celt, Horse Barbarian (Mongol), and Sea Barbarian (Viking).  Some of the ones I have so far aren't particular expandable, though - Magistrate and Constable would both be tricky, and I doubt anyone particularly wants to differentiate between Farmer and Goatherd.  Anyways, expansions on this 'core set' may come later, but for now it's important that I build this simple, managaebly-sized core without bogging down in three flavors of every D&D class.

The funny thing is that I wrote these up some time ago, and now the desire to keep expanding them has receded.  Alex's Traveller game is ending (the main plot has kind of been completed, and most of the characters have accomplished their in-game objectives), so we're probably shifting back to Trailblazer soon (after spring break).  Thus, Traveller is kind of falling by the wayside.  The semester is also starting to get unduly hairy, so I guess it's a good thing I have a bunch of career tables buffered up...  Basically, I apologize that there won't be anything terribly insightful coming down the pipe for a week or three.  I'll try to keep posting mailbag and Starmada updates when possible.

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