Freelance Traveller - Other Roads - The Shavian Empire Campaign

Shavian Empire Careers

by Ken Pick
from original notes by Wayne Shaw

This article originally appeared in the November/December 2017 issue.

These are Citizens of the Imperium-style non-military prior experience backgrounds for Traveller character generation, transcribed and edited from surviving campaign notes of my old gamemaster, Wayne Shaw.

Though Wayne has been mentioned several times in my articles (primarily the Shavian Empire campaign in Other Roads – genesis.html), he actually was not much of a Traveller fan, preferring the genres of straight Fantasy (with SF crossover elements) and Superheroes. His preference in SF games was more heroic adventure and deep exploration “where no man has gone before”, and Traveller tends to a more settled and civilized space than the high-tech space opera on the far frontier that he liked.

Despite this, Wayne did create and referee three Traveller campaigns (the aforementioned Shavian Empire campaign in 1977, a one-shot Classic Traveller mini-campaign sometime around 1982-83, and a short-lived MegaTraveller campaign in 1987). A compulsive rules tinkerer, he worked out original campaign backgrounds and house rules for even the “one shot” campaigns, including modifications to character generation, such as the six original career types profiled here.

Two of these surviving career types date from his second (Classic Traveller) one-shot campaign (circa early 1980s); these were hand-written on TAS Form 41s:

Colonist: Not-quite-Barbarian Individuals who hail from newly-settled frontier worlds.

Psionicist: Individuals whose career path is mostly or completely psionics training. Originated in a heroic character from ”The Scattered Worlds”, a space-opera universe Wayne created and wrote during his high school days (before he discovered FRP gaming). For campaigns where psionics are less restricted than the Third Imperium.

Two other character types from the notes – Police and Mentor – are not listed. “Police” was superseded by MegaTraveller’s later “Law Enforcer” and “Mentor” (a scholarly order) was too “Scattered Worlds”-specific.

The other four date from his third (MegaTraveller) campaign (circa 1987). These were transcribed directly from his campaign handout, a dot-matrix fanfold printout:

Civilian: Generic unspecialized civilian character; sort of a “none of the above” that isn’t specifically “Other”. (At the time, “Other” was said to represent “either CIA or the Mafia”.)

Engineer: Primarily Civil Engineering⁽¹⁾, working with large-scale fixed construction. Other kinds of specialized Engineering could be substituted.

Journalist: Reporters working for various news media or freelance “stringers” to same. Industrial Age (TL7-) journalists are normally reporters for hardcopy “newspapers” and “magazines”; Information Age (TL8+) journalists normally work as freelance stringers for or proprietors of various online newsfeeds, whether public, advertiser-supported, or membership-subscription.

Technician: Individuals trained in technical professions, usually found as assistants to Scientists.

	Civilian	Colonist	Engineer	Journalist	Psionicist	Technician
Career Progression⁽²⁾
Enlistment	Auto	6+	7+	5+	10+	5+
DM+1 if	-----	Soc 8+	Int 9+	End 7+	Int 9+	Int 8+
DM+2 if	-----	End 7+	Edu 9+	Edu 9+	Psi 9+	Edu 9+
Survival	4+	8+	5+	6+	5+	4+
DM+2 if	Soc 8+	Int 8+	Int 8+	Edu 9+	Edu 8+	Int 9+
Special Duty⁽³⁾	6+	5+	6+	4+	6+	5+
Reenlist	3+	3+	4+	5+	5+	4+

Automatic Skills
Colonist:	Survival-1
Engineer:	Civil Engineer-1
Journalist:	Streetwise-1, Computer-1 if TL9+⁽⁷⁾
Psionicist:	Psionic Evaluation/Basic Training
Technician:	Computer-1

Mustering Out Benefits
Material Benefits
	Civilian	Colonist	Engineer	Journalist	Psionicist	Technician
1	Low Psg	Low Psg	High Psg	Low Psg	Low Psg	Mid Psg
2	Mid Psg	Low Psg	High Psg	Mid Psg	Weapon	High Psg
3	High Psg	+1 Int	Blade	Mid Psg	+1 Psi	+1 Int
4	+1 Edu	Blade	Travellers’	Gun	+2 Edu	+1 Edu
5	+1 Int	Gun	+1 Edu	+1 Edu	Mid Psg	Gun
6	+1 Soc	Mid Psg	+1 Soc	+1 Int	Psi Equip’t⁽⁴⁾	-----
Cash Benefits
1	1000	-----	10000	500	1000	5000
2	5000	-----	20000	1000	2000	10000
3	10000	1000	30000	5000	5000	10000
4	20000	10000	40000	10000	10000	20000
5	40000	20000	50000	15000	20000	30000
6	50000	50000	60000	20000	30000	40000
7	60000	100000	70000	20000	40000	50000

Skill Table
Personal Development
	Civilian	Colonist	Engineer	Journalist	Psionicist⁽⁵⁾	Technician
1	Physical	+1 Str	+1 Str	Physical	+1 Dex	+1 Str
2	+1 Dex	+1 Dex	+1 Dex	+1 Dex	+1 End	+1 Dex
3	Mental	+1 End	+1 End	+1 End	+1 Int	+1 End
4	+1 Soc	Brawling	Mental	Vice	+1 Edu	Mental
5	Brawling	Gambling	Hand Cbt	Hand Cbt	+1 Psi	Vice
6	Inborn	Carousing	Mechanical	Streetwise	Carousing	Blade Cbt
Service Skills
1	Vice	+1 Int	Mechanical	Carousing	[Special]	Mechanical
2	Mechanical	Gun Cbt	Electronics	Hand Cbt		Electronics
3	Electronic	Blade Cbt	Vice	Streetwise		Technical
4	Vehicle	Vehicle	Technical	Vehicle		Vehicle
5	Carousing	Survival	Engineering	Gun Cbt		Gun Cbt
6	Survival	Jack-o-T	Vehicle	Academic		Academic
Advanced Education
1	Gun Cbt	Mechanical	Civil Eng	Interpersonal	Vehicle	Technical
2	Brawling	Electronic	Technical	Vehicle	Blade Cbt	Vehicle
3	Vehicle	Gravitics	Interpersonal	Gun Cbt	Gun Cbt	Technical
4	Interpersonal	Vehicle	Demolition	Carousing	Electronics	Academic
5	Carousing	Hunting	Mechanical	Interrogation	Mechanical	Technical
6	Mechanical	Survival	Electronic	Vice	Streetwise	Jack-o-T
*Advanced Education (Only open to characters with EDU 8+)*
1	Technical	Medic	Nav Arch⁽⁶⁾	Interpersonal	Medic	Technical
2	Medic	Leader	Engineering	Interpersonal	Computer	Interpersonal
3	Blade Cbt	Admin	Civil Eng	Technical	Admin	Science
4	Instruction	Survival	Technical	Academic	Liason	Interpersonal
5	Interpersonal	Jack-o-T	Interpersonal	Interrogation	Jack-o-T	Engineering
6	Jack-o-T	Computer	Vacc Suit	Interpersonal	Gravitics	Ship’s Boat

Benefit and Skill Notes

Bold skills represent cascades; choose one of the subskills as listed in the Classic Traveller or MegaTraveller rules. Characters with Gambling, DM +1 on Cash Benefits

Psi Equip’t Benefit: Psi-related equipment and artifacts such as psi-drugs, psi-inhibitors, or others such as those described in Psionically Active Equipment and Drugs (https://freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/tech/psiequip.html). Roll 1D+1 on the Civilian Cash Benefits table for the total cash value of the Psi equipment; the player may take any combination or number of items up to this total amount.

[Special] Psionicist Skill: These are the character’s actual Psi talents, listed in the order rolled at initial Psi evaluation. If less than six talents, repeat in order as needed until all six slots are filled. Service Skill rolls are +1 to the listed Psi talent’s level

End Notes

Civil Engineering = the skill used to design and build bridges, dams, and other large fixed structures. Also used for structural analysis in architecture.
Note that none of these career paths have Position/Commission or Promotion rolls or ranks.
Special Duty is as per Megatraveller; determines whether character gets a second skill roll for the term.
Wayne’s original table says “Psi Gem”, a “Scattered Worlds”-specific type of psionic amplifier/focus device implanted in the “Mind Master”’s forehead. Stats for this item have been lost; presumably it increased range, increased level, reduced Psionic strength cost, or some combination of the three.
Psionicists may double or switch careers and retain the Psionicist Personal Development/Service Skills tables.
Naval Architecture = the skill used to design spacecraft and starships.
Above Tech Level 8, Reporters normally work and publish through various social media news-feeds. As this overlaps with hackers, Computer may be substituted for physical-media Reporter skills judged obsolete.