Freelance Traveller

by Neal Oldham

This article originally appeared in the April 2010 issue of the downloadable PDF magazine, and was reprinted in this form in the January/February 2020 issue.

The scientist career, as described here, is a “cluster career” with three distinct paths: Technicians, basically following the “scientist” career in Classic Traveller Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium; Academics (teaching-oriented scholars), and Researchers. You will need the Classic Traveller core rules for character generation. Additional books that might be of interest would be Book 6: Scouts for the discussion of College, and Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium, for the Scientist career discussed there.

Types of Scientists

Technicians

are the “practical” scientists. They apply their knowledge to real-world situations, with well-defined, concrete goals. They convert theories and lab-scale processes into industrial processes, or into “engineering”.

Academics

are scholars who keep up with accepted knowledge in their field, and focus their careers on teaching that accepted knowledge to others. They may participate in original research, but are not the primary source of advances in their fields.

Researchers

are scholars whose interest is in expanding the frontiers of knowledge in their fields. They are the scientists that focus on developing and testing new theories, and exploring the limits of existing theories. They may teach as well, but this is a secondary activity for them.

Education

Scientists almost universally have advanced education. The standard “College” term, if the character is successful, awards a baccalaureate degree (or equivalent). Most scientists will go on to higher degrees; this is represented in these rules by a “Graduate School” term, which awards a doctoral degree or equivalent. Graduate School is only available to College graduates.

Specialization

Once a society’s general scientific knowledge reaches a certain level, it becomes impractical or impossible for an individual to be a “generalist” who knows a useful amount about everything. Instead, individuals tend to specialize in one or two areas, becoming “expert” in those areas, while maintaining only basic knowledge in other fields. For the purposes of this article, we assume that this occurs at TL6, but that individuals may choose to specialize when a society is at a lower TL.

All Scientist characters should choose a primary area of specialization. Academics and Researchers must choose both a primary and secondary specialization; Technicians may do so, but it is not required. The primary specialization represents the area that the Scientist actually works in; the secondary specialization represents an additional field of interest.

Specializations are generally chosen during College, though some Scientists know what they want to specialize in much earlier; in game terms, the character may choose specializations at any time before entering Graduate School.

A character’s choice of specialization should be made from the skills available in the campaign. They should be heavily biased toward those skills that use INT or EDU as a beneficial DM in task rolls.

Scientist characters should be taken through the Advanced Education process following before beginning the Scientist career. Remember that success at College or Graduate School each add four years to the character’s age.

Embarking on the Scientific Career

Once the character has completed the Advanced Education sequence, the actual career can begin. A character who has not succeeded at Graduate School must be a Technician; other characters may choose any of the Scientist types.

Initial Training

The first year of the character’s first term represents “getting up to speed” in the role. Characters should not resolve an assignment; instead, award the following skills:

After awarding these skills, resolve a short, 3-year term as described under “Administering a Term”.

Administering a Term

A term as a Scientist consists of four one-year assignments. Each year, determine and resolve the assignment as follows:

General Assignment

Roll 1D6 for the general assignment (Table 1), using the column corresponding to the type of Scientist. This is required only for the second year of the first term (the first year of the first term is Initial Training); after that, it is optional (and if declined, the character continues in the same assignment).

Commercial assignments

imply that the Scientist is working for a company, contributing to the “bottom line” in some way—a Technician might be an industrial chemist, devising procedures to produce needed chemicals in bulk, or a Researcher might be a research chemist looking for more effective drugs.

Governmental assignments

imply that the Scientist is working for a government, focused on a particular goal, and may be politically motivated.

Educational assignments

imply that the Scientist works for an institution of higher learning, either teaching or aimed at discovering new knowledge, or refining existing knowledge.

Private assignments

may have the character of any of the other assignments, but are at the behest of e.g., a noble patron, or a nonprofit organization. There will usually be some sort of direction to the work, but this is not necessarily going to be the case.

Specific Assignment

Roll 2D6 for specific duty, using the column for the indicated assignment. See the notes after the table for Special or Transfer. Specific Duty is rolled every year except the first year of Term 1, or if a previous Special Duty granted the choice of duty for this year.

Instruction:

The Scientist’s principal activity is to communicate what he knows to others, in an organized fashion, so that those others may become better Scientists themselves.

Authorship:

The Scientist’s principal activity is the preparation of material for publication, generally in peer-reviewed journals in the Scientist’s field of specialization.

Technical:

The Scientist’s principal activity is the running of experiments and collection of data

Research:

The Scientist’s principal activity is exploratory—he will be devising hypotheses and experiments to test them. Study of data collected during Technical activities is also a major activity.

Admin (Administration):

The Scientist’s principal activity is the maintenance of his position, generally through paperwork (e.g., grant applications).

Transfer

is to another assignment (e.g., from Governmental to Private), and may be declined. If Transfer is accepted, roll on the Assignment table. A result of the same assignment as current indicates a change of organization (e.g., from one government agency to another, or from one non-profit organization to another). Roll on the Specific Duty table in the column for the new assignment (or reroll in present column if transfer is declined), and ignore further Transfer results.

Special Duty
Roll 1D	Duty
1	Hazardous Duty
2	Remote Assignment
3	Task Force
4	Sabbatical
5	Professional Society
6	Attaché
Optional DM +1 if SOC 9+; must choose before rolling

Special Duty

is an exceptional assignment, outside the normal routine of the scientist. Roll on the Special Duty table for the nature of the special duty, then follow the instructions given for the duty, then roll the regular assignment resolution process except as described in the duty instructions.

Hazardous Duty:

Roll 5+ on 2D6 to acquire 1 level of each of Vacc Suit, Survival, Vehicle, Engineering, Ship's Boat, Gun Combat, Brawling. (7 Rolls; do not roll for Skills when resolving term)

Remote Assignment:

Do not roll for position, promotion, or skills. The character may choose the next duty assignment (but not Special Duty).

Task Force:

Roll 3D6; if under INT+skill level of primary specialization (or highest tech skill if technician), task is successful; roll once on research skill table and +1 Soc; if failure, no position/promotion/college allowed next term.

Professional Society:

+1 Liaison. When next eligible to roll position or promotion, position/promotion roll succeeds on lesser of indicated roll or 8+; do not apply any DMs.

Sabbatical:

Roll once on Research or Personal Development skill table (player choice). Do not roll for Skill when resolving term.

Attaché:

+1 SOC. The character may choose the next duty assignment (but not Special Duty).

Resolving the Assignment

Roll 2D6 for each of Survival, Position/Promotion, Education, Skills, Prize, and Bonus as appropriate. Note that a character may achieve Position or receive Promotion only once in any four-year term. Do not roll these in the first year of the first term (Initial Training, above).

If this was the last year of a term, roll for Continuation. A roll of 12 exactly, without DMs, requires the character to continue in the career for another term. Otherwise, a success allows the character to continue in the career, but does not require it.

In the Assignment Resolution table, “Technical” indicates any of Mechanical, Electronics, Computer, or Engineering; “Primary” indicates the skill chosen in College/Grad School as the primary area of specialization; “Secondary” indicates the skill chosen in College/Grad School as the secondary area of specialization. If a roll or DM is marked e.g., “5+ (A:4+)”, the parenthesized roll/DM applies to (A:) Academics, (T:) Technicians, or (R:) Researchers.

Skills

On a successful Skills roll, the character should select a column to roll on from the skill table, and roll 1D6. Any character may roll on the Personal Development or Life Skills columns; the other columns require an appropriate duty assignment.

A skill of Primary indicates the skill chosen in College/Grad School as the primary area of specialization; a skill of Secondary indicates the skill chosen in College/Grad School as the secondary area of specialization.

If a Technician who has completed neither College nor Grad School rolls either Primary or Secondary on this table, treat the roll as Computer if the world is TL8+, Electronics if the world is TL5-TL7, or Mechanical if the world is TL4-.

Mustering Out

When a character chooses to retire (or fails a Continuation roll), the character musters out, and is ready to begin adventuring. When a character musters out, roll on the Mustering Out table as follows:

• One roll for each term served. Do not include College or Graduate School terms.
• One additional roll for each of achieving ranks 1, 3, and 5.
• No more than three rolls may be taken on the Cash column.
• Optional DM +1 on Material Benefits if rank 5+
• Optional DM +1 on Cash if skill includes Gambling 1+

Suggested Rank Titles

Scientists’ titles are generally an indication of their role or status within the organization, rather than a title that they are addressed as. A scientist who has completed Grad School may always correctly be called ‘Doctor’ or the equivalent. Those who have current teaching duties are often called ‘Professor’, even if they have not yet been formally granted that title in academia.