By default, six core characteristics are rolled as a pool of six 2Ds, with values assigned to characteristic of player's choosing.
Quote: "To determine your Traveller’s characteristics, roll 2D one after another, and assign the scores in any order you wish to the six characteristics, starting with Strength. Record them on your character sheet."
Reference: Core Rulebook (2020), page 8; Core Rulebook (2022), page 9.
Note: Official publications do not have an answer if extra characteristics are to be rolled as a part of this same pool! Decision up to the Referee. Larger pool can lead to undesirable minmaxing.
Interpretation of the rules: Extra characteristics are to be rolled separately/individually.
Note: Some characteristics have a different default generation base - example: Charisma - these, obviously, need to be rolled individually.
Homebrew suggestion: To increase consistency, in game using non-standard or extra characteristics roll all characteristics individually.
Optional change to Dice Pool Method is to add two or more Boon dice for player to use for their characteristic rolls, up to a maximum of one for each characteristic that involves a roll.
Quote: "The referee may apply a Boon on any two characteristics of the Traveller’s choice, rolling 3D for those two characteristics and discarding the lowest dice. This practically guarantees a Traveller to have at least decent scores in the areas they desire. For truly heroic Travellers, Boon dice can be rolled on four characteristics, or even all of them."
Reference: Traveller Companion, page 11.
Note: The more Boon dice is given out by the Referee the more "epic" the Traveller characteristic scores will be, which can have a compounding effect on character generation!
Replacing the default method, Assignment gives the player control over their characteristics similar to that of a Point-Buy system, but still has a random element to it.
Quote: "Roll 12D and write down the value of each dice. These can then be assigned as whole dice to the Traveller’s characteristics as desired, allowing the Traveller to obtain high values where they are most desirable. For a heroic Traveller, delete any two dice scores and replace them with 5s. These values are assigned as the Traveller desires."
Reference: Traveller Companion, page 11.
Note: The more "5s" is given out by the Referee the more "epic" the Traveller characteristic scores will be, which can have a compounding effect on character generation!
Extra characteristics: 12D apparently has six standard characteristics in mind. How to deal with extra characteristics or non-standard ones is up to the Referee. Simplest solution would be to add extra dice for each extra characteristic that involves a roll (so Territory would be excluded).
Regarding maximum values: As the rule allows to assign any number of "whole dice" to a characteristic, arguably including none at all, absolute limit of 15 for a characteristic score (before racial modifiers) should be enforced!
Regarding minimum values: Although a bit of a grey area, rules provide for a characteristic to reach zero as a result of ageing, at which point it is "restored" to 1 and the character is set back with a medical debt equal to 1D x Cr10000. It can be argued that player can decide to allocate none of the dice to a characteristic and accept this debt. This is up to the Referee, but if an interesting in-universe justification is provided, can be an interesting option.
Go back to Options page.