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I don't see anything in that mine example contradicts anything I've been saying. It's a nice little set-piece. In fact your narrative example at the end is very much in line with what I've been saying. The dice mean things -- important things! -- but it's everyone's job to figure out the one thing they mean right now that is cool and satisfying. The more unexpected the result, the more this is true and the more fun it can be.

And yes, agreed, the scale of most of the maps is much too small. I've already had to expand two of them just to make them usable. This is a significant pain in the ass because they already have the grid printed on them; I hope final versions will be made available without the hexes.

Made an account to comment on some of the ideas that were being thrown around earlier in the thread and give my input as a GM who hasn't played any previous T2K editions but has since gone back and looked over them now that 4E has grabbed my interest. Just a few random things that stuck out to me/some thoughts in terms of my own personal homebrew since I do like the alpha, it will probably just need some collaborative tweaking from the community since I'm not entirely positive the devs can/want to change much of the core concept around so late in development.

- I love lifepath style generation in games and was excited to check out the 4E alpha rules regarding it, and while it's functional, I agree with other posters regarding not enough options for civilian characters and would probably also say military options are pretty lacking too. I know you can't have the wealth of options a system like T2K 2E can have in terms of the dozens of specific arms you can be under within the service, but it just seems odd that there isn't much more to distinguish one character who went straight into the military from another unless they went officer right from the get-go.

- I think aging needs to be reworked like others have mentioned. Aging 1d6 can feel a bit wacky sometimes and feels like it's taking a decent amount of control away from the player due to luck, especially if you get unlucky with aging dice after your first term. The first character I generated went combat arms, apparently spent six years in it, and had nothing really to show except basic competency in two skills of his choice or being decent at one skill (having failed the promotion check.) I get how I can probably assume in my head that maybe he's just a six year Specialist (which is totally plausible mind you, at least in my experience in the Army) and derive some character backstory from that, but it's not really given in an entertaining way that makes me feel like I'm starting to get a feel for the post-nuclear survivor I'll be playing as. I rolled up a character in 2.2E and while it's like comparing apples and oranges in terms of scope and purpose, I feel like the way it handles life-term development and aging RAW seems like it could provide some inspiration. Start at age 17, every life path is 4 years, then at age 33 you begin to roll for stat loss only for the stats the correspond to that age range. So 33-37 you would have to roll for AGL loss at the end of your term, 37-45 is rolling against STR/AGL, and then every subsequent 4 year term after 45 being rolling against STR/AGL/INT. Probably wouldn't homebrew aging as being THAT harsh translating into 4E rules, but I may mess around with it and see how I like it in practice compared to the alpha rules.

- More skills! Seriously, three skills per stat is not enough. I understand not wanting the old-school RPG style of having like, a bajillion different skills with five different cascading skills for the different types of Animal Husbandry a character can learn about, but there just doesn't seem like there would be much separating characters who excel in the same stats save for specialties (which I think are good mind you, I just don't think they should be the main things differentiating character types mechanically.) I imagine they're not going to be changed/expanded too much, but I think there's room for homebrew potential without getting too crazy. With some tweaks to the lifepath system and how skills are distributed per life-term, I think adding more skills per-stat could be reasonably done with the real work only being splitting up the pre-existing specialties to their new respective skills/creating more for the players to choose from in general along with balancing how many skills a character gains during generation.

- Mentioning skills, I think more ways to get secondary/hobby skills would be nice. I appreciate that the developers added a Childhood Background table for a free skill/specialty, but the game definitely needs more stuff like that. Make it so if two players roll up Army SoF infantry dudes, they have the opportunity to specialize in things that they're more interested in or fit better for the concept they have in mind. 2.2E has a secondary activities mechanic during lifepath generation to acknowledge hobby time/downtime during a four year term that let you get a passive increase to certain skills/stats for free to further flesh out your character a little bit (Going to night school for an EDU buff, target shooting, first-aid classes, etcetera.) Maybe let players roll on a secondary skill chart for hobbies against the relevant stat per life-term and give an advance if X amount of successes are made, with X increasing the more you invest into the skill itself?

Yep, pretty much agree with all of that. I don't think it would take much, either. One more skill per attribute, roughly (I don't actually think they need to be perfectly balanced), and then some expanded opportunities in the lifepath system to pick up odd skills here and there, and you'll have dramatically widened the scope of characters that can be created.

Yes I really think that they need to look back at old-school Traveler and the life-path system it used (sans death during character creation). The current system is wonky and needs fleshing out.

Yes I really think that they need to look back at old-school Traveler and the life-path system it used (sans death during character creation). The current system is wonky and needs fleshing out.

This is exactly what I did for 2e, but I stole 2300AD's system. Each term lasts 1d6 years, netting the same number of skill points, with +1 for INT+EDU 15+ and -1 (minimum 1) for 5-. Standard end of term checks; promotion, war, etc. I have also always allowed for a voluntary "fail" on the "war check" so the following term is the war.

However, the biggest problem I see with character generation is the skills available, both those that are inappropriate to the career and those missing from it. And each career should have at least three skills, just for some variety.

Very interesting post / thread.

I agree that 3 skills per attribute just doesn't seem enough. I have wondered why forbidden lands had 4 but they pushed to 3 for many other games (that I have). I agree that 4 skills per attribute allows for better character differentiation and also better life path set ups, and could be better for campaign play (this last point, I own Aliens and I'm perfectly happy with 3 skills, but tw2k is hex crawl and campaign play...)

But what would they be??

STR - I like the list as is, I would think to add Heavy Machinery / Construction / Combat Engineer - something like that (then shift a few specialisations out into this)
AGL - the no-brainer for me is to add Stealth (which could include sleight of hand, lock picking etc - maybe a better name)
INT - I'd be tempted to break TECH into 2 streams - not sure what they would be but Science / Engineering / Education - some broad categories BUT tech is so broad it could do with being 2 different things with 5 or so specialisations each
EMP - No idea on this one. I don't see the benefit of splitting up Manipulation/Persuasion into different skills. Medical aid I'm happy with it there. Command is fine too. Some perform base skill might work - but is fairly limited. Maybe Gather Information, because there is a skill to 1) get your way, to 2) lead but not carouse and get intel

You'd probably want to come up with a few more specialisations, but between v1 and v2 tw2k - there would be enough!

However, the biggest problem I see with character generation is the skills available, both those that are inappropriate to the career and those missing from it. And each career should have at least three skills, just for some variety.

This is the heart of it, IMO.

It would be nice to have a few more skills, to make the ones we have less general or wide-ranging. It would be especially nice if they were chosen to be available to civilian characters.

Secondary skills representing hobbies and interests is an idea I'm hot and cold on. On the one hand, it's entirely fair to say "my middle manager was a dedicated wildlife photographer, so he has this Recon skill," but on the other hand I think you risk ending up with a group of characters who all just happened to have spent the pre-war years as part-time target shooters who enjoyed birdwatching and watching re-runs of Survivorman -- i.e. you can actually get less varied characters.

The lack of variety is an issue. If a higher than normal number of characters were hobbyist target shooters and hunters, I guess that's okay... we are after all talking about survivors here. Not ideal but makes sense enough.

One of the characters in my campaign came from a background in education. He was a music teacher. His best skill is Recon. Since it's the ideal way for him to feel like he's contributing to rolls in the group, he's often vying to be on watch and so on. But it just makes zero sense, and needs to be fixed.

It is by and large the intelligence skills that are doing far too much heavy lifting. Recon is far too broad. Tech is too broad. Survival is too broad. Each of these could probably be split in two and the game would be better for it.

I agreed with most of Clevermed's ideas/thoughts/problems he ran into in his other thread.

In regards to the aging affects, I am also one who feels that it needs to be adjusted. But my concern is the random nature of years per term being so broad. The game shows using a 1d6. So you have to roll an aging crisis for one year the same as six years. An unlucky character could have multiple single year terms and end up failing crisis rolls leaving someone with, say a 30 year old character who has 2 or more attributes at a “D”. Some may see this as a great role playing challenge, but many players are just going to feel it is too difficult to play, especially given the lethality that T2k has a well known reputation for.

1) But since a term ages your character and that also affect your stats. On the average you will have one stat decrease, perhaps two if you have a lot of terms. Using the Life Path system also let you start with one more stat increase (3 instead of 2) compared to archetype character creation.

2) Even characters that have the same number of terms aren't equal. You don't always succeed with your skill roll test so you might not get a specialty. You might be forced to decrease a stat early so you no longer meet the stat requirement and must change career to something else.

Life Path Character Generation is not meant to create a balanced character. If you want a balanced character you use the Archetype Character Creation instead.

But, sure, if you are to "unlucky", you may have to restart the Life Path Character Generation or perhaps create a character using the Archetype Character Creation instead.