For me, it's a form of self-soothing.
Lemme 'splain, using Mongoose Traveller. Also look at Hanlon Greyrazor.
Lance Sgt Malachi Dobbs (Human, Age 30, ex-Army Scout)
B46686 - Athletics 0, Carouse 0, Drive 0, Gun Combat (Slug) 2, Heavy Weapons (Vehicle) 1, Investigate 1, Leadership 1, Melee (Blade) 1, Navigation 1, Recon 2, Streetwise 0, Survival 1, Vacc Suit 0
Gear: Cr 8,350. Augments: Enhanced Vision, Subdermal Armor. Cloth Armour, Suppressed ACR (DNA-locked), Cutlass, Mobile Comm, and an assortment of Grenades.
(Created Summer 2021)
Traveller character creation is a game unto itself. Roll dice to generate characteristics, then roll dice to walk your 18 year old newbie through their lifepath. Did they make it into college? Did they meet anyone special? What have they been doing since their 18th birthday, and how old are they now? Let's roll some dice and find out.
Fitting a narrative to random dice rolls tickles my improv brain. Shopping for what a character may need moving forward into an actual game opens up vistas of possibility. Are they used to operating a machine gun mounted on a jeep driving through the desert? Malachi here sure is. Too bad military ordnance is challenging to procure if you're no longer on active duty.
Dr. Iris Germain (Human, Age 42, Physician and Researcher)
8B99F5 - Advocate 2, Carouse 1, Diplomat 1, Drive 0, Electronics (Computers) 2, Engineer (Life Support) 1, Gambler 1, Investigate 1, Language 0, Medic 3, Persuade 2, Science (Cybernetics) 3, Science (Genetics) 1, Science (Xenology) 2, Seafarer 0, Streetwise 0, Survival 0
Gear: Cr 10,000. Augments: Enhanced Vision, Neural Comm (TL14), Wafer Jack.
Lab Ship: Present Grace (18 years old, paid in full). Quirks: Library contains self-contradictory data. Non-standard design with limited documentation (DM -1 to Repair attempts).
(Created 2023)
Maybe that's the point. Creating a character takes an act of hope. What's past is prologue, and we stand at the very start of this character's story, preparing to weave a new tapestry of story with other characters arriving at the table carrying wildly different backgrounds. Dr. Germain has spent her life healing and pushing physiological boundaries with her work. Now she has the Present Grace and the freedom to travel where she's needed. How does the rest of her crew arrive on board? Where does she go? How can she help? Which path leads her to the most good for the most people?
A new character means a new beginning. We need to have faith in some sort of a future in order to bring this character to life. They need something to look forward to, so we need something to look forward to. Otherwise why bother with anything?
Creation buoys me through rough times. No matter how bad things get, at least I can tell myself a story with a few rolls of the dice. And if this character can bounce back after getting kicked out of every career they've tried, like Nyx here, maybe I can get past whatever plagues my waking thoughts and get myself to a better place.
No rulebook I've seen mentions this particular side benefit to character creation.
Nyx Patel (Human, Age 34, Baronet and ex-Middle Manager amid Scandal and Upheaval)
77499C - Admin 1, Advocate 1, Broker 0, Carouse 0, Deception 1, Diplomat 0, Electronics 0, Flyer 0, Investigate 0, Persuade 1, Steward 1, Streetwise 1
Gear: Cr 20,000.
(Created Spring 2026)
I keep a beat-up second-hand spiral-bound notebook in the office, rolling up characters as the mood strikes me since the pandemic hit. (Only 5 pages left, so I'll need another one very soon.) I've gone back and sampled a few characters for this post, and I'm struck by the variety. Will I ever use most of these? Probably not. But they each provide the kernel of a story, moving forward from their randomized past.
Maybe one day I'll go back and tap this notebook mine for characters to use in an actual campaign. More likely I'll create new custom NPCs as needed to fill roles in whatever story I'm trying to tell. But they're here if I need them, and I remember most of the decisions I made to get them this far. The narrative holds together the numbers and explains why and how they got this far. Now I just need to bring them to the table and give them a little push...
...and if nothing else, I inspired myself to create while entertaining myself for a half an hour.
In our current reality, that's not a bad thing at all.
You're not weird for obsessively making characters. Keep going.
(There, I made something. And now I feel a little better.)
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