Tweaking the Trill

[Balok]

Looking over the Trill information on pp. 46-47 on behalf of a player who may wish to play one, I am inclined to fiddle with it a little bit. Here are the changes I have in mind:

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To determine the number of previous hosts, roll 2d6 and consult the following chart:

2: Three
3: Three
4: Five
5: One
6: Three
7: Four
8: Three
9: Two
10: Two
11: Three
12: Three

This opens up the possibility for more than three prior hosts, while weighting in favor of "three" (at a roughly 45% chance). My concern was that Trill had a completely random chance of getting 1, 2, or 3 prior hosts, and this made the value of the Joining Species Ability too random for my tastes.

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If a player is unhappy with the number of previous hosts his character has, he may purchase the "Previous Hosts" edge during personal development [only], paying for it in the usual way:

<strong>PREVIOUS HOSTS</strong>
Your symbiont has been hosted by one or two additional people in its lifetime (your choice).

<strong>Prerequisite:</strong>Character must be a Trill; only available during Personal Development phase.
<strong>Effects:</strong>Add the number of hosts you select to the number generated according to the rules on page PH49. This is your total number of previous hosts; use this number for all determinations based on the number of previous hosts. See page PH49 for details.
<strong>Upgrade:</strong>Not permitted.

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I do not require Trill characters to make the 1/6 roll to see whether they can use a transporter or not. Instead, I defined the following flaw:

<strong>TRANSPORTER INTOLERANCE</strong>
You cannot use a transporter safely.

<strong>Prerequisite:</strong> Character must be a joined Trill, or must have gamemaster permission.
<strong>Effects:</strong> The character must check each time he uses a transporter to see whether he is injured. See the last bullet point under Joined Trill on PH49 for details.
<strong>Upgrade:</strong>Not permitted.

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Characters may play unjoined Trill if they wish. There are two paths. (1) The character can join, but has not done so. This character is created exactly the same way as other Trill characters, except that he does not get the Joined species ability or any of the benefits of it. He could conceivably join in the future; this would have to be roleplayed. (2) The character is one of those who cannot join with a symbiont, ever. This is treated as a flaw, entitling the character to an additional edge of his choice.

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Some of these ideas are gleaned from threads I've seen posted here over the past several months, so if you see your idea, thanks!

Comments are welcome, in fact, they're why I posted this! So thanks in advance.

[RaconteurX]

Looks good, Fesarius. I always thought the Joined species ability was a trifle too random...

[Lonoto]

This is awesome. I like the way you did it for a roughly 45% chance of getting three hosts, plus turning certain things into edges and flaws (ingenious.) Maybe next time I create a character I'll make a Trill . I like how you did the non-joined Trill idea their, very cool.

Lonoto

[Balok]

Thanks, but the non-joined Trill idea isn't mine, although I no longer remember who did come up with it. I read it months ago and liked it.

Of course, the upcoming "Aliens" book has a section on Trill that may cause me to scrap all of this. I won't know that for a few months yet...

[qerlin]

If a player doesn't want a joined Trill, I've just been letting them choose an ability from the human template to replace the Joined one.

Just an alternative...

[J.T Edwards]

Sorry, I'm not too familiar with Trill, but is there any particular reason why the number of previous hosts should peak at three?

I would have thought that a higher number of previous hosts would be rarer due to attrition and so forth.

[Balok]

Originally posted by J.T Edwards
Sorry, I'm not too familiar with Trill, but is there any particular reason why the number of previous hosts should peak at three?

I would have thought that a higher number of previous hosts would be rarer due to attrition and so forth.

No. Strictly speaking, accidents and illness would tend to decrease the total number of symbionts at each age category. So the number of Trill with no previous hosts should be greater than the number with one, which is greater than the number with two, and so forth.

However, the number of previous hosts confers certain benefits on the Trill character, so for the sake of play balance, I decided to arrange the chart so that there was a decent chance the player would receive a symbiont with some experience.

A balance between an actuarial view and a gameplay view, in other words.

[Doug Burke]

Don't forget, folks, that the Aliens book will have advanced rules for Trill. Not as detailed as these, but definitely more extensive than those in the PG.

[Balok]

Originally posted by Doug Burke
Don't forget, folks, that the Aliens book will have advanced rules for Trill. Not as detailed as these, but definitely more extensive than those in the PG.

I didn't forget. Well, I did in the original post, but I remembered in time for my first reply.

What's in Aliens may make me scrap these rules completely. The problem I had with the original Trill rules was they have an element of randomness that doesn't seem to be present in the rules for other characters. That's what I'm trying to address -- without making it *completely* inflexible.

You can be sure I'll give Aliens a lot when it's published.

Of course, if you want to post the advanced rules for Trill ahead of time, I won't object! Ah, well, I didn't really think you'd fall for that one.

[Publius]

Looks interesting Fesarius, nice work on the advantages and disadvantages aspect of it. The only problem I have is that the previous host advantage coveys bonuses far and above those of a standard 2-pick edge available to other character races. Using a trained skill untrained for each host is okay I guess, but getting up to three Professional Skills (on top of however many you get from the intitial roll) for a single Two-pick Edge is one heck of a deal. As a Starship Officer it would take another PC race 1-3 Three-Pick Professional abilities to achieve the same thing (3-9 Picks total) and I can only add up to three skills to my "Professional" category that way!

Please don't get me wrong, I do think that this table is a far better method of randomizing the number of Trill past hosts than d6/2. I altered the Trill for my game as well, more to maintain play balance than anything else; as a result, the changes I made were a bit more radical. Trill have characteristic and skill bonus far in excess of the other character races. I allowed the players to select any number of previous hosts they thought appropriate for roleplaying purposes, but held the actual advantages of any previous hosts at two. In other words, you could have had six hosts for color, but you only got the character generation benefits of having had two. I also eliminated the +1 Intellect and the bonus professional skills from hosts to bring the Trill in line with other character races.

Once again, I think the chart and the advantages are good, and I will use them for players who would like to randomize their Trills. I think that it is a far more appropriate method because it takes the social realities of a long-lived symbiot and relatively small number of hosts into account. Using the Bonus number of hosts edge gives players a few trained skills that they may use as untrained is a slightly underpowered using my alternative system; thus I would add a few extra points for players to put into racial background skills if they took it during character generation.

[Jesse Heinig]

The Trill presented in the <i>Aliens</i> book have a very similar system, which allows you to purchase additional Past Lives as upgrades to your species template. You can even do this in play to represent re-integrating old memories from past lives that you never paid attention to before.

Although it's a cheap edge, the cost is balanced by the fact that you <i>have</i> to be a Trill to have it. You can't be a Trill with the Mind-Meld species ability or the <i>brak'lul</i> species ability or the Toxin Endurance species ability.

J.H.