Character Information

This page is designed to give you guidelines for creating your character. It is split into two distinct sections; mechanics and background. Mechanics refers to the actual character creation part of it using the GURPS rules, while background refers to what you’re character is doing when the campaign starts, where it came from and why it is where it is.


Look at the Character Concept section in chapter 1 of the GURPS handbook for some ideas to get you started on the characters back story. Your characters should be one of the Playable Races for convenience, but if you have a good enough case for a different species, let me know and it’s possible we can work something out. It is also assumed that your character grows up on a world of at least TL9, but no more than TL12. They are familiar with the six major races as listed in the Traveller Basic Handbook and have at least heard of most alien races, even if they can’t recognize them all by sight. They also have a general idea of the major empires and regions of known space as shown in Galactic Maps.

The game will begin on the world Collace where for some reason or another each of you is seeking transport away from. However there is only one ship leaving the planet that’s not an Imperial Scout, and so, either taking service, or buying passage, you decide to leave on the only ship leaving port, the Crimson Raptor. The game will start with each of you having either taken a position on the crew or buying passage on the ship, as determined in our character creation session or beforehand. It will be the day before the ship leaves the planet giving time enough for any last minute shopping or shenanigans.

The GURPS book and the Traveller handbook both contain a number of templates you can use to give you ideas for backgrounds. Some ideas that would work for this campaign include ex-con, smuggler, mercenary, failed businessman, psionic on the run, secret agent, youth looking for adventure, fortune seeker, and any other number of things. Send me your ideas and we can go over them beforehand, otherwise we will have our first session to finish hammering out characters.


Please refer to the Basic Handbook 4th ed. and the Traveller Basic Handbook which are linked to from the main wiki page for the steps of character creation. We will have our first session as a character generation session primarily, but feel free to start, ask questions or even make the whole character before hand as well. For the nitty-gritty details there is a character creation program that I have and can send to you, I recommend using it to build your characters and keep them up to date as we play.

Players will start with 120 points and a disadvantage limit of 40 points. This gives players up to 160 points that they could conceivably use in creating their character. If for some reason your species uses more than 40 points in disadvantages, please let me know and I will make a note of it. Creative/Realistic back stories may be rewarded 5-10 additional points.

The GURPS book does a good job of breaking down character creation and has character sheets at the end of the book you can print off if you wish to do everything by hand. I would recommend you choose disadvantages first, then look at skills you may wish to have so you can determine your main attribute, then choosing attributes, advantages and finally skills.

Unless you can justify it with your background, nobody should have any starting Basic Attributes above 13. It is also recommended that you spend a few points to increase your HP. Everyone speaks Ganglic in addition to any racial or local languages from your background. No can take any sort of primitive or low-TL disadvantages and it is assumed that you grew up on at least a TL9 world.

For the races, you are likely to find templates for them in the books, they will give the cost for the skills, dis/advantages and attributes that are automatically granted to that particular race. On page 90 of the Traveller handbook you will also find Templates for different professions that you may reference and use in character creation. That same chapter has other character information specific to the Traveller Universe that you will also want to read.

Obviously there is no magic being used in this setting, which means that characters can also not take any of the ‘supernatural’ advantages or disadvantages. Psionics however is an established ability and your characters may take abilities as outlined in that section. Bionics are also not wide-spread in this setting, however there are some, and if they are hidden well enough, a character might make use of them. When creating the character keep in mind that you are leaving, presumably for good, so you don’t have a lot of stuff to take with you in terms of equipment, and nothing you have can be above TL11 unless approved, and even then some of the more exotic items may be vetoed. Characters may spend no more than $15,000 unless the limit is increased through Advantages, depending on your background, it might be reasonable to start with considerably less.

The GURPS Character Assistant page contains the links and instructions to use the character creation program now.

Character Information

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