Traveller:

If your players are the powergaming type it might be a way of keeping them in check

On a similar note to OP, has anyone played 2300ad, the Mongoose edition?
I really like the Traveller chargen system, and the rest of MongTrav isn't too bad, it's just I'm not a massive fan of "imperial" sci-fi. I prefer my settings smaller yanno?

I was thinking either of either using 2300ad or stealing the Stars Without Number settingand making my own thing, albeit a little more rebuilt than SWN implies

You could also make aging harsher and anagathics more expensive if you want a softer method

Be wary of the Mongoose stuff outside of core, some of it is of very poor quality.
DO NOT hand your players the Central Supply Catalogue and let them go to town. It has a lot of ridiculously broken stuff in it. Close the Airlock had one player use it and wind up with something like +35 to hit. (The player and GM agreed to kill off the character later. Neither of them knew quite how bad it was going to be at first because they were new to the system.)

I guess you could swap out for the Classic Traveller chargen, which is much faster. But chargen is many player's favorite part, and Classic assumes players are competent at most things and that having a skill means you're especially good at that thing, so it's much stingier about handing out a big laundry list of skills like Mongoose.

Term limits are a necessary thing IMO. More terms makes a more powerful character, so there has to be some kind of stop.
Classic handled this by giving characters a small chance of dying each term, so it was like a game of Push Your Luck, where you could go back for one more go at the skills and benefits tables, but each time was risking your character and you had to decide when to press on and when to cash out. Removing death from the minigame of chargen takes the brakes off and without term limits, you can wind up with a player having a 70 year old rear admiral with ridiculous skills and cash and equipment right off the bat.

>Term limits are a necessary thing IMO.
Point out the experience system in Mongoose (at the end of the skills chapter), and take into account that a spacefaring game will eat weeks quickly, but not *that* quickly. You'll frequently end up with an old fart, a bunch of Han Solos, and a Farm Boy as a natural result.

>If your players are the powergaming type
On the other hand, you might let the guy who wants to play a doctor go for as long as he can tough out the Aging rolls. It can also be useful for other social roles. Had an Entertainer (Journalist) - Noble - Dilettante go for 7 terms. Not too much cash, just enough combat skills to not be useless in a fight, and the Voice of Authority to get others to hop on cue.

That's Classic and Mega. The Mongoose Career books don't award any more skills than the core does, but can be a bit more tightly focused.

Let your players have Psi powers starting (Psi careers) or cut it out altogether. Yours players may not like the random nature of making a PC.

By default, *everyone* has the potential for psi powers, but you age out of it. It is actually another way to encourage younger PCs.

Psi is not a huge deal. This isn't D&D, or a superhero game. More like Babylon 5. The game is stingy on purpose, because it is really easy to add to the power level if you want, but very difficult to cut it back.

I'm a player in a game now, it is fun as fuck.

>tips for someone about to run it?
Mongoose doesn't really address it, but a "typical" campaign has plenty of room long-term in about two typical subsectors. You can whip them up yourself or use published material.

Before doing that you may want to see what the players *say* they want and then what they generate as PCs, including mobility. A group with a ship will need those two subsectors more quickly, while a group that has to depend on TAS tickets or their own money can grow into the space more gradually.

Feel free to Travel By Map if you have nothing to distract them between stops.

Combat is lethal, especially since Mongoose, in their immense wisdom, removed a lot of the non-lethal ammo options. Impress that lethality on your players as soon as possible.

Your setting can be a Human or as Alien as you like *and can explain*. Even within the default setting.

The default feels more like Firefly or Babylon 5, but you can certainly run Trek or even Star Wars LIKE games, even without matching the tech specifically.

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So, is there actually any hard cap to the years you can take career terms outside of affecting aging?

Sat down and made a character just to see how it works and got a colonist all the way to max rank before dropping him out just to see how well off he was.

Mongoose doesn't have one, but does soft cap a number of careers with the Advancement roll mechanic combined with the Enlistment penalty. By eight or nine terms you'll be having trouble staying in any career or getting into a new one.

Don't forget, once you have an ageing crisis you can't ever take another career but the one you have currently. I'm not sure if drifter counts or not though

I don't recall that, but it enforces the soft cap approach. The system will eventually push you out into play.

Just wondering.

Had a doctor/colonist make it to 46 with no aging but right up to the edge of it to the point it seemed not really smart to continue but within reason of not losing the character straight away.

46 is nothing to worry about, especially for a ship's doctor

Aye, just checked. Having a characteristic dropped to 0 by injury or aging means you gotta pay 1d6 *10,000 CR or die, and even if you cough up you automatically fail all Qualification/Enlistment rolls from then on out