Twilight: 2000 Character Creation Spreadsheet - Starting Packages

While creating the various pre-generated characters for my proposed T2k v2.2 "starter kit", I came across the rather large stumbling block of the dense text in the "Careers" section of the corebook. The layout and length of this section make it difficult to work out which careers are useful to progress particular skills when aiming for a particular "archetype" build eg "the Heavy", "the Scout", or "the Wheelman" or targeting a particular Asset for a character. 

I then invested time creating a Google Sheet spreadsheet with what I think are useful tables and resources - the various tabs cover Archetypes, determining When War Breaks Out (maximum terms), Background / Education / Basic Training, US Army careers, US Marine careers and Civilian careers to date - I've so far not covered the other branches or non-US careers other than Basic Training for the most common forces in the default dstarting area (German, Polish, Soviet, UK) given the amount of work required and the non-US careers are mostly just minor variations of existing US careers.

Background, Education and Basic Training 

This first skills tab collates all the "core" parts of the Skill selection for character creation, listing which skills are Background, Education, Basic Training or allowed as Secondary Activity choices. 

Background, Education & Basic Training Summary Spreadsheet tab(derived from T2k v2.2 pages 19-20, 30-31, 35

A few notes on the notation and layout of the spreadsheet (used across all tabs):

• Prerequisites by Skill are listed where applicable
• Skills are grouped by Attribute
• Skills in bold are core "Basic Training Skills" for Military careers
• A numerical value denotes the skill levels granting by 1st career
• A "x" denotes that the Skill is available, a "-" indicates unavailable
• Comments are provided in the right hand most cell

The resolution of the above image won't be enough to see the detail (you'll have to go to the actual spreadsheet tab for that) but I think you'll be able to appreciate the following patterns if you kmnow that the columns in order left to right are Background, Secondary, various Education careers, Military Academy and then the starting Basic Training packages:

• STR based combat skills are mainly from military basic training or academy
• (Aircraft) Mechanic is only available from Technical education, not Background or Secondary
• AGL based skills are mainly Technical education or Background, other than Ground Vehicle: Wheeled
• CON and INT based skills are nearly exclusively found in Background and Secondary 
• Unsurprisingly EDU based skills all depend on specific Education careers except Medical: Trauma Aid
• CHR based skills are scattered across the various columns 

The patterns above become relevant, as for some builds it's the early choices that assist with prerequisites for later careers, Asset specialisation and knowing which Secondary Skills are and are not available at the start of character creation, thus guiding later choices from actual career packages. 

Likewise, organising the skills by Attribute (rather than alphabetically in the corebook on pages 48-49 or in the appendix pages 264-65) gives a better idea on how to choose skills that will work to realise a particular character concept. This isn't to encourage min-maxing per se (although I admit the tables do assist this as a by-product) but help reduce player disappointment and frustration at character creation given the time investment needed to generate a playable character.

Next Steps   

There's a lot more to the spreadsheet than just the "starting packages", but I hope by posting this veteran and new players alike will find character creation easier. In subsequent posts I'll talk about archetypes as a means of streamlining character creation and an optional method for simplifying determining starting age and maximum terms.