Mercenary
Version 1.3

INTRODUCTION

Mercenary is a game aid for Game Designers' Workshop's Traveller role-playing game that generates characters with an Army or Marines background.

It follows the rules in Book 4: Mercenary, published in 1978. It includes two starting options for the player character:

1.	Enrollment in the Military or Naval Academy as defined in an article in The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society, issue 10, published in 1981. Application to flight school for marine characters achieving honors is not supported. A +1 DM on promotion die rolls is available for both army and marine academy graduates.

2.	Enrollment in college as defined in Book 5: High Guard, 2nd edition, published in 1980. Application to medical school or flight school for characters achieving honors is not supported.

At each point in the character generation rules where the player may select options, these are offered, along with a description that includes the success die roll and die modifiers, if any.

Corrections, comments, and correspondence can be sent to the author, Art Gorski, via GeekMail to agorski at http://rpggeek.com/ or via a Private Message to agorski at the Citizens of the Imperium forums at http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/index.php, or via the Contact Form at http://naasirka.weebly.com/.

INSTRUCTIONS

Upon launching Mercenary, a single window is opened where all data entry and option selection occurs. Other options available are:

*	Selecting the File>Open Character… menu item presents an open file dialog that allows the user to select a previously saved character file. The data stored in the file is loaded into the program for display and printing. 
•	Selecting the View>Show Log menu item opens a drawer that contains a log of all activity. Use View>Hide Log to close the drawer. The contents of the Log may be copied and pasted elsewhere. The log will open automatically in Step 2 below when pressing the Roll button.

•	Selecting the View>Show Skills menu item opens a window listing all skills available in Mercenary. Select any skill to see a description. Descriptions may be copied and pasted elsewhere. Click the close box or use View>Hide Skills to close the window.

Step 1.	Enter the following data:

1.	Character Name.
2.	Home World TL. The home world tech level indicates the tech level of the service that the character enlists in and will affect the availability of skills and benefits. The pull-down menu limits choices to the range of 7-15.
3.	Sex. The character's sex will affect the noble title assigned, if any.

Step 2.	Press the Roll button to generate the character's Universal Personality Profile (UPP) values (Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education, and Social Standing), set the character's starting Age to 18, and determine whether the character has a Noble Title. This also initializes the character's service career to Term 0 and Assignment 0. If the Log window has not been opened yet, it will automatically open to show the results.

Step 3.	Optionally return to Step 2 by pressing the Roll button to clear all values and start over if the character is deemed unacceptable. This reset option may be performed at any time in the character generation process.

Step 4.	Pick the desired military service by selecting either Army or Marines and pressing the Continue button. If enlistment fails, the second service is still available to try. If both fail, then Reset the character and start over.

Step 5.	Pick the desired career path by selecting either Military Academy (Naval Academy for Marines), College, or Enlistment and pressing the Continue button. Select the college Apply for ROTC option to attempt to get an officer's commission while following the college path. If admission fails, the second college option is still available to try. The Academy option is disabled if the character's social standing is too low.

The following outcomes are possible:

*	If both college admission attempts fail, or if the character opts for Enlistment, then the character automatically enters the service as an enlisted person at age 18 (Term 1 Assignment 1).
•	If the character achieves admission to either college or the Academy but fails to succeed, then the character automatically enters the service as an enlisted person at age 19 with no skills (Term 1 Assignment 2).
*	If the character graduates from college, but does not opt for or is not accepted into ROTC, then the character gains an education increase and enters the service as an enlisted person at age 22 (Term 1 Assignment 1).
*	If the character graduates from the Academy, or from college with ROTC, then the character gains an education increase and military skills and enters the service as an officer at age 22 (Term 1 Assignment 1).

Note that whenever skills are attained, if a "cascade" skill such as Heavy Weapons occurs a dialog box will be presented to allow the selection of one of the specific skills in this category, limited by availability at this tech level. Some skills are only available at lower tech levels.  If the selected Gun Combat skill is Combat Rifleman, Laser Weapons, Zero-G Weapons, or Auto Weapons, all of the individual weapon skills in that category are awarded separately. 

To exactly follow the rules in Mercenary without the JTAS 10 options, select Enlistment and press the Continue button.

Step 6.	Select the Arm of Service and press the Continue button. At the start of each 4 year term this dialog will appear to allow the character to change Arms if the character has received cross training in one or more additional Arms.

Step 7.	At the start of each year, the General Assignment is determined. "Command" and "Staff" assignments apply only to officers and have no effect on enlisted men or non-commissioned officers and affect the skill table selection. In any case, these resolve as an active duty assignment.

DM options may be available to influence the assignment for this term. If neither option is available, this step requires no user involvement and will not appear. The DM options are:

	+1 DM is optionally available to any character with Edu 8+.
	-1 DM is optionally available to officers who wish to "buck for command."

Select one or the other option (if available) and press the Continue button.

During the first year of service, the following exceptions apply:

*	Army Military Academy graduates with Honors must attend either the Staff College or Commando School and will be given a choice to select one or the other.
*	Marine Naval Academy graduates must attend Marine Officers Training School which is equivalent to attending OCS.
*	Enlistees must attend Basic and Advanced Training.

Step 8.	In most cases, the Specific Assignment for each year is handled automatically with no user involvement.

In the case  of a Special Assignment, if Cross-Training occurs, pick another Arm for cross-training and press the Continue button. Special Assignments do not roll for survival, decorations, or promotion.

For the more common case of a Unit Assignment, the following is determined:

*	Survival is determined automatically. If injured in a Police Action, Counter Insurgency, or Raid, then the Purple Heart is awarded, otherwise the injury is just reported. If death occurs, then Reset the character and start over.
*	Decorations are determined automatically and reported.
*	Combat Service Ribbons (for all ranks) and Command Ribbons (for officers) are automatically awarded. This is an enhancement not present in the Mercenary rules.
*	Promotions are determined automatically and reported. Academy graduates receive a +1 DM for promotion. Officers are only eligible for promotion once per 4 year term except that the Special Assignment of Military Attache grants an automatic promotion.
*	If a skill is awarded, pick one of the available Skill tables and press the Continue button to earn a skill from that table. If the total number of  skill levels earned so far equals Int+Edu, the Log displays ***Max Skill Level Limit Reached!***. This rule was introduced in Merchant Prince but is implemented here as an optional warning to muster out the character. 

Finally, the character's Age is increased by one year and aging effects are applied automatically to character attributes starting at age 34.

Step 9.	At the end of each 4 year term (3 years for the first term if failure to succeed at Academy or college), determine whether reenlistment is desired. Select either Attempt Reenlistment or Muster Out and press the Continue button.

If 5 terms have been completed, the Muster Out option will be replaced with Retire, indicating that monthly retirement pay will be awarded as well as mustering out benefits.

If serving in the Marines and cross training in either Artillery and/or Cavalry, the +1 DM checkbox will be available. Selecting this option will require the character to serve in either the Artillery or Cavalry Arm for the next term.

The following cases apply:

*	If reenlistment succeeds, then the term is incremented and Steps 6-9 are repeated.
*	If reenlistment fails, this will be reported and the character will muster out or retire.
*	If mustering out or retirement fails due to a die roll of 12, then the character is required to reenlist for another term and this is reported. After 7 terms, only this die roll will allow completion of an 8th term.
*	If 8 terms have been served then this dialog does not appear at all and retirement is mandatory.

Step 10.	If retiring, annual retirement pay is reported. For all characters, the number of mustering out benefit rolls is calculated and displayed. Select either the Material Benefits table or the Cash Allowances table (maximum 3 times) for each benefit roll and press the Continue Button. After each roll, the benefit is reported and the number of rolls left is decremented.

+1 DM is optionally available to any officer of rank Colonel or above on the Material Benefits roll. If not applicable, this option will not be selectable.

Characters with gambling expertise are automatically given a +1 DM on the Cash Allowances roll.

If Blade or Gun is awarded on a Material Benefits table roll, then a dialog will be presented to allow the selection of one of the specific weapons in this category. Subsequent awards of the same benefit will allow the selection of a weapon already awarded, a different weapon of that type, or a +1 skill increase in any of the weapons of that type already awarded.

Step 11.	Upon completing the character generation process, the following record keeping options are available:

*	Selecting File>Save Character… will save all of the character data to a file.

*	The contents of the Log can be copied and pasted elsewhere, giving the exact sequence of events in the character's higher education and military life.

*	Selecting File>Print TAS Form 2… will print a copy of TAS Form 2 (modified) with all the important information on this character.This may also be saved as a PDF.

MENUS

Mercenary
	About Mercenary	Displays the About Box for the program.
File
	Open Character…	Displays the standard Open File dialog.
	Save Character…	Displays the standard Save File dialog.
	Page Setup…	Displays the standard Page Setup dialog.
	Print TAS Form 2…	Displays the standard Print dialog.
View
	Show Log/Hide Log	Toggles the display of the Log.
	Show Skills/Hide Skills	Toggles the display of the skills browser window.

TAS FORM 2

This form is produced by choosing the File>Print… menu item and prints out a formatted single page document that includes the fields described below.

	1.	Date of Preparation	The current date in the System's short date format.
	2.	Name	The character's name as entered in Step 1.
	3.	Noble Title	The character's noble title as determined by Social Standing and sex.
	4.	UPP	The character's Universal Personality Profile as generated in Step 2 and modified by the character generation process and aging.
	5.	Age	The character's age at the end of the character generation process.
	6.	TL	The character's home Tech Level as entered in Step 1.
	7.	Final Rank	The character's final military rank.
	8.	Academy Grad?	Indicates whether the character graduated from the service academy.
	9.	College Grad?	Indicates whether the character graduated from college.
	10.	Honors?	Indicates whether the character graduated with honors.
	11.	ROTC?	Indicates whether the character was enrolled in ROTC while attending college.
	12.	Service	The character's military service, either Army or Marines.
	13.	Branch	The character's Arm of service upon mustering out or retirement.
	14.	Terms Served	The number of 4 year terms of service completed.
	15.	Retired?	Indicates whether the character achieved retirement status.
	16.	Retirement Pay	If retired, the character's annual pension.
	17.	Special Assignments	A list of all special assignments followed by an integer indicating the number of times this assignment occurred.
	18.	Awards and Decorations	A list of all decorations and ribbons followed by an integer indicating the number of times each was awarded.
	19.	Skills	A list of all skills attained followed by an integer indicating the level of achievement.
	20.	Cash	The amount of cash on hand as determined by rolls on the Cash Allowances table when mustering out.
	21.	Material Benefits	A list of all material benefits such as weapons, starship travel passages, and TAS memberships followed by an integer indicating the number of each acquired.

FAIR USE

The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises, Copyright © 1977-2011. Traveller is a registered trademark of Far Future Enterprises. Far Future permits programs which automate processes within the game as long as they are for personal, non-commercial use only. Any use of Far Future Enterprises's copyrighted material or trademarks should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks.

Mercenary is copyrighted by Art Gorski © 2010-2011 and may not be republished or distributed without the consent of the author.