Clement Sector Player’s Guide

Reviewed by: Ron McClung

Clement Sector Player’s Guide is a RPG Supplement from Gypsy Knights Games.

The Clement sector setting continues to be supported by the fine group of people at Gypsy Knights and I have been really impressed with this settings resilience as well as the writers’ dedication to the setting. This supplement is a great example as it expands the Clement Sector for the players, linking the setting book, the core Traveller rulebook and the Career book (also reviewed here).

From page # 9: Jacob McMasters sat in his cargo hauler and waited. It was the nature of his job really. “Hurry up and wait” his grandfather always said harkening back to his time in the Southern Alliance military. It was true, thought Jacob, not only of the military but for those who made deliveries.

This supplement is primarily made up of 4 sections: Character Background Tables, Careers, Character Packages, and New Skill Specialties. I will cover each section generally.

Character Background Tables is an expansion and consolidation of existing tables from other books to one comprehensive background generator. It includes various tables a player can roll on to generate Origins, Background Skills, and Primary Languages. It also has tables for events that occur in the character’s Youth, Teen and College Years.

I am big fan of random background generators. I prefer them primarily because the players I have known tend to be not as invested in the setting as you are, and only become more invested when they feel like their character is a part of it. Leave it to the players and a lot of times, they come up with something that doesn’t not necessarily mesh with the setting. Or the background is too short and not enough detail for the GM to explore in a campaign. However, if you are not a big fan of random generators, there is another option presented in this book (see Character Packages later).

In the Careers sections are a short list of additional careers expanding on those in the Career Companion. If the Companion wasn’t enough, here is a few more. These include Celebrity, Free Trader, Sports, and Vagabond. It also includes an expansion on the System Defense Forces careers – Ground and Wet Navy. Of course these careers come with all the needed tables and information to use in your Traveller game.

From page # 9: Jacob worked for the Torgent Shipping Company. His job was to take his cargo hauler from Terminal to any ship that was too large to actually dock with Terminal. The ship would come through The Conduit, he would hail them and then, once everything was properly arranged, Jacob would approach the ship. He would attach the cargo onto the back of his boat and haul it back to Terminal. Sure, it wasn’t the most exciting job in Clement Sector but it paid his bills.

Perhaps the largest section in this book is the Character Packages. This is an alternative to the random background generator. Instead of rolling up a background, the player may choose from one of the packages. Each package contains a set of specific rules concerning that particular package and the player may choose to enter one career package or a succession of packages.

Contained in these packages are a variety of things that help build a characters background. It starts with Prerequisites, which the character must fulfill before entering the package. These Prerequisites may include Age and the character must choose an age at which he enters this package. Following this are the skills obtained from this Package – Base, Primary and Secondary. And then each Package has money earned. Done in a similar fashion as the Careers, there are a ton of Packages to choose from. I am less of a fan of this method because it is less story and more min-maxing. Given the choice between the two, I would pick story.

The final chapter contains new skill specialties that help customize existing skills to be more fitting to the Clement Sector setting. Where they thought some skills were too broad, the writers chose to specialize some of them. For example, Survival has been expanded out to nine different specialties. Deception has three new specialties – Disguise, Forgery and Intrusion. Of course, these follow the standard core rules of specialization.

In conclusion, what I like about this is that it helps add story to the character and gives the GM options for more story in his campaign. It also helps the players get a stronger grasp on the Clement Sector and feel like a part of it. It does gives more opportunity for min-maxing for those players that tend to do that but with proper oversight by the GM, it can be used properly.

For more details on Gypsy Knights Games and their RPG Supplement “Clement Sector Player’s Guide” check them out at their website http://www.gypsyknightsgames.com/, and at all of your local game stores.

Codex Rating: 17

Product Summary

Clement Sector Player’s Guide
From: Gypsy Knights Games
Type of Game: RPG Supplement
Written by: John Watts
Artists: Bradley Warnes, Ian Stead, Stephanie McAlea
Editor: Curtis Rickman
Number of Pages: 115
Game Components Included: Single PDF book
Game Components Not Included: Core Traveller book, Clement Sector setting book PDF
Website: http://www.gypsyknightsgames.com/

Reviewed by: Ron McClung