Liminal Void: Professions (like Classes but not really). What are we doing here?

May 3, 2023

So I'm thinking about what I'm doing with Professions in Liminal Void. A Profession is like...a class, kind of/sort of? It's got a starting skillset (basically a broad Skill category), a little passive ability that differentiates it, a few changes to being able to recover/reload/recharge in combat, and a starting equipment package (which includes an outfit, a capital-T Tool, and two consumables).

Beyond the mechanical aspects, though, there's a few things I've been thinking about. What is the purpose of this, and should I extend it further?

Worker Professions

If you haven't read the free quickstart, I've got 6 in there:

• Laborer
• Driller/Excavator
• Pilot
• Technician
• Engineer
• Foreman

And I'm also going to be adding 6 more:

• Demolisher (person who breaks down ships/station walls/etc, has a big portable-wrecking-ball driver)
• Doc (tor, making the distinction that this is probably not someone with theoretical so much as practical medical training)
• Janitor (it's a janitor, has a self-propelled waterless cleaning device)
• Surveyor (person in charge of measurement, has a ranging/highlight-for-targeting laser)
• Sysadmin (has a movie-hacker-style device)
• Welder (high-temperature specialist)

The idea is that for any given Level 0 scenario, you can pick 6 of these that best fit it (6 for easy randomization) and go, characterizing it in a different way. Your character is a lot more defined by equipment than this stuff, but it'll make a pretty big difference over time.

I'm quite confident in the first 6...some of the last 6 are kind of a stretch or might be too specific. We'll see. I might also add a few more if I come up with 6 more ideas.

Mercenary Professions

Obviously given the easy formulation (skillset, talent, outfit, tool, consumables) I've been looking at swapping "Tool" for "Weapon" conceptually (given the two mechanically work roughly the same way, it's just that weapons are better at offense, use ammo, and have very few uses outside of combat) and creating professions based around more martial (or non-tool-using) things.

Now. I have mixed feelings about this. The big thing I want to avoid is letting this into A Dedicated Combat Game. It's got the ability to do that for sure, but I want that to be opt-in - if a character is set up just to do that from the word go, it's going to slide way more in that direction by implication. If your character's main talent is "do guns better" then, well, guess what they're going to do, probably. I don't really want to set players up to just do that.

On the other hand, though, it's not like taking on mercenary contracts isn't a part of the game, and that can involve hiring help - or if someone dies, maybe that hired help becomes a permanent fixture. (Or even before then, I strongly promote the idea of troupe play for this.) And for that matter, some people just have a more martial outlook on life. Not everyone started their career as a space plumber or whatever, or even if they did, it's not really always the most relevant thing about them, you know?

Right now the compromise I'm thinking is:

• Backgrounds that leverage 6/12 of the weapons (basically, not the more situational/"heavy weapon"/"this is basically only for cops" ones). Right now I'm thinking:
  • Hunter (typically of the bounty kind, has a Revolver. Probably overlaps Investigator? I'll think about this one some more.)
  • Infiltrator (sneaky bastard, has a Rail Pistol)
  • Investigator (private eye/intel, has a Laser Pistol)
  • Marine (boarding/CQC specialist, has a Shotgun)
  • Sharpshooter (what it says, has a Rail Rifle)
  • Soldier ("being in firefights" specialist, has a PDW)
• Explicit guidance to not start with these these at Level 0 for characters, except if it makes sense through play. For example in Escape from CICP-1 there are a few corpsec soldiers and raiders that could defect, so if one of them joined the party that could make sense, but everyone starting out is going to have a Worker Profession.
• Guidance as to how best to use these when starting at Level 1: basically, make sure that your Background is something that helps them gel with the rest of the party.
• Integration in play: describe what kinds of characters you meet and hire with these kinds of backgrounds. Explanation of retraining at Tier too, like if you were an Engineer but you basically only shoot people nowadays maybe that part's not so relevant anymore.

But we'll see. I might just put a bunch of the Talents I was gonna use for those 6 into a list for players to take during advancement.

Conclusions

As usual, I have none other than "I'm gonna try some shit out and hope it works", but I still like making a final header for these writeups so here you go.

Once again, there's a free quickstart for this game if you're interested.

(Read the original on cohost here!)