Help me pick an MOS for my 2E GMP character?

[thorr-kan]

Help me pick an MOS for my 2E GMP character?

Just for giggles, I've rolled up a GMP character. I got lucky and rolled Fast Learner on the Special Aptitude Bonus table. So I get three MOSs! How useless can I make this guy during the Invid Occupation?

I've chosen Civil Affairs Officer for my first MOS and Combat Journalist as my second MOS.

What should I choose for the third MOS to round out the Trifecta of "I'm Not Trained For This!"?

[ESalter]

Help me pick an MOS for my 2E GMP character?

Just for giggles, I've rolled up a GMP character. I got lucky and rolled Fast Learner on the Special Aptitude Bonus table. So I get three MOSs! How useless can I make this guy during the Invid Occupation?

I've chosen Civil Affairs Officer for my first MOS and Combat Journalist as my second MOS.

What should I choose for the third MOS to round out the Trifecta of "I'm Not Trained For This!"?

If you're stuck on Earth, Aerospace - Ship Pilot is pretty weak: one WP and couple of Pilot Related (but no small vehicle Pilot) Skills.

[glitterboy2098]

civil affairs officer means he'd have been doing press conferences and such. Combat reporter means he'd have been going out with a camera to record events in a battlezone.

i would recommend making his main MOS be combat reporter, then the 2nd MOS be Civil Affairs officer to represent him getting promoted away from reporting, and into managing groups of combat reporters for the GMP's propaganda division.

for the extra, if you want to go that route (you could just use two MOS's and keep your secondary skills), i would suggest Communications Specialist. it has even more skills that dovetail into the other two MOS's, and could represent him being assigned to handle communications near the end of the 2nd war/early invid invasion. something he'd end up doing since he'd have had experience coordinating reports and people, even if his knowledge of the hardware might not be complete at the time.

this trio of MOS's wouldn't make him useless.. it would just make him a specialist. he'd speak multiple languages, understand the history and culture of the local area and the aliens that now inhabit earth (tyrolians and zents), and be able to operate all sorts of surveillance and communications hardware.
in short, he'd be a good spy, or more often, a spymaster. plus he would be the pointman for negotiations with the locals.

[xunk16]

If you're stuck on Earth, Aerospace - Ship Pilot is pretty weak: one WP and couple of Pilot Related (but no small vehicle Pilot) Skills.

Now that is an interesting point. It all depends on your Gm's style and if you'll be on earth, in space, on the Moonbase, mainly fighting invids, or rather human gangsters.

Let's just say for now that you'll play the "Invid Occupation" (I assume New Gen too), the way New Gen was done. Mostly on earth, mostly as a survival scenario, with a small group, and many many fights.
Then I'd guess what could be even less useful than Aerospace Veritech / figther Pilots would be Ship Pilots. No longer many ASC space cruisers will be going around once the occupation starts. And even if you found one, there is nothing telling us for sure that it'll be in condition to fly.

i would suggest Communications Specialist. it has even more skills that dovetail into the other two MOS's, and could represent him being assigned to handle communications near the end of the 2nd war/early invid invasion. something he'd end up doing since he'd have had experience coordinating reports and people, even if his knowledge of the hardware might not be complete at the time.

Personally, I also find glitterboy2098's suggestion very nice all considered. Of course a communication officer will always find occasion where his skills will be important though... So maybe not the best "I'm not trained for this" option. A point also already covered.

Which still leaves a few options directly from TMS :

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigator; In the midst of the Invid occupation, who will care for procedural cop details anyway? Most of the towns probably do not even retain a legal system. Of course that might become handy sometime, but even if it were... the people might be more interested in burning the witch, or hanging a poor sod, rather than listening to any reports containing 8 syllables long chemical names. In case you need to make this fit with the other two, maybe it's just that you did very thorough reference work as a reporter.
• Fire and Rescue; Now that is hardly useless per say... but it might become less of a perk by the time of the Invid Occupation. Of course you'll be physically fit, but W.P. contains only melee S.D.C. weapons. You do have a few useful skills in there, Paramedic being one of the main ones. However; You were not trained for this. You were not trained for this at all!!! Cities are already burned and in ruins. Townsfolk might be used to take care of the little they have themselves... And even if you can heal someone, you might probably not have the supply or the hospital handy. Who knows, maybe you're just an old fireman who actually had managed to get to his dream desk job just before the invasion. Somewhere alone the line, there was just too much burning and not enough plan to save anyone. You could have met a group of journalist along the way, trying to document the occupation in order to help the resistance... but even then, you were mostly patching them up and learning the ropes along the way. That is, until they got splattered during an earthquake and you took it upon yourself to save the camera and continue the mission.
  Hating yourself every step of the way for keeping around situations that could get you killed and have nothing to do with extinguishing fires, reflecting on the little you can actually do.

Or... If your Gm let you have a second job / hobby and draw from the Civilian Occupations from the Macross Sourcebook :

• Dinner's Cook / Owner You were not always a member of the GMP. Before the Masters, before the ASC came and imposed its racket on your town, you had only one dream "be a cook". So much so that you had it all planned, even bought the place before family-sized Troodi kicked your kitchen for not serving the biggest bucket of fried chicken in the universe. Your debts accumulated and left with no choice, you tried your best... ending as a cameraman for the GMP.
• Computer Technician You weren't actually a field reporter, even if you often bragged about it after one too many. In fact, you were mostly the guy doing maintenance on the division's computers. You even managed to get so high in the organization as to orchestrate the formative works for other computer maintenance guys. However, with the occupation, that's all gone. You'd be lucky to find enough scraps to build a PC able to run Mahjong Solitaire. And don't they dare even start you on your pet project to rejuvenate the old paradise lost of the internet!

These are technically not M.O.S., since they do come with their own incomes and a few other things, but they can be taken at face value only for their skills.
And let's be frank, that's mostly all that would be still accurate once the Invids redecorate the house.
Otherwise, I do have to underline both previous suggestion, as they were very good ones.

[ESalter]

CSI: Crime Scene Investigator

That's a good one, but I'd still stump for Ship Pilot: they both have three good skills, but I think Ship Pilot's are more conditional. A lot would depend on whether general science or spaceship operation is more useless. (Also, CSI is less silly, which may be a plus or a minus.)

Fire and Rescue

You're kidding! Every skill there is useful in a post-invasion world.

Or... If your Gm let you have a second job / hobby and draw from the Civilian Occupations from the Macross Sourcebook....

Too easy; the Civilian class is almost defined by its uselessness.

[ShadowLogan]

Help me pick an MOS for my 2E GMP character?

Just for giggles, I've rolled up a GMP character. I got lucky and rolled Fast Learner on the Special Aptitude Bonus table. So I get three MOSs! How useless can I make this guy during the Invid Occupation?

I've chosen Civil Affairs Officer for my first MOS and Combat Journalist as my second MOS.

What should I choose for the third MOS to round out the Trifecta of "I'm Not Trained For This!"?

Information Specialist MOS might fall in this depending on the campaign parameters.

The IS MOS package is mostly useless skill wise against the Invid (less so against humans, but it also depends on how "sophisticated" these humans are). You might get some use out of Sensor skills (RSI and TV/Video), but that would depend if you've access to said equipment. Cryptographic (what Invid codes? humans sure, but are they using them) and Electronic Warfare (Invid do jamming, but AFAIK they aren't susceptible to jamming until Shadow Device) and the Computer Skills (hack/operate Invid terminals? how common are working human terminals) seem pretty limited in application. Basic Electronics might be the only helpful skill, and even that seems limited)

[glitterboy2098]

comms specialist or information specialist would be the easiest to justify in a "why was this person given that training" mode.. it seems unlikely that a combat reporter or Civil Affairs officer would be trained to fly a starship, to be a detective, or a CSI. but comms training or information specialist training is the kind of thing that is adjacent to their main job as a reporter or civil affairs, making it reasonable they'd have either received official training in it, or picked it up along the way.

i know not everyone considers their character's backstory with these things but being able to show why the character has that mix goes a long way to convincing your GM to let you play it.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Help me pick an MOS for my 2E GMP character?

Just for giggles, I've rolled up a GMP character. I got lucky and rolled Fast Learner on the Special Aptitude Bonus table. So I get three MOSs! How useless can I make this guy during the Invid Occupation?

I've chosen Civil Affairs Officer for my first MOS and Combat Journalist as my second MOS.

What should I choose for the third MOS to round out the Trifecta of "I'm Not Trained For This!"?

I would go with information specialist.

And looking through the lists I now know how I should of built my last RT character instead of mod'ing the civilian detective route.
(Tirolian trained to infiltrate the humans...but the brainwashing never took. And at the first opportunity got lost. then a long story between then and the 1st session of a 3rd gen game.)

[xunk16]

CSI: Crime Scene Investigator

That's a good one, but I'd still stump for Ship Pilot: they both have three good skills, but I think Ship Pilot's are more conditional. A lot would depend on whether general science or spaceship operation is more useless. (Also, CSI is less silly, which may be a plus or a minus.)

comms specialist or information specialist would be the easiest to justify in a "why was this person given that training" mode.. it seems unlikely that a combat reporter or Civil Affairs officer would be trained to fly a starship, to be a detective, or a CSI. but comms training or information specialist training is the kind of thing that is adjacent to their main job as a reporter or civil affairs, making it reasonable they'd have either received official training in it, or picked it up along the way.

From my understanding, during the early ASC years and the final Malcontent years, there was still a flotilla of Zentraedi Derelict surrounding the earth.
Now most of these were recycled into the UEEF. But some might have been in a too hazardous orbit to do so. And while reconstruction was going on, there might have been a portion of the forces assigned to the job of either rising them, or crashing them safely.
This would have possibly included some clash with Zent survivors, possibly leading to arrest and the need for documentation.
Thus, it would have been reasonable for a GMP representative to be present with the scavenger teams. Possibly in charge of negotiating with the Zentreadi, and telling them about the fall of Khyron and other groups. (Civil Affairs) To save time and space aboard smaller ships, this officer might have also been trained into documentation of the arrests. (Combat Journalist) And since an accident can happen fairly often in this line of duty, either being by facing giant sized Zentreadi, or during some EVA; it wouldn't be as silly for the whole crew to learn a bit about piloting the ship.

Now that would make the character a bit older for the New Gen standard though.

As for the mix with Detective or CSI... I guessed it could have made sense since the GMP could be short on effective from one place to another and transfer their officers sometime without regards to their initial training, especially on the fringes not yet under direct ASC influence. Plus, the age of the character being unknown and the "Fast Learner trait" opens doors that could lead to interesting Bg.
True though, it might be rather less related.

Fire and Rescue

You're kidding! Every skill there is useful in a post-invasion world.

Almost. While the skills are technically useful, the mindset itself is not necessarily in accordance with. Your Stereotypical Fireman might be someone who cares about others and have a great dedication to his community. Something that is awkward in a world where society has collapsed and anyone could sell you for a protoculture cell. I also meant it in the way that there is a lot of ruins that no longer need any fire departments. Somewhat a depressing reminder of failure for a fireman I would guess.
So it's not that much the skills as the mentality which would bring that character to a moment of "I'm not trained for this!".
Not trained for the betrayal, the uncaring attitude toward the slow destruction of past remains, not trained to fight "giant" alien mecha, but rather a much more natural enemy. I must admit it's a stretch though.

As for why the character would own these skill and be from the GMP, that's a harder question. Might be an old occupation (like a transfer from the C.D.U.), might be into a jurisdiction falling under GMP control while rationalizing the "neo-feudalism" of the ASC.

Or... If your Gm let you have a second job / hobby and draw from the Civilian Occupations from the Macross Sourcebook....

Too easy; the Civilian class is almost defined by its uselessness.

That depends. Many civilian occupations can be very interesting to play, plus they let the character have somewhat of a background to build upon.
We're playing GCW era (circa 1998) and have both an Espionage Agent and a Mechanic (ex-military) to the table. Not only can they make themselves useful, but the Espionage Agent managed to be rich... Which was still important in that era. Might be a question of opinion, but I always thought the goal of RPG was to let us build interesting characters rather than powerful ones.
And technically, the Master Era also had some form of economy boom for a while. With shops re-opening and some such.

And looking through the lists I now know how I should of built my last RT character instead of mod'ing the civilian detective route.
(Tirolian trained to infiltrate the humans...but the brainwashing never took. And at the first opportunity got lost. then a long story between then and the 1st session of a 3rd gen game.)

Now that's an interesting concept. ^^

[thorr-kan]

All good suggestions, folks. Thank you very much.

I especially liked the Ship Pilot, CSI, and Survivor...I mean, Civilian suggestions. I ship Ship Pilot catches my fancy.