Hi there,

I am very new to Traveller and I am rolling up some characters before I
start into being a GM for a campaign starting soon-ish.

welcome and I wish you much happy travelling!

We will use Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition and when I started to roll a
character in the Navy-Career, the following happened:
Pilot 0
I rolled in a term on the Flight table and got Pilot (small craft).
And in yet another term I got "Pilot"
Then I got confused.
Should I have now

Pilot (some choosable specialisation) 1
Pilot (small craft) 0

or

Pilot (small craft) 2

How does that work?

I'm assuming you got Pilot 0 as a service skill (as you can't get it as a Background skill).

So, I would allow a player who then rolled Pilot to take Pilot 1 as a separate skill so they could, if they wished have Pilot (small craft) 1 and Pilot 0 (which could be developed into a different speciality later (see p.56 for picking a speciality once you get to <skill>-1

So the third occurrence of receiving Pilot skill could make the character Pilot (small craft) 2 or, say, Pilot (spacecraft) 1.

However, I recognize that this might be generous, so you could be strict about if you wanted and only allow the second receipt of the skill to make the 0 level a level 1. I don't think the rules say you must do one or the other.

What would happen if I get as an officer Melee (blade) 1 and later roll
Melee somewhere?

If it's just 'Melee' you could either take Melee (blade) 1 or Melee (somethingelse) 1.

*However*, if you already have Melee (blade) 1 and then get to the Rank which gives it to you as an automatic, you effectively lose the extra skill.

2nd question: Do you usually roll the characteristics or do you

I pretty much *always* roll the characteristics for NPCs or characters I've written into published things or given to players (at conventions for example).

However, I'm willing to swap a set of six die rolls around to be put against characteristics that are appropriate for the character being rolled.

I've not done a lot of char gen with players as they've been happy with pre-gens with a couple of exceptions.

give your players 36 or 42 points for the characteristics (I tend to 42)

I've only once gone the point buy route (one of the exceptions above) because a player asked. I didn't give him any point number limit, just checked that the character submitted could be generated by the term system and didn't seem to be abusing anything.

and they can freely distribute them? Or do you give them the choise:
fix points to distribute or try your luck and you might get a worse or
better outcome?

If I was to use the point buy system regularly, I'd probably allow them to distribute them however they wished within reason. But then again I don't have any players likely to min/max their characters inappropriately.

As ever, with all the above, it's your game so make the choices you feel happy with. The rules should only be a guideline. Unless you're trying to publish something that fits the rules, or perhaps are not sure about what effects any particular house rule might have, there's no absolute rule you must follow the rules!

3rd question: How powerful are Travellers compared to the average
person/alien in the galaxy? Are they equal? Are they a bit better than
average or a lot better?

As per p.7: "It should be noted that there are no 'super' characters in Traveller. This game is very much based around the idea of putting ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and of playing with the cards that the universe has dealt to you." (it gives an example)

So I tend to look for pre-gen chararacters that are equal or perhaps a *bit* better.

Having said that, you *can* have high powered games. Steve Ellis has run a wonderful adventure at TravCon a couple of times called _Eve of Rebellion_. The PCs are: Strephon, Princess Iphigenia, Dulinor, Norris and Lucan/Varian. As I was fortunate enough to play the Emperor of the Third Imperium for a few hours, I can vouch both for the fun of doing so and the excellence of Steve's game. (He's also run games where you're the leaders of a planetary government which was very cool as well.) So don't underestimate the power of stepping out of the ordinary on occasions.

Hope this helps