Advanced education

[MasterGwydion]

That was not my argument.

EDU is used if you are explaining to someone how the rifle works. DEX is used to hold your balance, steady the rifle and control your breathing to hit a target. If you have never used the rifle INT might be used to see if you can work out how it works.

See how a skill can use any stat making them all useful

That is not what you stated. You did not say it was for explaining your knowledge. You said it was for leveraging your knowledge. To use your example of the mechanic, if he rebuilds an engine, is that Mechanic + EDU or is that Mechanic + DEX to get at all of those stupidly designed bolts that you can never reach? It can't be INT, because there is nothing to figure out.

For example, I rebuilt My first engine using book of step by step instructions for how to disassemble, maintain, and reassemble the engine. I had never done anything like that before and even had to borrow the tools to do it. Worked flawlessly. Finally sold that beast after I put 500,000 miles on that motor. Anything that you can learn to do from a book is basically EDU. INT is more for problem-solving type things when you don't have a troubleshooting procedure, as that would be EDU, since you are following a learned procedure.

Exploratory surgery? INT. Removing an appendix? EDU.

 

[CordwainerFish]

Increasingly sophisticated degrees are about ever increasing specified focus within a field

Piled Higher and Deeper, as the joke goes.

 

[Condottiere]

Intelligence - shaping the question.

Education - knowing where to look for the answer.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Intelligence - shaping the question.

Education - knowing where to look for the answer.

Didn't that second part used to be a skill called Research?

 

[Saladman]

@Saladman So why are you 'angry' at this discussion of higher education?

Not literally angry, there's just no thumbs down. Some of these posts seemed very white room, theory-crafty, and I wouldn't appreciate them hitting a core book update someday.

But since you ask, let's do this.

How about EDU vs a higher TL than your education? Example you are trying to run a TL 15 Jump drive and your training and education was at TL 9? Or trying to hack a TL 15 computer security system?

That's just bad game design. Primarily because it doesn't mesh with the scale of core book character creation, secondarily because most takes on it I've seen (and it does keep cropping up) are all about plusses for the higher tech character.

But I counted without the following...

It goes the other way too. Imagine someone who only knows Windows 11 given a C64 with tape drive and no instructions. Or maybe a Heathkit machine with a paper tape reader/punch.

...Which is a rare and unexpected instance of good, or at least less worse, game design.

I'd very much like to see that. I think we're all pretty much past the 'Medical-3 is a doctor' thing

Nah, still using that. Which reflects my core rulebook, not all the supplements ever bias. I took the Big Grin as dismissive, and reacted in kind.

BTW, as a standard for comparison, in T5 CharGen a character with very low EDU could choose to complete the EDU5 Course (basically like a GED, or General Educational Development, test) granting the equivalent of a High School (Secondary Education) Diploma and raising EDU to 5 before entering CharGen proper.

That sounds like just a Plusses button. You rolled low! Do you keep the minus, or do you press the Plusses button? What will he do???

But if there's some tradeoff involved in taking that course in T5 I apologize.

It may well be that Scholar is the Academic University route.

This is the most sensible thing in this thread.

Tying any stat to these grades will result in stat inflation.

This would be in the top five.

But, since most science fiction is more projecting our current issues into a more palatable presentation, I'd say getting a Bachelor's is more about integrating the future managerial class into their expected (sub)caste(s).

Condottiere's point, while unrelated, sparks me to think that what I don't like about the University/Military Academy/Prisoner terms and career is they crowd out setting or campaign specific things like Child of Elysium, Mercenary Company Youth Corps, or Prison Planet Exile. The core book options could have been treated as placeholders, but mostly aren't, leading to a lack of science fiction in our science fiction rpg.

 

[WHULorigan]

Not literally angry, there's just no thumbs down.

Hey, you're right. The post system definitely needs a thumbs down; the angry face sends the wrong message.

Citizens of the Imperium uses the same XenForo Board software, and they DO have a thumbs down. Perhaps this could be flagged for the Mongoose Board Admin to look into and add to the thread posting options.

 

[Condottiere]

Actually, we could remove Education and Social Standing, and just make them traits, and it wouldn't harm the game mechanics.

Dungeons And Dragons got it correct with Charisma and Wisdom, but that wouldn't have that touch of technobabble in a science fiction setting.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I think we agree about this, but I am therefore confused why you tied it to a list of academic qualifications.

The academic qualifications are there for a comparison, in the game there is no distiction made between cerrtification and Edu, in the real word there is.
I know many people who have degrees but know very little...

If you are talking about CT then the argument is different. There were fewer skills anyway and you didn't even need to roll for much of the time. I am talking about the MGT2 iteraation.

Yes, I can see that, the trouble is that MgT2e has adopted skill boat, thus the holistic nature of Edu as a characteristic has been diminished.

MGT2 does.

Realy, there is a skill for writing your own language and a skill for doing basic maths... I need to go re-read the rules.

Saying that any academic qualification can be represented by a skill is not the same as saying all skills can be represented by an academic qualification. Combat Rifleman is not a current skill, but I suspect there is a badge in the US military that has a formal set of qualification requirements that is an equivalent.

Skills were never created equal...

We are in agreement on this I think (unless you tell me otherwise)

We agree on a lot of this I think.

They are indeed. A garage mechanic who has no formal education and has spent a year learning in an apprenticeship is no less capable than a graduate who has exactly the same training. Under the EDU = formal education logic he would have a lower EDU and be at a disadvantage. I say he would be as capable unless his low EDU represented a learning difficulty in which case he would get less benefit from his training than someone who's higher EDU represented an greater ability to remember and apply knowledge.

Again we agree.

That's just moving the goal posts. The graduate can do the same.

A graduate with an Int of 7 is stuck with their Edu rating, they would need to use a differnt experience route to raise their Edu - know I know I am dipping back into CT here, I'm not even sure if MgT still does this.

In MGT2 CRB it is not possible to raise EDU by self study (Companion allows it but it is a slow process).

Thanks, so my CT bias is showing again

Perhaps it would have been better if they had never allowed stats to provide bonuses to skill checks.

CT rarely grantd a DM for high characteristic and skill, it was often either or. Except for combat skills...

If you want to have dice rolls to determine success you need something to hang off it. If you just blob all that up into what you should know from experience you might as well only have one skill like Profession and allow all rolls to be made based off it. If you do that though you end up doing exactly what the various editions of Traveller did and start adding "important" skills as otherwise you might as well not make any rolls at all.

On a roll of 2d you are pretty limited to what you can do, skill bloat and characteristic bonus bloat can be mitigated by changing target numbers.

If you go back to no DMs at all and set your target based on the probability spread of 2d you quickly see how much DMs progress from +1 to +2 etc to +4

I dislkike MgT characteristic bonus ratings, MT were more to my liking, but looking at probability then bonuses should be based on standard deviation rather than a linear progression.

CT did things differently and if you like that then fine. D&D originally only had stats and levels in a profession (Class) and we did fine.

I prefer CT but even now try to reduce rather than add to the skill list.

 

[ResslynHalvik]

What my Masters and doctorate friends tell me is that those degrees are all about focusing on one subject to the exclusion of all others.

MA, MSc and MBA, I agree.
MPhil, MRes, PhD and DPhil - yes and no. IMO, in all of those your research field is very focussed, even more so than the less academic Masters programmes above, but primarily what you are learning is the general skill of how to do research, plus and understanding of the state of research in the slightly broader field in which your research topic sits.

 

[ResslynHalvik]

A level Physics is not general education it is the Science skill.
A degree in Mathematics is not general education it is ...err.. Science again apparently.
Think of any PhD and it won't be in "Generic Education" it will be in a specific subject

Hmmm. I agree in some places

A levels are just weird, and I agree that they are as you say. However, education aged 16-18 doesn't have to be like that - a Baccalaureate gives a more general education and teaches useful broad skills using deep dives as a vehicle, rather than as the aim. The received wisdom in the UK is that it's universities that want A levels but when I was an academic I found A levels to be largely useless - even in a scientific subject you couldn't assume very much common ground between students from different exam boards, so you had to go back quite a long way to start again anyway.

An older type degree in Mathematics would have been much more of a general education, with the student learning how to read and study and reason and present information and decisions. Nowadays it tends to be much more of the sausage machine of regurgitating facts - the old joke about a lecture being the mechanism of passing information from the notes of the lecturer into the notes of the student without it passing through the mind of either.

I've said elsewhere that although the research topic of a PhD or other research degree is very narrowly focused, the primary aim of the program is to teach the student to be an autonomous researcher with the secondary aim of a genuine new contribution to the topic tagging along behind.

 

[swordtart]

Realy, there is a skill for writing your own language and a skill for doing basic maths... I need to go re-read the rules.

There is the Language* skill and Maths is a specialism of science (and Science 0 would mean a check at no penalty). The two examples you quote would just be trivial tasks of those skills. Even with no formal skill you would be fairly likely to pass. Of course your EDU modifier would apply and possibly make a skill check infallible and you might take your time to work it out with long division, use a thesaurus etc.

Of course it is hard to see where a skill check against either of those would be interested and therefore necessary. Where they are interesting they would likely be a subcomponent of a more specific skill check. So the writing might be part of a Persuade, Deception or Diplomat check or more usually Admin. A test on simple maths would is likely part of a quick Science check or it might be part of a Broker check (or again Admin).

As you might guess Admin is my go to skill to cover basic schooling in a high tech society. Practical education in the Empire, it's all about the forms. Admin is available to any character as a background skill (and you would need an EDU of 0 not to get it at all - and even then you can try at -3). Language and Science are also available, but many players choose to skip them for more "useful skills" - on the basis that they will often get them through basic training anyway. This is a player failure not a flaw in the game.

There is nothing to stop you using a RAW EDU characteristic check if your character has been to school (is is a test of their learning and recall) but even school dropouts tend to learn this stuff by osmosis. If I remember my own experience I really didn't see the point of maths until it was explained in practical terms (pocket money mostly). Probability was just another random subject until I started playing RPGs and wargames. My cousin got his lightening arithmetic skills from playing darts and snooker and totting up scores in cribbage with our grandfather.

*Everyone can speak and write their own language (and presumably read) according to the CRB. If it absolutely requires a check though Language seems the obvious choice (and makes Language-0 a meaningful skill choice).

 

[Sigtrygg]

There is the Language* skill and Maths is a specialism of science (and Science 0 would mean a check at no penalty). The two examples you quote would just be trivial tasks of those skills. Even with no formal skill you would be fairly likely to pass. Of course your EDU modifier would apply and possibly make a skill check infallible and you might take your time to work it out with long division, use a thesaurus etc.

So why bloat skills lists with trivia that could be rolled back into the characteristic?

Of course it is hard to see where a skill check against either of those would be interested and therefore necessary. Where they are interesting they would likely be a subcomponent of a more specific skill check. So the writing might be part of a Persuade, Deception or Diplomat check or more usually Admin. A test on simple maths would is likely part of a quick Science check or it might be part of a Broker check (or again Admin).

So rolling dice for the sake of rolling dice...

As you might guess Admin is my go to skill to cover basic schooling in a high tech society. Practical education in the Empire, it's all about the forms. Admin is available to any character as a background skill (and you would need an EDU of 0 not to get it at all - and even then you can try at -3). Language and Science are also available, but many players choose to skip them for more "useful skills" - on the basis that they will often get them through basic training anyway. This is a player failure not a flaw in the game.

I agree with you on this, admin is a vastly underappreciated skill.

There is nothing to stop you using a RAW EDU characteristic check if your character has been to school (is is a test of their learning and recall) but even school dropouts tend to learn this stuff by osmosis. If I remember my own experience I really didn't see the point of maths until it was explained in practical terms (pocket money mostly). Probability was just another random subject until I started playing RPGs and wargames. My cousin got his lightening arithmetic skills from playing darts and snooker and totting up scores in cribbage with our grandfather.

*Everyone can speak and write their own language (and presumably read) according to the CRB. If it absolutely requires a check though Language seems the obvious choice (and makes Language-0 a meaningful skill choice).

Skill bloat for the sake of skill bloat.

 

[swordtart]

So why bloat skills lists with trivia that could be rolled back into the characteristic?

Sorry, I didn't explain that well. If you had those skills you would be rolling without penalty. You don't need to have them for simple maths or writing. There are plenty of reasons why a science or language skill would be useful but you might as well take advantage of the extra techniques in analysis, report writing and advanced maths the discipline requires once you have it.

So rolling dice for the sake of rolling dice...

No, you are rolling dice if the referee deems it necessary. If some simple maths is required as part of a Broker skill check then you just make the Broker skill check (unless the referee considers it a trivial and then simply having Broker skill might be enough with no roll required). I couldn't think of an example where you would need a simple maths check in isolation as it would normally be subsumed into the other skill check.

Skill bloat for the sake of skill bloat.

CT had dozens of skills for specific weapons so bloat is nothing new. The adventures didn't use skills but added a load of arbitrary "throws" to achieve things. Book 6-Scout introduced a load of new skills that were of less generic use than Science (Hunting, Equestrian, Naval Architect). Once you introduced S4-Citizens of the Imperium more options became available.

I don't think this is a bad thing and not skill bloat for the sake of it (like Megatraveller).

 

[rinku]

One thing I would not mind seeing return are skill clusters on the skill tables. That was one of the better ideas from MegaTraveller and TNE, IMHO, and a solid way to have more than 6 distinct skills from a d6 table.

 

[swordtart]

One thing I would not mind seeing return are skill clusters on the skill tables. That was one of the better ideas from MegaTraveller and TNE, IMHO, and a solid way to have more than 6 distinct skills from a d6 table.

I also like the general skills cascading to more specific skills but it can go too far.

I would have liked it to have gone further in some cases in MGT2. Persuade, Carouse, Streetwise and Deception have overlap and I think they are all specialisms of the same basic skill to smooth talk and deceive convincingly. Similarly Advocate and Diplomat and Broker are really specialisms of the same ability to convince someone by reasoned argument and evidence. Drive and Flyer could be combined into a vehicle operations skill. Specialisms of Gunner and Heavy Weapons could be combined.

Some skills are one-trick ponies that really could do with being combined with something or dropped. Astrogator could be a specialisation of Pilot. Gambler as written is a specialism of Maths and thus Science (though Science is probably too big and many of its specialisms could live under other skills (Robotics under Electronics for example).

However whatever system you use someone will prefer another one

 

[rinku]

I don't mind some of those, but Gambler has many other aspects instead of just the maths side; essentially it combines Profession (Gambler), Science (Mathematics), Persuasion, Investigation and Art (Performance), but in a very narrow situational field. A new specialisation of Tactics (Games) could also be justified if it's retired. But I think it's fine as it is.

And it has a specific role on the mustering out cash tables that's a hard tradition to shake.

Science being theory, Electronics being equipment operation and Mechanics being equipment repair is a fairly new division (although MGT2e is now nine years old...). I don't mind that.

 

[swordtart]

Science being theory, Electronics being equipment operation and Mechanics being equipment repair is a fairly new division (although MGT2e is now nine years old...). I don't mind that.

I'd prefer those distinctions to be via the stat used to operate the skill. Mechanics is an odd word to described repair of electronic systems and I find it hard to accept that you could repair something that you don't understand.

I agree that a differentiation between operation of complex equipment does not necessarily infer an ability to open it up and fix it, but most operation manuals tend to cover simple troubleshooting and repairs so it could just be a more difficult check. We might expect future systems on which are safety critical would have redundancy, fail safes and sacrificial components with large spares holdings, making repair much easier.

Designing and building one from scratch (or repairing one that is outside the common faults) might require a new skill, but it should be aligned to the underlying technology (e.g. Electronics, Gravitics, Robotics etc.) These are probably specialisms of engineering rather than science.