Alternative Rules for learning new skills.

[GypsyComet]

I'll hand out Zeros pretty freely, but the calendar in most Traveller games moves along quickly enough that the default MGT system is actually looking too generous to me.

The game I'm running bopped along doing the jump-and-trade thing for a bit, then got caught up in the events in the old CT boxed set "Tarsus", specifically the Nobble Ranch and the People of the Forest, and is now heading off into the cold war between Collace and Trexalon, as described over at the wiki.

I started the game at the beginning of 1105. In five sessions, the game is now well into the first half of 1106. I did not make all weeks available for training, but I'm still seeing second advancements well underway for most of the PCs.

Really, unless you are doing a minute-to-minute game, the system is handing out advances quite often enough.

 

[Marachai]

I'm running a long term game set on Mertactor. There isnt really weeks spare as the plot takes place day to day so to speak. Ran 5 sessions and covered about 12 days at maximum, with little time to train.

Eventually i am sure we will take it beyond the planet, but not for a bit. So players are seeing zero development right now.

 

[GypsyComet]

Under such circumstances I'd consider using an experience model that Traveller implies but doesn't implement due to the whole *prior* history schtick.

Short term experiences can lead to short-term expertise, sometimes to surprising degree. Traveller's zero skills are the end result of this. During, for example, a summer of hunting rabbits and other small game, you will get quite good at sneaking, gun habits, spotting trails and other spoor, dressing kills, moving in rough terrain, and other task-specific skills. You might be considered a rank 1, 2, or even 3 in some or all of these skills during this time.

Then you take the fall and winter off, and go back to some other job that takes you away from rabbiting for the rest of, for the lack of a better phrase, that "term" of your career. Three, four years, or even three or four terms later, how much of that skill set do you remember? Are any of those still at Rank 1, or even Rank 0? A couple might be, or one of those skills might have "stuck" as your skill roll for the term, so you still have a 1 in Survival. The rest are gone, or might return to a 0 with a bit of exposure.

So for a minute-to-minute game, you might consider temporary ranks. Let the players know that this is how it could happen, and see if they go for it. It does have the drawback of "why have any permanent skills?" but really, that's for you to handle in how the skill rolls, both successes and failures, are described.