Basic Training confusion

[fvcoulter]

Of course, you then have to ask why you only get 0 for all service skills in your first career and why not the same for subsequent careers.

When you're 18, your brain is empty. It's easy to just dump stuff into it. As you get older, there's less and less room to hold new information.

(Perhaps I'm biased due to my age.)

 

[Condottiere]

Despite teenage rebellion, you're more likely to do what you're told by someone you can't influence.

 

[Ol'Weedy]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about whether or not you get to roll for a skill in addition to basic training at the beginning of subsequent careers, with most people concluding that you don't get to. The rules say:

For your first career only, instead of rolling for a skill,
you get all the skills listed on the Service Skills table at
level 0 as your basic training. For subsequent careers,
you may pick any one skill listed in the Service Skills
table at level 0 as your basic training.

Interpreting these rules as written, it is ONLY in the first term of the first career, that you get all the skills listed on the Service Skills table at level 0 instead of rolling for a skill. The rules DO NOT say, "For subsequent careers, INSTEAD OF ROLLING FOR A SKILL, you may pick any one skill listed on the Service Skills table at level 0 as your basic training. So for subsequent careers you get basic training and get to roll for a skill.

I've been playing it pretty much the same way, but I go one step further. On the second and subsequent careers, I allow ALL the service skills that A. Would be pretty much essential, and B. The player doesn't already have any skill in it.
This can lead to overly rounded characters (though LVL0), but avoids the embarrassment of a merchant\scout with no Vacc Suit skill.

 

[Vormaerin]

I don't really think you can be "overly rounded". Granted, like most games, Traveller skills are innately overly broad, but most folks who take up the career of adventurer successfully do, in fact, have a wide range of basic competencies. I can't see that having more 0 skills is going to break anything.

 

[CordwainerFish]

I don't really think you can be "overly rounded". Granted, like most games, Traveller skills are innately overly broad, but most folks who take up the career of adventurer successfully do, in fact, have a wide range of basic competencies. I can't see that having more 0 skills is going to break anything.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Lazarus Long

 

[Bill Sheil]

The 2023 update version has the less clear language that he quoted. I have to say, Mongoose's grammatical clarity and precision is not a hill I would choose to die on, but he's welcome to do so if he thinks differently.

No; the 2023 edition has exactly the same wording, just on different pages... with the exception of the removal of "any" (subsequent career) in the second quote. But that was redundant in terms of the meaning and a bit misleading because it does not apply to Citizen and Drifter careers.

The OP ignored the first section which clearly identified basic training as a replacement for a skill roll in both printings.

 

[Vormaerin]

Saladman asked where the OP's quote came from. I told him where it came from. I don't have the 2016 book, so when Saladman said that it was different, I took his word for it.

Sticking the text about only doing basic training for your first term in the flow chart and not in the actual rules section "basic training" is kind of dumb, imho. I really hate game books that put important text about the same topic scattered all over the place.

 

[Bill Sheil]

Yes I like rulebooks that have properly delimited rules and flavour text at least in wargaming rules, but that is not the nature of MgT and to a degree it is not a strict rule genre and probably shouldn't be. I ignore and reinvent rules all the time.

 

[Vormaerin]

I change rules all the time, too. I'm not sure what that has to do with the rules being disjointed. This whole thread wouldn't have happened if the rules section "Basic Training" actually had the whole rules on Basic Training, instead of one important clarification being several pages away in a flowchart. Which, btw, does not search properly on account of being a graphic, not text. So if you search for "basic training" in the rules, that statement doesn't show up.

 

[Reisender]

You either receive a basic training (in your first term of any career) or you pick a table and roll on it but not both. Basic training is either 6 skills for your first career or pick one for any other career. That's how I read it. Btw. picking one skill from a table is better than having to roll IMHO.

Finally home again I was able to check with the Core Rulebook (2020) for more details. The character creation sequence diagram on page 10 states after choosing your career:

If this is first term of career, go through Basic Training, Otherwise choose a skill table and roll.

Basic Training is described on page 16:

For your first career only, you get all the skills listed in the
Service Skills table at Level 0 as your basic training. For
any subsequent careers, you may pick any one skill listed
in the Service Skills table at Level 0 as your basic training.
Citizens and Drifters are an exception to this. They both use
their appropriate assignment skill table for basic training.

Since I don't own it I can not say if this has changed in Core Rulebook 2022 Update.

 

[Fulcs]

Finally home again I was able to check with the Core Rulebook (2020) for more details. The character creation sequence diagram on page 10 states after choosing your career:

Basic Training is described on page 16:

Since I don't own it I can not say if this has changed in Core Rulebook 2022 Update.

Welcome home!
That version seems clearer, the "otherwise" makes it a definite choice of either basic training or skill roll.
The 2022/2023 seems to back this up with the flow chart text.
I prefer the idea of basic training and a roll, but it does seem to point to one or the other based on this.
Thanks for digging into it

 

[alex_greene]

Since I don't own it I can not say if this has changed in Core Rulebook 2022 Update.

It's close.

For your first career only, instead of rolling for a skill, you get all the skills listed on the Service Skills table at level 0 as your basic training. For subsequent careers, you may pick any one skill listed in the Service Skills table at level 0 as your basic training.
Citizens and Drifters are an exception to this. They both use their appropriate Assignment Skills for basic training.

 

[Condottiere]

I don't think it would matter if I joined the Marines at eighteen or twenty six years of age, I probably still have to go through basic and advanced training.

 

[Vormaerin]

I don't actually know what the design intent behind making later careers' first terms worse than continuing in the same career. Either do full basic training or, if you think a few more skills at 0 is OP, just give them a single skill at +1. But a term where all you get a single skill at 0 is not fun.

 

[Fulcs]

I don't actually know what the design intent behind making later careers' first terms worse than continuing in the same career. Either do full basic training or, if you think a few more skills at 0 is OP, just give them a single skill at +1. But a term where all you get a single skill at 0 is not fun.

I kind of like the idea of those subsequent first terms granting one chosen basic training skill at 0 and one rolled skill at level 0.
That feels like a balance between the two approaches.

 

[Shadowblayde99]

I don't actually know what the design intent behind making later careers' first terms worse than continuing in the same career. Either do full basic training or, if you think a few more skills at 0 is OP, just give them a single skill at +1. But a term where all you get a single skill at 0 is not fun.

Later career's first terms aren't much worse than continuing in the same career:

New career, first term: one skill at 0, roll for survival. If you pass, roll for advance. If you succeed, roll for a skill at +1.

Continuing current career: roll for one skill at +1, roll for survival. If you pass, roll for advance. If you succeed, roll for a skill at +1.

I've figured it out. If a character got all service skills at zero every time they change career, the character could keep changing careers and get loads of skills at 0. But, as I said earlier, according to the rules, comparing a new career with continuing the current career, the difference is one skill at 0 compared with one skill at +1 respectively.

So, really, it's all about making character creation so that there is not such a big gap between continuing in the same career and having to start new careers.

 

[Condottiere]

It's one reason I like point systems.

In this case, as an example, the various careers allow access to specific skill (sets), and time spent in service would indicate how competent you can become at these.

 

[Vormaerin]

Later career's first terms aren't much worse than continuing in the same career:

New career, first term: one skill at 0, roll for survival. If you pass, roll for advance. If you succeed, roll for a skill at +1.

Continuing current career: roll for one skill at +1, roll for survival. If you pass, roll for advance. If you succeed, roll for a skill at +1.

I've figured it out. If a character got all service skills at zero every time they change career, the character could keep changing careers and get loads of skills at 0. But, as I said earlier, according to the rules, comparing a new career with continuing the current career, the difference is one skill at 0 compared with one skill at +1 respectively.

So, really, it's all about making character creation so that there is not such a big gap between continuing in the same career and having to start new careers.

This is more solving a theoretical problem that doesn't really exist. Even if you think a bunch of Skills at 0 are better than any skills at 1 (which I don't), you still have to roll to enlist in all these career changes or you end up a drifter.

And, even if someone did do that, so what? Is it really a big enough problem to reduce the skill totals of any character that changes career in a normal manner?

Rank 1 is "good enough to do this as a job". Rank 0 is NOT. And chance at higher skill ranks is even more valuable.

 

[NOLATrav]

I kind of like the idea of those subsequent first terms granting one chosen basic training skill at 0 and one rolled skill at level 0.
That feels like a balance between the two approaches.

It’s what I do, but I allow the rolled skill to be level +1. It’s not overpowering and gives a little more oomph to the career change.

 

[Geir]

Another basic training 'bug' is that it makes you want meta-think (is that a thing?) your background skills, so they don't just get wasted on something you get in basic training in at least your first choice of a career. Instead, I suppose you could just apply those 0-level background skills that are applicable as a DM for enlistment or advancement in the first term.

Not a rules thing, but every Referee gets to have their own take the rules, anyway, so why not. (Which is why some of these discussions seem pointless to me: obviously the writer didn't spend hours fretting over the exact wording of the sentence, so just go with what seem 'fair' in your campaign. The only time I need to be sure what I'm doing is RAW is if I'm writing an official adventure. For a campaign... my version of Rule Zero is: "Yeah, that's dumb. We're not doing that.")