Character advancement

[fenriswolf]

My players are used to D&D where they kill creatures, take their stuff, and occasionally level up. I saw one passage in the core book that detailed the amount of weeks required to increase a skill but I didn't see anything else. How does character advancement work in Traveller and how often do you actual do it?

 

[alex_greene]

That's basically it. In Traveller, your characters don't develop their skills by killing creatures, getting their stuff, getting XPs and somehow, miraculously, levelling up with a "DING" and a flash of light.

If a character in Traveller wants to improve on an old skill, or to learn a new one, he has to study for that new skill. And that takes time and resources. Mostly time.

The point they're trying to make in Traveller is that it isn't what your character lusts after that will help him to prevail: it's what he already has. His skills, whatever Contacts and Allies he has acquired, and his wits.

 

[apoc527]

I do wonder how hard it would be to create SOME kind of XP system just to make sure some people aren't instantly turned off.

Even in games that everyone knows are not about the phat lewts and leveling up, it sure brings a lot of joy to my players to increase their PCs' abilities.

 

[dreamingbadger]

I think if you search this forum and places like COTI and online you will find a thousand of them Some are good some are bad.

The rule of thumb for DnD is that a character should level every 10 or so encounters? If you provide that level of pace of progression your characters will get unbalanced pretty fast. You need to ensure your players understand that the tempo of "growth" is different in Traveller.

Judge Dredd has an interesting "experience" system, which essentially allows you 4 skill points every four years of game time...

The training aspect in traveller is analegous to an experience system, your characters will likely be spending a lot of time in Jump space this gives them something to do while they are there

Keeping them in service (e.g. scouts or navy or similiar) also provide progression/promotion opportunities.

And of course there is always wealth and power, which are acquired over time essentially provide access to increased abilities through equipment, a ship of your own, the secret that you uncovered, that means Impieral Intelligence owes you one etc...

 

[Stofsk]

The rule of thumb for DnD is that a character should level every 10 or so encounters?

I think the worst crime that can be committed in an advancement XP system is slow advancement. You can have too fast, and too slow, and both are bad, but I think too slow is the worst of the two. You want your character to progress and level up and gain new skills, feats, and game-bonuses (like new equipment and more money) and if you don't get it it feels like you're not accomplishing anything.

Yes, you are supposed to role-play in these games. But lets be realistic, gaming is a time-intensive activity, a single game session can last a whole evening out of your week (if you're lucky to have a gaming night every week), so I don't think it's a bad thing to have quicker leveling as opposed to slower leveling.

Having quicker leveling initially is probably ideal, and as you get higher in level then leveling slows down. That works best IMO.

(this doesn't have anything to do with MGT though, which is a different system to D&D)

 

[djd]

I think that in Traveller PC characters tend to be quite tough in the first place- and generally better than the average NPC. Plus the fact that the Traveller combat system allows just about anyone the chance of beating anyone else (equipment permitting) - its been a long while since I played D&D but it always used to be that some low level characters had no chance at all of beating tough monsters. In this scenario it makes advancement much more important I think

 

[dreamingbadger]

My players are used to D&D where they kill creatures, take their stuff, and occasionally level up. I saw one passage in the core book that detailed the amount of weeks required to increase a skill but I didn't see anything else. How does character advancement work in Traveller and how often do you actual do it?

After some fiddling with the idea charliebananas came up with for Judge Dredd (http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=40798):

Effect Based Experience
When characters are actively using their skills in a real world activity, rather than a training exercise, the gain experience form those real world experiences in the form of Effect Points.

The Effect of a given roll generates a number of Effect Points equal to the effect of a given roll.

100 Effect Points on a given skill, provides the equivalent of 1 week's training.

Effect Points can only be used to improve the skill that generated them.

 

[FreeTrav]

DreamingBadger:

Flesh this out, too, and maybe tweak the ratio of Effect Points to training time, and again, it'll have a home at Freelance Traveller.

 

[dreamingbadger]

Effect Based Experience
Traveller provides an excellent system of learning to improve characters skills, however, it does not reflect the real life experiences that are gained in the application of those skills to resolve challenging problems. Effect Based Experience attempts to integrate that real world experience into the existing Skills Improvement system that is part of Mongoose Traveller's Core Rulebook, this is meant to supplement the existing system not replace it.

As skills are used the player records the positive Effect of skills rolls mode on a particular skill, e.g. A character in a fire fight shoots his attacker with an Effect of 2. As a result the player has generated 2 Effect Points for the Gun Combat skill. Which they will be able to use to reduce the required training time for a particular skill to improve it.

Every 20 Effect Points, reduces the amount of training required to increase that particular skill by one week, representing the characters accumulated experiences in the real world.

After the skill is increased the total Effects Points for that skill is reduced to 0.

A Character cannot accumulate Effects Points in a skill they do not have, they must have at least level 0 in that skill, new skills are learnt in the normal way.

Example:
Alexander Jamison, with a Skill Total of 17 and Mechanic 2, repairs a component of his ship that had been damaged in a earlier conflict, the difficulty of the roll is 8 to reflect the damage done, and Jamison rolls a 11 meaning he repaired the component and gained 3 Effect Points for his Mechanic Skill taking the total to 80. If Jamison embarked on a course of study to improve his Mechanic 2 to Mechanic 3, normally taking 20 weeks, it would only take Jamison 16 weeks, his real world experience has saved him a month of time!

 

[CosmicGamer]

Effect Based Experience A Character cannot accumulate Effects Points in a skill they do not have, they must have at least level 0 in that skill, new skills are learnt in the normal way.

Why can't you learn L0 (or 1) via 'trial and error' too?

 

[FreeTrav]

Effect Based Experience A Character cannot accumulate Effects Points in a skill they do not have, they must have at least level 0 in that skill, new skills are learnt in the normal way.

Why can't you learn L0 (or 1) via 'trial and error' too?

My take on it is that you'd need some sort of orientation, first, which would be the equivalent of L0.

L0 is "You've been shown enough so that you aren't going to kill yourself by forgetting something critical or doing something critical in the wrong way.". There are very few skills in Traveller that I could see getting that orientation through trial-and-error.

 

[dreamingbadger]

Effect Based Experience A Character cannot accumulate Effects Points in a skill they do not have, they must have at least level 0 in that skill, new skills are learnt in the normal way.

Why can't you learn L0 (or 1) via 'trial and error' too?

One reason:
Mechanics
by the time you add the -3 DM for unskilled use you only generate an effect point on a base 12 roll, which means it takes 4 times as many rolls to generate an effect point... frankly it is quicker to learn it

and one excuse

Gameplay
you would pick up as many bad habits as you would good ones without a good solid "training" background.

but hey that's just me ... your milage may vary