Homeworld modifications to skills earned at age 18

[fvcoulter]

In the 2022 Core Rules (page 9), it is stated that you have a choice of background skills based on your EDU modifier +3. The rules say you get a choice from:

• Admin
• Animals
• Art
• Athletics
• Carouse
• Drive
• Electronics
• Flyer
• Language
• Mechanic
• Medic
• Profession
• Science
• Seafarer
• Streetwise
• Survival
• Vacc Suit

Ignoring the Language skill, which brings a completely different set of headaches to the campaign, do you modify these background skill choices based on the homeworld of the character. For example, can a person who grew up on a desert planet gain Seafarer skills? Can a person who grew up on an asteroid belt make it to age 18 without gaining Vacc Suit? Can someone who grew up on a Tech Level 2 world learn Science or Flyer as a child? Etc.

As we all know, the rules are really more like guidelines, so every GM can change them for their campaign. So do you change those skills based on their homeworld? (And if so, how?)

 

[Reisender]

As the name suggests these skills are connected to the background of a Traveller. So yes, they should depend on where and how a Traveller has grown up. So it is up to the player to come up with a story on how he got his background skills. Some may come up with a story first and then pick the skills accordingly while others pick the skills first and later make up a story around them.
I don't think that it needs more specific rules on how to get background skills, e.g. tie it to the Universal World Profile(UWP). Just use common sense.

 

[Condottiere]

If education involves sneaking out of your room, hotwiring your best friend's father's prize Ferrari, fooling your school into letting your girlfriend leave early, taking a roadtrip, and dancing in the local parade.

 

[alex_greene]

If education involves sneaking out of your room, hotwiring your best friend's father's prize Ferrari, fooling your school into letting your girlfriend leave early, taking a roadtrip, and dancing in the local parade.

Or joyriding, listening to The Beastie Boys' Sabotage, and somehow driving the car over a cliff which should not be there in Iowa, and eight years later you turn into Christopher Pine and almost flunk out of the Academy ...

 

[Anstett]

Or wearing a mask because they are comfortable and everyone will be wearing them soon, doubting in ROUSes, with a lullabye of "I'll probably kill you in the morning" and an appreciation of perfect breasts, and true love....

 

[GypsyComet]

do you modify these background skill choices based on the homeworld of the character. For example, can a person who grew up on a desert planet gain Seafarer skills? Can a person who grew up on an asteroid belt make it to age 18 without gaining Vacc Suit? Can someone who grew up on a Tech Level 2 world learn Science or Flyer as a child? Etc.

Previously this was two steps. Even in Mongoose 2008. The first step was skills explicitly based on the nature of your homeworld, followed by the one step that has survived to Mongoose 2022, totaling EDU Mod +3 (or similar) across both steps.

You can certainly use either method at your table. This game has a 40 year reputation for modularity to uphold, after all. Plug in what you like from where you like.

 

[Gavain]

I use the Traveller Companion backgrounds. Limiting the options based on the home planet. All my players came up with suitable stories as to how their background fitted.