JTAS #13 Article Alternative Skills Question

[Terry Mixon]

I've been skimming JTAS #13 since it arrived this morning (thanks for the quick delivery of the Kickstarter reward, Mongoose!) and was reading an article for alternative skills by Martin Dougherty. It has me scratching my head.

He said: The Traveller Core Rulebook contains some very broad skills, notably Science. In the rules-as-written, a Traveller with Science (physics) 4 is also quite a competent archaeologist, psionicist and linguist. These rules provide a more structured approach to such skills, along with some modifications to skills such as Profession. The standard rules can, of course, be used instead.

Then the alternative rules go on about how to narrow things down more to more specific skill subsets.

I said: Huh?

I went back and reread the section leading into skills and then she sciences in particular. Nowhere at all do I see any indication that one science bleeds over into another like that. If you have science (physics), that's what you have. No bleed over into archeology, linguistics, or psionisist. Where is his take coming from? Am I missing something?

 

[Geir]

The bleed gives you Science 0 in everything, but that's all (or a lot, depending upon your point of view).

 

[Micky]

I thought the Core rules were a bit light in their treatment of some of the skills... science being primary of them and the Companion rules did do a much better job with them IMO than the more simplistic Core rules. Breaking the larger Science skill into related subfields with which you focus on one and thus would start at a 0 or 1 level with a first 'science' skill in a specific scientific field thus getting the other related sciences skills at a 0 not a broad Science 0 with all the rest. You might be become a level 4 expert in Astronomy.. and with that comes at least a 0 level in Cosmology.. but not getting a 0 level in biology or all the rest of the unrelated physical sciences. unless you choose/receive a 2nd skill choice in a different scientific field focusing on a different branch of science.

 

[Terry Mixon]

The bleed gives you Science 0 in everything, but that's all (or a lot, depending upon your point of view).

Ah. I didn't look for that kind of thing under specialties. I suspect I'll end up not using that for sciences, professions, and other skills where the subspecialties are so unrelated. Thanks.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The bleed gives you Science 0 in everything, but that's all (or a lot, depending upon your point of view).

Doesn't the Traveller Companion already fix this issue?

 

[Whitehart]

Doesn't the Traveller Companion already fix this issue?

I like the broad skills system in the Companion.

 

[rinku]

Science may not be the best example though, IMHO.

All those specialist scientists DO have a common skill base in "doing science" that Science 0 would imply. If you spend 4 years getting a Physics degree and end up with skill levels in it, you'd be trained well enough in general experimentation and the methodology of science that you could be useful at a basic level, or be able to research papers in areas that aren't your speciality. From a training point of view you would DEFINITELY not be starting from scratch, and beginning at NewScience-0 instead of having to train that up from NoScience first (like a Plumber that wants to be an Architect) makes sense.

Art would seem to me to be a better example, even to the extent of being like Profession and having them be treated as different skills that are selected from a common skill table entry (the old "skill cluster" idea). Being a trained dancer doesn't really give you basic writing ability.

 

[rinku]

To be honest, there's only a small number of skills with specialties that need extra attention. Animals seems fine. Athletics seems fine. The weapon skills seem fine. The vehicle ones seem fine. Tactics? Yeah, sure. Profession is already a special case.

Maybe Languages? But machine translation is so free and easy, it rarely comes up. Possibly seperate out really obscure ones from the ones commonly spoken in the setting. I expect the majority of English speakers know a smattering of German, French and Japanese words, even if they've never studied them. Sumerian or Algonquin... not so much.

 

[Endie]

All physicists know that knowledge of physics grants them expertise in all other sciences.

“Sure I can solve your problem in veterinary science. Now, first, we’ll assume that your ill horse is a perfect sphere…”

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

All physicists know that knowledge of physics grants them expertise in all other sciences.

“Sure I can solve your problem in veterinary science. Now, first, we’ll assume that your ill horse is a perfect sphere…”

I thought it was always "First assume a spherical chicken". They've moved on to horses now?

 

[CordwainerFish]

Frictionless spherical chicken of uniform density.