Post Career Education/Training - End of October draft

[Nerhesi]

So.. in MGT1, we had a training periods equal to the total sum of the characters skill levels, new skill level being trained for, in weeks.

A couple of MGT2-drafts ago, training became a lot quicker because it was just based on the skill level you were attaining.

Now, what in the world just happened? If I'm reading this correctly, a traveler needs the length of time to learn a skill:

Skill level 0: 24 weeks
Skill level 1: 24 weeks
Skill level 2: 48 weeks
Skill level 3: 72 weeks
Skill level 4: 96 weeks
etc...

Please tell me I have misread something? I wouldn't even refer to it as advancement at this point?

You have someone like the Red Baron going from Pilot 0 to Pilot 4 (if not 5), in 2.5 years (52 + 52 + 26)

130 weeks from learning to fly, to becoming the top ace. That is elapsed time, not effort by the way. Assume the unlikely even that 100 of those weeks had 8 hour days of study/practice/dogfighting/patrols etc... (which they didn't), thats barely enough to get him to skill level 2.

I feel like I've missed some big discussion on this?

 

[-Daniel-]

I feel like I've missed some big discussion on this?

Yes, you have missed lots of conversations regarding the post career training mechanic. There have been quite a few, very passionate arguments offered and several different ideas presented. :mrgreen:

 

[Nerhesi]

I feel like I've missed some big discussion on this?

Yes, you have missed lots of conversations regarding the post career training mechanic. There have been quite a few, very passionate arguments offered and several different ideas presented. :mrgreen:

Well then I do apologise for jumping in like this - but commaaaaaaan guys!!

I definitely agree that original MGT2 draft was too fast... but uhm.. wow. Perhaps changing study period to 12 weeks rather than 24 is a comfortable medium? Especially with the Library ship-option not reducing learning time any more.

You are still looking at a year of continuous study/practice to go from a 3 to a 4.

 

[-Daniel-]

Well then I do apologise for jumping in like this - but commaaaaaaan guys!!

No apology needed, jump on in. The water is, well stormy but fun. :wink:

I definitely agree that original MGT2 draft was too fast... but uhm.. wow. Perhaps changing study period to 12 weeks rather than 24 is a comfortable medium? Especially with the Library ship-option not reducing learning time any more.

You are still looking at a year of continuous study/practice to go from a 3 to a 4.

There were a couple of idea that disconnected the training from a time frame so a GM could control the time for their own table. There was one idea based on an older edition of Traveller that was suggested by Major Tom & Kaelic that I liked quite a bit.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

The trick is not to base training on real life training, but on the CharGen's unit of training.

 

[Belisknar]

You are still looking at a year of continuous study/practice to go from a 3 to a 4.

Actually the rules as written now have you requireing 5 study periods minimum 2 years to move from 3 to 4.

To improve skills to the next higher level, the Traveller must accumulate a number of successful Study Periods equal to the level of skill they are trying to reach. For example, if a Traveller had Electronics (computers) 1 and was trying to learn Electronics (computers) 2, this would require two successful Study Periods.

And if you fail your Edu check at the end of that study period... that's a whole lof of training wasted.

Failure indicates the Traveller has learned nothing new or useful but may try again after another successful Study Period

This grinds me. I'm sure there is much more discussion about this in the othe rthread and I'll likely head over and make my point there shorlty. but right now I'll make it here while It's fresh in my head.


I prefer the MGT1 approach, it was fair accross the board. It was slow enough for a character with many skill points that they didn't race ahead and fast enough for a character with not that many that they could catch up and at least build up some points to have a character that didn't 'seem' useless to them. (please note I said seem. No character is useless and if you play a character right you can do anything)

I do not like and personally think that the current advancement system is a slog. It puts too much weight on Edu and if you fail that one Edu check you've wasted (and I absolutely mean 'wasted') your training time. Now if it didn't completely dismiss the training period it might not be so bad....

That failure state is holding on from the original rule when it was a rush job to learn new/advance skills. If you are spending 6 months training at something. you are not going to forget it all after one Edu failure. You might get discouraged. and perhaps give up for... maybe the effect of your failure.

Failure means you're heart isn't in it. You are not fully invested in your training and you must wait for the effect of your failure +1D weeks before you can Retry the Edu check for this Study Period.

This is by no means a fix for what, in my opinion, is far too slow an advancement system but it could be a start.

 

[Kaelic]

Feels like a good time to repost this, as the board's training crusader...

I personally am going to test this approach with my players and I feel it strikes a really good balance.

Learning Through Experience

The Referee can award Advancement Points (AP) for a skill in play where he feels that a character could have learned something through experience or observation. A character can have up to three AP on any given skill. A player may improve any of his character's skills that have AP. To do so the player makes an EDU check with the following difficulties:

(Example is with a 0+ EDU modifier)

Gain a new skill at 0: Difficult (27.78% / 41.67% / 58.33%)
Increase a skill from 0 to 1: Very Difficult (8.3% / 16.67% / 27.78%)
Increase a skill from 1 to 2: Very Difficult (8.3% / 16.67% / 27.78%)
Increase a skill from 2 to 3: Formidable (0% / 2.78% / 8.3%)
Increase a skill from 3 to 4: Formidable (0% / 2.78% / 8.3%)
Increase a skill from 4 to 5: Formidable (0% / 2.78% / 8.3%)

The APs associated with the skill are applied to the roll as a DM and are removed regardless of the roll's success or failure.

Awarding AP is entirely up to the Referee which allows them to dictate the progress of Travellers (if any). The Referee might award them for completing adventures, heroic feats or time spent studying and practicing.

Examples where Referee’s might award AP:
A player is caught in the act stealing from a crime boss and his only option is to bluff his way out of it with Deception, but he’s not trained. He takes his chances and by a stroke of luck, deceives the goons and gets out. The referee is impressed with his heroic task check and awards the player with an AP for Deception, figuring he learned a thing or two.

A player is on a long-cruise and will spend many weeks in space. He brought along Programming for Dummies to work on his Computer skill. He spends 24 weeks in total studying the book, and the referee awards him an AP in Computers for what he learned.

A team of Travellers just rescued the space princess from a group of space pirates. It was a multi-week adventure to track them down, infiltrate them and fight their way out. They had to use a variety of the skills as a team to pull it off. The Referee awards one player a Gun Combat AP for all the work they did in the escape; awards another player an Investigate AP for their efforts in tracking down the pirate base and finally the final player with a Mechanics AP for the crucial repairs on their ship that enabled the escape.

 

[Belisknar]

My current campaign Referee mentioned this idea and I hadn't been able find post. Thank you for reposting.

It does looks like a nice ballance of Regeree vs Dice in terms of pregression.

 

[-Daniel-]

Feels like a good time to repost this, as the board's training crusader...

I personally am going to test this approach with my players and I feel it strikes a really good balance.

Learning Through Experience

The Referee can award Advancement Points (AP) for a skill in play ...

This is the one I linked to in my post above because I really liked it. I like that time becomes something the GM controls at their table. Makes more sense to me. I also like that the Character could be awarded points for using the skill or role playing trying to learn the skill etc. :mrgreen:

 

[Belisknar]

Feels like a good time to repost this, as the board's training crusader...

I personally am going to test this approach with my players and I feel it strikes a really good balance.

Learning Through Experience

The Referee can award Advancement Points (AP) for a skill in play ...

This is the one I linked to in my post above because I really liked it. I like that time becomes something the GM controls at their table. Makes more sense to me. I also like that the Character could be awarded points for using the skill or role playing trying to learn the skill etc. :mrgreen:

I completely missed the fat that was a link in your post. Such is the "Curse of the screen reader."

 

[-Daniel-]

I completely missed the fat that was a link in your post. Such is the "Curse of the screen reader."

Then it was a good thing Kaelic posted the suggestion here. :mrgreen:

 

[Wizard]

The main issue I have with the current training rules is the check at the end of spending 24 weeks in training and having to start again with no credit for those 24 weeks if you fail the check. Ouch!

Why not check immediately after every week of training and accumulate these successful weeks. Once you reach 24 you automatically complete a Study Period. It means more rolls, but less disappointment.

 

[Nerhesi]

The main issue I have with the current training rules is the check at the end of spending 24 weeks in training and having to start again with no credit for those 24 weeks if you fail the check. Ouch!

Why not check immediately after every week of training and accumulate these successful weeks. Once you reach 24 you automatically complete a Study Period. It means more rolls, but less disappointment.

My main issue isn't that actually wizard. It's simply the fact that you need 24 weeks PER session, and multiple sessions per skill level.. .that is the ludicrous part for me.

 

[Wizard]

Lets take a typical Science degree in Australia. It goes for 3 years.

The first semester goes for 6 months. It consists of one each the maths, biology, chemistry and physics subjects. Even though a semester is 6 months, it's actually 12 weeks of intensive work (at least 40 hours of study a week) followed by say 3 weeks for exams. So in reality it is 15 weeks. At the end of this first semester we could say the student would have Science 0.

In the last 5 semesters of the degree, the student must take a major (ie, specialize). Say they take a chemistry major. So each semester they will do 4 subjects, most of them focused on chemistry with a couple general electives.

The tricky bit is what does a degree mean. Will the student have chemistry 2 or 3. Lets go with 2:

• Year 1, Semester 1: 15 weeks = Science 0
  Year 1, Semester 2: 15 weeks
  Year 2, Semester 1: 15 weeks = Chemistry 1
  Year 2, Semester 2: 15 weeks
  Year 3, Semester 1: 15 weeks
  Year 3, Semester 2: 15 weeks = Chemistry 2

And if we say 3:

• Year 1, Semester 1: 15 weeks = Science 0
  Year 1, Semester 2: 15 weeks = Chemistry 1
  Year 2, Semester 1: 15 weeks
  Year 2, Semester 2: 15 weeks = Chemistry 2
  Year 3, Semester 1: 15 weeks
  Year 3, Semester 2: 15 weeks = Chemistry 3

I'm of the mind that it will be the more modest chemistry 2, which the student will reach after a total of 90 weeks.

If we take this and extrapolate to give the weeks required for the next skill level:

• 15 weeks for skill 0
  30 weeks for skill 1
  45 weeks for skill 2
  60 weeks for skill 3
  75 weeks for skill 4
  90 weeks for skill 5

The above is fairly close to how the Traveller rules work now, except in Traveller you can fail, which would dramatically increase the required time. Lets now extrapolate the pattern as per the chemistry 3 model:

• 15 weeks for skill 0
  15 weeks for skill 1
  30 weeks for skill 2
  30 weeks for skill 3
  30 weeks for skill 4
  30 weeks for skill 5

Much quicker, but is this realistic for academic training?

Now on the job training is different. You tend to learn faster as you are focused on the specifics of the job without all the broad topics an academic course would give you. Maybe once per week, a Traveller can nominate 1 skill they used and they get 1 week of training towards that skill. This is on top of any academic training they might be undertaking.

 

[-Daniel-]

I have a few issues with the "let's look at reality" arguments. The level of a skill in Traveller does not always translate to real world levels. Does a degree in Chemistry mean you have a skill level of 1 or 2 or 3? You ask if the student should end with 2 or 3. What if the end of a degree means they have 0 or 1?

The rules give the example of a character with Medic 3 is a "very well-regarded doctor with many years of practice under their belt." So to try and link a level three skill to 30 or even 90 weeks of training just does not feel right.

The key reasons I liked the suggested system that uncouples time from growth is that some skills would require years to be "world class" while others are so granular they would be part of a package for a world class character.

The more I think about it and play around with it, the more I believe the best training system should be linked to GM choice and unhooked from forced time frames.

 

[Wizard]

I have a few issues with the "let's look at reality" arguments. The level of a skill in Traveller does not always translate to real world levels. Does a degree in Chemistry mean you have a skill level of 1 or 2 or 3? You ask if the student should end with 2 or 3. What if the end of a degree means they have 0 or 1?

I just wanted to have a starting point somewhere. I did forget, until know, all about the university rules on p14. Following those rules a chemistry degree would be chemistry 2 if a student graduates, otherwise 1. But the main downside for this is that it applies to academic skills. Other non-academic skills, such as Drive, are different and I agree that using a time based training system doesn't work well for them.

The more I think about it and play around with it, the more I believe the best training system should be linked to GM choice and unhooked from forced time frames.

I do like the training rules that Kaelic posted and would prefer them over the current time based training system. It's just that I thought it would be seen as too much for the core rulebook and I was trying to work with what was there already. If Kaelic's rules are given the green light, I would be more than happy with using them .

 

[Nerhesi]

I've posted the Red-Baron example above - from learning to fly, to the top ace in less than 2.5 years. Lets not even take into account any other flying aces from wwI and ww2.

Lets not forget that the "24 week" paradigm is 24 weeks of 8 hours a day - a ludicrous amount of constant study on that SPECIFIC skill. To get basic training (0), then become a competant 'worker' (2), you need 24 (0 skill) + 24 (1 skill) + 24x2 (2 skill).

2 Years, of 8 hours a day, on the single subject. This may apply in some very particular examples, but doesn't realistically apply to the vast, vast, vast majority of skills.

 

[Loconius]

I personally like the idea of passive training (after x number of months, increase skill practiced) being conservatively long, but the companion maybe having the the aforementioned Advancement Points rules, or maybe even just earning checks when the Referee says one is available for a certain skill (always requiring an EDU roll). I think passive advancement should be automatic to a certain point (the way it is for university students during character generation) then require a roll for later levels (it gets harder the higher you go so you are more likely to waste training time at higher levels, I forget the phrase).

 

[MongooseMatt]

Hi guys,

Okay, this is obviously something that needs looking at

I will start with the caveat that the Companion will have a chapter on training/character progression and that this will be the place we can add all sorts of exceptions, different methods and all the rest.

For the Core Book, however, we need something that is simple and works, so long as we do not dig under too many stones. Fitting it onto one page is a must (any longer and it will be too complicated), and it should not accelerate characters past what is achievable under the career system. I also don't want to mess around with advancement points or XP in the Core Book - that is very much something for the Companion.

So, with all that in mind, what is the one critical change you chaps would like to see? A shortening of the Study Period? EDU rolls every week? A DM applied to the next roll if you fail the last?

 

[Wizard]

So, with all that in mind, what is the one critical change you chaps would like to see? A shortening of the Study Period? EDU rolls every week? A DM applied to the next roll if you fail the last?

An EDU roll every week would be my choice. Less disappointing when compared to missing that one big roll.