Pre-Career Education: Technical or Trade School

[Jeff Hopper]

Tom Chlebus on the Traveller Group of Facebook had an excellent idea for Trade/Technical schools that would be a very interesting addition to the Core Rulebook.

TECHNICAL SCHOOL
This is a fairly intense training program intended to give people useful skills at the expense of broad education, to increase the chances of gaining employment.


A term of technical school takes 1 year and does not count toward benefits.
Qualification: Int 5+.

Skills: Choose any three skills from the list. Two are gained at level-0 and one is gained at level-1. Technical School does not advance any skill beyond level-1.
Admin
Grav Vehicle
Communications
Mechanic
Science (Electronics)
Sensors
Vacc Suit

Perseverance: Int 6+. DM -1 for each previous term of Technical School. If it fails, gain two skills at level-0 and leave Technical School.

After completing the term roll 8+ on 2D to gain +1 Int. Technical School provides this benefit only once, no matter how many additional terms the character takes in Technical School.
After Technical School a character attempting to enter a space-oriented career has +1 to the qualification/enlistment roll.
Once in a space-oriented career, the character has +1 to the first roll for a commission.

Now, by changing the skill list, you can create a technical or trade school for just about any profession imagineable. Attach a price to it and you have a way for PCs to soak up any massive amount of in-game down time constructively.

 

[vladthemad]

Tom Chlebus on the Traveller Group of Facebook had an excellent idea for Trade/Technical schools that would be a very interesting addition to the Core Rulebook.

TECHNICAL SCHOOL
This is a fairly intense training program intended to give people useful skills at the expense of broad education, to increase the chances of gaining employment.


A term of technical school takes 1 year and does not count toward benefits.
Qualification: Int 5+.

Skills: Choose any three skills from the list. Two are gained at level-0 and one is gained at level-1. Technical School does not advance any skill beyond level-1.
Admin
Grav Vehicle
Communications
Mechanic
Science (Electronics)
Sensors
Vacc Suit

Perseverance: Int 6+. DM -1 for each previous term of Technical School. If it fails, gain two skills at level-0 and leave Technical School.

After completing the term roll 8+ on 2D to gain +1 Int. Technical School provides this benefit only once, no matter how many additional terms the character takes in Technical School.
After Technical School a character attempting to enter a space-oriented career has +1 to the qualification/enlistment roll.
Once in a space-oriented career, the character has +1 to the first roll for a commission.

Now, by changing the skill list, you can create a technical or trade school for just about any profession imagineable. Attach a price to it and you have a way for PCs to soak up any massive amount of in-game down time constructively.

This seems to already be in the university mechanic. University being a generic term here I think, meant for any pre-career schooling after age 18. The skills listed as obtainable include Profession (any), among other "technical school" type skills, including engineer and electronics.

 

[Jeff Hopper]

A University is 4 years while a Technical or Trade School is only 1 year. A University aims for a broad education while a Technical or Trade School is more focused.

 

[vladthemad]

Nods, but terms in Traveller have always been 4 years. That doesn't mean you can't change it house rule, it's just something that should probably not change in the core rule book.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Certainly an interesting idea, but needs development (we could also lump in Pilot and Medical Schools, but University is a nice broad cover all at the moment).

 

[spinningdice]

If University is a catch all, can we at least have the Medic skill adding to it.

 

[Belisknar]

If University is a catch all, can we at least have the Medic skill adding to it.

Yeah thought it was a bit weird that Medic wasn't in the University skill list, since it's in the background list.

 

[ScryingEyeGames]

Certainly an interesting idea, but needs development (we could also lump in Pilot and Medical Schools, but University is a nice broad cover all at the moment).

An expansion on that idea: Pilot School could also be a generalized concept behind what we now think of as a CDL licence (Drive/Flyer/Seafarer being available in that general category?)