Skill Specialities Question

[mycerius]

I am about to start playing in a Traveller campaign. I have not played in one since CT was out. One of the things I am trying to figure out is just how skills with specialities work. The example in the core book (p6) confuses me.

For example, a character might have Engineer 0,allowing him to make any Engineer skill checks without an unskilled penalty. He might then gain a level in Engineer, giving him Engineer (Jump drives) 1. He would make all Engineer checks involving Jump drives at a +1 DM, but would make all other Engineer checks at a +0 DM. A character can have multiple specialities in a skill – an engineer might have Engineer (Jump drives) 1 and Engineer (power plant) 2. He would make checks related to Jump drives with a +1 DM, checks related to power plants with a +2 DM and all other Engineer checks with a +0 DM.

Does that mean
a) I train up Engineer (jump drives) and Engineer (power plant) separately, i.e. I can eventually have Eng (jd) 2 and Eng (pp) 2.
b) I train up Engineer singly with level 1 going to (jump drives) and level 2 going to (power plant).
c) something else?

If it's a) then I can see how skills progress.
If it's b) then what do I do if I want Eng (jd) to be +2 DM instead of Eng (pp)?
If it's c) then ?

Thanks.

 

[BP]

Welcome to the forum mycerius!

As to your question - you have the gist with 'a) I train up Engineer (jump drives) and Engineer (power plant) separately, i.e. I can eventually have Eng (jd) 2 and Eng (pp) 2.'

Or any combination, such as Engineer (Jump Drives) 4 and Engineer (Power Plant) 2...

Also, you have Engineer 0 in all other specialties (i.e. Life Support, etc.). This negates the -3 DM for unskilled task checks.

Hope that helps...

 

[apoc527]

A is correct as far as I know. If I'm wrong, I hope someone tells us!

 

[Fovean]

I play the a) option - every time you get a level of Engineer skill, you apply it to one of the specialties. I recently rolled up an Engineer who in Classic would be Engineer-4 but in MGT he is Eng(J-Drive)-1, Eng(P-Plant)-1, Eng(M-Drive)-1 and Eng(Electronics)-1. Eng-0 in the other specialties.

I was just goofing around, depending on the game in question I might distribute the levels differently...

 

[mycerius]

Excellent. Thanks for the quick replies. I had a feeling that was what the book meant but wanted to clarify before I dove into trying out char gen.

 

[rinku]

It seems that in MGT the skill levels are worth a bit more. CT had a very limited default skill system, and level 1 was the minimum required to hold down a position and it was not uncommon for characters to have level 3 or 4. In MGT level 0 will allow you to hold down a job, and the need to spread around specialties means higher levels are a bit less common (but as a consequence, mean more). On the other hand, MGT uses stat mods for more tasks, so it tends to even out (and you can still be a hotshot Jump Drive Engineer if you want!).

MGT also has a MUCH better system for gaining skill through play, especially for characters who didn't pick up many non-zero levels. I've been waiting thirty years for a Traveller skill advancement system that works, and here it is

 

[BP]

Besides the stat DMs, don't forget the Players can use the timing DMs to their advantage if they have the time. Also, task chaining can be of some use.

 

[apoc527]

The advancement was the thing that worried me most, but if it works for people, then why mess with it. It's a little (ok, a lot) more freeform than an XP or Achievement Point system, but I think it works well with the realistic nature of Traveller.

Do people find that it works? Is there anything else needed? I know the CT people will often gripe that Traveller doesn't need no stinkin' character advancement, but given today's gaming style, I would strongly disagree. It doesn't need WoW or D&D style levels, but it needs something in my opinion!

 

[dreamingbadger]

here it is

looks confused ... it is where ? Not Trolling, genuinely I don't see anything that equates to this statement?

 

[AndrewW]

here it is

looks confused ... it is where ? Not Trolling, genuinely I don't see anything that equates to this statement?

Meaning that there is one with the Mongoose version of Traveller.

 

[Vargr]

MGT Core Book Pg. 59, under "Learning New Skills"

It takes (skill level to be learned) + (number of skill leves the PC currently has) weeks to train a skill.

Zero level skills count as zero.

Jack-of-All-Trades skill cannot be learned during play.

 

[rust]

Do people find that it works?

Well, not really, at least not as good as I would like it.

With this system, the more skill levels a character has, the more difficult
it becomes to learn a skill, which is not exactly plausible.
For example, someone with a skill level total of 5 needs 6 weeks to learn
to ride a horse at level 1, while someone with a skill level total of 15 needs
16 weeks to learn the same skill at level 1 - more than twice as long. I
am not really convinced that this makes sense.

There are also no differences between skills that are easy to learn and
skills that are difficult to learn. In the real world there is quite a differen-
ce between learning to drive a car and learning genetics or astrophysics.

The system also does not consider whether skills are related and so give
a "synergy effect". For example, someone who already knows several
languages usually finds it easier to learn an additional one than someone
who knows no foreign language at all.

That said, the system works well enough in a "gamist" sense, but it fails
as a "simulationist" system. In the end it depends on your expectations
and style of game whether you like it or consider it too shallow.

 

[mycerius]

Yeah. I agree that the time to learn a new skill level does not make sense to me at all. Yes, it is simple to figure out the time needed, but it is not rational.

 

[BP]

As rust points out, the system is a bit counter-reality in many ways.

In my read, it seems to have a more fundamental flaw related to the 'Skill Total' calculation.

• I have a PbP PC that is 35 yrs old and has 12 skills - but a 'Skill Total' of only 6 (7 skills are level 0). He has Gun Combat-0. In 7 weeks he can have Gun-1. In 9 more, Gun-2. In 11 more, Gun-3. In 13 more, Gun-4. In 15 more, Gun-5!

So in just over a year (55 weeks) he can increase his gun skill 5 levels. In char gen, this would have taken at least 2 to 5 terms - i.e. 8 to 20 years to do the same thing.

Better yet - just don't get any skill levels in char gen!

Since the text mentions new skills - then you can get every skill at level 0 in - let me do the math here...nuthin' into nuthin'...carry the nuthin'... - oh yeah, right, zero weeks! (One could argue that the Learning New Skills section only applies to increasing existing skills - but that is adding a word to the text.)

So, pick your main skill and go on to get level-1 in 1 week, level-2 in 3 more... till you get to Level-7 in 49 weeks (take a vacation for 3 weeks in the year why don't cha!).

Now, does that seem right to you?

[Note: some phrases borrowed from Jayne and Early]

 

[CosmicGamer]

The core rulebook is not all encompassing.

I look at it like how char gen is done in the book. There is the [random] method described with detail in the core book. Some people argue that this is exactly how char gen must be done and no alterations are allowed.

But this is not the only way. Several modifications, like Iron Man and Solo Generation, and an alternative with the Point System are provided right in the book. The book even encourages customize characteristics and events.

Is there any rule stating that you can't create more modifications to the system. Your own alternatives?

Ok, so my point is that the little section that takes up less than 1/6th of a page is not all inclusive. Feel free to create alternatives and modifications. For example, there is no system for college, trade school, or other schooling. Create your own.

The only problem with creating my own stuff is that I can design something that works great (for me) but later a new publication comes out which covers the same thing. The 'rules police' say that what I am doing is now wrong.

 

[rust]

The 'rules police' say that what I am doing is now wrong.

Just tell them that you are not under their jurisdiction and that it is time for
them to p... eh, move on. :wink:

 

[apoc527]

Well, I have an idea for your review (I'm not rules police--I've modified almost every game I've ever played to some degree or another).

The game provides a handy point buy system for alternate character generation. Why not use that as an XP system?

Here are my suggestions:

Characteristic increases: 20x the cost of desired characteristic number. So, if you have Dex 8, and want to buy Dex 9, it costs you 100 "XP." I'd probably require a training regimen of a number of weeks equal to the new characteristic. You could also not allow characteristic increases at all for certain ones.

Skill increases: 5x the cost of the desired skill number, modified by skill difficulty (see below). So, to learn a new skill at level 0, it costs 5 XP. To go from rank 3 to 4, it costs 40 XP. For ranks higher than 4, I'd just assume +2 points (10 more XP). You'd have to train for a number of weeks equal to the new skill level.

Skill Difficulty: Using the Jack-of-all-Trades skill as a baseline for extreme difficulty (x5 point cost), you can easily assign difficulties to the various skills as you see fit, including x1/2. I'm not sure I'd do this for that many skills, not because of realism, but because of in game utility. In "reality," science skills are going to be hard to learn, but in game, you want to encourage their use, so making them harder to get would be counterproductive. If you want to encourage a skill in your game, give it a x1/2 modifier for difficulty. This could be area-specific skills like Seafarer--it might give flavor, but how handy is it likely to be? Same goes for Art, etc.

In my game, I'm going to use this system and I'm not going to have many skill difficulty modifiers yet. In terms of amount of XP to give out per game, well, that's always in the complete discretion of the Referee depending on how fast you want your PCs to improve.

I think I will probably give out 10-20 XP per real-time game night. One thing I like doing is allowing the players to give out extra XP for excellent roleplaying--that rewards good roleplaying and lets the players recognize each other for it. For example, I'd make a pool of 40 XP (10 bonus each) and let the PCs vote on how to divide it up based on roleplaying that evening.

 

[rust]

The system we used a while ago differentiated between physical and men-
tal skills, with the physical ones requiring somewhat less time to learn, and
used a fixed scale for the learning times - I think it started with 1 week for
physical and 2 weeks for mental skills to learn Level 0, but I am not sure.
As far as I remember, it went from there up to a maximum of 3 months
to increase a mental skill from Level 4 to Level 5.

However, there are many possibly good systems for learning and impro-
ving skills, and different settings and campaigns require different systems.

 

[Fovean]

Freelance Traveller, Nov 09 issue has a Skill Improvement system in Doing It My Way:

http://www.freelancetraveller.com/magazine/index.html

Seems pretty straightforward, but haven't really tried it out much.

 

[AndrewW]

The only problem with creating my own stuff is that I can design something that works great (for me) but later a new publication comes out which covers the same thing. The 'rules police' say that what I am doing is now wrong.

So tell them it's your universe, you are in charge. If they don't like it you can fire them.