Specialties

[vladthemad]

In reading some of the posts about specialties, I began to think that the way they work is slightly broken across the board.

Would it not make more sense if some of the points carried over into other specialties? There's a term used for when game systems which do this, but it escapes me. It's late and I'm tired. Maybe cascade skills? At any rate, it's easier to explain by example, because again it's late and I'm tired!

You finish character creation with 3 points in engineer. You decide to specialize in M-Drives, so you have 3 points in Engineer: M-Drives. For the other specialties, they are simply half (rounded down) of the main specialty. So Engineer: J-drives would be 1 for example.

My reasoning for this is that in *most* cases, specialties are still relatively related. Piloting a small craft and a spacecraft or stabbing someone instead of punching them would be relatively similar. Some of the experience and skill at one should at least carry over to the others.

There are some skills that would need to annotate that they are like professions and points don't carry over at all, as they really don't carry over into other specialties. Art would be one, languages another. Being able to sculpt shouldn't give you a 0 in all the other specialties, just like speaking Zdetl shouldn't give you a 0 in all the other languages.

 

[vladthemad]

Wow, nothing? And here I thought I had a decent idea. :/

 

[-Daniel-]

To be honest I didn't reply because I didn't like the idea but had no real constructive feedback as to why. It just "didn't feel right". I prefer to at least be able to say why I like or do not like something. Sorry for not commenting, I just didn't think I could contribute to the discourse.

 

[grauenwolf]

While I agree that it feels off, I would still vote against it because of the added complexity. Calculating all of the derived skills is just not worth the headache, especially when you have situations like

Engineer (Power) 4
Engineer (Jump Drives) 1 [but really 2 because of Engineer (Power)]

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I think that if the Player can make a good case, in game, in that particular situation, then a Boon could be given.

I personally like the Level-0 in other Specialties option, but agree that is some sitiuations, a greater level of cross-pollenation makes sense too.

 

[vladthemad]

While I agree that it feels off, I would still vote against it because of the added complexity. Calculating all of the derived skills is just not worth the headache, especially when you have situations like

Engineer (Power) 4
Engineer (Jump Drives) 1 [but really 2 because of Engineer (Power)]

You wouldn't have engineer (jump drives) 1, all the points would go into your specialty and the rest would be derived from that.

So, in the example you give, lets assume during character creation you get five points in engineer. Instead of dividing them up to Engineer (Power) 4 and Engineer (Jump Drives) 1, you pick one specialty. Let's say you pick Engineer (Power) 5, from that you'd gain (M-Drive) 2, (J-Drive) 2, (Life Support) 2. Not really a lot of calculation needed. Same holds true for Gun Combat. If you gain 4 points during character creation in gun combat, and you put them into the Slug specialty, you'd note on your character sheet Gun Combat (Slug) 4, (Energy) 2, Archaic (2).

I guess besides my noted reasoning, that specialties aren't usually mutually exclusive, I also noticed that during play it was rare that anyone managed to finish character creation with a large pool of engineer skill points. With the issue of all the engineer specialties being important, we often had the issue where the "engineer" character/characters weren't very effective at their jobs. They might have 3 points in one specialty, but having 0 in the rest created...interesting...problems.

 

[-Daniel-]

With the issue of all the engineer specialties being important, we often had the issue where the "engineer" character/characters weren't very effective at their jobs. They might have 3 points in one specialty, but having 0 in the rest created...interesting...problems.

And thus the fun of a Random Character Generation system. :mrgreen:

 

[vladthemad]

With the issue of all the engineer specialties being important, we often had the issue where the "engineer" character/characters weren't very effective at their jobs. They might have 3 points in one specialty, but having 0 in the rest created...interesting...problems.

And thus the fun of a Random Character Generation system. :mrgreen:

Yeah...except "interesting" in this case means "catastrophic" Rare occurrences is fun, but they were commonplace my players started to ask questions like "Why would anyone ever go into space if it's this dangerous?!" This was after pretty much every jump they made was inaccurate, and an actual misjump that luckily didn't result in them ending up 36 parsecs away in an empty hex started them thinking about how dangerous it is without a bunch of skilled engineers on board.

I thought that the idea other games have used might fit here. It would make engineers more proficient at their jobs and make it easier to explain why I can be an expert marksman with a sniper rifle but still be all but a novice at shooting a pew pew laser gun, or why some of the skill to fire turret weapons wouldn't also carry over to firing bay weapons. As noted, there would be a few skills it doesn't fit for, and those would function like the profession (I think it was) skill where they don't cascade. Knowing how to dance really well isn't going to help you understand how to paint. At any rate, I'm probably going to house rule it even if it's not a good fit for the core rule book...as I don't want a misjump to result in a TPK!

 

[-Daniel-]

Or you could use the suggestion someone made that Engineer be rolled up into a smaller number of specialties. Say Engineer (Ship) and Engineer (Ground) or something. That way they get Engineer three times they are a level 3 in all of the four key ship systems.

Just a thought. :mrgreen:

 

[Cugel]

Or you could use the suggestion someone made that Engineer be rolled up into a smaller number of specialties. Say Engineer (Ship) and Engineer (Ground) or something. That way they get Engineer three times they are a level 3 in all of the four key ship systems.

Just a thought. :mrgreen:

One more radical thought: ditch the specialties altogether...benefits:

• 1. Further reduction in the skill list.
  2. More competent characters at fewer terms.

Note: I tend to be generous with Skill points, and ignore the rule about "Leadership-1" not stacking on "Leadership-2", for example. I'm happy to allow my players to become competent earlier in the life-path, especially given the other random things that can happen in chargen (or RW). Alexander the Great was probably a Tactics-5, and definitely didn't serve 7 terms to get there...