What Goes in Personal Development Skills?

[Nathan Brazil]

Can anyone provide a "definition" as to what would go in Personal Development Skills table and possible a better definition for Advanced Education Skills?

I am building careers for a Low Tech/Fantasy setting using the Mongoose Traveller Ruleset using elements from that other popular roleplaying game :wink: . I have no trouble determing Careers and Specializations and overall what skills I want each career and specialization to have. Where I am bogged down in how to place skills.

In the Core Rulebook there are the following skills tables.
Personal Development Skills
Service Skills
specialization Skills
Advanced Eduction Skills
Officer Skills

Service Skills Table make sense. Every member who enters that career as a first career gets six skills at level 0 regardless of chosen specialization. As a second career, one skill at level 0. A baseline set of skills, no problem.

Specialization Skills make sense.
If you choose that specialization (Career, say Warrior, specializations say Horse Cavalryman or Pikeman). Each has a different Specialization Skills list to distinguish one from the other and also draw on skills common to both from the Service Skills table

Officer Skills
Seem to draw from authority and/or hierarchy in a career. Mostly military, but if I wanted say as a non-military one, an example would be guilds. A Master or Journeyman in a guild would develop different skills (like accounting and political skills) as opposed to an Apprentice (who will still do day to day grunt work as reflected in Service Skills and Specialization Skills tables). It could also come from Ranks and Benefits, sure.

What I am having trouble with is building a better definition of

Personal Development Skills
Advanced Education Skills

I had one idea for Advanced Education. It went along the lines of making magical armaments.
Sure a blacksmith might have skills to make horseshoes, maybe swords, but only a blacksmith with an appropriate skill from the Advanced Education table could possibly fasion a masterful sword ready to be enchanted.

And I am totally lost on what to dump into Personal Development. Does anyone want to donate their 0.02Cr? Thanks.

 

[Mytholder]

Personal Development: Stat increases and skills that might be unofficially connected with the career. You'll notice that Carouse, Gambler and Melee (Brawl) tend to be shoved into Personal Development.

Advanced Education: Academia. science, abstract learning.

 

[Fovean]

Maybe stuff like Languages, Arcane Myths/Lore and Courtly Manners could be Advanced Ed.

For Pers Dev I agree with Mytholder - use stat increases mostly, followed by Athletics (or maybe Horsemanship, unless a horse is a Vehicle...) or Literacy (basic ability to read and write native language) perhaps... then the interpersonals like Carouse, Bribery, Gambling and the like.

Sounds fun!

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Personal Development is almost generic. It should include characteristic improvement, especially the physical characteristics and ony other characteristic that is used a lot by that career. Then add Gambler, Athletics, Carouse or Melee as skills that they might get during their "off time".

Advanced Education is always tough. I try to make them skills that are a bit rarer or require a lot more book learning.

In a fantasy setting, Science skills (or whatever you are calling the equivalent), Art (Writing), Diplomat, Admin those sorts of "thinking" skills would be good ones to put there.

For careers where you don't use an Officer/Commissioned table, the Adv-Ed table can be used for those "officer" skills, possibly including leadership.

 

[FreeTrav]

My take on it:

Personal Development Skills

These would be general skills that represent what a person learns just from the process of living - stat increases, basic social skills (e.g., streetwise, brawling), common skills for the milieu (e.g., ground/wheeled vehicle, literacy)

Service Skills

These are skills that everyone in a particular career will develop or be trained in, regardless of any specialization - for example, a police career would find Observation, a basic weapon form (e.g., handgun), hand-to-hand combat, and perhaps some things like Admin and Legal.

specialization Skills

These are career skills as well, but the kind of career skills that come with specific career paths - for example, police with a specialization of Mounted would get Animal Handling here; a specialization of SWAT might get Tactics (small unit) or Rifle (sniper) here.

Advanced Eduction Skills

These would be skills that are not generally taught, but which the diligent worker could learn and find useful regardless of career specialization. Police might find Psychology, Computer, Chemistry, Investigation, Liaison, and so on here.

Officer Skills

These skills are targetted at command or management. Admin and Liaison are almost inevitable for this table; Tactics (large unit), Leader, Training, are other skills that might appear here for police.