Monday, January 07, 2019

Gaining New Level-0 Skills in Classic Traveller

As my campaigns go forward, folks are interested in learning skills at level-0. I play Books 1-3 Classic Traveller, so the Instruction skill is not in play, and the skill list is limited. I don't want it to be sort of trivial to gain level-0 in all the skills, not even all the skills that another PC has. I also allow self improvement to improve from level-0, so easy level-0 skill also means easy bootstrap to level-1 (make your dedication roll and you have skill-1 immediately that becomes permanent if you keep up the self improvement for 4 years).

I think operational skills like Vehicle and Vacc Suit should be sort of easy, though Vacc Suit being too easy means everyone on the ship will get level-0, which may of course be viewed as a good thing overall.

Some of the skills should require some kind of formal training, and maybe making it take a 4 weeks or even 8 weeks of formal training to get level-0 in some skills would deter folks. Others definitely need to be practiced on world.

What have others done in this area?
 

Comments

  • Ported skill chips from cp2020 rpg into the game. Never really thought about it. I'm a bad gm lol!
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    A recent comment for another game inspired me: train for a year. If its simple or you can focus/do intensely - it takes a season. Not perfect but dead simple and a great starting point I thought so I’ve noted it as a more general principle for gaming in general. Depends on game mechanics. But for traveller I think it works.
     
    Among other things, if they fail their dedication roll for training, I'd say that a skill can't drop back below level 0. So, no matter what, they at least get that level out of it.
     
    I treat Level-0 as basic familiarisation: a new soldier quickly knows enough not to blow a finger off, but takes another couple of months to shoot well (level 1).

    From a GM perspective, level 0 keeps your players from ditching the game in disgust. They have to invest time and cash if they want better.
     
    +Michael Barry There is a point to that, but how easy should it be for people to have basic familiarization in everything? Level-0 is also the single most important skill rank. It takes one from "can never check this skill" or "DM -5 for unskilled" to can roll for 8+ (usually) on any task related to the skill.

    It works well if the view is that PCs should be able to be jacks of all trades (but then diminishes the value of the Jack of all Trades skill).

    +Chris Vermeers But outside of the sabbatical, you need level-0 to even do self improvement. The way I play sabbatical is that instead of a dedication roll, you are making an admittance roll. If you fail, you can try for a different skill (or give up and wait a year).
     
    +Alistair Langsford Yea, that might work. And maybe that should fill one of your two self improvement slots for most skills.

    I still feel like some skills should require a sabbatical, but I'm not sure (I feel like Engineering is one of those).

    I'm willing to make Vehicle skills easier (in some ways, I could even see "every PC has level-0 in all vehicles).

    I've just given out Diving-0 after a 3 day course. I'm really torn about what to do with diving... With the number of water worlds in my campaign, in feels like something that needs to be a skill, yet none of the Book 1 or Supplement 4 careers give it. The rules in The Undersea Environment for acquiring Diving skill don't feel right to me. I've also given Diving-0 to a Scout who wrote it into their character background.

    Vacc Suit is a really tricky one. It sort of sucks to not have level-0 for a ship based campaign based on the skill description, on the other hand, making it easy for everyone to get Vacc Suit-0 feels like it diminishes the value of those who get Vacc Suit-1 or better (though they can then wear combat armor or battle dress).

    Thinking about things, my real struggle is how you actually keep away from "skills define what your character is capable of trying" and keeping with the philosophy where skills define the things a character is good at under stress situations.

    Maybe the key there is to be careful about how you read skill descriptions. Someone without Vacc Suit isn't screwed if they need to wear one. But they'd better be careful if a fire fight breaks out. Or they're totally alone. Maybe the answer is that the character who DOES have Vacc Suit skill can talk a character through a tough spot or physically help them. Role play it out. Don't just rely on skill rolls to resolve the situation.

    Now with that philosophy, maybe we can go back to it takes a year of practice (using one of your self improvement slots) to acquire a skill-0. No dedication roll necessary.

    And I can still hand out some level-0 based on character background. And I can still hand out level-0 after some specific training (like the 3 day diving course). I get some control over how easy it is to pick up a level-0 skill.
     
    +Frank Filz And after a bit you find people have a lot of skills if you go to far... 8-)

    I agree a sabbatical sounds right for certain skills. And for some, maybe only at higher levels when you’re going that next step in a field. Perhaps you might keep a notebook for skills based on these categories, just as a loose framework: 3 day course, season, year, sabbatical. Maybe allow ‘school of life’ vs ‘tech school’ or something to indicate the how of learning. Not all skills are easily learned from books or podcasts etc.

    An idea borrowed from Over the Edge, and often expressed independently by others on other forums - use the Traveller character generation to spur a bit more of a background write up. Then, when something comes up, look at that to determine what type of “throw” is needed. Or if someone can have a go at something at all. If you say that a skill-n really identifies something you’re good at, then consider that to include skill-0 as meaning something. Perhaps an example to show what I mean.

    Vacc Suit. To put one on properly in a normally stressful situation: 8+, say.

    1. If you’re in a space going profession where this sort of thing could happen, you will have had training. So you don’t have to have even skill-0.
    2. Maybe allow stat bonuses, depending on circumstances.
    3. A zero level means you need it for more than passing the weekly or monthly drill, or the 3 monthly eva.

    BUT: its a time critical emergency. There is a breach. You don’t have minutes. Its not prepping for a normal EVA in a hazardous environment where you’ve got a chance to review things. Its get it on NOW. Skill-0 buys you the 8+ along with all the other people who have skill-1+. You’ve done this a bit more than just routine training and safety drills and the occasional EVA. So if you don’t even have a zero level, then apply the -3 or whatever “non-proficiency” DM.

    So having a skill is a measure of what you’re good at, regularly have to use, and where a certain amount of proficiency really has been attained: its a secondary or tertiary requisite of your job. And you use it regularly. But for simple things its not worth the allocation of skill 0. And its those ‘emergency’ type situations where that non-proficiency penalty is then worth applying, and not anywhere else - unless there is a time pressure.

    Hope that has made some kind of sense.

    +Frank Filz That is a very good point. I think that I'd have to rework parts of the improvement system if I am not using the MT one in the future.
     
    I just started using a modified version of the regular CT skill improvement rules. I halved the time to try for permanent acquisition to 2 years. They can study 2 skills at a time. After 6 months of study of a new skill they can get it at 0. After 2 years they can roll to keep it at level 1. For weapons they immediately get a +1 if they are working on that weapons skill - same rules to make it permanent. I decided to make level 5 the maximum skill level, and it is harder to improve the skills permanently as they get higher. Base roll is 8+, but they get -1 for level 2 through -4 for level 5. So to improve from level 4 to 5 they have to roll a 12.

    Since we don't play every week, I felt like this would allow some character improvement without totally blowing up the system. Mistake? We'll see. hahaha.

    Discussion of Traveller Space Encounters

    Another topic I'd love to talk more about is the space encounters.

    The encounter tables for ships really don't make much sense. They don't take space lanes into account at all and they don't make any sort of logical sense for traffic.

    I made some modified encounter tables to at least make some accommodation for how ships had to travel. Like it makes no sense to have more encounters in a system with a Class-A star port than the adjacent systems that the ships at the Class-A MUST have come through.

    It also only generates a single encounter. At least on some worlds there should be several ships in port.

    I know GURPS Traveller has some stuff in Far Trader, but that doesn't really generate encounter tables as more computes the volume of trade.

    One thought is to actually stick with the Book 2 encounter tables and use those to represent the probability of some kind of interaction beyond normal courtesies in port. Then what I should do is develop a table for each encounter type that helps determine what kind of encounter it is. Or I could just make a reaction and go from there.

    That still leaves me with coming up with a way to determine what ships might be in port or in orbit.

    I want to keep artifacts like Pirate ships are most active in systems with a Class A or B star port (6 or 8 on 2D) and not active at all in systems with a Class D or worse star port, while Patrols are only common in Class A and again, not at all in Class D or worse.

    My players are always wanting to know who's in port so they can talk to them...

    Comments

    I would think pirates would frequent places where the patrols aren't, thus D starports.
     
    +Brett Slocum good point. But also perhaps they aren’t acting as pirates there. Its a “friendly” port so they dont sh#t in their backyard.

    Likewise patrol ships there might be undercover.
     
    +Brett Slocum I think the pirates hit A and B star ports for the richer takings. Patrols obviously follow.

    I’m taking the setting implications of 1977 as is.
     
    "it makes no sense to have more encounters in a system with a Class-A star port than the adjacent systems that the ships at the Class-A MUST have come through"

    Maybe… but there's also the matter of in-system traffic.

    I'm still thinking about the implications of the 77 vs 81 encounter tables. The universes obviously have some different assumptions. I think that the main adjustments that I'd be happy seeing in 77 would be adding the useful ships from 81/Supp7: type T, A2, and so on.
     
    I'm thinking systems with A ports supply their own system patrols for the very reason that traffic is heavier and having stable routes is important.
     
    +Chris Vermeers Yea, somehow additional ships need to be added (since I use Supplement 4, the Lab Ship and Safari Ship are also in play, including my Type KS Safari Scout). 1981 adds the useful Type T patrol, and yea, we also have the Far Trader. I'd add some of the other smaller ships that were added over time also.
     
    +Brett Slocum Yea, Class A star ports having their own patrols makes sense.
     
    If I had the time, I’d start working up a subsector based just on this discussion to see what sort of things came of it. I like the idea of the 77 Rules philosophy with the extras from 81. I’ll have to save this idea for later.
     
    I would think a class B or C port system, one jump from a class A port could have far less traffic than the A port system. A central A port distributes that traffic across its neighboring systems. It would naturally draw more trade as the tech is going to be better and more available. Also more available would be possible cargoes.

    This assumes it’s not an Imperial Jump Route. If it’s on a standard jump route traffic would naturally be higher with more tenders, x-boats, navy and scout ships too.

    Just my thinking.
     
    Perhaps distance from a space lane is the determiner for number of ships in space, while spaceports are indicators of ships on the ground engaging in repairs, resupply, and trade?
     
    Or docked at high port. Or parked at a slip in orbit for those unstreamlined ships.
     
    +Robert Fedick Sure, a Class B, C, D, or E star port would have less traffic than a Class A - IF the Class A traffic didn't have to go through there. In the portion of my Wine Dark Rift setting that belongs to my Imperium (NOT the 3I, and for one thing, my Imperium does not have X-Boats or communication routes) is at the end of the line, with an adjacent Class E star port the only neighboring system. ALL J1 traffic to Tegel (the Class A) MUST go through Fogbound (the Class E).

    Now, yea, there may be some in system traffic, though how much of that is jump capable ships (another thing 1977 encounter charts don't have, and even the later encounter charts just have sub-100 dTon in system traffic if I remember).

    Now of course J2 and J3 traffic skips Fogbound, and in fact there's a Class B at least every 2 parsecs along the space lanes, so I assume the Type M subsidized liner only visits the Class A and B star ports. Type A2 Far Traders might well only visit Class A and B star ports also, allowing them to have somewhat more traffic than the Class C, D, and E star ports along the space lanes.

    One way to figure out the traffic might actually be to decide what all ships are in the region and then figure out their routes and then create a traffic map accordingly, and then from there, create encounter tables. Of course the encounter tables would allow for some non-regular ships also (and maybe even 50% of the shipping might be such). They still have to contribute logically to traffic across the region.

     


    Frustrations with RQ1 chargen


    This is me sort of spilling my guts... Not necessarily looking for a solution, just trying to work out my feelings.

    So I've been starting up a play by post RQ1 game and I also have a Roll20 game I've been running for a few months.

    Since I've been doing "going back to the original" for D&D (playing OD&D) and Traveller (using 1977 Books 1-3), and I've always been partial to RQ1 over even RQ2 let alone any of the newer ways to play in Glorantha, I thought I'd do much more by the book than the last few times I've run RQ.

    For the Roll20 game, I did straight 3d6 rolls for attributes (well, 2d6+6 for INT as suggested in I think TrollPak). With that, an ability bonus is rare, especially more than +5%.

    For the play by post game, I decided to do 4d6k3 (or 4d6k2+6 for INT, similar adjustments for non-humans). That has resulted in better ability bonuses, though the 4d6 INT of elves really shows through (since INT is SO important, affecting almost every ability bonus). The 3d6+3 DEX shows through pretty strong also (since attack, manipulation, parry, stealth, and defense all use DEX).

    We've also been using the previous experience from the back of the book. This has caused tremendous delay in getting the play by post game started and lots of frustration on the part of the players.

    This has seriously got me tempted to return to what I did for the game I ran in 2006. For that game, I had settled on doing a point buy for attributes, distributing 103 points (the first couple characters, I actually told the players to just pick attributes - I think they averaged 103 points with both of them pretty close). But I didn't compute the ability bonuses. Instead, they got to distribute +25, +20, +20, +15 +15, +10, +10, and +5 among the abilities (attack, manipulation, parry, defense, stealth, knowledge, perception, and communication [oratory]). I just asked the players to consider their attributes and not apply a bonus that was way out of whack (no +25 knowledge for a character with INT 5 - not that anyone took that low an INT).

    One of the cool things about this was that if you take computation of the ability bonuses from the attributes, the value of the attributes becomes much more even so a point buy works.

    On top of that, I used a previous experience system I had developed in the 90s inspired by RQ3. This set lower skills than characters often come out of the previous experience system from the back of the book, but also more uniform (we have some characters who didn't make mercenary or get into an apprenticeship).

    But that feels so new school even though I think it would make the rest of the game (which is plenty old school) much more accessible.

    What are your thoughts? What do other folks who still play RQ1 or RQ2 do?

    BTW, a definite non-answer is RuneQuest Glorantha. It's more money than I'm willing to spend, and from tidbits I've seen I think it makes changes in areas I really like the originals. For example, post RQ2, it seems that the idea of cults having very different skill and spell offerings, from free, to half-price, to normal price, has changed to be more uniform. I haven't actually seen an RQG cult writeup, but I know for sure I really don't like the RQ3 cults.

    Some Selected Comments

    One thing I really want to do is put together a streamlined document for character generation, walking the player through each step (I have a good start on this here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UaDB0IJo96DzDRSQLL9j4-vQuBiSLs6U3SySHgUUuG8/edit?usp=sharing ). The previous experience really isn't THAT complicated, I think it's just that things are spread out.

    I do allow players to try several apprenticeships if they fail their first choice, adding a few more options might make it so really you would end up with some kind of apprenticeship.

    Actually, just tweaking the background roll to remove peasant would eliminate the possibility of not getting an apprenticeship and would not really detract from the game.

    Hmm, I could also take the code for the Classic Traveller Character Generator and write a Classic RuneQuest Character Generator...

    A cheat sheet on cults would help, perhaps just giving the Lay and Initiate details for some good selections, plus the names of other cults that are possibilities.

    Hmm, looking back, my old rules from the 90s I didn't allow Elf PCs... Maybe allowing an Elf was a bit much. Or maybe not, we'll see how that actually plays out.

    Saving Posts from Google+

    I will be copying some of my Google+ Posts over here to preserve them.

    I may paste selected comments at the bottom of the posts...