2d6? Why oh why?

[atpollard]

The advantage is cancelled out by the difficulty modifiers, which go up to a DM of -6 (and more, if the GM so decides).

So, the character can handle all routine tasks of his field without any prob-
lems (which is just realistic), but there will still be more than enough truly dif-
ficult or even impossible tasks for that character to make the game challen-
ging for the player.

As a practical matter, will this not simply force the GM to arbitrarily increase/decrease the dificulty of tasks to match the inflated/low skill of the character attempting it?

The alternative is many 'impossible' tasks that only 'Super Engineer' can do ... [sarcasm] what fun to play the sidekick to a suprhero [end sarcasm].

Arthur

 

[rust]

As a practical matter, will this not simply force the GM to arbitrarily increase/decrease the dificulty of tasks to match the inflated/low skill of the character attempting it?

This obviously depends on the GM.

Since my setting is a "sandbox", with fixed task difficulties and the players
deciding which tasks their characters will try their hands on, I will not have
this kind of problem.

 

[Supplement Four]

And FWIW, the only character I've made so far does have *one* level 3 skill. And that was after 2 terms as a Scholar, 1 term as a drifter, and 2 terms as a Scout.

I really don't think it's as easy to get all those +2s and +3s as you seem to think it is.

Exactly. You've just proved my point. You've made exactly one character using the MGT rules, and, viola, you got one Skill-3 skill (and it sounds like you wanted more).

This should be possible, but it shouldn't be the norm. A good chargen system for a Traveller game should have a decent chance of creating a character with a Skill-3 but not a probable chance.

Chances are, if you create a PC using the MGT rules, your character will at least have a Skill-3 in one area.

MGT = broken.

 

[rancke]

In my opinion, the problem is that the spread of possible outcomes is too small with 2D. Also skill-2 is more than twice as good as skill-1, and skill-3 a lot more than three times, etc.

Back in the old days, I soon changed to 2D to 3D and target number 8 to 12. That helped a lot. (Later I made up my own system using D20s, where I could vary difficulties further by allowing throwing two or even three dice and using the best for routine and very routine tasks and using the worst for unusual and very unusual tasks (with appropriate bonusses and minusses for circumstances. Worked a lot better than any commercial system I've seen, in my biased opinion :devil)


Hans

 

[Supplement Four]

Just take a look at the skill lists of the various careers. With the exception
of the Barbarian, the characters obviously do not come from low tech worlds,
because otherwise they would have quite different sets of career skills.

I don't know about that...

Medical? Could refer to turn of the centry medicine, what we knew in the 1960's, modern day medicine, or future medical knowledge.

Gun Combat (AutoRifle)? Could refer to M-16 from Vietnam or some futurisitic tech.

I could go on, but I've got to go...buddy here for the gun show...maybe more later.

 

[rancke]

A good chargen system for a Traveller game should have a decent chance of creating a character with a Skill-3 but not a probable chance.

A good chargen system should be able to distinguish between dabblers, semi-skilled, adequately-skilled, and professional levels (~amateur, 'apprentice', 'journeyman', 'master'). I've always interpreted skill-1 as amateur/'apprentice', skill-2 as 'journeyman', and skill-3 as 'master'. Medic-1 is the amount of medical knowledge a nurse can get by with, but a professional nurse should really have Nurse-3 (actually, "Nurse-3" should default to Medic-1). To avoid skill proliferation, I'd settle for Medic-1 and Steward-2. But I'd consider someone with nothing but Medic-1 to be unqualified to be a nurse.

And, yes, I do think the various chargen systems throw up some appallingly unqualified characters.


Hans

 

[Poppyseed45]

I don't know about that...

Medical? Could refer to turn of the centry medicine, what we knew in the 1960's, modern day medicine, or future medical knowledge.

Gun Combat (AutoRifle)? Could refer to M-16 from Vietnam or some futurisitic tech.

And Vacc Suit could mean...?

Or Zero-G?

Or how about Astrogation?

All of these are from the Drifter careers. So, even the scum of Travellers can have these skills. Unless you want to tell me Julius Caesar's veterans were masters of the Vacc Suit...

 

[rust]

In my opinion, the problem is that the spread of possible outcomes is too small with 2D. Also skill-2 is more than twice as good as skill-1, and skill-3 a lot more than three times, etc.

For my current setting we use the Mongoose Traveller character generation
system, and then convert the characters into BRP characters in order to use
the percentile system of BRP for the actual roleplaying in our campaign.

 

[Klaus]

The problem with MGT is that it is much too likely that a character will have at least one Skill-3 when he finishes chargen. The system doesn't produce firemen, paramedics, nurses, assistant drive techs, and the like. MGT produces full blown doctors, lawyers, and other ultra-competent professionals.

That's a problem whether Mongoose lovers want to admit it or not.

You keep on asserting this but produce no evidence or argument to justify it.

The only way to guarantee a level 3 skill is to use Connections, so the player has to want it. If he wants to play a doctor or engineer, why prevent him? If he doesn't want to play the pro, he can put those skill points into other skills.

I've probably rolled up a couple of hundred MGT characters now, and only a handful achieve level 3 skills without the Connections rule. Only one achieved a level 4 skill through rolls.

It seems to me that you think MGT is broken because it allows the player to have a character he actually wants to play. Weird.

 

[aramis]

A good chargen system should be able to distinguish between dabblers, semi-skilled, adequately-skilled, and professional levels (~amateur, 'apprentice', 'journeyman', 'master'). I've always interpreted skill-1 as amateur/'apprentice', skill-2 as 'journeyman', and skill-3 as 'master'. Medic-1 is the amount of medical knowledge a nurse can get by with, but a professional nurse should really have Nurse-3 (actually, "Nurse-3" should default to Medic-1). To avoid skill proliferation, I'd settle for Medic-1 and Steward-2. But I'd consider someone with nothing but Medic-1 to be unqualified to be a nurse.

Interestingly enough, CT sets 1 as (essentially) journeyman level, 2 as senior journeyman, and 3 as master; 0 is the amateur.

Apprentices are not "employable" in their field, but skill 1 has always been defined in CT/MT and now MGT as employable/skilled.

Medic 1 is EMT2 qual or better
Medic 2 is defined as nurse (but really is nurse-practitioner)
Medic 3 is defined as MD. (Which, given 10 yrs training time IRL, is master-level)

 

[tbeard1999]

So what are people's experiences in game like? Does 2d6 work?

Sure, 2d6 works. The problem is that it imposes serious limitations on game designers. And many game designers are not astute enough to perceive those limits. So, they design systems that break the 2d6 mechanic.

I've posted on this at length in the CT forum, but here's the critical point:

A 2d6, modifiers added, target-number system like CT or MGT (i.e., roll 2d6, add mods, need 8+ to succeed) has a relatively narrow range of meaningful net modifiers. In the case of CT, that range is -4 to +3. In other words, net modifiers greater than +3 do not materially improve the chance of success; net modifiers of -4 do not materially reduce the chance of success. Systems that fail to heed this reality will produce a lot of rolls that are effectively automatic successes or automatic failures. This is one of the definitions of a "broken system" IMHO.

Another point is that a +1 or -1 net modifier can be statistically huge, if the success number is placed near 7. In Traveller, a +1 can increase the chance of success from 41% to 58%. A -1 can decrease the chance of success from 41% to 28%.

The implications of these limits should be obvious -- a workable 2d6 system should have relatively few applicable modifiers to each roll. And the more applicable modifiers there are, the smaller each modifier's range should be.

So, if only one type of modifier will apply to a task roll, its range can be -4 to +3.

If 5 types of modifiers will apply, then they should ideally be limited to a range of -1 to +1. Even then, the system will "break" from time to time.

I'd add that I would probably never choose to design a game based on a 2d6 system. But I'm working on a private re-write of Classic Traveller, which requires me to use the 2d6 mechanic. ("Combat System C" is the only publicly available portion so far -- I always design the combat system first). I'm finding it an engaging challenge. 2d6 mechanics force a conscientious designer into identifying the most important factors; no "kitchen sink" approach will work.

 

[vertigo25]

My point on the one +3 skill my character has is that it took him 5 terms to get it. After spending 20 years doing something, I would hope he would be more than just competent at it.

I just realized something else, too.

Specializations effectively give you -1 to rolls outside your specialty. My character with Social Science (Archeology) 3 only gets that +3 when it comes to his specific field. If he tries something in, say, History; he'll get +2.

You could require specialization in *every* skill, if you wanted to lower the power level of the game. Medic, for example, could have Emergency/Field Medicine; Pharmacology; and Surgery.

That's, of course, assuming that you think the rest of the rules of MgT are doable.

I still contend, however, that in an *adventure* game, most people (myself included) want characters who are a cut above the rest of the world, and shine particularly in one or two fields.

And I have to agree with Klaus that you seem to think the problem is players getting to play characters that they want to. I'd take it a little further and say that any game where people have *fun* is not broken.

I don't know…

I got in to RPGs all those years ago so I could pretend to be the cool characters I read about and watch on TV and the movies. I wanted to collaborate with my friends on creating stories for those characters and worlds for them to act in. To those ends, I like games where the character is going to be successful at tasks within his/her field *most* of the time (but not all of the time (it's also fun to Watch Indiana Jones miss the Jeep and fall in to the truck behind him)).

Adventure stories in all genres should star characters who are larger than life, and in an RPG, the PCs are the stars.

 

[vertigo25]

See, now, tbeard's point makes a lot of sense to me. *That's* how you make a well reasoned point. (And this statement is not pointing at anyone other than myself)

Even so, I don't think CT of MgT are broken in that sense. Sure, you get the wonky situation from time to time, but it is a game. I guess it just doesn't spoil the fun for me if those occasional situations pop up where I and the players think "Ok… that made absolutely no sense…" Because they really are few and far between.

 

[Klaus]

If we take the most realistic examples from our telly, ie: HBO-style shows, what skill levels are apparent?

From Band of Brothers, would we disagree that Lt. Winters does have Tactics 3 in episode 2, when they attack the gun emplacement?

Or from The Wire:

Lester seems to have Investigate 3 (McNulty looks to have Investigate 2, despite being a frell-up). Omar has got to have Streetwise 3, maybe even Stealth too. 'The Greek' must be Deception 3 at least. (BTW, I'm only up to season 2, so no spoilers please!!). Kima must be solid 2's, and the dealers will be Streetwise 2 or so, even if the rest of the cast only seem to show 0's and 1's.

If we go into shows like BSG or B5, 3's and 4's abound.

 

[tbeard1999]

Specializations effectively give you -1 to rolls outside your specialty. My character with Social Science (Archeology) 3 only gets that +3 when it comes to his specific field. If he tries something in, say, History; he'll get +2.

Given the sensitivity of the 2d6 system to modifiers, I'd make non-specialty areas a -2 to the skill roll (but they're always at least skill level 0). A -1 modifier really doesn't penalize non-specialty areas that much (at skill level 3, the specialty succeeds on an average task 83% of the time; the non-specialty 72% of the time).

You could require specialization in *every* skill, if you wanted to lower the power level of the game. Medic, for example, could have Emergency/Field Medicine; Pharmacology; and Surgery.

An interesting idea. However, what if someone wants to specialize in 2 areas of Medic, for instance? How would that be done?

I guess you could allow him to apply 1 skill level to the specialty only. This would only be useful if you went with my idea of make non-specialty areas a -2 (otherwise, he'd just increase his Medical skill). You could allow him to apply a skill level directly to TWO skill levels (but I'd not let any of them exceed his Medic skill).

Gets complex...

 

[IronCzar]

Exactly. You've just proved my point. You've made exactly one character using the MGT rules, and, viola, you got one Skill-3 skill (and it sounds like you wanted more).

This should be possible, but it shouldn't be the norm. A good chargen system for a Traveller game should have a decent chance of creating a character with a Skill-3 but not a probable chance.

Chances are, if you create a PC using the MGT rules, your character will at least have a Skill-3 in one area.

MGT = broken.

Please.

I think you're correct that the unmodified MgT character creation system will tend to generate characters with a skill at 3, if the player goes after that and does five or six terms - not every time, but a lot of the time, and possibly most of the time.

The question is whether or not this is an actual problem, and it clearly isn't. It may not be to your preference, and it certainly produces somewhat different results than CT did. This is a feature, not a bug - and if you don't like the feature, that's fair enough, but to assert that the system is 'broken' because of it is pretty ridiculous.

 

[Psion]

I didn't question the mods. I objected to the high skill level one is likely to get in a MGT career plus the high stat mods that are used on every task.

"I didn't object to an invasion, I objected to the presence of foreign troops and tanks!"

Same thing, I'm afraid.

But as far as that goes: I've been generating characters for a possible run of MongT for North Carolina game day. And so far none of the characters have higher than +2 in any skill.

Contrast this with CT, where I could (using books 4-7) easily get 4 or 5 in a skill.

I think you are over-reacting and positing the extreme scenario as the common one, when it really isn't.

MGT is broken in this area, imo.

I caught that. And MO differs.

Peace.

 

[far-trader]

...Contrast this with CT, where I could (using books 4-7) easily get 4 or 5 in a skill.

I was with you until here.

I think you are over-reacting and positing the extreme scenario as the common one, when it really isn't.

...apply to the quote above

I've rarely seen skill 3+ in an area (outside of a cascade like gun, blade, or vehicle) even with books 4-7 in CT.

 

[GypsyComet]

So you go over the top in one skill. So?

A broad base of 3s in one character is going to get pretty annoying, but a single skill is, in most cases, not a big deal.

Among other things, this sort of skill allows more difficult tasks to be overcome. Most "normal" people will back off of something too big for them and reach for a manual/expert system/help line/handy team of "experts". Someone with a 3 or 4 is one of those experts. Normal tasks under that skill just sort of happen, but now the possibility of doing these things under fire, in a hurry, or with a sub-optimal tool set become possible.

The key is to recognize those skills where a high level of competence changes the way the game gets played. Having a high Broker skill in a mercantile game is an example. Does it break the game? No. It does allow you to stop playing accounting games and concentrate on other things, however. Under normal circumstances, you won't be able to use "the mortgage" as a reason to take side jobs, but that shouldn't slow down a good Ref for long. Your characters rolled all those enemies and contacts for a reason...

 

[Psion]

A 2d6, modifiers added, target-number system like CT or MGT (i.e., roll 2d6, add mods, need 8+ to succeed) has a relatively narrow range of meaningful net modifiers. In the case of CT, that range is -4 to +3. In other words, net modifiers greater than +3 do not materially improve the chance of success; net modifiers of -4 do not materially reduce the chance of success. Systems that fail to heed this reality will produce a lot of rolls that are effectively automatic successes or automatic failures. This is one of the definitions of a "broken system" IMHO.

I don't think that's correct. The flaw in your assumption here is it assumes that different characters will perform the same tasks. Long time traveller players should know the folly of that: given you can't guarantee you will always have just the right skill, you have to look for different solutions. So a group with a pilot with a modifier of +5 might try the foolhardy pilot maneuver as a solution to a problem, whereas the group with only a +2 or +3 total modifier as their best pilot might consider something else.