Careers based on Social in addition to Military

[Leitz]

I've been looking at Noble as a career and Other for the opposite end of the spectrum. After a while I realized that people serving in the military seldom quit being "normal" people outside duty hours. Obviously staying in cold berth or years long ship voyages limits that, but even large military "things", be they ships or bases with no egress, have their own societies.

My current thought is to run the characters through dual careers based on Soc. For example, a Marine with Soc 7 would also get skills as a Citizen. Very low Soc as Other, very high as Noble. Since I'm looking at an NPC generation system with roughly two skills per term it should not be overwhelming. At least not in my games. Others are free to agree or not.

Right now I'm looking at running the careers simultaneously simply because the code I'm working on wandered that way. Another option is to simply add relevant skill tables to the options. That is, a Marine with Soc 7 would have the usual number of skills but the options would include Marine and Citizen skills.

Thoughts?

 

[nobby-w]

[ . . .]
Right now I'm looking at running the careers simultaneously simply because the code I'm working on wandered that way. Another option is to simply add relevant skill tables to the options. That is, a Marine with Soc 7 would have the usual number of skills but the options would include Marine and Citizen skills.

Thoughts?

I've done various house rules for skills over the years, and here are a few variants I've tinkered with.

• Give the characters a few background skills (say 2-4) that they can take as skills from their life. These could be anything reasonably consistent with their background. For example a farm boy could have rifle or driving, a noble could have liaison or etiquette or learn to fence, or a street punk might have brawling or streetwise.
  
• Change some of the mustering out benefits to Skill-1, which gives the player an opportunity to add a skill.
  
• Add a life skills table much like the service skills tables. Make up a table for any appropriate background you can think of. The player could have the option of rolling one skill per term on this table. Another possibility would be to give the player the option of choosing one skill per term from any available service skills table or from the life skills table.

 

[Leitz]

Great ideas! I really like the change of Mustering Out benefits. Some of the mustering out charts seem a bit strange; a knife is the same value as a ship.

After being exposed to 0 level skills I've become greatly enamored of them. Will probably add those as well. The metric I'm currently using is that a Skill 1 roughly equates to a year of doing it or a few weeks or months of intensely doing it. Skill 2 requires Skill 1 and twice the time (1 + 2) , Skill 3 requires Skill 2 and three times Skill 1 efforts (1 + 2 + 3 = ~6 years experience). Obviously there are ways to speed up the processes, given the right resources.

 

[Leitz]

Here are some sample results. A "Firster" is a Faith based Survivalist on a TL 9-A world. Gave them 2 terms to see how it looks. The Cash output is a random number that can be gotten multiple times.

Alva Loiseau Male Age: 26 B9B799 Firster: 2 Citizen: 2
Straight medium brown shoulder hair albino skin
Fieldmarshal Fatal imprudence
GunCbt-2 Recon-1 Admin-2 Computer-1 Brawling-1
Cash: 191837 Gun (1)

Jarvis Ratliff Male Age: 26 A88564 Firster: 2 Other: 2
Wavey light white shoulder hair medium skin
Supervisor Supplication
GunCbt-2 Recon-1 Brawling-1 Blade-1 Forgery-2
Cash: 87484 Gun (1)

 

[kilemall]

That is a lot of cash for a 26 year old mid-SOC.

Might consider a set of separate SOC skill tables, low/mid/high, that applies to all careers.

Alternatively, perhaps separate Personal Development tables per SOC range per career.

So for instance low SOC characters might get a lot of opportunity to up their SOC in the Navy/Marines, fewer when they are/become Middle Class, and none as upper class (they have to do it through rank increase/benefits).

 

[Leitz]

Firsters are a work in progress, and an interesting combination of low rent and high income for some.

One thought is to allow for reduced "terms" of the Other/Citizen/Noble. Say, maybe half? So if a character spent 4 terms in the Marines they could spend 2 in their Soc based Career.

 

[atpollard]

So, just offering my 2 cents.
I personally lean towards a simpler 2 skills per term (or skill-1 = 2 years of employment in a task) and I embrace it primarily to protect the 2d6 curve from excessive modifiers.

Setting aside me preferences to embrace your cumulative skill limit on advancement, I suggest a simple guide like 4 skills per term with the 'normal' assumption being 2 skills from career and 2 skills from 'citizen' per term. This should apply for the vast middle majority of the population (say SOC 5-9). This represents the fact that most people have a work and home life that are balanced in importance.

Now let's deal with the Social Extremes. For SOC 10+ it is not unreasonable that your obligations and contacts as a member of high society might be more important to your daily success, even at business, than your technical skill. Which matters more to the CEO of an aerospace contractor, having a regular golf date with a Government official on the Military Budget Committee, or his degree in Engineering? Of course, he needs both, but if forced to choose between improving his Engineering or improving his social connections, which should he pursue? So a Character of SOC 10+ might get 3 Noble skills and 1 career skill per term.

Now let's look at the other extreme. A character with a SOC 2-4 will find doors of opportunity constantly being closed in their face. Two Mech-1 show up for the job, but the person who talks better or knows how to dress better gets the job. So a character with SOC 2-4 will get 3 Other skills and 1 career skill per term. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive.

 

[Leitz]

So, just offering my 2 cents.
I personally lean towards a simpler 2 skills per term (or skill-1 = 2 years of employment in a task) and I embrace it primarily to protect the 2d6 curve from excessive modifiers.

While I'm less motivated by game balance as an idea, the 1+2+3 math not only works to make high skill less attainable it seems to match my own understanding of skill acquisition. Using multiple careers and getting high skills is possible where the skill sets overlap.

Setting aside me preferences to embrace your cumulative skill limit on advancement, I suggest a simple guide like 4 skills per term with the 'normal' assumption being 2 skills from career and 2 skills from 'citizen' per term. This should apply for the vast middle majority of the population (say SOC 5-9). This represents the fact that most people have a work and home life that are balanced in importance.

The numbers to change skills are pretty easy to change. Right now it is mostly terms + 1, plus bonuses for promotions. Characters get base skills like Gun Combat if appropriate, and the usual increase on blade or gun if more than one of those is rolled for mustering out.

Again, keep in mind that some skill groups overlap. Army and Other might get more brawling, for example. Humorously, using the tables the way I'm setting them up, a high EDU (8+) character has less chance of high skills because the randomness pulls from a larger pool.

Now let's deal with the Social Extremes. For SOC 10+ it is not unreasonable that your obligations and contacts as a member of high society might be more important to your daily success, even at business, than your technical skill. Which matters more to the CEO of an aerospace contractor, having a regular golf date with a Government official on the Military Budget Committee, or his degree in Engineering? Of course, he needs both, but if forced to choose between improving his Engineering or improving his social connections, which should he pursue? So a Character of SOC 10+ might get 3 Noble skills and 1 career skill per term.

Maybe. Many engineers are introverts and prefer electrons to elections. Maybe she chose Engineering because hit reminded her of her dad, and she's dang good at it now. She'll wear a dress at a few of the socials but likes seeing some of the guys stumble over themselves when she starts talking about low drive performance ratings on their teeny little yachts. One day she'll get swept off her feet by the guy that knows how to tune an engine.

Dang, now I want to go write up that character. Oh wait, Marci Monroe. :devil:

Now let's look at the other extreme. A character with a SOC 2-4 will find doors of opportunity constantly being closed in their face. Two Mech-1 show up for the job, but the person who talks better or knows how to dress better gets the job. So a character with SOC 2-4 will get 3 Other skills and 1 career skill per term. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive.

Only one Mech-1 shows up 'cause the job is with Cousin Vinny down in the barrio chop shop. The other one didn't dare go to that address. The context of how characters learn a skill is pretty wide open given the breadth of the universe. Sometimes "how to dress" is the color of your do rag.

 

[kilemall]

So where does the Rogue career fit into this SOC-conscious approach to chargen?

Seems to me that's a career of Others on steroids but could cover high-SOC black sheep as well as low SOC scum.