CT Only: Experience

[Brandon C]

The combination of the Admissions and Success rolls for pre-enlistment options effectively replaces the Dedication roll.

It is true that none of those options cost money, but I think this this largely because they are options for 18 year olds who have no money. They are the start of a career, not something that comes after.

 

[Supplement Four]

I think the rules state to penalize another skill.

They do? I didn't see that. Do you have a page number?

But, like I say, Traveller is about playing out your retirement, so you're effectively playing in your golden years when you've past your prime (mostly). Unlike D&D where you're heading for your peak, or are at your prime.

True. Marc has said as such--the difference in Traveller where a seasoned adult is being played and not a young adult.

I think the Experience system continues to award skills to a character as if he were still in chargen--while during play.

I consider it a silly and unnecessary restriction to a character, not to mention you will have to cross out many of the sample characters in 1001 Characters, LBB4, Veterans

Which supports my contention that, if a character rolls more skills than his Experience score in CharGen, he keeps it. He doesn't lower points.

I've used the Experience limit when I play CT. I believe it is a rule in MT, too.

The combination of the Admissions and Success rolls for pre-enlistment options effectively replaces the Dedication roll.

Agreed.

It is true that none of those options cost money, but I think this this largely because they are options for 18 year olds who have no money. They are the start of a career, not something that comes after.

What options don't cost money? College in Book 5-7?

 

[Brandon C]

What options don't cost money? College in Book 5-7?

All of the pre-enlistment options, I think. College, the various academies, flight school and medical school.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I can't recall off the top of my head, but it should be with the same rule regarding skill cap.

 

[Blue Ghost]

True. Marc has said as such--the difference in Traveller where a seasoned adult is being played and not a young adult.

Well, it had to be pointed out to me by a game author a couple years back, and that's when all my suspicions and realizations about Traveller were confirmed. Not a big deal, it was essentially the only real good scifi RPG around for the longest time. I understand Traveller better now than as a per-teen way back in 79 or 80.

However, as I proposed elsewhere, a scifi RPG that had you starting out as a teen or pre-teen, and had adventures that were more tailored to "level and experience", might have drawn a larger player base. I think an example I wrote down was a "level 1" adventure where players would play something like a Scout Survey team, where most of them were in their 20s or 30s, and most of their skills were in the 1 to 3 skill range, with maybe a leader who had a few skills in the 4 to 5 range.

Further, that as you explored ruins, "defeated" native animals or survived disasters, that you would get XP that way. To me that seems to be more of what you're getting at in this thread.

That's about all I have on the matter.

 

[Brandon C]

If a character comes out of CharGen breaking that rule--having more skills or skill levels than his Expertise would allow--what should a Ref do?

Initially, I strictly enforced that rule. If a character had too many skill levels after rolling for benefits, the character lost skill levels (player's choice).

After a couple years of refereeing Traveller, I just scrapped the rule.

 

[creativehum]

The maximum skills introduced in TTB never made it to my table - I consider it a silly and unnecessary restriction to a character, not to mention you will have to cross out many of the sample characters in 1001 Characters, LBB4, Veterans

On the flip side I don't think I've ever had a player generate a character where this rule would be restrictive - apart from the advanced character generation systems of LBB4-7.

The rule isn't found in the original LBBs. I believe it was introduced in the Robotics rules (??? Maybe. I think that's true, but don't have time to look. I think it was there to put a cap on the "skills" a machine could have.)

I think they are kind of dumb. And by dumb I only mean I do not see what sort of advantage or use they bring to play.

 

[Brandon C]

The rule isn't found in the original LBBs. I believe it was introduced in the Robotics rules (??? Maybe. I think that's true, but don't have time to look. I think they are kind of dumb.)

No, it first appeared in Book 4, to deal with the excessively skilled characters produced by the advanced character generation systems, IIRC.

 

[Brandon C]

One rather mundane, alternate form of experience is a "video professor". This is well within the capability of Traveller technology. It is simply an interactive computer program, with effective skill of the program capped by TL. Cost and time would be unchanged, but the character can undergo such training during downtime or routine duties (such as during jump).

 

[creativehum]

No, it first appeared in Book 4, to deal with the excessively skilled characters produced by the advanced character generation systems, IIRC.

Now I had to look it up.

I couldn't find it anywhere in Book 4.

But it is in Book 8 ROBOTS, p. 35:"The sum of all the Robb's skill levels may never exceed the sum of its intelligence and education."

I believe the rule was then retroactively placed onto PCs because of skill bloat fears introduced by Book 4 and later Book skill generation systems. This would have been house rules and rules in magazine articles. It was officially made a rule in TTB.

EDITED TO ADD: That is my memory of the matter from when I looked into it a couple of years ago. I might be wrong!

 

[aramis]

The rule isn't found in the original LBBs. I believe it was introduced in the Robotics rules (??? Maybe. I think that's true, but don't have time to look. I think it was there to put a cap on the "skills" a machine could have.)

I think they are kind of dumb. And by dumb I only mean I do not see what sort of advantage or use they bring to play.

Nope. Book 7 - Merchant Prince. Page 31.

Skill Limitations: No character should have more skills (or combined total levels
of skills) than the sum of intelligence and education.

It was a balancer for Bk 4-7 characters...

 

[creativehum]

Nope. Book 7 - Merchant Prince. Page 31.

It was a balancer for Bk 4-7 characters...

There you go. Book7.

 

[Brandon C]

Now I had to look it up.

I couldn't find it anywhere in Book 4.

It isn't there. I thought it appeared earlier than it did.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I posted something similar elsewhere on a related thread (too lazy to go hunting for it to add a link here), but take "Shadows" as a for instance.

Instead of a bunch of newly retired characters fresh out of the Army, Navy, Marines what have you, how about a group of 18 to 30 year olds with skill - 0, skill -1, and maybe a skill - 2 for the ship's captain. Heck, maybe there's a pre-teen or a child in there as well.

Your ship is brought down by the ancient pyramid laser built by some long deceased reptilian race, and you don your HESes, rappel down the central shaft, come across some exotic atmosphere fauna, fire off a few rounds, avoid a few ancient traps, feel the earthquake or deep subterranean generators, shut down the laser, climb back up, and gain XP to applied to whatever skill you used. If climbing's a skill, apply XP to that. Hostile Environmental Suit gets XP. Whatever weapon you used against the local animals gets XP, and so forth.

You then move onto the next adventure. Maybe like D&D there's a warning for what skill level characters can do on the cover. Just my thoughts on the matter. I'm kind of all Travellered out. But, it's been a concept that I've had for a while.

late caveat; again, I don't like the XP-level system. It grates on me because it brings back memories of hack-and-slash players who played games for that as an in game reward, as opposed to playing the story, which is my thing.

 

[kilemall]

I would want any academy or college success to get DM bonuses for commissions and promotions first term.


I don't think I would want sabbatical as a zero term option- character would start in debt and theoretically paying that off all along.



I've posted a thread before about getting a starship-type 40-year loan for sabbaticals, not a big financial burden for Travellers but is for those starting out, especially if it's not a readily marketable skill.


Besides, sabbatical generally means a mid-career break, particularly in academia, and is so oriented to our midlife crisis space people.


This would be like coming home from the service and getting a degree off the GI Bill, or the modern concept of 'retooling' for a second career which presumably involves Travelling.


Another way of looking at the sabbatical is it's a private school/tech training sort of place, focused on it's subject and not general education, which guarantees that you will be job-ready with your Skill-2.

 

[mike wightman]

The skill cap rule appears in 1982, The Traveller Book:

Maximum Skills: As a general rule of thumb, a character
may have no more skills (or total of levels of skills) than
the sum of his or her intelligence and education. For
example, a character with UPP 77894A would be restricted
to a total of 13 combined skills and levels of skills. This
restriction does not apply to level-0 skills.

This pre-dated LBB:7 by a couple of years and has nothing to do with advanced character generation skill point bloat, it limits characters from basic character generation.

 

[mike wightman]

Here in England it is typical for a student to fund their way through university using government backed student loans, it is not unusual to wrack up a minimum £27,000 debt.

You begin your professional career with this debt to pay off.

This would be similar to taking your sabbatical college course as term 1.

 

[creativehum]

The skill cap rule appears in 1982, The Traveller Book:

This pre-dated LBB:7 by a couple of years and has nothing to do with advanced character generation skill point bloat, it limits characters from basic character generation.

I don't know how I missed I was getting the dates all flipped around.

And now I'm even more confused as to why the rules was introduced.

 

[BlackBat242]

LBB 1: 1977/81
Lbb 2: 1977/81
Lbb 3: 1977/81
LBB 4: 1978
LBB 5: 1979/80
TTB: 1982
LBB 6: 1983
LBB 7: 1985
LBB 8: 1986


So yes, TTB was 4/3 years after the publication of Mercenary and High Guard and their "advanced chargen", and there would have been plenty of time for the "skills bloat" concerns to have begun to be noised about.


I always (from 1983 on) modified the skills cap to Int+2Edu, as this did allow for full expression of long-service advchargen characters but still did actually affect some characters!

There have been several instances where a player still had to decide whether to reduce a previous skill (my house-rule) or to simply not receive the new skill level (I usually compensated them if they chose this, by giving modifiers on mustering-out rolls or even another roll if they forwent several skills).

 

[ffilz]

Back to the question of the dedication roll for sabbatical, due to the commitment of it, I don't think a roll is very productive, but I DO use the roll to check for acceptance into a program, you can try as many programs as you want. So you may not get into a program for your first choice of skill...

My house rules allow an attribute DM for skills to the dedication/acceptance roll.

Although it hasn't come up, I'd allow you to try a new acceptance roll at a new world (but so far, folks have only used the sabbatical for starting PCs, so they are doing it on their mustering out world, so on try per skill).

As to the INT+EDU limit - having started with 1977 without it, I don't use it. I think it would be terrible with advanced chargen, and seems petty for basic chargen. Note that if you are at or close to your limit, taking a roll on the personal development may increase your skill limit, and most results don't count against...

Frank