Jack of all Trades - Again?

[far-trader]

So, I was killing some time last night by generating a character and rolled JoT, twice, in the first term, and once more grumbled to myself about the waste of the second roll (and a third as it later turned out, and that's only 2 Terms rolled). I've long held a general dissatisfaction with the JoT rule in CT. Not that later editions improved on it much to my taste. Leading again to tossing ideas around in my head about "fixing" it. Then a lightbulb went on courtesy something I'd read on Mongoose's Traveller forum...

Some background issues I usually lump in with this:

JoT as it stands: Too powerful (every skill at Level-0) but no benefit for rolling multiple times (which happens more often than one would expect).

Skills in general: Everybody has Gun Combat and Blade Combat at Level-0 offsetting a serious DM-5 for offensive use or DM+3 for defensive use. Anybody can teach or learn many skills at Level-0 with ease and in no time (quite contrary to JoT, imo).

Here's my most recent rough idea then, for discussion and general nitpicking:

-------

Jack-of-all-Trades:

The individual has a well rounded background in their career and is capable of performing a wide range of tasks with some skill and experience.

Each level of JoT grants a different set of skills at Level-0 depending on the career. JoT-1 grants all skills in the second table (Service Skills). JoT-2 grants all skills in the third table (Education Skills). JoT-3 grants all skills in the fourth table (Advanced Education Skills), even if the character has less than Edu 8. JoT-4 and higher does not grant further skills but does count towards rerolls (see below).

eg.

Our 1st Term Scout rolls Engineering-1 and JoT the first time He records JoT-1 and notes the following skills as Level-0: Vehicle-0 (choose type), VaccSuit-0, Mechanical-0, Navigation-0, and Electronics-0. All from the second table, not including JoT of course.

In the 2nd Term our Scout rolls Gun Combat-1 (choose weapon) and JoT again. He records JoT-2 and notes the following additions to his list of Level-0 skills: Gunnery-0 and Medical-0. All from the third table and ignoring the repeated skills and JoT.
​

Rerolling failed skill checks: JoT can add to the chance of success in certain cases. This reroll is not a separate attempt but represents the character's resourcefulness and experience. When the character fails a check for a JoT skill that they have Level-1 or better in they may reroll the check. The number of rerolls allowed is equal to JoT level, and each reroll including the first is at a cumulative DM-1.

eg.

Our Scout above has mustered out and is adventuring. He fails a roll to repair the drives using his Engineering-1 skill. Applying his JoT reroll benefit he rolls again at -1, and still fails, but still has one more chance to reroll (JoT-2 granting 2 rerolls) though this time at -2. Let's hope he makes it...
​

-------

But what about the poor Marines and Army who don't get JoT? And what about that complaint about weapons skills at Level-0? Nothing about those issues?

Well yes actually

Instead of the Rank and Service Skills listed for Marines and Army change them to:

Marine: JoT-1 ...which grants Vehicle-0 (choose type), VaccSuit-0, Blade Cbt-0 (all blades), and Gun Cbt-0 (all guns).

Marine LT: JoT-3 ...which adds (skipping JoT-2) Medical-0, Tactics-0, Computer-0, Leader-0, and Admin-0.

Army: JoT-2 ...(skipping JoT-1) which grants Vehicle-0 (choose type), Mechanical-0, Electronic-0, Tactics-0, Vehicle-0 (choose type), VaccSuit-0, Blade Cbt-0 (all blades), and Gun Cbt-0 (all guns).

Army LT: JoT-3 ...which adds Medical-0, Computer-0, Leader-0, and Admin-0.

...and no Level-0 skills for anybody outside of JoT or Experience

 

[Dragoner]

...or use further JoT rolls after the first to roll on tables in other careers, thus really being jack of all trades.

 

[BytePro]

Interesting.

...Then a lightbulb went on courtesy something I'd read on Mongoose's Traveller forum...

My Spacecraft Ops thread I suspect...

In MgT, JoT-3 plus two +2 DM stats and a PC is a pro at everything. So this approach I can see being applicable to MgT as well. Maybe the reduced unskilled DM (-2, -1, 0) applied just to skill table, instead of level-0 for all.

I prefer JoT be less literal and more categorical - your approach certainly fits the bill!

BTW: Haven't played CT in a number of years - but don't recall the level-0 thing being universal, just certain skills, and no universal task mechanic?

 

[far-trader]

...or use further JoT rolls after the first to roll on tables in other careers, thus really being jack of all trades.

Oh I love that! Simplicity!

Interesting.


My Spacecraft Ops thread I suspect...

Yep Though I couldn't quite put my finger on it at the time. Thanks for the notice and claim of inspiration. At least I hope it isn't pure plagiarism, I was foggy on how yours worked at the time.

I prefer JoT be less literal and more categorical...

Yep, that's the part of yours that I liked. Making it more career specific and more individualistic to different careers that way. It just feels "righter" somehow.

BTW: Haven't played CT in a number of years - but don't recall the level-0 thing being universal, just certain skills, and no universal task mechanic?

I might have mistyped or been too unspecific. Everyone has Level-0 in all the basic Guns and Blades, and everyone can be quickly and easily granted Level-0 in quite a few other basic needed skills. Some are listed as appropriate, others are left to Ref discretion, with something like "if the PC needs it to make the game work, grant it" or some such vibe. I'd have to look it up, and it may be my own experiences colouring the true text to some degree creating the issues for me

 

[BytePro]

... Thanks for the notice and claim of inspiration. At least I hope it isn't pure plagiarism, I was foggy on how yours worked at the time.

No need to worry about plagiarism - it was inspiration only.

As to 'cloudiness' of CT rules - I know the feeling - till MgT, CT was the only version I played. Now, when I go to compare something, I realize that I had made the CT rules my own. What I've thought were the rules for so long were house rules...

 

[McPerth]

IMHO, already stated in other threads, the best use of JOT skill was in MT, whith the reroll capabilities according to your JOT skill. This does not give you a level 0 in all skills at JOT 3 as MgT does, allows you to have better chances also in those skills you already have and doesn't have a level limit in the usefulness of your skill (in MgT, JOT 3 or JOT 6 doesn't make much difference).

Instead of giving a -1 cummulative for each roll, the limits I used (I must state again I mostly played MT as a referee) were that if a mishap was rolled, you stopped rerolling, and all tasks so rerolled were hazardous. With those limits, I tried to reflect that unortodox solutions are always dangerous (yet they may as well save your day).

And, of course, I didn't allow JOT for all tasks, but that was difficult to rule out precisely, being mostly to referee's (so my) consideration on a case by case basis (one fact was true, though, never allowed to combat rolls).

 

[mike wightman]

I like the idea of adding an extra group of lvl 0 skills, and I also like the idea of rolling on another service's skills table.

I think I'll just allow player choice every time they get it.

By the way - Christmas Traveller quiz time: what is the highest lvl of JoT skill on a character in the CT supplement 1001 characters?

 

[far-trader]

...Christmas Traveller quiz time: what is the highest lvl of JoT skill on a character in the CT supplement 1001 characters?

Good one! Without looking it up, because I did roll-select that character as a random NPC once ages ago... my brain is saying JoT-6, and iirc little else. My gut is scaring me with JoT-7 or 9 but I'm hoping that's just an undigested bit of beef...

I recall rolling (had some random table or other for selecting characters out of 1001) that character and thinking "WOW... but it's kinda useless ...then I was digging through ALL the characters who could have JoT to see if that was the worst (best?) and not finding higher but several more high ones. And some other... interesting(?) skill combinations. Ah, random char gen, what a twisted mistress you are

EDIT: So much for my memory, my recall is wrong, so the contest is still open

I had to look this morning, think I found the highest but it's not the one I recall rolling... I did find one that I may have been conflating with the JoT dude though. How's this grab you for broken random char-gen... Skills: Electronics - 8 That's all, a Wiz of Wires but nothing else I'm wondering if THAT is the highest skill rating in the pre-gens?

 

[rancke]

Ah, random char gen, what a twisted mistress you are

A long time ago I played in a Traveller campaign run by a By-The-Book referee. If the books said something, that's the way it was. We wanted to hire 1000 mercenaries to help us in our work on the newly-opened world of Algine and Peter, the ref, didn't want us to, but there were these rules in Mercenary for hiring mercenaries, so he (felt that he) couldn't just tell us no. Instead, he asked us to provide him with UPPs for everyone we hired. So my friend Lars wrote a program for his Sinclair and printed out 900 computer-generated characters (veterans and veteran officers; I blush to admit that I actually rolled up more than a hundred mercenaries by hand).

Make up 900 random characters and you're going to get some outliers. We had one veteran officer with Tactics-6 that we made field commander. There was one character with Instruction-5, so we immediately set him to train six selected characters with useful skills at level 4 up to Instruction-4[*]. Once they were trained, they were set to train selected characters up to Skill-3 (and the Chief Instructor got another class to train).

[*] I've since found out that this does not actually seem to be legal by the rules, but we all thought it was (we never tried to cheat Peter).​

Hans

 

[Tobias]

I'm going to use a new approach, influenced by playing other games which have stronger "meta" elements: You can use JoT as any skill-0 - but the number of times you can do this per game session is equal to your JoT skill.

 

[aramis]

No need to worry about plagiarism - it was inspiration only.

As to 'cloudiness' of CT rules - I know the feeling - till MgT, CT was the only version I played. Now, when I go to compare something, I realize that I had made the CT rules my own. What I've thought were the rules for so long were house rules...

That's really an issue for almost all of the first and second generation games...
0th Gen: Original D&D box
1st Gen: Original D&D (LWB/LBB) W/Supplements, T&T 1E-3E, Starfaring, Empire of the Petal Throne
2nd Gen: RuneQuest, Traveller
All of those just about required house ruling to get things done.

As a funny aside, I bought a copy of Little Brown Book D&D in the late 1980s, with Chainmail... and no place does that printing show the line "All hits do 1d6 damage"... there's a big white space where it should be, and it's not mechanically erased. So the one game I ran of it, using Chainmail for combat, each hit did one Hit Point... which made wizards REALLY buff compared to Normal Men... 1-6 hits to KO (d4±2), and an additional to kill...

I didn't realize that was an error until nearly 10 years later... And lots of people didn't believe me when I said the line was missing in my dead-tree "Classic" D&D. (That's what it advertises itself as in the back of itself.)

So, don't feel bad about having discovered half the game you played was house rules. I'd played in a Traveller group for 3 months before anyone had a legal copy of the rules... the GM had hand copied the Bk1 & Bk2 tables, and modified the CGen tables to 6 subtables per core service... I wish I still had a copy of his tables.

 

[aramis]

I like the idea of adding an extra group of lvl 0 skills, and I also like the idea of rolling on another service's skills table.

I think I'll just allow player choice every time they get it.

By the way - Christmas Traveller quiz time: what is the highest lvl of JoT skill on a character in the CT supplement 1001 characters?

I think it's Jack-4, in one of the special characters.

I was wrong. The Jack-4 special is in Citizens. And is Darth Vader.

 

[rancke]

So, don't feel bad about having discovered half the game you played was house rules. I'd played in a Traveller group for 3 months before anyone had a legal copy of the rules... the GM had hand copied the Bk1 & Bk2 tables, and modified the CGen tables to 6 subtables per core service... I wish I still had a copy of his tables.

Ah, I remember an early Traveller con adventure I was in where we faced Aslans armed with snub pistols that blew us to smithereens. The ref didn't know about the -8 to hit for distances greater than 5 meters...


Hans

 

[Bob Weaver]

I think it's Jack-4, in one of the special characters.

I was wrong. The Jack-4 special is in Citizens. And is Darth Vader.

Yes, but in the Scientist section there is one (#24) with Jack-of-all-Trades-5. And one (#32) with Mechanical-7. Yikes!


Cheers,

Bob W.

 

[Old_Dr_Skull]

I decided to make Jack-of-all-trades part of a cascade for my recent game. I think I let them choose Recon, Ship Tactics, Gravitics or Zero-G combat on second or further results of J-o-T, as a way of getting some Book4-5 skills into the basic generation system.

 

[Gray Pennell]

In my game we have two different base skill checks. Trained is +8 if if you have the skill. Untrained at 10+ without a skill. For each skill level over 1 you get a bonus. Jack of all trades makes all skill checks as trained with no bonus DMs. You also cannot get JoT higher than 1. This basically lets an adventure get a chance at success aka beginners luck.

 

[Ackehece]

Yes, but in the Scientist section there is one (#24) with Jack-of-all-Trades-5. And one (#32) with Mechanical-7. Yikes!


Cheers,

Bob W.

page 30 #94 merchant captain
jack of all 5
did good on his promotion rolls and I suspect he uses JoT for everything....:rofl:

 

[DeltaX15]

The house rules I made to make multiple JOT levels (and it goes against the skill description) usefull in CT:
a) In normal situations JoT-1+ equals skill-0
b) In dire (imminent death) emergencies JoT/2 equals skill.

i.e.
a) During the run out to 100D, after setting the course, the pilot chose fish for dinner and is now unconcious. Your JoT-4 gives you Pilot-0 while you complete the transition.
b) During the run out to 100D,the pilot chose fish for dinner and is now unconcious. Unfortunately this was during a course change, and the ship is now on an intercept vector with the local star. Your JoT-4 gives you Pilot-2 while you are avoiding a firey death.

P.S.
I really like far-trader and Dragoneers solutions at the top of this thread, and may well steal them.

 

[Bob Weaver]

So I might as well toss in the idea I had for how to apply J-o-T skill. The Traveller Book mentions on p. 29 a group of skills that are appropriate for skill-0. If the player can give a reasonable explanation of why they have any of those skills at level-0, let it stand.
Then, each level of J-o-T allowed the player to have two skill-0 'slots' that they can wait to declare until they're in a tight spot and need a skill they don't otherwise have. The player would have to provide the back story of where they picked up this bit of knowledge, and the skill-0 would still only allow the attempt at performing a task. This provides a role- (as opposed to roll-) playing opportunity, along with a 'lucky break' to get they PC out of a tight spot.

Just my 0.02 Cr.

Cheers,

Bob W.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I like that one, Mr Weaver. Sort of a Hero Point variation.