I'd have to agree with Fritz88 on this although I do like the advanced generation of Mecrcenary, High Guard etc.Originally posted by Fritz88:
Yowza! 1 per year plus Promotion, Commission and Special Duty Rolls?! Yeah, that would make your characters a bit heroic.
One of the things to explain is that skill levels represent massive increases in ability/knowledge. If you cap skill levels at 6 (where CT caps it, nominally), you realize that means people like Muhammad Ali only had a 5-6 in Boxing (Mike Tyson has his skill in Brawling). Mario Andretti had a 5-6 in Vehicle-Wheeled. Einstein was a 7, perhaps, in Physics.
Also, it helps to lay out a few 0-level skills for them. Things like Computer-0 equate to using e-mail, the internet, and Office. Vehicle-0 equates to most folks' driving skill. (Vehicle-2 equates to where most folks think their driving skill is at, and Vehicle-4 is where most 17yo guys believe their driving skill is.)
Part of the view of low skills in Traveller may be a part of the perception of scale. If they multiple by 25 and view the skill as a % they might have a better idea of the power of skill 3 for example. A skill 5 athlete is olypmic class IMO, now if they have the strength, etc. to go with it they make the olympic team.
If it is a matter of sheer numbers of skills one could allow a trade off, say instead of taking 1 skill at level 1 they take two at level 0. One way to do this is award skill points instead of actual skills, except for maybe the skills gained in special schools. I'd suggest awarding a constant 2 points per year or if using random skill acquisition 4 points per successful skill roll.
At the end of the career a player can make a roll for skill 0 for the cost of 2 points, skill 1 for a cost of 4 points, skill 2 for a cost of 8 points, skill 3 for a cost of 12 points, and I'll leave it to you if you want to make skills 4+ much harder than a 4-point progression.
You can play with the costs in addition to skill point award to shift the balance and allow for example a lot of 2's but make 3+ much more exspensive.
You may also let them roll then choose a table as Fritz88 suggests.
The reason I suggest the above is it often comes out of a desire for player choice in creating a character and making a "viable" character. From my experience players will more readily accept the "fewer" skills if they have a choice in their selection as they can control whether it is "viable" in their conception. So those who would rather have several 0's or 1's, they can have that. Those that want a couple power house skills, 4's, 5's they can have those. I'd personally scale it so those who wanted a 6 would have next to nothing else, a wonderful specialist but they need the support of a team.
