Question on Character Generation

[swest]

Greetings,

We have a controversy within our new Traveller group. I've searched for an answer to it, and come up with nothing that clarifies.

When rolling on the Skills and Training tables for a given term, according to the Core instructions on page 8, Skills and Training, you, "... pick one of these tables and roll 1d6 to see which skill you increase." It says nothing about your current specialty.

So, during our first session of character generation, we allowed any table to be selected (as constrained by the other instructions on page 8) when rolling for Skills. e.g., our NCO Marine (p.20), Specialist: Support, with Edu 9 was allowed to pick from Personal Development, Service Skills, Specialist: Support, Specialist: Star Marine, Specialist: Ground Assault, and Advanced Education tables; i.e., he was not required to only pick from the the Specialist: Support table.

Is that correct? What effect does the Specialization have, other than the advancement/survival rolls?

Thanks.

- s.west

 

[swest]

One of our players just clarified the intent on page 8 for me. I didn't understand the significance of the wording: "There are four or five skill tables associated with [a career]". Those tables are:

• Personal Development
• Service Skills
• Specialist Skills
• Advanced Education
• Officer Skills

Only one table is called out for Specialist Skills. It is now clear that you may only pick from the specialist 'subtable' for your specialty.

Got it.

never mind...

Thanks.

- s.west

p.s. But you can change your specialty at the end of each term, right?

 

[swest]

Ok, regarding my p.s.: What effect would changing specialties have on your rank within a career? Particularly in a career that has different rank tracks based on specialty (e.g. Agent)...

i.e., if you changed specialties in the Agent career from Law Enforcement to Intelligence/Corporate, does your rank start over? Or just move laterally? Or ??

Thanks.

- s.west

 

[Surferosa]

rank

I would think it logical that you keep your previous rank and advance rank from rookie upward on the new table. Hope that makes sense.

 

[Buzzsaw]

From my reading of the rules:
change career = dice for entry
change speciality = free

rank is kept within a career, but not when you change.

At least, thats what I've used with my group.