Random Swears Re: LBB6, 7

[aramis]

Having any one skill at levels of 4+ in CT, 5+ in Bk4+ Ct or in MT, is extreme competence in SEVERAL related fields.

Keep in mind the definition of professional in use at the time CT was written: jobs requiring postgraduate collegiate education in field. Professional was not applied to truckers, electricians, etc... it was to Doctors, Nurses, Engineers, Architechts, and teachers.

Levels of 1+ were employable as competent in field unsupervised. So level 1 was adequate to do a job long term and well. Level 1 isn't amateur nor even apprentice (well, perhaps a senior union apprentice), but jouneyman level.

Level 3 was professional, as in, sufficient for a professional licensure in a restricting field like Medical Doctors.

Now, while I know a bloke with three PhD's, they are all effectively tied up two skills: instruction and admin. He's a retired principal.

The Int+Edu limit is still quite generous.

Me, I'd rate myself with handgun 1, computer 1, heraldry 1, sword 1, music 2, history 2, instruction 1, and wheeled vehicle 1, plus shield 0, tracked 0, swimming 0, admin 0, and maybe liaison 1; I have limited russian proficiency, and speak a tiny bit of spanish; using the AM1 language rules, neither exceeds level 4 (but each takes one slot in the int+edu limit). My IQ tests in the 140's, so that's about Int 10, and I'm three classes shy of a masters in education, so that puts my edu at 9 or 10... I'm 5 terms down: 2 college, 1 bureaucrat, 1 as substitue teacher, 1 combined grad school/teacher. given the 5 terms, I'm probably overskilled.

 

[Icosahedron]

Ron, you can see something of the spear-carrier effect if you look at the current PBP game Anti-Crisis a few forums down.

The character Mason Rafferty:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=263148&postcount=132
has about half the skill points of the character Sean O'Malley:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=263100&postcount=126
They are the same age, but are rolled from different Chargen systems. This creates extra strain on the Referee to ensure that one character isn't eclipsed by another.

(No axe to grind here, guys, just posting an example.)



Aramis, perhaps you seem to be overskilled because several of your skills are hobbies and Traveller doesn't really address hobby skills.

 

[Supplement Four]

Could someone give an example of how a character with a couple high skills is such an unbalance in the universe?

Someone with Combat Rifleman-5 will pretty much automatically hit each and every time he shoots. There's the +5 from skill. There's the +DM for Range and possibly Armor. And, if it's an automatic weapon, he rolls twice.

There's really no reason to roll dice. Just roll damage.

If having an above average character makes the player happy, isn't the universe a plenty dangerous and sophisticated place to give him a challenge anyway?

To put this in perspective, one could also say, "If giving a player ability scores of 18 in D&D makes the player happy, then why not do it?"

The presence of the advanced CharGen professions in CT makes the careers in Supplement 4 less attractive too, which is a shame.

Not necessarily. It all depends on how you handle the Hard Surival Rule.

This is just another reason to use it.

In Advanced Chargen, the character could potentially get more skills--but he's got to face death sometimes as much as four times as often (one time during basic chargen and up to four times for advanced chargen).

Now, the Advanced Chargen Survival throws are typically lower, but they've got to be thrown more often.

You only have to fail one to scrap the character and start new.

Enforcing the Hard Survival Rule levels the playing field a lot. It's also very important, because of this, that the Optional Survival Rule not be used.

 

[far-trader]

Forgive my newbie-ness...

No need to, we all were once

Probably already pointed out by others above but in this case it may partially be differences of rule mechanics causing some confusion over play balance. Vacc Suit - 1 in CT Book 1 is vastly different from Vacc Suit - 1 in CT Book 4 and later for example.

...but at least the player would feel that he has a small grip on one or two skills, which, at 46 years old, a dedicated person might actually have...

See, where you say those skill levels are a "small grip on one or two skills" I see it as considerably more.

Admin - 4 in Book 1 is arguably an MB or more and years of work experience. You'd give Donald Trump a run for his job. And iirc in Book 1 it also covers Law (replaced by Legal in Book 7 I think).

Computer - 3 in Book 1 is another MB at least and more years of work experience. You can easily kit build and program your own PC as well as mainframes. And I think it also implies Robotics programming in Book 1 (and maybe Book 8).

Foil - 3 is highly skilled. Olympic team level though maybe not Gold Medal performance. More years of practice there.

Hand gun -3 is equally highly skilled. Pistol range expert shooter. Winner of several regional competitions and competitive at national level. Again, years of practice.

...so what? He can't...

...pilot a ship - true, but he can keep the badly damaged computer running while under fire and taking damage because the pilot can't keep you out of combat.

...reprogram a robot - depends on rules set, I say he can, easily (for certain tasks at least).

...use a turret - true, but again he's keeping the smoking ruins of the ship's compy running so the gunner can still shoot at the pursuers.

...navigate a starship - true, but (you guessed it) he's keeping the compy up and running so the navigator can plot a jump out of the frying pan they're in.

...use a medical kit with a plus - true, but we've got a medic for anything serious, just keep the compy running.

...use combat armor (no vacc suit skill) - trueish, but that's not going to save you in this encounter, and most refs will give Vacc Suit - 0 on the spot anyway.

...fix an electronic problem - true, unless it's the compy then false.

...lead a team into combat well (no leader skill) - false, anyone can lead, not everyone makes good tactical choices or inspires others to follow

...or fire most weapons with a bonus (so his best weapon is a pistol, he shoots bad guy #1, does little damage, bad guy #1 shoots back, hits does 12 points of damage, character goes down like a sack of potatoes) - well, more like he shoots at bad guy #1 and hits, bad guy #1 shoots back and misses.

The universe can still be a very challenging place...

- true, especially if the ref plays the game to the players rather than (example only) putting a hot shot computer business magnate with fencing and pistol trophies in charge of a mercenary ship with no crew being boarded by pirates (to fill in the colour commentary of the above examples of what the character can't do )

 

[jawillroy]

Supplement Four,
We're both in agreement about the hard survival rule - including its application to Advanced Chargen. One of the reasons why Merchant Prince explodes things is that not only are survival rules consistently low, in a great many of the assignments there's no need to roll for survival at all, particularly for Pursers.

Enforcing the Hard Survival Rule levels the playing field a lot. It's a testament to its egregiousness that Merchant Prince defeats that leveler to the extent that it does.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

My 2 skill points worth...

If this happened in every career, again, no big deal, but when you have one or two careers that balloon up like that, it seriously imbalances the game against the other careers. It's not so much a question of the player overbalancing the universe (what GM is unequal to this task?) as a question of one player overbalancing the rest of the players. It's no fun rolling up a PC to find out you're little more than a spear-carrier for another player.

Exactly. If every career were done in advanced chargen, the problem would be significantly lesser.

But with Merchant Prince I'm consistently getting characters with ridiculous skill levels in relation to their terms of service, with no incentive at all not to stay in service: survival rolls are easy, 'specially if you come up in the Purser's department where you don't often even have to roll for it, and there's that carrot of captaincy and ship ownership to keep you in.

Well, the problem is in awarding skill levels in low-stress areas. Yes, a purser is going to be in a low-risk profession (unless he's embezzling :smirk: ). But, his skills often are awarded at the same rate as, say, a gunner. Some places in LBBs4-7 this isn't true: places where survival rate is high (or automatic), no opportunity for skill awards is available. This balances somewhat.

...fix an electronic problem - true, unless it's the compy then false.

Well, he actually would be able to - just at a lower skill level. After all, if he can wire up his own handcomp starting with nothing more than a molycirc board and some silicon, he really ought to be able to fix the coffee maker. Notice I said "ought to"..... :nonono:

 

[jawillroy]

Exactly. If every career were done in advanced chargen, the problem would be significantly lesser.

Likewise, if each were done in basic. And looky-loo! There they are. Book 1 with a touch or two from S4 will do fine in my ProTU.

'Cept the pesky elements of S4 that reference High Guard.

 

[rancke]

Skill inflation is a constant.

IMHO, it has more to do with a desire by players to play the system than to play the game and that has been encouraged by computer games with the oodles of "cheat codes", "health/ammo" icons, multiple "lives", and other system-hacking gimmicks.

Or it could be (and in at least some cases are) a desire for greater realism by people who believe that someone can, say, be a whiz at using computer software without having a clue to how to repair one. Or, for that matter, immensely skilled at searching information systems without having a clue to how to hack security systems.

Some people feel comfortable with their professor character being Science-4. Others think it more reasonable that they're Physics-4, Chemistry-3, Biochemistry-2, Biology-1, Gravitics- ... Who the **** is interested in Gravitics?.

Note that skill bloat often make characters less capable because their skill levels are applied to much narrower fields.



Hans

 

[atpollard]

Or it could be (and in at least some cases are) a desire for greater realism by people who believe that someone can, say, be a whiz at using computer software without having a clue to how to repair one.

Do you know any professional programmers who do not have a clue how to repair one? All of the programmers that I know (only a handfull) have all built their own PCs from scratch - suggesting at least a general familiarity with the hardware.

 

[pendragonman]

Gents,

The phenomena of Skill Inflation in chargen - either via increasing the number of skills, increasing the final levels of single skills, of increasing the number and kind of defaults - is a flaw inherent to all RPGs.

Look at the number/levels of skills in "Three Book" CT and compare that to the number found in MT or TNE. Compare "Three Book" D&D to the plethora of skills, feats, and whatnot in d20. You can even compare Metagaming's The Fantasy Trip to it's descendent GURPS 4e.

Skill inflation is a constant.

IMHO, it has more to do with a desire by players to play the system than to play the game and that has been encouraged by computer games with the oodles of "cheat codes", "health/ammo" icons, multiple "lives", and other system-hacking gimmicks.


Have fun,
Bill

GADS! It has happened! Heck has frozen over! Cats and Dogs are living together in harmony! Peace and Brotherhood has broken out in the Middle East!

I have to agree with Bill on this one, and everyone should know by now that THAT just doesn't happen. Must be a statistical anomoly. o:

 

[Ron Gianti]

Do you know any professional programmers who do not have a clue how to repair one? All of the programmers that I know (only a handfull) have all built their own PCs from scratch - suggesting at least a general familiarity with the hardware.

Don't know what it means, but I have 3 close friends who are all programmers and not one of them could build a PC, surprisingly enough. I can build a VMWare infrastructure from scratch and attach it to and configure our Fiber channel attached SAN but don't know the first thing about programming.

 

[Bob Weaver]

Or it could be (and in at least some cases are) a desire for greater realism by people who believe that someone can, say, be a whiz at using computer software without having a clue to how to repair one. Or, for that matter, immensely skilled at searching information systems without having a clue to how to hack security systems.

Some people feel comfortable with their professor character being Science-4. Others think it more reasonable that they're Physics-4, Chemistry-3, Biochemistry-2, Biology-1, Gravitics- ... Who the **** is interested in Gravitics?.

Note that skill bloat often make characters less capable because their skill levels are applied to much narrower fields.



Hans

For my part, I don't consider PC's with high skill levels as automatically unbalancing a game, as long as all the PCs have similar enough breadth of experience to avoid the 'spear-carrier' syndrome someone mentioned earlier. Although it never panned out, I set out a number of years ago to run a game wherein the PCs were the cream of the Navy, picked to work together on a 'special missions' ship. Every crew member had skill-5 in at least one area. Of course, a crew of this caliber only gets called on for the most difficult missions. There is enough deadly danger and powerful opposition in the Traveller universe to be a challenge for anyone. All I had to do was push task roll target numbers up high (with justifications) such that success was still in doubt, and failure still very possible. And of course, Rifle-6 doesn't make you bullet/laser proof.
In short, if you want high-skill characters in your game, allow them, and challenge them. We want no Munchkinism in Traveller. But if you don't want high-skill characters, don't allow them.

Just my Cr0.02

Cheers,

Bob W

 

[Whipsnade]

Or it could be (and in at least some cases are) a desire for greater realism by people who believe that someone can, say, be a whiz at using computer software without having a clue to how to repair one. Or, for that matter, immensely skilled at searching information systems without having a clue to how to hack security systems.

Hans,

That's a very good point...

... and it's also a very slippery slope! There's quite a vicious circle at work here.

The inflation we see in skills and skill levels is directly tied to a narrowing of skill definitions.

You see, once we narrowly define what a skill means, we need to increase the number of skills a PC owns in order keep them "well rounded" enough for good game play. In early CT the "Computer" skill meant you could handle robots. By the time MT comes on scene, we've a wholly seperate "Robot Operations" skill. "Room" for that additional skill must be added, but that room comes at a cost.

That's because, once we increase the number of skills available, we also increase the number of skill levels in play. While all those additional levels can be spread out over a number of skills, they are most often concentrated in a few skills thus creating the various "monsters" mentioned up-thread; S4's Combat Rifleman-5 or Far Trader's Admin-4.

In the beginning, we had broadly defined skills at reasonable levels. Nothing game unbalancing, nothing common sense couldn't handle around the table. In our constant desire to embellish the skills list and add to the game, we've added more and more narrowly defined skills thus pushing the number of skill levels to game wrecking heights. We only had good intentions when adding Robot Operations or Legal, but we all know which road is paved with good intentions.

As it stands now, both the numbers of skills and the numbers of skill levels are too great for the game's mechanics. Unlike inflation in the Real World which lessens the purchasing power of the currency it effects, skill/level inflation in the Traveller world hasn't effected the "purchasing power" of those skills. Computer-4 still "buys" as much as it ever did but, instead of being a rarity, it and other high level skills are now almost commonplace.

"Greed" is one term you can use to explain this process, albeit not very well. "Human nature" is probably a better term, although still not entirely correct. I suppose "desire" could be used too. Whatever label we use, the phenomena is real and effects all RPGs. We want more and we will have it.


Have fun,
Bill

P.S. Pendragonman - Please don't beat yourself up. Just because we may have the same opinion about this one esoteric topic doesn't mean you've suddenly accepted the Dark Side or something.

 

[Maladominus]

If you use the Hard Survival Rule, you won't have characters that unbalance the game.

Right. Because in Advanced CharGen.... each YEAR in service is another year of gaining more skills, more promotions, and another chance of getting killed on duty.

In Basic CharGen (LBB1-3 and COTI), they get less skills, but also are forced to roll Survival only once very 4 years.

 

[Jame]

Right. Because in Advanced CharGen.... each YEAR in service is another year of gaining more skills, more promotions, and another chance of getting killed on duty.

In Basic CharGen (LBB1-3 and COTI), they get less skills, but also are forced to roll Survival only once very 4 years.

This is actually what I like about Advanced, although I limit rolling for promotion to once per term (although if you gain a commission you can go after an officer-promotion that year as well).

 

[BlackBat242]

It is not uncommon in the modern US military for a new enlisted service-member to be able to get one promotion each year in their first term... I made Cpl (E-4) at 1 year 8 months (I started boot camp a PFC [E-2]), and Sgt (E-5) at 4 years 6 months (at a time when promotions were slowing [mid-1980s]... they have speeded up since).

E-6+ is another story... expect each enlisted promotion after E-5 to take 3-4 years or more.
When I left at 8 years 1 month, I was still months away from being eligible for the SSGT (E-6) selection board.



As for skills... I always used the Star Trek model... of the 430 Starfleet* crew on the Enterprise (NCC-1701), only 2 had a Computer-6 (Kirk** & Finney... and Spock was the only Computer-7 in all of Starfleet.

Thus, even a 5 would be a rarity, and a 4 uncommon.

I consider a skill-1 as familiarization/basic operator level, -2 as tech school training, -3 as a Bachelor's equivalent, -4 as a Masters, and -5 as a PHD.

After you get skill-3, you must make a save to increase the skill... failure gives Instruction or another skill.



* all highly-trained, elite personnel (Enterprise is frequently referred to as the prime duty post in Starfleet, and is highly-competed-for)

** good enough to reprogram the simulator computers in Starfleet Academy as a cadet, and not get kicked out for it.

 

[Supplement Four]

It is not uncommon in the modern US military for a new enlisted service-member to be able to get one promotion each year in their first term... I made Cpl (E-4) at 1 year 8 months (I started boot camp a PFC [E-2]), and Sgt (E-5) at 4 years 6 months (at a time when promotions were slowing [mid-1980s]... they have speeded up since).

E-6+ is another story...

I've seen a Marc Miller house rule for enlisted personnel in basic chargen. I thought his was a bit complicated, so I simplified it (don't ask me what his was...it's been years since I've seen it, and I don't remember it now).

In Basic CharGen, allow enlisted personnel to roll for promotion each year. Throw SOC or less to achieve promotion. Auto promotion for SOC 12+ (makes sense, since they are nobles).

And, to back up what the Bat says above, simply cut off the promo at E-5. E-6+ can only happen once per term (instead of per year).

And, of couse, this will all change if the character obtains a commission. But, I thought this a simple, easy system to make Basic CharGen characters have non-comm ranks to go hand-in-hand with their Advanced CharGen counterparts.

 

[Whipsnade]

Right. Because in Advanced CharGen.... each YEAR in service is another year of gaining more skills, more promotions, and another chance of getting killed on duty.

Mal,

Unless you're using LBB:7 Merchant Prince and are a purser.

There are a few department/line size combinations in LBB:7 that as safe as houses. Sure, you'll usually end up Liaison-5 or some such but you'll also have a basket-full of skills and levels in other things too.

It's damned unbalancing when run with any earlier chargens and it's a poster child for the skill/level inflation ALL RPGs have experienced since the early 1980s.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

It is not uncommon in the modern US military for a new enlisted service-member to be able to get one promotion each year in their first term

BB,

I made E6 in one six year term. (As a navy nuc I was a "pushbutton" and "made" E4 within a month of leaving bootcamp.)

Promotions in the current US military set-up have more to with paying enlistedmen amounts something a little more comparable to their civilian peers and almost nothing to do with the actual responsibility such ranks used to hold. The US Army recognised this as far back as the 1930s when the "tech" ranks were created for non-commanding technical specialists. While that system has been all but abandoned, the idea behind it had not.

As I routinely point out in the various "starship staterooms" threads, the military and similar groups hoping to retain trained people need to provide tangible benefits. The US Navy has finally begun providing barracks ashore for it's enlisted; about a quarter century too late in my case.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[jawillroy]

"Unless you're using LBB:7 Merchant Prince and are a purser."

Word. That's what I'm saying.:nonono:

I do think I might want to try Book 7 CharGen as written, except WITHOUT the skills for promotions. That might just knock it back in line with books 4 and 5.

Oh, question - AFAICT, Book 7 ditches the "1 promotion per term" limit for officers - is that a correct reading of it? No complaints with that, at least. I found that for the most part the promotion schedule in Book 7 wound up keeping pace with the other services in that regard just because it was so tricky getting the right skill/duty combinations to take the officer tests. If Book 7 were limited to one promotion per term like everyone else, that'd be that, no more captains.