Tradition
This skill allows a Vilani to tap the impressive well of Vilani tradition to recall efficient solutions for problems that have been faced before and to analogize when faced with rare new situations.
It works much like like J-O-A-T. A character cannot have J-O-A-T and this skill both.
The catch is that a Vilani PC who tries and fails with Tradition takes a negative DM to his next technical or complex task equal to his ranks in Tradition, as he suffers confusion and distraction.
So what you're thinking of is a collection of whole-of-culture Standard Operating Procedures?
That may be a good idea for elements of behaviour, etiquette, language, and so on. To use it in the domain of technical skills (we wire the module into the Jump-drive this way because that way it Always works to the minimum accepted standards), legal precedence (the clause in the contract regarding the interaction of your Marketing Sub-Division with your Lid-Making production facility needs the Shuluugiisi clause or else it won't be correctly recognised in the Corporate Council Demi-Committee on Inter-Divisional Efficiency and Effectiveness) and public safety (we've fought fires in industrial complexes this way since time immemorial, so we're going to do it that way again, Svlina-take-it!) could be a stretch too far.
Just looking at a few different interpretations, JOAT in MT is described as:
The individual is proven capable of handling a wide variety of situations and is resourceful at finding solutions and remedies. JOAT allows the character one free re-try per level of JOAT on any task that fails. This represents the character's resourcefulness when finding solutions.
MT Player's Manual p36
That's a pretty powerful skill to have. Until I started writing this post I hadn't recalled that. JOAT seems to me, from a MT perspective, to be the sort of skill that every character would like to have at least one level in. Think of it: "Okay, you failed the roll, but you've got JOAT-1 so have another go."
It's not quite so amazing in T5, but pretty damned handy nonetheless:
Attempting Tasks. A character may attempt any task
for which he or she has no other skill. The character may
not use Jack-of-all-Trades in place of a skill which is already
held.
Jack of All Trades can be used as a shield against the
effects of the This Is Hard! Rule. If Skill plus JOT is equal to
or greater than the number of dice being rolled on a task,
then the TIH! rule does not apply. But, JOT does not directly
increase the skill level used for task resolution.
T5 BBB p134
Nothing is quite so hard for that character ever again. There's more, but that's the crux of it.
So given all of that BwapTED, how do you see Tradition operating differently than JOAT, or is it just that skill for Vilani by a different name and acquired via a different path during a character's career?
