What's the point of Education >8?

[gloriousbattle]

Strength, Dexterity and Endurance are, of course, your combat factors, and every point is useful, at least as hit points. High Social Standing is useful if you are playing an active nobility, with articles like "Relief for Traveller Nobility" (Dragon #73) or "Robe and Blaster" (White Dwarf #22). Intelligence, I suppose, could always be used as a saving throw (though, IIRC, it was actually used as a limiting factor on physical training, which seemed to me to say more about the physical fitness consciousness of the Traveller design team than anything else. :rofl: ).

But what about Education? At level 8, you get to roll on an additional skills table in character creation, but I've never seen it used for anything else?

 

[PFVA63]

Hi

The additional skills table for me was often a big deal because some of the skills I often wanted were often on those tables, but other than that I'm not really sure either on what a high education gives you in game terms.

I guess though, it can kind of be up to how you and your group role play, as in real life a higher eductation and "old school ties" can open doors for you where someone with a lower eductation might get frowned upon (say like maybe in trying to attract some types of patrons etc).

Just some thoughts.

Regards

PF

 

[Ishmael]

Depends on the ruleset

In MT, it can give a DM of stat/5 for skills that are knowledge based ( by ref's opinion ) or to know some obscure bit of knowledge or trivia, perhaps.

It also is part of a cap on the number of skills a player can have
Int+Edu >= total skill levels

To be honest, SOC is the useless stat imho. I replace it with Personality as a measure of how strong an character's personality is ( low is timid and high is cocksure ). The way the game treats SOC should be part of the character write-up, but not a stat.

 

[Icosahedron]

IMHO, all stats and all rules are a guide for the Ref and players to role-play their characters.

The rules make some suggestions of how to use the stats, but the Ref is the final arbiter; the Ref decides what to roll for any situation. If the Ref decides that a person with a high Edu is a walking encyclopaedia, he can channel information to the group through that player, or the Ref might use Edu as a sort of Jack of All Trades for intellectual pursuits.

Similarly, Soc might not be much use normally, but if your game involves mixing with society's elite and manipulating them, a high Soc rating could be invaluable. It could be used as a 'get out of jail free' card, or a namedropping adjunct to bribery, or... or...

The rules are only the start of the game.

 

[aramis]

Between the Edu limit and the use of Edu in RP mode, Edu is used in MT as expanded in TD to include taking damage from head hits (as is Int).

Soc? Well, I consider most of the Imperium more status conscious than charm conscious, so apparent soc matters FAR more than charisma, but I often add Charisma in from TNE... which has both Soc and Charisma.

 

[HG_B]

To be honest, SOC is the useless stat imho. I replace it with Personality as a measure of how strong an character's personality is ( low is timid and high is cocksure ). The way the game treats SOC should be part of the character write-up, but not a stat.

Yep, agreed. I've used Willpower in its place and have SOC as a descriptor for a background RPing aid.

 

[hdan]

I actually use Soc as a DM to the Law Level harassment roll to simulate profiling. (I play MGT, so I use SS's value as a modifier, not actual value.)

In MGT, Edu 9+ is where you start to get positive DMs to stat checks. In my games, Edu works a little like "Academic JoT" - you can use it for +DMs on knowledge based skill checks even if you don't have the relevant skill. I don't know if that's a standard interpretation or not; if it isn't, it should be.

[EDIT] Oops, just noticed this is the CT sub-board. Sorry for the MGT cross-traffic.

In that case, I'd propose giving +1 DM for Edu 9+ and +2 DM for Edu 12+.

 

[Antony]

"We don't need no Education..."

 

[agorski]

Edu>8 is used in determining college admission and success in the pre-enlistment options for High Guard. I also added this, along with the JTAS 10 variant for military academy, as an option in the Mercenary character generator program for the Mac that I recently wrote (see the Software forum).

 

[leo knight]

I always used Education the way Icosahedron did. When a player asked, "Do I know anything about...?", and it wasn't a skill related question, I'd have them make a roll vs. Edu.

The rules are only the start of the game.

Hear, hear!

 

[Selandia]

Merchant Prince also have DM for it in character generation. But if we go beyond the character generation?

I suppose that amongst the Scientists it is important. I am not sure that Citizen of the imperium (supplement 4) drove many players to the Scientist career path, but if a NPC have Max education (PhD equiv), you know that ed 9 is a serious -DM to running under his nose an undercover operation where you pretend to have the same. Infiltrating a lab ship or complex is much easier if you have been on that turf for four or five years.
Some skills are multi environnement skill: shooting handguns may be learned in nearly every career path, and you could not says that PC could properly pose as a Marine because he know how to shoot.
Higher ed is likely acquired in institution of higher learning. Ed grant what I call a look-walk-quack skill (what Look-walk-quack like a duck is likely a duck.) while it is usually career history that grant it.

Selandia

 

[ssgbryan]

Merchant Prince also have DM for it in character generation. But if we go beyond the character generation?

I suppose that amongst the Scientists it is important. I am not sure that Citizen of the imperium (supplement 4) drove many players to the Scientist career path, but if a NPC have Max education (PhD equiv), you know that ed 9 is a serious -DM to running under his nose an undercover operation where you pretend to have the same. Infiltrating a lab ship or complex is much easier if you have been on that turf for four or five years.
Some skills are multi environnement skill: shooting handguns may be learned in nearly every career path, and you could not says that PC could properly pose as a Marine because he know how to shoot.
Higher ed is likely acquired in institution of higher learning. Ed grant what I call a look-walk-quack skill (what Look-walk-quack like a duck is likely a duck.) while it is usually career history that grant it.

Selandia

Lots & lots of things you can use EDU for. It depends on what kind of campaign you are running.

In my campaigns, we go easy on the gunfire (It is real easy to die in places other than character generation.) Figuring things out (breaking into buildings, short cons, long cons, espionge etc. give lots of things to use EDU as a factor.

 

[nats]

Should possibly be seen as a Jack of all Trades skill but whereas JOT is more practical based (Guns, Mechanical, Brawling, Streetwise, Driving), I would see Education as more useful for the more theory based high end skills (Electronics, Medical, Steward, Sciences, Engineering). This would reflect a good general education in which the character has picked up many sub-skills along the way through life, in other words unspecified level 0 skills.

I suppose if you wanted a practical use in gaming, in a similar way to perhaps allowing a JOT character to have a chance of applying his knowledge a number of times per week equivalent to his skill level for an unknown practical skill, Educ could be seen as a roll under target number to provide a chance of applying a particular high end skill that the character doesnt formally have.

I would probably go further and say that at the end of the gaming month or whatever any skills so utilised could form the basis of a formal skill level increase, similar to D&D levelling up. So for example if a character uses his good education to solve a medical task for which he has no formal training there would be a chance (perhaps INT as a roll under no) per month or so that he would gain level 0 in that skill.

I am sure people already do this, this levelling up could be applied to any other skills he has used that month including trained skills, so the character is gradually developing, as long as only one skill was increased at a time. Probably once a month might be a bit short a time frame but you get the idea.

 

[kafka47]

As you are referring to CT. It would be Edu/3 to make an educated guess where an Int roll fails to an 8+ or apply the DGP CT Task System. Also, Edu can be a measure of learning of know how things work rather why things work the way they did hence the Edu modifier.

Edu is one of those skills like Wisdom in D&D...it makes sense to have it but the purpose is not immediately evident - hence Wisdom has to be achieved or Education...

 

[JustinInOz]

High Edu scores are good for dominating your crewmates in those games of Trivial Pursuit while in jumpspace.

 

[atpollard]

IMO, limiting the total number of skill levels to Int+Edu makes Edu 8+ valuable all by itself.

 

[Selandia]

edu

If we want to translate edu into practical skill, you would first have to clarify the carrer path of your "scholar".

There are some naturals: Eng 3 or Med 3 with edu B simply mean that skill was mostly picked up in university and may give advanced mathematic 1. It is unlikely to give ambulance driving 0. Med 3 edu 9 speak of career nurse / paramedic with long experience in intensive care (or the like). .

Translate edu B into a MBA, and you may claim 0 in all business related skill, even if your previous carrer gave only brooker 1, admin 2.

Edu B in Anglic Litterature does not give mechanic-0, it may give comp-0 Library database-0, carousing 1, pencil sharpening-4,

Edu help make some sense of the overall picture of your character. In my mind the point of a game system is not to create absurd situation. Anything that make sense and fun should go. I always liked CT because making coffe and taking a shower did not require a roll. I hate those over detailled skill structure with their implicit statement that nearly everything require a skill beyond Human-1. The only roll I tolerate before breakfast is "Wake on time" with DM for "Drunk last night" (unless it is your first day aboard, in which case dressing-up in 0 G may be an adventure) 4 years aboard a ship to get Eng-1 and that would mean the only thing I know is how to throw the switch on? I would not have learned how to change a wall plug because I do not have elect 1? Well I have to go before I get overexited.

Selandia

 

[rancke]

If we're talking about making up new rules, I think I might allow EDU to give default knowledge skills. To make it work, I'd have to divide knowledge into two categories, Basic and Advanced (or High School and University or Easy and Hard or something like that). For Basic knowledge, EDU 4 gives a default of 0, 8 a default of 1 and 12 a default of 2. For Advanced knowledge, EDU 8 gives a default of 0 and 12 a default of 1.


Hans

 

[JAFARR]

I think the best use beyond the total skill limit mentioned before is as a practial guide to either knowing how and where to research the soultion to a particular problem or giving an oppotunity of having run across some obscure fact that you may have need of. For an example of the second choice - some custom in a backwater system that gives you an advantage in a trade.