On Wed, 20 May 2020 16:30:20 -0400, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:
>I never liked the 'INT+EDU' skill limit. It always fell short of describing
>the people I knew.
[...]
>There is no way a character with 5-7 skills of maybe 10-15 maximum skill
>points represented that.
>I see in one of the new versions (T5, MgT), that limit is set to 3 x (INT +
>EDU) which seems more like reality. Though I was unclear if they were
>counting 0 level skills, which I think should be left out.
I believe that the INT+EDU limit always excluded level-0 skills.
Likely, I was just wondering if the one with the expanded number of skill levels was now counting the 0 level skills too. Traditionally it hasn't been the case as you say. (Or more correctly, they were counted, but as a zero...)
>I also always thought having some things give you a zero level skill but
>not an upgrade was, while not necessarily an incorrect map of reality, an
>annoying character generation item for little real in game benefit. I think
>that was not a required distinction.
>
>I always looked at it as:
>
>Level 0 - something that could be taught briefly (really fast in a crisis)
>to let you do particular tasks (but not with any particular panache or
>depth of understanding) - basic self defence training
>Level 1 - you spent a term or a maybe a year with this being part of your
>daily life - self defence white/yellow/orange
>Level 2 - you've done this for 2-3 years as part of daily activity (some
>college certifications/diplomas) - self defence level green/blue/purple
>Level 3 - you've done this for 4-6 years as a part of daily activity
>(university graduation in key skills for a career) - self defence level
>brown/1st black - professional (MD, Engineer, etc)
>Level 4 - you've done this for 7-10 years as part of daily activity (post
>graduate levels) - self defence level 2nd to 3rd black - Expert - Masters
>Degree to PhD
>Level 5 - 11-20 years of daily activity, PhD plus, self defence 4th+ black,
>Renowned Expert
I think you inflate the skill levels somewhat; I would use your guidelines,
but for _half_ the skill level that you show (rounded up - your 5 would be
my 3). The primary purpose of a level-0 skill is to be able to try
something without incurring the penalty for being unskilled.
I can see flattening the range of levels, except for two things:
A +1 is a modifier that tends to be a modest change (due to bell curve and what part you are on for a task you can't easily say that it is any particular % advantage, unlike D20 where it is a +5%). It doesn't do much. Even a +2 isn't huge. That's part of why I am not averse to higher skill levels.
In MT, of course, a task difficulty level was a +4. So to offset that, you needed by your standard, something beyond a PhD. That really makes a task difficulty increment whopping huge.
Now, the Trav systems using 1 level as +2 difficulty, you can get up that hill easier, but they also added more levels, so maybe you still don't get there.
My real issue was many times, something calling for a game specified task wasn't simple enough for what one should call a competent character (Skill 1 in more low-valued skill iterations). There's a reason that D20 made most advantages +2 instead of +1. Some things were +4. Why? Because you needed to have big enough increases to make the game rule worth having (it had to impact results fairly significantly).
Now, CT was full of skill-particular die mods that could really change outcomes. The newer iterations of that basic system are a little less all over the map.
Even MgT's boon/bane (aka advantage/disadvantage, thanks D20!) system has a flaw: You can have 5 boons, and 1 bane, and you get no benefit. Same in D20. That never sat well with me and still does not.
Anyway, I scaled my levels to what MT seemed to fit. Even if I used a more compressed range of skills, I'd still want more skills in the game than CT included - they spent time giving you a skill with cutlass different than broadsword or blade, but they didn't give you an interpersonal skill for diplomacy or negotiation (for things outside of merchantile tables or criminal enterprise), for instance.
I think the more compressed skill level model works fine though. But then I think you need limited other DMs (or skill gets less important) and have smaller difficulty levels (2 or 3 pts vs. 4 in MT) and have no more than 5 difficulty levels (3/5/7/9/11 make sense to me, but maybe 6 could work 4/6/8/10/12).
Generally, the statistical idea to me is:
A competent (not amazing, but definitely someone able to normally operate in a skill well enough to be able to make a living) - be that 1 or 2 levels - should be able to do simple things either automatically or at least 90+% of the time, routine/common tasks 75-80% of the time, slightly challenging tasks about 60-65% of the time (without taking extra time and care), and challenging tasks 40-50% of the time, and really challenging maybe 10-20% of the time.
If you look at most characters with 1 skill level in a skill, their odds of doing a routine thing time and again without screwing it up is not as high as you'd think.
Now, you can address that by assuming, in the absence of time pressure, you can always take longer and reduce difficulty. That works. Or you can assume that in many cases, the simple stuff is entirely not worth rolling for (maybe even routine stuff) unless there are stressing factors - automatic success unless extra stresses/distractions apply. That can help too.
Lots of way to skin the skill cat.
>I always also thought that although there should be nothing magical about
>level-0 skills (in terms of how they might stack with more skills of that
>type) but that getting to level 2 is harder than getting to level 1, and so
>on... to get from level 4 to 5 should take longer and be harder (more skill
>tallies/xp/whatever). This is why some of MT's expanded chargen was a
>problem - you could get, andnot just very rarely, characters from
>generators that had level 5-7 skills in one skill (thanks to skill trees in
>part, but also because there was no gradient in how hard it was to increase
>a skill).
Yes. This was, IMO, a big problem with MegaTraveller (and with the expanded
chargen in Classic Traveller, where the MegaTraveller chargen came from),
And yet, the fun and diversity of background and outcomes in that system (not thinking of skills, just overall richness) made that the ONLY way that my gaming groups ever wanted to play. They loved that 'detailed career resolution'.
I agree it could jam skills levels on occasion sky high (and then the GM needed to 'fix that').
and the reason for imposing the INT+EDU cap.
But it was there before MT I believe. And that led to even dumber characters... You rolled 5 levels of vacc suit, but now couldn't get a level in electronics. The limit was usually applied in chargen, not after with a voluntary surrender of points where they were over-killed.
If there was some way to
integrate Ken Bearden's experience rules
(https://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/chardet/exper.html) into
prior career generation, I don't think it would be a bad idea.
MgT 2's learning rules seem pretty good to me. It's getting good results in chargen that's a separate beast...
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