Hi there,

Thanks for this too.

On 29 June 2015 at 15:52, Jeffrey Schwartz <schwartz.jeffrey@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 5:11 AM, Timothy Collinson <timothy.collinson@port.ac.uk> wrote:

So my first pass at a 'rule' might be:
- pick 6 level 0 skills (they don't have to be from one service table)
- for the first three terms pick two 'skill levels'
- for terms 4-8 pick 1.5 'skill levels' (round up)
- for terms 9+ pick 1 skill level
(but I'd limit NPCs generally to a level of 4 in any one skill, and not pick *too* widely - i.e. not 19 skills at level 1)
Don't forget to either use the aging rules on the UPP or pick UPP stats that are lower to begin with to reflect older age.

T5

Yes, I did plan on delving into what T5 did on the subject...

has a comment along the lines of "one skill per year of age after 18" as being a norm...

... although one reason I hadn't got round to it was that my feeling was that T5 characters have much higher skill levels than Mongoose. This would explain why. You'd be hard pressed to get that kind of development in MgT.

they don't come out and say it as an element of char gen, but they do mention that skills are a year of training/experience in several places.
Of course, there's also the lumping of "+1 EDU" into that...

I just picked up T5.09, and the options during chargen are astounding.
"Training" for example, has the potential to be a game changer, and the comment that people with C5=EDU can use the Training Rules at 1/2 EDU is very interesting, and really messes up the kind of math you're trying to do.

For anyone interested in how I went about analysing the possibility of Events providing skills this was calculated very approximately by looking at the chances of rolling each event which might garner a skill. If a skill was automatic that percentage chance was added; if gaining a skill depended on an 8+ roll, 50% of the chance of that event was added (yes, I’m aware it should be 42% but this kept it simple and somewhat countered other places where skills weren’t factored in such as mustering out benefits), and if a decision had to be made to gain a skill, these were always taken as 50/50.

So, for example, in the Merchants career Events 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 11 were considered. There’s a 6% chance of rolling Event 3 but the decision was counted as 50/50 reducing this to a 3% chance of gaining Streetwise 1 (also ignoring the chance that the character already has Streetwise and gains only the extra Benefit roll). There’s an 8% chance of rolling Event 4. There’s an 11% chance of rolling Event 5, 14% for Event 8, 11% for Event 9 but with the die roll, halved to 5% (rounding down) and a 6% chance of Event 11 but halved to 3% because of the choice. Totalling these gives a 43% chance of a skill from Life Events in this career. Bearing in mind this is very rough and ready, the results for each career were:

Agent 32%, Army 45%, Citizen 38%, Drifter 30%, Entertainer 20%, Marines 47%, Merchants 43%, Navy 43%, Nobility 43%, Rogue 33%, Scholar 39%, Scout 36%

Obviously you're best chance of getting more skills than average is with the Marines and your worst chance is Entertainer.

Example: A person with C5=Training can spend a year during Char Gen and get training in a topic. For added fun, they start at 14 rather than 18... If they roll 2d6<=Training, they get +4 skill. If they roll 2d6>Training, then they've acquired all the training their mind can hold. Oh, and there's a +1 DM for each successful training roll.

Nifty, eh?

Hmmm, nifty as you say. I'll have to mess with that. Although writing for 'Mongoose kosher' rules, I might not be able to submit it for publication.

ANYWAY.... having gone all around the bend...
How about :
1 skill level per year after 18
Max of C4+C5, but can flip skills back to 0 and keep familiarity

So my 68 year old matriarch could have 24 skill levels if we imagined INT=C and EDU=C. Unlikely perhaps. I guess that UPP limitation does help (or else she'd have 40 skill levels! She seems a bit underskilled though if she was say averagely INT=7 and EDU=7. The 26 year old would have quite a bit more however (8 skill levels) than Mongoose unless he was particularly stupid or poorly educated.

I like it's simplicity although I don't think it will work for my Mongoose T emulation.

My original 'rule of thumb' was just 1.5 skill levels per term for terms 1-9 and 1 skill level per term thereafter. But this seemed a little 'thin' and my suggestion above doesn't seem that much more complicated.

cheers