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Post by ffilz on Nov 9, 2016 15:04:43 GMT -6
I started working on re-working the Supplement 4 career skill tables to be more compatible with Book 1 characters in only introducing new skills when they are critical to the flavor of the career. I am grappling with some of the careers though. Diplomat is heavily dependent on Liaison and Carousing, but I don't want to introduce those skills. The answer might just be to not use the Diplomat career. The Bureaucrat career obviously should grant Admin skill, but as presented, I feel will likely grant Admin 3 or higher way too easily. I could reduce the charts to one instance of Admin in each table which would tone it down, but then the question becomes what skills to replace all those Admin instances with. I talked myself out of a similar issue with Doctor by re-reading the skill in Book 1. As written, the primary uses DO NOT give a +1 DM per level or anything like that, so Medic-3 is about the most that is useful. Enter the idea of adding xeno-medicine and suddenly 6 rolls of Medic doesn't break anything, now the guy's a Doctor for a 2nd species. One might also allow other specialties, or maybe we can allow specialties including other species to just take 1 skill level. Also, I don't have a problem with the Doctor career being a good way to get a Medic-3 for your ship with just a 1 or 2 term character.. Rogue and Scientist also need some work. I may have other issues with some of the careers, but this goes a long way towards them being usable in my theoretical campaign. docs.google.com/document/d/1kS3h7JgF6CniH851034zBX0aPT-MhIggUO0yE_y0Jao/edit?usp=sharing p.s. if you would like to comment directly in the document and I'll give you access (or you can request it via Google Docs.
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eris
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 161
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Post by eris on Nov 10, 2016 0:00:40 GMT -6
ffilz, Liaison and Carousing are most of what a Diplomat does. They came in in Book 5. Let's see, Liaison is sort of a formally trained version of Admin and Streetwise, that's how Book 5 (or 7, I can't remember) describes it. It is explained tht Liaison-2 could be used as Admin-1 or Streetwise-1. So, to convert over, why not give your Diplomat career slots in the table for Admin and Streetwise. I don't have a clean way of modeling Carousing in Book 1, though. I think Carousing might just have to be a personality trait that the player brings to the PC through role playing.
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Post by coffee on Nov 10, 2016 8:39:42 GMT -6
I tried doing something similar once, but I wasn't interested in keeping all of the professions. Some of them just don't scream "Adventure!" to me, but that's probably more to do with me than with them.
I'll check tonight and see if I can find any of that stuff; it might help. (Or it might not.)
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Post by ffilz on Nov 10, 2016 11:16:04 GMT -6
ffilz, Liaison and Carousing are most of what a Diplomat does. They came in in Book 5. Yea... that's part of the problem... One of the things I am not so happy about Liaison is it being used as Admin and Streetwise of one level lower... Maybe I'll just add a new "Diplomacy" skill that DOESN'T include Admin and Streetwise, but have Admin and Streetwise on the Diplomat tables. My thought on Carousing came after considering it the high class schmoozing skill... Social standing is the attribute with the least applicability in play, why not just give +1 or +2 DM to reaction rolls in certain circumstances based on high Social... No new skill needed... As to the adventuring nature of some of the careers, yea, that is part of my concern, on the other hand, what I'm envisioning is a Diplomat or Bureaucrat working in the foreign office way out in the hinterlands of the empire gets bored with his office job and sees opportunities... The BBC show Indian Summers is giving me inspiration. Even if the characters aren't exactly going off to have Traveller type adventures, it's giving me ideas of what the hinterlands worlds might be like. Frank
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Post by ffilz on Nov 10, 2016 11:19:19 GMT -6
I tried doing something similar once, but I wasn't interested in keeping all of the professions. Some of them just don't scream "Adventure!" to me, but that's probably more to do with me than with them. I'll check tonight and see if I can find any of that stuff; it might help. (Or it might not.) Other attempts will definitely be helpful. Where they wind up the same, they confirm my idea, where they are different, they may inspire me to change, or they may again confirm ("sure, thought about that idea, that isn't the route I want to go, sticking with my original."). Also need to look at this guy's work: we-coyote-supra-genius.blogspot.com/2015/11/supplement-4-belters.htmlThanks Frank
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Post by foxroe on Nov 10, 2016 12:11:25 GMT -6
I always looked at the cooky skill DM rules in the descriptions as "guidance". Sure, Medical-3 is good enough, but if a character has Medical-4, that should mean they're better than that Medical-3 "hack", right? I see it as a role playing opportunity at the very least.
A house rule I've always used for character creation is to allow the player to roll a die, and then choose which table to select the skill from. I've never seen a player roll and shout, "Sweet! I can take another level of Admin! I'm climbing the corporate ladder for sure!" They'd always go for the military careers or the "cool" skills (combat, driving/piloting, etc.). Besides, so what if you have a character with Admin-5? It could be fun for the player if they know what they're doing, and you can always come up with some unique challenges where said player can shine. I will admit, though. Navigating bureaucratic miasma isn't my idea of RPG fun. A rousing game of Papers and Paychecks anyone? Blech.
Another house rule I used to use for Scientists (the lack of Science as a skill always bothered me) was to allow one field of knowledge per Education point. A player could claim "expertise" in a field by sacrificing one field.
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Post by ffilz on Nov 10, 2016 13:01:06 GMT -6
I always looked at the cooky skill DM rules in the descriptions as "guidance". Sure, Medical-3 is good enough, but if a character has Medical-4, that should mean they're better than that Medical-3 "hack", right? I see it as a role playing opportunity at the very least. A house rule I've always used for character creation is to allow the player to roll a die, and then choose which table to select the skill from. I've never seen a player roll and shout, "Sweet! I can take another level of Admin! I'm climbing the corporate ladder for sure!" They'd always go for the military careers or the "cool" skills (combat, driving/piloting, etc.). Besides, so what if you have a character with Admin-5? It could be fun for the player if they know what they're doing, and you can always come up with some unique challenges where said player can shine. I will admit, though. Navigating bureaucratic miasma isn't my idea of RPG fun. A rousing game of Papers and Paychecks anyone? Blech. Another house rule I used to use for Scientists (the lack of Science as a skill always bothered me) was to allow one field of knowledge per Education point. A player could claim "expertise" in a field by sacrificing one field. So there's two problems with the Admin-5. First Admin is granted DM +2 per level vs a 7+ to resolve actions. Admin-2 is already sufficient to make that almost automatic. Admin-5 means it will still be automatic even with a -5 DM from circumstances. The other problem is that if the career bureaucrat behind the desk has Admin-5 and we do anything that compares Admin levels, how is the poor Merchant PC who managed to get Admin-1 going to actually be able to do anything? Again, back to the inflation of skill levels. If we have Admin-5 running around, then Admin-1 starts to look pitiful. And all those other level 1 skills that most PCs have... I have seen the idea of roll, then pick the table. Obviously that allows more character customization, but makes me even more anxious about some careers. A Bureaucrat with Edu 8+ could then chose Admin on any roll other than a 3. Now 2-3 term Bureaucrats might have Admin-5... And I would expect 50% of Doctors to be a "Doctor" at age 22 (Medic-1 automatic plus 2 rolls with a 4 in 6 chance of being able to choose Medic is 16/36 chance of getting to Medic-3 in term 1 - if I'm a player rolling up a Doctor PC, I'm taking those rolls, term-2 is for completing Medic-3 and picking up the other skills I want... At least Doctors don't have Position and Promotion that would give them possibly 4 rolls in term 1...). But if we return to the idea Christopher Kubasik presents here in these (and other) posts: talestoastound.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/traveller-out-of-the-box-the-skill-system-which-i-dont-think-is-a-skill-system/talestoastound.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/traveller-out-of-the-box-some-thoughts-on-skill-use-in-classic-traveller/talestoastound.wordpress.com/2016/08/19/4876/Then the skills the character has aren't the resume of the character, they describe the things the character will be good at under stress and extreme conditions. It's true that some positions on a ship require at least level 1, and Medic requires Medic-3 to be a "Doctor", and Combat Armor and Battle Dress require Vacc-Suit-1 to be able to use at all, but things a character might attempt don't have such gateways. A character without the appropriate skill might have a -3 DM for trying something they don't have the skill for, but that doesn't mean in a routine situation they couldn't do that. But my issue is that when we start having more than 1-3 levels in skills, or increase the number of different skills, or increase how many different skills a character has, we start to look at the skills as being "what the PC can do" rather than "what the PC is especially good at", and it starts to make players who have characters with few (or even no) skills question the viability of their character (especially when they find out that improving their character, while possible is hard). Frank
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Post by foxroe on Nov 10, 2016 20:00:21 GMT -6
I understand where you're coming from. Perhaps the easiest way around all of that is to simply treat how the skills work differently. It could be something as easy as "cut all DM's in half, round down". However, I have to say, I've never seen high level skills as a problem at the table.
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Post by coffee on Nov 12, 2016 1:56:17 GMT -6
Finally found it! I got further than I thought, but it's not complete. (Had a devil of a time formatting it to go in a LBB of my own).
It's in PDF. I don't know how to post that on here but will send a copy if you like.
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Post by ffilz on Nov 14, 2016 11:03:11 GMT -6
Finally found it! I got further than I thought, but it's not complete. (Had a devil of a time formatting it to go in a LBB of my own). It's in PDF. I don't know how to post that on here but will send a copy if you like. That would be cool, thanks. Frank
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