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Training vs. "Adventuring"
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 5:59 pm    Post subject: Training vs. "Adventuring" Reply with quote

Been thinking about a means to portray training, as I feel that the RAW is a little too strict.

The idea here is that a character can acquire skills and knowledge simply by training in a mundane environment. This would account for characters who have no "adventuring" experience achieving high levels of skill by means of a post-secondary education, trade school, private lessons, etc. (refer to the chart that details the relative die codes... i.e. 4D = "professional" etc).

Here's my idea:

Training and education can allow a character to achieve a maximum of 5D in a skill or 2D over the attribute, whichever is lower. Generally, the character must pay credits to acquire the training or education. The cost of the education is 1000 credits per D the character has in the skill (raising a skill from 2D+1 to 2D+2 costs 2000 credits).

A character who has 2D over his attribute or 5D in any skill can no longer raise that skill except by the expenditure of character points (which could be gained by fighting in a tournament, piloting in a pod race, digging up an ancient Sith artifact, etc). In any case, the character must "put the skill to the test" in order to raise it any farther.

This idea can also be used to simulate things like basic military training, where a character gains skills without effectively adventuring, but is then--for a time--at the back and call of the government who trained him (the "cost" for the training).
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 6:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like it, but do you think there should be an exception for some skills? Scholar, for instance?
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cheshire
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 6:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I dunno, I spent a few years bumping up my Scholar skill, and I'm still giving monthly credits to Sally May for it.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Scholar presents an intereating quandry.

For SOME scholar skills, independent research can yield a degree of knowledge or expertise. Though other scholar specializations would require acceas to certain resources not commonly available (chem labs or telescopes or what have you). I can see there being similar difficulty getting access to SW-specific hard-to-come-by resources, thus requiring some form of payment if only to rent equipment or otherwise pay a useage fee.

Perhaps a character could invest TIME only and raise a skill a certain number of pips without spending money....
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cheshire
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 8:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also, let's not overlook the fact that Masters and Doctoral programs require research methodology courses for a reason. You can do independent research to further your scholarship, but those are usually people who understand how to evaluate sources, separate good research from bad, and have acquired the prerequisite skill set to genuinely benefit from access to information. There's nothing more frustrating than finding an undergrad who read a bunch of schlock press books printed by conspiracy theorists twisting history and thinking they've found the exclusive truth. Well... nothing worse than the one of them that's self-taught and apparently thinks the world of his mentor. But that's another story.

How that would work in game terms, I'm not sure. Though I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to play a game that had a mechanic for the Statistics classes and Research Methods classes. *shudder*
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thedemonapostle
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 9:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

this reminds me of when i was in college taking automotive classes. most of my teachers had masters degrees and could rattle of for hours the facts but when it came to the practical application of such, a mid 20's moron that had a year of experience working in a garage knew more about the proper how to's and why for's than the instructors. as a matter of fact most college grads ive encountered knew quite a bit about their degree but were sub par when it came to the practical application of such knowledge.
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Savar
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 9:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting idea.

My tech school experience was interesting. The electronics and computer instructors knew the how's and why's. All the support class instructors were a little short on practical. Both of the hands on instructors this was their 2nd or 3rd career.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 11:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

thedemonapostle wrote:
this reminds me of when i was in college taking automotive classes. most of my teachers had masters degrees and could rattle of for hours the facts but when it came to the practical application of such, a mid 20's moron that had a year of experience working in a garage knew more about the proper how to's and why for's than the instructors. as a matter of fact most college grads ive encountered knew quite a bit about their degree but were sub par when it came to the practical application of such knowledge.


Same here. Experience trumps education every time.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 11:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

cheshire wrote:
Also, let's not overlook the fact that Masters and Doctoral programs require research methodology courses for a reason. You can do independent research to further your scholarship, but those are usually people who understand how to evaluate sources, separate good research from bad, and have acquired the prerequisite skill set to genuinely benefit from access to information. There's nothing more frustrating than finding an undergrad who read a bunch of schlock press books printed by conspiracy theorists twisting history and thinking they've found the exclusive truth. Well... nothing worse than the one of them that's self-taught and apparently thinks the world of his mentor. But that's another story.

How that would work in game terms, I'm not sure. Though I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to play a game that had a mechanic for the Statistics classes and Research Methods classes. *shudder*


What I'm thinking is that a graduate program is beyond the scope of this rule. To get a MS or doctorate, the character would have to put his skill to the test with a real consequence for failure in order to raise it higher.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2017 12:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It'd be nice if there was a rule for earning CP through simple repetitive use. An auto mechanic, for instance, is not going to improve his skill by going out and being a vigilante getting in fist fights after hours (adventuring); he's going to build experience through time spent using his Ground Vehicle Repair skill over and over again.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:04 am    Post subject: Re: Training vs. "Adventuring" Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
Been thinking about a means to portray training, as I feel that the RAW is a little too strict.

The idea here is that a character can acquire skills and knowledge simply by training in a mundane environment. This would account for characters who have no "adventuring" experience achieving high levels of skill by means of a post-secondary education, trade school, private lessons, etc. (refer to the chart that details the relative die codes... i.e. 4D = "professional" etc).

Here's my idea:

Training and education can allow a character to achieve a maximum of 5D in a skill or 2D over the attribute, whichever is lower. Generally, the character must pay credits to acquire the training or education. The cost of the education is 1000 credits per D the character has in the skill (raising a skill from 2D+1 to 2D+2 costs 2000 credits).

A character who has 2D over his attribute or 5D in any skill can no longer raise that skill except by the expenditure of character points (which could be gained by fighting in a tournament, piloting in a pod race, digging up an ancient Sith artifact, etc). In any case, the character must "put the skill to the test" in order to raise it any farther.

This idea can also be used to simulate things like basic military training, where a character gains skills without effectively adventuring, but is then--for a time--at the back and call of the government who trained him (the "cost" for the training).

I'm thinking I'll more than likely still require CP expenditures but I can see there being a limit that some skills could be improved through training, and thus just require experience-only to improve a skill past a certain point.

CRMcNeill wrote:
I like it, but do you think there should be an exception for some skills? Scholar, for instance?

In my view the base Scholar skill is general academic knowledge from education, not experience. 2D would be an average retention of a high school education, while 4D would be good retention of the equivalent of a bachelor degree's general studies coursework. I already have a limit that the base Scholar skill cannot be higher than the species' max Knowledge attribute value, but Scholar specializations (which can represent higher degrees) can be higher.

CRMcNeill wrote:
It'd be nice if there was a rule for earning CP through simple repetitive use. An auto mechanic, for instance, is not going to improve his skill by going out and being a vigilante getting in fist fights after hours (adventuring); he's going to build experience through time spent using his Ground Vehicle Repair skill over and over again.

NPCs can improve over time anyway the GM sees fit without any "system", but all PCs are adventurers no matter what their day jobs are, and the system was designed with that in mind. Yes it doesn't seem to make sense that vigilantism could help a PC improve their auto repair skills, but experience in adventuring only provides the CPs. Without successfully using the skill in the adventure (applied experience), then there is training time to improve, longer without a trainer. If the auto mechanic PC doesn't adventure (and thus doesn't gain any CPs), then they are not being a PC and it hardly matters how their auto repair skills are improving.

CPs awarded from adventuring being a requirement for improving a PC's skills is an incentive for players to play the game and go on adventures, and adventuring is the primary purpose of all PCs, even if the characters have mundane day jobs. And CP requirements to raise skills is also a feature of game balance and player perception of fairness, so some players don't feel that some PCs are getting more "free" skill improvements than other PCs. I can see maybe free Scholar skill/specialization dice being awarded without CPs over time, if applicable. But in my game, most of the 'repetitive use' skill advancement is something that already happened as a part of the PC's background to explain the skill(s) on the character sheet getting to the point they are when the campaign began.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
It'd be nice if there was a rule for earning CP through simple repetitive use. An auto mechanic, for instance, is not going to improve his skill by going out and being a vigilante getting in fist fights after hours (adventuring); he's going to build experience through time spent using his Ground Vehicle Repair skill over and over again.


The auto mechanic can put his skill to the test by offering a guarantee on his work: if he fails, then he must do the work over again, offering the same (or better) guarantee, but at his own expense this time.

Whereas in tech school, there is no penalty for failure: he just tries again until he gets it.

Make sense?
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 13, 2017 11:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
It'd be nice if there was a rule for earning CP through simple repetitive use. An auto mechanic, for instance, is not going to improve his skill by going out and being a vigilante getting in fist fights after hours (adventuring); he's going to build experience through time spent using his Ground Vehicle Repair skill over and over again.


http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/2014/11/use-based-improvement-in-d6.html

Something like that?

Briefly, if you succeed at a task whose difficulty is Y*5 or greater, where Y is the integer in your die code (YD+X), then you get that difficulty added to your XP in the skill. Once you get Y*20 XP in that skill, you go up a pip, without CP cost.

Thus, if you have a 2D in Dodge (because you don't have any dice in it and are of average Dexterity), then successfully Dodging at 10 will add 10 points to your XP. If you dodge a 15, a 15, and 12, you've reached 42, and then you get a pip (2D+1, now), and need another 40 XP to get a second pip (2D+2), and a third 40 XP to increase that final pip to 3D.

It's an arduous process, and one that is aided by Force Point and Character Point expenditures, obviously (since if I spend a CP to roll an additional die, it's a lot easier to beat a 10 difficulty on 2D).

You might also consider adapting Ars Magica's Exposure rules (for the simple process of absorbing a skill by doing it), but those work on a season time scale.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 03, 2019 8:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I posted this on another thread, but decided it was applicable here, too. I think I like this idea better than my original post.

Naaman wrote:
Just had an idea which can apply to any type of training.

In RPG adventures/campaigns, there are a few resources that characters have available to them in "fleshing out" their character concept.

Of course, there are character points (used to improve skills)
There's money (for equipment which takes advantage of their skills)
There are contacts (NPCs who can help the character)
And so on...

One of the resources that all characters have is time.

Time can be "given" by the GM for training, shopping, research, problem solving, repairs, etc, or it can be "taken" by the GM via interruptions or complications, etc.

So, based on this concept of character development at the expense of "resources," I've come to reason this as a potential solution to the "training" issue:

Any character who undergoes training does so at a cost.

In the case of advanced education, the character may have to pay out of pocket with cash, plus invest the time.

In the case with the military, a person may "pay back" their training by a commitment to serve (and get paid) in the military which trained them for an agreed upon term (effectively indenturing themselves for that amount of time after the training).

As for the skills, the instructor (or, the organization) gets to choose which skills get the benefits, and those benefits are as follows:

1) Upon receiving initial training in a skill, the character gets one pip for free if the skill had not been raised above the attribute already.

2) When raising the skills during the training program, the character gets a 1 CP discount for skills covered by the course.

3) The character earns CP during the training course. A training course may require a certain number of skill rolls (longer, more in-depth courses require more rolls). The difficulty should be based on the level of the course: entry level training should be easy, intermediate training should be moderate, and advanced training should be difficult, etc. If the character uses his time wisely during the course, he gets a bonus on the rolls (representing study, practice, etc.). If the character passes 70% of the rolls, he gets 1CP for each successful roll minus the number of D he already has in the skill.

4) The character must pass some kind of qualification exam in order to graduate the course. Passing the exam earns the character 5CP minus the number of D he already has in the skill (if he already has 5D or more, then passing the exam grants no bonus). The number of character points should be raised according to the level of training. For example, intermediate training might offer 7CP minus the number of skill dice, while advanced training might offer 10CP minus the skill dice, etc.
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was thinking maybe limiting the palyers freedom in customization in exchange for "traning"

The Character is an apprentice mechanic. In order for him to get the "mechanic training" he have to show up to work, do his tasks and all that, if he then was was given 20cp and he spent these to increase his blaster, then I see the "system" fail.
So GM says you get 2D, or you 20 Cp or you get +1 and +2 in so and so skill.

In this case this mechanic "only" got +1D to his repulsorlift repair, and he got a +1 to starship, walker, starfighter etc .

this would maybe outweifght the "free choise" of the palyer


naturally if we consider "shcool" training then I would say maybe allow 1/2 cost of advancement in the "shool" skills, even at creation, this would give a character who went to school a lot more "esoteric" skills than one who did not, but I can't see that as any issue
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