A method for generating, using, and developing player character skills

[flykiller]

ICSS, Integrated Character Skill System

a method for generating, using, and developing player character skills in the game of traveller. comments and critiques sought.

 

[Icosahedron]

Looks good. Your skill DMs of L2= +3, L1= +1, L0= -1, could be logically extended to Level zip= -3 and a sort of technological negative skill (barbarian trying to fix the Jump Drive)= -5. These numbers would lend themselves to the Mongoose take on JoT where levels of JoT skill remove negative DMs for skills below L0. (Level 3 JoT gives a normal person L0 in everything).

 

[tinker123]

First reactions

First impressions are of a thoughtful group of house rules to address some of the drawbacks of the current rules. Of course, one man's drawback is another man's core feature...

Skill points and choice of skills (and narrated chargen) imply a whole supplement-full of charts and relationships (e.g. what schools / assignments are available per year in any given service, and what skills do they allow the player to choose).

More expensive skills may reflect reality in a sense that we expect it will be a big deal to learn to pilot a starship. I'm not sure it would be that much harder than piloting a 747 (and gravitics may be less), because people don't get much smarter, and there need to be a lot of jump-jockeys to keep the 3i running. However, that's not important. Bigger issue is that it will tend to discourage players from taking the expensive skills. Even your intelligent, educated characters may be tempted to use that education to be a crack shot with every weapon, drive tanks and trucks, and take all those soft combat skills like leadership & tactics. So your university graduates make better grunts than muscleheads...

I think that's my biggest worry about this modification - that characters whose stats lean to the physical side don't get as many skills as the more educated characters; I'd expect them to get different skills (physical things like accurate gunfire if they have the dex for it, or drinking if their endurance allows) but not fewer.

I like the way the skill points provide a use for Int & Edu (since you can't get shot in them during an adventure), but maybe the answer is to have some skills (still 1-point skills) that can only be bought with Edu points? And even others that could only be bought with Str-points?

Task difficulty and skill mods interact in a way that would take a few minutes to work out; +3 to a roll makes more of a difference to the chance of success for difficult / extraordinary tasks than it does to routine tasks.

I'm not sure that the difficulty levels are materially different from a generic "roll 8+" rule with mods for the situation (e.g. -1 for difficult, +2 for easy, yielding the same results as 9+ & 6+)

Skill levels in this rule give a consistent +2 per level instead of the wild variety of DMs in CT (e.g. Forward Obs +4 per level, Bribery +1 per level). So the effectiveness of some skills will change significantly. Is that the intention? Perhaps you could keep the old effectiveness by making skills cheaper or dearer?

Use of stats to modify rolls makes another use for non-physical stats post-chargen. I like the way the mods only appear at extremes (not just add 1/2-stat to every roll). I guess you'll need a list of the applicable stat for each skill, and it needs to be balanced in some way, or we'll find that the high-Soc players don't get any advantage out of their stat.
Actually, these associations could also decide which stat's skill points get to be spent on buying that skill as well, which might work better for the physical skills.

Experience points - I agree with the intention; as a principle, a well-played character should continue to gain skills after chargen at the same rate as during the prior service.

Oh dear - just seen the length of this post. Time for me to shut up, I think.

 

[flykiller]

Your skill DMs of L2= +3, L1= +1, L0= -1, could be logically extended to Level zip= -3 and a sort of technological negative skill (barbarian trying to fix the Jump Drive)= -5.j

I'd thought of that too and tried to work it in. The problem is that the task system is based on relating the skill to the characterization - if someone has no skill there's no basis for characterizing the difficulty of the task. Trying to take into account extreme circumstances usually breaks a ruleset, so situations such as a barbarian trying to fix a jump drive are best left up to the referee's judgement.

Skill points and choice of skills (and narrated chargen) imply a whole supplement-full of charts and relationships (e.g. what schools / assignments are available per year in any given service, and what skills do they allow the player to choose).

they do, and I've tried to draw them up, but it really isn't necessary, least not for me. I usually just wing it. every first tour has skills and tasks that would be assigned to newcomers, and I just use those to start. based on what the player chooses, and on what he says he wants, I'll give him follow-on choices in his subsequent tours. the player's choices suggest the career path, and it's easy to quickly figure out what might be on that path. early choices involve tech training, later choices will be heavy on leadership and instruction. personal skills are always available. sudden changes are possible - "your government decides to turn the army into a marine force, so you go to school for ...." and a school may not be a school - "your ship crashes and you spend the next two years ...." or "you're assigned to a marquis' staff, and they assign you to his lead team ...." I find the career path usually suggests itself.

maybe I should draw up something.

Bigger issue is that it will tend to discourage players from taking the expensive skills. Even your intelligent, educated characters may be tempted to use that education to be a crack shot with every weapon, drive tanks and trucks, and take all those soft combat skills like leadership & tactics.

they might, but the goal should be to produce a ruleset that roleplayers can use, not to design a ruleset that prevents certain things. as for munchkin min-max, let them, if that's what they want.

besides, if a character with intelligence C and education c devotes 4 years of their life to acquiring combat rifle 2 and tactics 2, is that really so undesireable an outcome?

I think that's my biggest worry about this modification - that characters whose stats lean to the physical side don't get as many skills as the more educated characters ....

I think that follows real life.

I'm not sure that the difficulty levels are materially different from a generic "roll 8+" rule with mods for the situation (e.g. -1 for difficult, +2 for easy, yielding the same results as 9+ & 6+)

one could easily construct another approach that has the same effects - after all we're talking about 2d6 here, there's only so much you can do with it - but I think starting with a characterization and then directly applying relevant modifiers is more intuitive than starting with an all-purpose base number and then adding another level of modifier.

I guess you'll need a list of the applicable stat for each skill ....

should be able to tell which if any to use as each situation comes up.

thank you, gentlemen.