Skills that don't exist but should

[McPerth]

And generally this is how MgT handles it. In CT if you went 5 terms, made all of your Re-enlistment, Commision and Promotion Rolls you'd typically end up with what? 11 Skills? Maybe 12? In MgT if you did the same thing, 5 Terms, made all Survival/Commision/Advancement Rolls you typically end up with 20. Sometimes a lot more depending on Career Events. So, the actual play effect is the same, i.e. the Character can accomplish the same things, it just a matter of the level detail.

But if you compare it with MT, by achieving all the rolls for commision, promotion and special duty, you could obtain about 3 skills per term, or up to 5 if you rolled 4 higher than needed, so a character wiht 5 terms could have more than 20 skills, by rolling all. (in the first term, you could achieve 2 per term, 1 automatic per career, 2 per commision, 2 per promotion, 1 per rank attained and 2 per special duty in some careers, making a record of 10 skills in a term, by rolling all high enough. Unlikely but possible).

And of course, we're not talking about advanced CharGen...

 

[aramis]

In CT, a character could acquire "doctorate" level quality in Engineering, counting Drives, Power, and systems, in a single term.

In Mongoose, he can't - it will take 3 terms to get the same level of competence. I complained about that aspect in the playtest.

 

[Darkwing]

IIRC Timelords (maybe it was another game wiht symilar name) has a system to create yourself as character... The only time I created a character for it was this way, so I'm afraid I don't know its point related one.

In any case, I don't like the point based chargens usually. It's a personal bias, I know, and they may be good, but without some random elements involved I've seen too many tweens replacing a dead character with those systems.

yes, the primary game is playing yourself suddenly tossed into time. The secondary game lets you point-build. But rebuilding dead characters is just as easy in a random game. Those players who do it make the same character over and over in any system. That just means I have to veto rebuilds.

 

[Greylond]

In CT, a character could acquire "doctorate" level quality in Engineering, counting Drives, Power, and systems, in a single term.

In Mongoose, he can't - it will take 3 terms to get the same level of competence. I complained about that aspect in the playtest.

And I really don't have a problem with that. IMO, it is a little over the top to expect that someone could conceivably get 3 Doctorates in 4 years...

 

[McPerth]

But rebuilding dead characters is just as easy in a random game.

Try it with traveller CharGen...:devil:

First you must be admitted in the same career, then obtain the same commisions, promotions, and such (if available in the career), then the same skills...

And worse yet in advanced CharGen...

You'll be lucky if both players have the same primary skill

In MT you have a little higher chance, as (in basic chargen) most skills are cascade and allow you to choose among some ones.

 

[McPerth]

Anyway, if we count all cascade skills as one (gun/blade combat, Gunnery, Vehicle, etc...), CT had about 40-45 skills, with more added with subsequent additions (LBB4-7), MT had about 65-70 (and some race related ones in alien books) and MgT (CB only) about 45, and they all work quite well with this limited range of skills.

In MT, aside from having more skills on the average, many included and count as skills make your skill pool larger than what your skill numbers show (e.g. if you nave navigation 3, you can use it as sensor operations 2).

In MgT, you have several specialties in some skills, but if you learn one specialty you have all the rest at 0 (trade skill is expressely excluded, as sould IMHO the various sciences and linguistics, but I didn't see it expressely excluded).

So, as you can see, despite what I think about splitting engineering in MgT, it has fewer skills than MT.

All the rest is not skill related. As referee you must decide what else the charactes can do and how difficult is it for them, based on assumptions, former career, and stats.

And that works quite well for me, without needing more skills (except if someone wants to be an expert in some rare thing)

 

[aramis]

And I really don't have a problem with that. IMO, it is a little over the top to expect that someone could conceivably get 3 Doctorates in 4 years...

I don't see them as being three separate skills - two, perhaps, but I see MD, JD, and Fusion Plants as part of the same set of paragravitic technologies.

 

[Darkwing]

Try it with traveller CharGen...:devil:

First you must be admitted in the same career, then obtain the same commisions, promotions, and such (if available in the career), then the same skills...

And worse yet in advanced CharGen...

You'll be lucky if both players have the same primary skill

In MT you have a little higher chance, as (in basic chargen) most skills are cascade and allow you to choose among some ones.

My experience is that the players who clone their characters will fudge and lie about rolls to get what they want and will surreptitiously rewrite portions of their character sheet between games until the clone is complete. The honest ones will just balk and keep demanding rerolls till they achieve the clone. So the only real safeguard is the GM. 8\

 

[Darkwing]

In MT, aside from having more skills on the average, many included and count as skills make your skill pool larger than what your skill numbers show (e.g. if you nave navigation 3, you can use it as sensor operations 2).

Which particular example makes good sense to me. I have to know how to use radar to perform radar navigation, so I may not know the radar as well as the Operations Specialist in CIC, but I can use it.

In MgT, you have several specialties in some skills, but if you learn one specialty you have all the rest at 0 (trade skill is expressely excluded, as sould IMHO the various sciences and linguistics, but I didn't see it expressely excluded).

Which I certainly see should be. But I've also had too many players think Linguistics skill is the ability to learn a whole new alien language from scratch in 5 minutes or less.

All the rest is not skill related. As referee you must decide what else the charactes can do and how difficult is it for them, based on assumptions, former career, and stats.

That doesn't disconnect the issue for me.
As I mentioned before, the various gun skills in real life, as taught by good ol' boys and competitive coaches will include the principles and will apply to almost any weapon. But as the police and military teach recruits with no prior experience, it's rote and dependent on the specific gun, and taught to the expected ranges. That's why I have pistol, rifle, etc, and also Sidearm & Combat Rifleman. Vilani engineers learn by rote, yet the mechanic doesn't reflect this.

And that works quite well for me, without needing more skills (except if someone wants to be an expert in some rare thing)

Or I need the PCs to seek that rare expert NPC. I also have NPCs specialize in skills PCs rarely need.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Anyway, if we count all cascade skills as one (gun/blade combat, Gunnery, Vehicle, etc...), CT had about 40-45 skills, with more added with subsequent additions (LBB4-7), MT had about 65-70 (and some race related ones in alien books) and MgT (CB only) about 45, and they all work quite well with this limited range of skills.

Once you take out the cascades, my layout only has 54 skills. 56 if you count Mundane and Esoteric. (There are a LOT of vehicle cascades, as well as Ranged Combat and Support Combat cascades.) That includes skills like Sports, Arts, and Finance.

I also break out Engineering into cascades: Aerospace, Civil, Electrics, Gravitics (This includes all ship drive systems except jump drive; to do jump drive engineering - not repair - this must be paired with Academics (Jump Physics).), Nuclear, and Robotics

This is separate from Mechanical (Making, repairing, deconstructing physical things. Turning wrenches, swinging hammers, wielding soldering irons, etc.): Construction, Electrics, Engines, Gravitics (which does include Jump), Machinery, and Weapons.

 

[Darkwing]

Fritz, I'd like to see that writeup sometime.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Check your PMs, Darkwing.

 

[McPerth]

Once you take out the cascades, my layout only has 54 skills. 56 if you count Mundane and Esoteric. (There are a LOT of vehicle cascades, as well as Ranged Combat and Support Combat cascades.) That includes skills like Sports, Arts, and Finance.

I also break out Engineering into cascades: Aerospace, Civil, Electrics, Gravitics (This includes all ship drive systems except jump drive; to do jump drive engineering - not repair - this must be paired with Academics (Jump Physics).), Nuclear, and Robotics

This is separate from Mechanical (Making, repairing, deconstructing physical things. Turning wrenches, swinging hammers, wielding soldering irons, etc.): Construction, Electrics, Engines, Gravitics (which does include Jump), Machinery, and Weapons.

I guess your concept of cascade skills is broader than mine...

When I said excluiding cascades I meant considering gun combat, etc as a single skill, but the only ones in this category would be combat ones (gun/blade combat, heavy weapons, gunnery), vehicles, sciences and linguistics. Most other cascade skills (e.g. space or vice in MT) just allowed you to choose among various ones that you could also obtain aside from cascade skills.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I guess your concept of cascade skills is broader than mine...

When I said excluiding cascades I meant considering gun combat, etc as a single skill, but the only ones in this category would be combat ones (gun/blade combat, heavy weapons, gunnery), vehicles, sciences and linguistics. Most other cascade skills (e.g. space or vice in MT) just allowed you to choose among various ones that you could also obtain aside from cascade skills.

No, when I say "cascades" I just mean skills that have specializations you have to choose. Academics has 16, Animal Handling has 6, Arts has 7, Vehicle has 16, Ranged Combat, Melee Combat, and Support Combat each have 11. Plus others. I decided not to do the groupings (Space, Vice, etc.) that MT did.

** FYI: Support Combat includes indirect fire, bazookas, bombs and rockets from aircraft, anti-aircraft weapons, etc.

 

[aramis]

I liked that MT reduced several cascades, and added a few others.

 

[McPerth]

I liked that MT reduced several cascades, and added a few others.

Most cascades in MT (as space, vice, inborn, etc...) were a way that the players could choose among several skills to better tune their character to their likings.

That was one of the points I more liked from MT CharGgen.

 

[Hyphen]

I guess your concept of cascade skills is broader than mine...

Maybe it's the difference between "Included" and "Cascade", introduced (IIRC) in MT. "Cascade" is only relevant during char gen; "Included" is relevant during game play. For example, compare HG's skill table with the Naval tables in MT: many single-skill entries were replaced with cascades (eg. Leader to Interpersonal) to allow more tailoring while retaining some randomness. A nice balance, IMHO, and an approach that I used heavily in my IMoJ chargen rules (http://members.tip.net.au/~davidjw/tavspecs/maint/pc_moj.htm).

I'm with Wil in liking what MT did with the skill regroupings, even though I stole an idea from someone about adding a few new cascades in my IMoJ career:
Influence (new Cascade Skill):
Includes Persuasion, Liaison, Carousing, Streetwise.
Investigation (new Cascade Skill):
Includes Computer, Interview, Interrogation, Forensic.
Infiltration (new Cascade Skill):
Includes Intrusion, Stealth, Recon, Hunting.

BTW, on re-reading this list, I've remembered something I *didn't* like about MT: they used the words "Includes" and "Included", but meant two different things! When a Cascade skill "includes" other skills, it means pick one of the skills in the cascading list - and that's the only one you get for that "pick". When a skill says "Included", it means you get ALL the skills listed (although some people house-rule that you pick a "primary" skill and the others are secondary, at -1 level).

Not confusing at all.

MT should have used a different word or phrase - and I've made the same mistake! Next time, I'll say:
Influence (new Cascade Skill):
Choose one skill from: Persuasion, Liaison, Carousing, Streetwise.

 

[Darkwing]

Yeah, I use "package" instead of "cascade", and specify that the following skills are included, meaning that the package acts as all those skills at a penalty.