Some real world detail for you to riff off:
- Thread starter aramis
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The fun part to ponder.
Whenever I see things like that, and I mean anywhere, I think about the designers, the meetings, the white boards, the hours of discussion and consideration that goes into the most mundane of parts.
Like the "defrost" button on you car console. The tab of a pop can.
How many hours of discussion you think goes into the color of a Hot Wheels car?
I just look around the cabin of my car and think about that for every single individual piece I can see, and think of the time and effort that goes into each single on.
Whenever I see things like that, and I mean anywhere, I think about the designers, the meetings, the white boards, the hours of discussion and consideration that goes into the most mundane of parts.
Like the "defrost" button on you car console. The tab of a pop can.
How many hours of discussion you think goes into the color of a Hot Wheels car?
I just look around the cabin of my car and think about that for every single individual piece I can see, and think of the time and effort that goes into each single on.
He, he … when I started working at Spring Engineering (Civil Engineering and Land Planning), I would draw ink on Mylar and, because we were a small office with only 4 people (Architect, Civil, Owner & Secretary/office manager), I would take the plans to a semi-retired Engineer to sign and stamp them. While he signed and stamped, he would tell me about making his own ink by scraping the lamp black from the oil lamps.
Now I model stormwater with Inter-Connected Pond Routing (ICPR) software, and model the buildings and sites in 3D software. I still need to teach the new kids how to lay out a sheet since they never drew by hand and have no clue that you cannot just reduce a detail to fit and still read the text.
Now I model stormwater with Inter-Connected Pond Routing (ICPR) software, and model the buildings and sites in 3D software. I still need to teach the new kids how to lay out a sheet since they never drew by hand and have no clue that you cannot just reduce a detail to fit and still read the text.
I actually RTFM (read the f* manual) when I started as I started programming before the WWW. And to install software meant going to the site with the tape (it was a cassette basically. Could have been a jump tape 
) Learned the OS by reading the updates as they came in via mail: these pages replace pages 14-24 sort thing in a 3-ring binder. Part of my job was keeping the binder up to date.
Now - I get stuck I just ask AI and it can usually figure out what I did wrong. And the auto-complete stuff now is really scary accurate. Yes, I am faster. But it is not the same.
) Learned the OS by reading the updates as they came in via mail: these pages replace pages 14-24 sort thing in a 3-ring binder. Part of my job was keeping the binder up to date.Now - I get stuck I just ask AI and it can usually figure out what I did wrong. And the auto-complete stuff now is really scary accurate. Yes, I am faster. But it is not the same.
The Electrical Engineer at the firm tells a story about the Engineer at his school that was recruited by a major auto manufacturer as an intern straight out of college (before graduation) ... which was very prestigious and something students dreamed about. Thirty years later, he is an expert on the design of Glove Boxes and goes to "Glove Box" trade shows and conventions to keep up on the latest innovations.
How is that for hyper-specialization?
They actually warned me about that in Architecture School. A professor cautioned that if I went to work for a large firm immediately after graduation, I would end up given a specific task and would learn nothing except that task ... I would be the person that did Restroom Specifications for all the giant skyscrapers, or I would be in charge of the stair details and making sure they met local code (and nothing else).
It occurs to me that this has Traveller applications for "house rules" ... LARGE organizations (like a Megacorporate MERCHANT or Imperial Navy), should retain characters in one position gaining high specialization in a narrow range of skills, while SMALL organizations (like a FREE TRADER or a Planetary Navy) need people to be exposed to a wider variety of activities and skills (more Jack of all Trade characters).
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kilemall
SOC-14 5K
I handle this with having broad skills but narrow familiarization. If you bounce around known space you end up working with a lot of equipment. If you get assigned to one ship you know that one class/letter drive but will have to spend time to use their full skill.
Badenov
SOC-13
This is, to a great extent, a matter of corporate philosophy. An organization with many specialists needs more bodies to cover all roles completely in all situations or risks finding itself short-handed. This comes with costs in wages and logistical overhead. Salaries for corps, and all sorts of things for military: housing, supplies, salaries, etc. The other way to go is to generalize, in which case anyone in your organization can support any role. This has several benefits: flexibility, smaller size (because you can shift people between roles as needed rather than hiring another person), and coverage in case of casualties or other unexpected losses (mainly military, but tales abound of people who quit corporate jobs and the company found out too late that no one else could do that job). The challenge in this situation is to be sure everyone really does have the breadth of skills needed at sufficient level to be effective.
My experience in large organizations is the opposite: I found people generalized to a high degree because the reduction in overhead was considered more important than depth of expertise, but obviously that varies by organization.
The Vilani rule for MegaTraveller was simple, elegant, and really enforced specialization...
First term, one skill received becomes your specialty skill.
First skill receipt each subsequent term must go to specialty skill.
If you had 2 more rolls, you could always trade 2 rolls for 1 in the specialty.
There was some nastiness about no specialization in cascades until you had one in each... and the 7 term limit was ignored, the aging saves were on a +3 to +5 for genetic Vilani... I've seen characters into the triple digits of age. @Peter Newman would probably remember the specific age of the rolled up NPC parents of his last Vilani character in my games.
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