My issue most of the time with the basic career generations (even in MT) was they didn't make as fulsome use of cascades as they might have and that means sometimes a given career can never get a skill it probably should have access to. In enhanced, with more tables, you get more options.

I found that you can get 1 or 0 skills in a term sometimes in enhanced in some careers and that I could get at least 3 (more if a position or promotion gave you one) so you could get fairly similar (I think 80-90% of the time) results with either, but I'd Monte-Carlo-ing that to see what the statistical difference would be tough.

If you did background skills and allowed stuff like college before a regular career, that would also help.

One of my axes to grind (beyond the possible abuses of BPs) is that I've yet to meet a basic MT generator that will let me start an spend a term or two in a second career before play. The MCTG enhanced generator by Greg Svenson does support that (for humans.... not sure it does for all other options). It's a good generator, but it doesn't ask for BPs for skill picks (including going either way on the skill tables) or on the assignment resolution. My favourite use of having a few BPs was to avoid years where I could just flat out not get a skill.

Another minor gripe is Rifleman/Combat Rifleman. If you are a good shot with a rifle, it won't take you long to function with an AR. I think Rifleman -> Combat Rifleman when you get at least 1 level of CRM.

Alternate Way To Do Skill Levels During Chargen

I also wish the whole zero-level/all other levels differentiation (awarding a particular level of a skill rather than a +1 skill) didn't exist. Maybe skill 0 should be treated as where all skills start. It is arguably the MOST valuable skill (where UnskilledOK does not exist) and all it fails to do is grant you a positive mod but it does remove a significant hit for no skill where UnkilledOK is not present.

I also think that a skill 4 should be harder to get than skill 1... so maybe what you should get during chargen is XP or ATs and then interpret the final level based on a table at the end of chargen:

Skill 0 - 1  AT/XP
Skill 1 - 2  AT/XPs
Skill 2 - 3  AT/XPs
Skill 3 - 5  AT/XPs
Skill 4 - 8  AT/XPs
etc.

Each year, either award 2 XPs or a D3 or make a roll (replacing the skill roll) :

To gain experience at a skill, Routine, Int, Edu. If you succeed normally, gain D3 XP. If you miss by 1, gain 1 XP. If you gain +2 success, gain D3+1. If you get +4 success, gain D3+2. A fumble (natural 2) requires a Determination test every time you'd accumulate future XPs in the skill in order to continue gaining XPs in this skill (once you make it once, your confidence is back and you don't have to check anymore). 

That replaces a skill check. You can gain anywhere from 0 to 5 XPs but the average is likely to be 2-3 XP.  So most of the time, you'd get a level 0-2 skill in a year. Skill 3 will often be 2 years, and skill 4 could be 3 years.

This sort of economy in skills would encourage diversification and it also addresses the way MT generation (even CT had it, just less of it) can kick out Skill 5+.

You could also work ongoing experience using the same approach and leave XPs that were leftover at the end of chargen as 'part way to the next level' for the character.

I recall seeing something called an AT (Action Tally?) as a form of Traveller XP, but I don't see it anywhere in the core MT books and don't know where I saw it. It wasn't meant to be used for chargen though but I think you could build a common XP framework from chargen up.

On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 9:15 AM <xxxxxx@quibell.org.uk> wrote:
I've always used them anywhere in character generation where ever there is a dice roll; however I tend to use basic character generation because I want a balanced party across all available careers, not just specialists in Army, Marines, Navy, Scouts and Merchants. You can still use/apply Brownie points, you just get less of them, also I assign rank skills as +1 skills if the characters already have them.

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxx@simplelists.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> On Behalf Of Rupert Boleyn
Sent: 13 October 2020 10:05
To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
Subject: Re: [TML] MegaTraveller Brownie Points



On 13Oct2020 2122, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just realized I may have been doing something incorrect for a long
> time in MT enhanced generation. Is there a specific limitation to
> using brownie points only for survival/position/promotion/getting a
> skill?
>
> I always used to use them to help modify skill table rolls when random
> chance of the dice was wanting a character to (forex) have 5 levels of
> electronics when you needed an engineer with engineering, gravitics,
> electronics, and mechanical.
>
> Can I use BPs legitimately for shifting my skill rolls to change
> skills on the chosen skill table?
>
> TomB
I a;ways thought that they were for any rolls in chargen. Thus with a bit of care if you manage to get a good number of them early you can do some fairly broken things (at least that's what I remember). They are one of the reasons I wouldn't use the advanced careers were I to run a MT game (the main reason being that they only did them for four careers).

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>

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