On Wed, 20 May 2020 16:30:20 -0400, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:

>I never liked the 'INT+EDU' skill limit. It always fell short of describing
>the people I knew.

[...]

>There is no way a character with 5-7 skills of maybe 10-15 maximum skill
>points represented that.

>I see in one of the new versions (T5, MgT), that limit is set to 3 x (INT +
>EDU) which seems more like reality. Though I was unclear if they were
>counting 0 level skills, which I think should be left out.

I believe that the INT+EDU limit always excluded level-0 skills.

>I also always thought having some things give you a zero level skill but
>not an upgrade was, while not necessarily an incorrect map of reality, an
>annoying character generation item for little real in game benefit. I think
>that was not a required distinction.
>
>I always looked at it as:
>
>Level 0 - something that could be taught briefly (really fast in a crisis)
>to let you do particular tasks (but not with any particular panache or
>depth of understanding) - basic self defence training

>Level 1 - you spent a term or a maybe a year with this being part of your
>daily life - self defence white/yellow/orange

>Level 2 - you've done this for 2-3 years as part of daily activity (some
>college certifications/diplomas) - self defence level green/blue/purple

>Level 3 - you've done this for 4-6 years as a part of daily activity
>(university graduation in key skills for a career) - self defence level
>brown/1st black - professional (MD, Engineer, etc)

>Level 4 - you've done this for 7-10 years as part of daily activity (post
>graduate levels) - self defence level 2nd to 3rd black - Expert - Masters
>Degree to PhD

>Level 5 - 11-20 years of daily activity, PhD plus, self defence 4th+ black,
>Renowned Expert

I think you inflate the skill levels somewhat; I would use your guidelines,
but for _half_ the skill level that you show (rounded up - your 5 would be
my 3). The primary purpose of a level-0 skill is to be able to try
something without incurring the penalty for being unskilled.

>I always also thought that although there should be nothing magical about
>level-0 skills (in terms of how they might stack with more skills of that
>type) but that getting to level 2 is harder than getting to level 1, and so
>on... to get from level 4 to 5 should take longer and be harder (more skill
>tallies/xp/whatever). This is why some of MT's expanded chargen was a
>problem - you could get, andnot just very rarely, characters from
>generators that had level 5-7 skills in one skill (thanks to skill trees in
>part, but also because there was no gradient in how hard it was to increase
>a skill).

Yes. This was, IMO, a big problem with MegaTraveller (and with the expanded
chargen in Classic Traveller, where the MegaTraveller chargen came from),
and the reason for imposing the INT+EDU cap. If there was some way to
integrate Ken Bearden's experience rules
(https://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/chardet/exper.html) into
prior career generation, I don't think it would be a bad idea.

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