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Post by True Black Raven on Mar 21, 2018 16:23:46 GMT -5
I was looking at the Classic Traveller Character Generator linked in the other thread and I see that it will roll up Jack-o-Trades from Jack-o-T-1 up to Jack-o-T-5. I was curious how each of you run that skill?
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Post by creativehum on Mar 21, 2018 23:15:00 GMT -5
Do you mean outside of the description of the skill in the description of the skill in the text? Because I think it's kind of clear. (I like the succinct description in the '77 edition. But there is great value in the description with illustration and limits found in the '81/Traveller Book/Starter Traveller description.)
For higher levels of JoT I assume a broader and deeper resourcefulness the PC can apply to tasks, so the Player can call in more justifications for resourcefulness in more obscure circumstances.
1977:
Later editions:
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2018 5:47:15 GMT -5
Do you mean outside of the description of the skill in the description of the skill in the text? Because I think it's kind of clear. Thanks for the rules quotes, Chris! Keep in mind, though, we also enjoy discuss house rules and rules variants here on this board. By and large, this is an imagine the hell out of it crowd and both liberal interpretations and outright replacements of lots of rules will come up. Anyone can look up the rules, and the book makes a fine starting point ... but we love to wonder what happens when we leave the path and forge a new way.
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Post by True Black Raven on Mar 22, 2018 7:08:51 GMT -5
Do you mean outside of the description of the skill in the description of the skill in the text? Because I think it's kind of clear. (I like the succinct description in the '77 edition. But there is great value in the description with illustration and limits found in the '81/ Traveller Book/Starter Traveller description.) For higher levels of JoT I assume a broader and deeper resourcefulness the PC can apply to tasks, so the Player can call in more justifications for resourcefulness in more obscure circumstances. I was wondering about higher levels of JoT, since down in one of the play by posts it was noted by the TM that nothing extra was given for higher levels of JoT so you might as well apply the extra JoT above 1 to some other skill or reroll when JoT comes up and you already have one. All I have access to is the Cepheus engine. Since I was playing around with the generator and it came up with a JoT-5 I was wondering if anyone used anything beyond JoT-1 andif so how it would be adjudicated. Given that in later editions (thanks for the quote) If JoT-1 equals skill level-0 and that is as good as it gets, what is the difference in how you play JoT-1, 2, 3, 4, or especially 5?
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Post by creativehum on Mar 22, 2018 9:39:27 GMT -5
Yes, I thought you might not have access to the CT rules... and since my answer is dependent on CT play, I thought it was important to present them.
I think it's important to remember that CT and CE are very different. I know lots and lots of people say they're kissing cousins. And perhaps people play CT in a manner the is very close to CE. But I don't.
CT often involves very little die rolling. Skills are not attached to attributes in any way. People might bring in skills in unexpected ways, depending on the circumstances and how the Player has the PC behave in that particular moment. In the basic Traveller rules, for example, Admin is mentioned several times across the three books, with the qualifier like "may" or "could" or "might" as in: "Admin might be able to be used as a DM in this situation." Which mean in the same situation with different details Admin might not be applicable as a DM.
Often Players will simply describe what they do and the Referee will simply describe the results without turning to the dice. Relative to later RPGs its all really loosey-goosey. (See the link to the interview with Marc Miller at Gary Con X around here to see what I mean.) Remember, too, the skill list in Basic Traveller (the skills in Book 1) is much shorter than the list in CE. So the skill list in CT is not a limit of what PCs can do. They can do plenty of things beyond the skill list. And JoT can help in situations tied to skills and beyond those situations.
For this reason, having additional JoTs works just fine, since it is assumed to be an interpretive matter. The Referee and the Player will talk out what the PC is doing to get the chance to even do something he is not familiar with. There might not be a die roll, so the matter of the rank of the JoT isn't important. What is important is the discussion from the Player about how his JoT-3 allows him to remember that time he was trapped with a tribe on C'chall and he watched the shaman heal his fellow Scout using certain plants, and he's able to stage a fake healing for another tribe that is authentic enough to make it look like he's got enough mojo to win this new tribe's respect.
For any other PC in in Traveller I'd probably make them make a roll and use the result as a modifier on the Reaction Table (Throw for 10+, every 2 points over is +1 on the reaction table). But if a JoT-3 tried this, I'd let him straight up make a Reaction Table roll at DM +4 -- because he's really well versed at lots of stuff. (If he had JoT-1 I'd let him make the Throw above, but at 8+. Again, in CT, like OD&D, you're often just making **** up as specific situations arrive.)
In CE things are more nailed down. It is expected one will make rolls to solve problems. Skills are linked to specific characteristics. The skill list is more comprehensive, so you'll be thinking in terms of JoT-0 in terms of how many DMs you get on a roll.
As E.T. Smith commented in a thread about Traveller over at RPG.net:
And I replied:
I think it is important to nail down as what I see is the distinction between the original Traveller rules and CE, because they play differently, and thus how JoT works in each game will play differently.
So, with JoT you get a DM of 0. And in CE, since one thinks of applying it only to rolls, then it makes sense higher ranks would be useless. But that' isn't how Classic Traveller was built, and I don't think it is how it should be played. The rules of CT are interpretive and elastic, they are there for the Players and the Referee to have a conversation in one situation to the next about what the PC is doing, and how the world is responding. Sometimes rolls will be made, but often not. If a former Scout with JoT-2 is caught up in a specific situation, what is the situation? What kinds of things has the former Scout already shown himself to be good at? What is the former Scout specifically trying to do? What is he specifically doing to try to get it done.
All of this goes far different from "Grab two dice, add your characteristic and skill." And in this way having additional ranks of JoT is perfectly fine.
So I go back to the answer I gave above:
But outside of the context of Classic Traveller's specific rules and specific playstyle, that might not make much sense!
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Post by True Black Raven on Mar 22, 2018 10:13:20 GMT -5
Have an Exalt! creativehum, for that enlightening answer. Basically I can just play it the same way I play OD&D. I only got my hands on the CE rules a few days ago when these Traveller threads heated up and I assumed that the skill thing was like AD&D and later where it is constant rolling for everything with all the limits of 3E and later. Happy to find out that I was mistaken. Now it is making sense. I may never get a chance to play face to face, but I think I may try creating a (is it sector or sub-sector) play environment/star system just for fun.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2018 10:26:29 GMT -5
I think it's important to remember that CT and CE are very different. I know lots and lots of people say they're kissing cousins. And perhaps people play CT in a manner the is very close to CE. But I don't. [snippage] Excellent comparison and analysis! Have an exalt.
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Post by creativehum on Mar 22, 2018 10:43:28 GMT -5
Have an Exalt! creativehum , for that enlightening answer. Basically I can just play it the same way I play OD&D. I only got my hands on the CE rules a few days ago when these Traveller threads heated up and I assumed that the skill thing was like AD&D and later where it is constant rolling for everything with all the limits of 3E and later. Happy to find out that I was mistaken. Now it is making sense. I may never get a chance to play face to face, but I think I may try creating a (is it sector or sub-sector) play environment/star system just for fun. Thanks for the Exalt! Yeah, it's a tricky thing... and one of the reasons I ended up writing countless blog posts about the original Traveller rules over the last two years. In part to help me dig back into the original rules, but also to make a case for what I was saying about the original Traveller rules. Marc Miller has been very clear: He wrote the original Traveller rules with the three booklets of Dungeons & Dragons open in front of him. The GDW staff was playing so much D&D that they had to institute a policy of "No D&D During Office Hours"! So the OD&D definitely inspired the original Traveller rules. But I think the inclusion of skills threw a lot of people off. They saw skills and couldn't see the the game was still Rulings, Not Rules. (Or they never knew about Rulings, Not Rules... the hobby audience suddenly expanded greatly in the second half of the 1970s and a lot of people (like me!) had never been part of the early hobby culture.) They saw the skill list and wanted something much more codified, something more along the lines of what RPGs would become. Thus, when Digest Group Publishing came up with their Universal Task System for Classic Traveller in 1985 (the Travellers' Digest #1) a lot of Traveller players felt relief. Finally the system was not (as the Digest article put it) "the 'seat of the pants' method of generating rolls for tasks." But, of course, that was what the original Traveller rules were built for. By using the PCs characteristics, skills, service, years of service, tools, situations, the Referee had the "playing pieces" he needed just as in OD&D to make adjurations and come up with rolls as needed. Really and truly, Cepheus Engine is a different kind of game. In my view the original Traveller rules should be played exactly as you said... If you are interested in checking out the original rules, you can get a copy of the 1981 editions of Traveller Books 1, 2, and 3 from DriveThru and RPGNow. They aren't much different than the 1977 edition. They are compact and dense, with interlocking rules that pack an enormous amount of material into three 42 page booklets.
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