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Traveller: Education Stat?


Layec

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Hello all,

 

I'm trying to implement a Travelleresque lifepath character creation system (thanks once again goes to Soltakss for the idea) and I'm running into a little snag in regards to education.  I have no idea what it actually means.  I mean, yes of course, the higher the stat the more education, but at which point does it represent, say a Bachelor's Degree, or graduating high school.  Or am I looking at it wrong?  I never really grokked the Education stat in BRP, either.

 

So perhaps someone will take pity on me and try to enlighten me?

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I think it was years of school somewhere I read, EDU 12 would mean high school graduate. But I think you have to take it with a grain of salt. You could rationalize it and say it's whatever education you've absorbed, so you could have an EDU 5 and still be a high school grad, if that's what you wanted. Avg edu for the culture should be the usual 9-12.

 

On the other hand, I know I've been frustrated in Call of Cthulhu where I wanted to play a PhD, but had a low EDU score. You just have to go with it.

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If it is straight years of school, then an average person might have between 10 and 12, starting school around 5-6 and finishing around 16, so that makes sense. A holder of a Bachelor's degree in England would probably have EDU 16, a Master's EDU 19 and a PhD EDU 22. 

 

Of course, you could have a high EDU and not have the qualification, or have the qualification and not have the EDU, depending on the life story.

 

In the RQ SciFi document I put together, it gave Adventurers an EDUx5% boost to their skills, but this had to be applied to a certain list of skills.

 

As for the LifePath idea, it looks good, but I didn't really understand it well enough to give it a full treatment. When I played Traveller, I was guided through it by experienced hands, so didn't need to understand the whole process. I only rolled up 2 Traveller PCs when I played and that was over 20 years ago. Having said that, it should b e easy enough to do. I suppose I should buy the Traveller rulebook, to see how it works properly, as the Mongoose Traveller SRD is not that complete.

 

I am glad that you are trying this, Layec, as you might be able to work out any issues in it.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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6E COC says this about EDU: A score of twelve 'suggests' a high school graduate. A 16+ indicates graduate level work or the equivalent.  So, yes, in a industrial/post-industrial  society with a formal, institutionalized educational system the EDU score does pretty much map to  'years' spent in the classroom.

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There's probably not much  you need to change really:  Traveller  will have a range of 2-12 vs.  COC's 3-18; but Traveller's career track really starts with the characters just coming into adult-hood at age 18, so your 1st term would begin with each character as they leave 'high school' or its equivalent. As Traveller is very militaristic, there's few career tracks that would require an EDU 12+, and I assume that undergraduate and graduate coursework is included in the 'Scholar' track.

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So thinking a little more on the topic:  each four year 'term' yields 80 skills points to be spent among a list of select skills particular to that service/career track. So think of each 'term' as a kind of occupational block. You could, for some career tracks, even allow  characters to exchange skill points for characteristic increases (20/+1, for instance); i.e., a character  on the entertainment track could buy APP (Charisma).

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No help to the subject at hand but I am really interested in the mechanics of this. I love Traveller and have thought about a port / term advancement for skill progression.  I would really be interested in your final results.

 

If you need any info from the Traveller books let me know.  As a fan I have amassed copies of the original LBB, Mega traveler, Traveller New era, GURPS Traveller (I think) and Marc Millers Traveller4.

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That's actually simpler than I thought.  Thanks much!

 

Cdr Vimes:  I'm actually doing an overhaul for the system that grew in the doing... what started as a couple of tweaks is turning into a pretty big project, including: lifepath character generation, adding a penetration mechanic to weapons, importing and tweaking the Madness Meter from UA (and integrating it with character generation), a magic system heavily influenced by Traveller's Psionics and The Elder Scroll's magic system, streamlined skills and a more codified implimentation, and generally formalizing exactly which optional rules I'm using and what tweaks I've made to them.  Once/If I got done, I was planning on making it available to this board, but if I finish the Character Generation, I'll PM.

 

But don't expect much from me.  My job is exhausting and I can't afford to spend that much time working on it.

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