Training : some thoughts

[Manu]

I know that YRQMV (and mine vary already as I don't like to tell my player that there is nothing they can do for many seasons.... Anyway, they will do things anyway as my campagn is a big sandbox with many possible plots...)

But I wonder about the training rule : 1 season (56 days!!!) in order to gain 2%??? 10% for a whole year training?

I remember that during my RQ3 campaign, there was a rule proposed by (I don't remember who and where) that you need your skill percentage in hour to gain. Fir instance, 25 hour to gain 2% if you have 25%. I like this idea (and maybe put us back in my game) as you improve fast for low level skills and slower as you get better.

[Akhôrahil]

Perhaps we could back-calculate from the notion that it takes 10,000 hours to master a subject (hint: it's actually far more complicated than that, but as a rough starting point) to how much time training should take? 10,000 hours, let's say "master" means 100%... so 2 hours per percentage point you want to achieve? That means it will take 10,100 hours if you start from 0.

Edited January 8, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[French Desperate WindChild]

training is one of the few rules that are from my perspective a regression between RQ:G and RQ3

the main concern is not the full time needed to learn a skill from 0 to 100

it is more the learning curve :

In RQ:G you need the same time to move from 10% to 12% and to move from 98% to 100%

In RQ3 10 hours versus 98 hours

 

The new rule is cleary easier to apply. I didn't check if a full training  to become a master  (from 0 to 90) is faster or lower. It is just the curve wich seems to me less realistic

[Akhôrahil]

43 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

In RQ:G you need the same time to move from 10% to 12% and to move from 98% to 100%

In RQ3 10 hours versus 98 hours

On the other hand, it does become far more expensive at the higher levels, and typically, it's money and not time that limits your training in RQ (trainer pay is ridiculous).

Edited January 8, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[JustAnotherVingan]

I'm fine with the new rule. Its train 1 skill whilst also spending up to 3 weeks a season adventuring and holding down a job the rest of the time.

That was confirmed by Jeff in another thread.

If in your game the PCs are wealthy enough that they don't need to work perhaps we need a clarification for how much training they can do.

I'd suggest 1 skill per complete week available. Adventuring and cult duties will cut into the time available.

[Bill the barbarian]

11 minutes ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

I'm fine with the new rule. Its train 1 skill whilst also spending up to 3 weeks a season adventuring and holding down a job the rest of the time.

 

Yes, same here, In the RQ 3 days I had tables and charts and a couple of pages of HRs for figuring it all out (down to cost per hour instead of week) and found I was reasonably happy with the numbers based on the 10.000 hour rule of our world 

When I first saw RQ RiG I was torn but simplicity trumps complexity when it works and the between adventures section works fine for me. That gives about 9 checks for skills  per season or 36 per year. (4 for work 1 for training and about 4 (not my numbers but I will use it for example YMWV) for adventuring ). Should be more than sufficient. 

[Akhôrahil]

I completely replaced the training and practice rules for skills (need to come up with a decision for characteristics) with the following:

Research: For every 25% you take away from work (resulting in an earnings penalty) for a season, you can use one of your Occupational Experience checks for another skill which you could reasonably have researched. Essentially, you use the extra time to expose yourself to the experience.

Training: Like research, except any skill the trainer knows is opened up (well, with possible exceptions), and any at least decent trainer will give you a bonus to the Experience Gain roll (more with a higher skill and a better Communication bonus).  

That's it.

[Darius West]

42 minutes ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

I'm fine with the new rule. Its train 1 skill whilst also spending up to 3 weeks a season adventuring and holding down a job the rest of the time.

That was confirmed by Jeff in another thread.

If in your game the PCs are wealthy enough that they don't need to work perhaps we need a clarification for how much training they can do.

I'd suggest 1 skill per complete week available. Adventuring and cult duties will cut into the time available.

Yeah, this is important and JAV makes a good point.  Idk about you, but why hold down a day job if your gig is adventuring and getting rich enough not to have to work?  Now translate that into training time, and that's a lot of potential hours.  Admittedly you still need meals, and sleep, and toilet breaks, and recovery time, but when training becomes your day's main activity, you can get a lot done.  A person who becomes a landed aristocrat potentially has a lot of free time on their hands, and can afford the good things in life, including personal trainers.

I can understand from a rules perspective that the point of an experience system is that it is a reward of adventuring, and if you can buy skills, that detracts from what makes adventuring desirable, but there must be a sweet point where all needs are satisfied.  One thing I would strongly consider is that training alone can only advance you so far in any skill.  When it comes to weapon skills, I would be inclined to say that was 75%.  Clearly there also needs to be a separate system for independent academic research and study, where classes can get you so far, but eventually you have to teach yourself.

On a related note, I have always thought that some skills are a lot easier to learn than others, for example, WW1 gas mask drill.  Yes, it is an important skill and failing it can get you dead, but it also isn't hard to do, and I don't think it takes 10,000 hours to master it.  Then there are skills like  horse riding, where you can get quite proficient after a short while.  Then there is bike riding, where the initial development of the skill can take quite a while, then suddenly you stop falling over and keep going forwards, and the next week you are doing stunts.  For the record, I am a huge fan of the experience check in RQ, and varying how much a skill check is worth is a good way of moderating the advancement rate of a skill within games mechanics.

[g33k]

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

Yeah, this is important and JAV makes a good point.  Idk about you, but why hold down a day job if your gig is adventuring and getting rich enough not to have to work?  Now translate that into training time, and that's a lot of potential hours.  Admittedly you still need meals, and sleep, and toilet breaks, and recovery time, but when training becomes your day's main activity, you can get a lot done.  A person who becomes a landed aristocrat potentially has a lot of free time on their hands, and can afford the good things in life, including personal trainers ...

I think the idea is, you get involved with your community, your clan.  "Full time adventurer" isn't what the rules are aimed at; your "day job" isn't an optional choice you make.  You're expected to be a responsible & engaged member of the clan, the community (more or less non-optionally).

And your god generally cares about this stuff.  Don't expect rune-magic & rune-points if you're behaving selfishly; your god wants their whole community to thrive!  The world doesn't just go on by itself -- if YOU, personally, aren't helping it get along, YOU can expect personal repercussions.

The "landed aristocracy" isn't the same thing (in Sartar); it isn't a leisure class, and it isn't "landed."  You hold land, and work it, on behalf of the clan ... but it's still Clan land, not YOUR land.  If you delegate the duty to a lieutenant so you can go adventuring, you can expect the Clan may soon decide you were right, and reassign the land formally to your (former) lieutenant, who has demonstrated ability and dedication (unlike some slacker who calls themselves an "adventurer").

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

... One thing I would strongly consider is that training alone can only advance you so far in any skill ...

We had an early HR in our RQ2 games:  you could only take one "training" check in any given skill, then you needed some real-world experience before you could get another training-check.  I haven't decided whether to carry that forward to RQG.

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

...

On a related note, I have always thought that some skills are a lot easier to learn than others, for example, WW1 gas mask drill.  Yes, it is an important skill and failing it can get you dead, but it also isn't hard to do, and I don't think it takes 10,000 hours to master it.  Then there are skills like  horse riding, where you can get quite proficient after a short while.  Then there is bike riding, where the initial development of the skill can take quite a while, then suddenly you stop falling over and keep going forwards, and the next week you are doing stunts.  For the record, I am a huge fan of the experience check in RQ, and varying how much a skill check is worth is a good way of moderating the advancement rate of a skill within games mechanics.

Something worth considering is the idea of skill-thresholds.  50%, 75%, 90% ...  We already have one threshold, at 100% -- the 100%ers can suddenly split their attacks.  99%'ers can only dream of it!

So you might say... for "Ride(Horse)" that somewhere around 30%, you won't fall off (unless somebody knocks you off, or the horse tries to buck, or similar).  Below that, and you may just be inexperienced enough to fail a "ride in a straight line on easy ground" roll, just from the horse changing gait unexpectedly, or something like!  😆

Just a thought FWIW.

Edited January 8, 2020 by g33k

[Shiningbrow]

6 hours ago, g33k said:

I think the idea is, you get involved with your community, your clan.  "Full time adventurer" isn't what the rules are aimed at; your "day job" isn't an optional choice you make.  You're expected to be a responsible & engaged member of the clan, the community (more or less non-optionally).

And your god generally cares about this stuff.  Don't expect rune-magic & rune-points if you're behaving selfishly; your god wants their whole community to thrive!  The world doesn't just go on by itself -- if YOU, personally, aren't helping it get along, YOU can expect personal repercussions.

The "landed aristocracy" isn't the same thing (in Sartar); it isn't a leisure class, and it isn't "landed."  You hold land, and work it, on behalf of the clan ... but it's still Clan land, not YOUR land.  If you delegate the duty to a lieutenant so you can go adventuring, you can expect the Clan may soon decide you were right, and reassign the land formally to your (former) lieutenant, who has demonstrated ability and dedication (unlike some slacker who calls themselves an "adventurer").

Not necessarily true. Depends on the community, the gods, your character (perhaps too useless to do much else) and even occupation (e.g., warrior).

Easy examples would be Stormbull and Humakt... Where your job is to kill things. Another might be Issaries, where as long as you're bringing in the cash, who cares what you do? 

 

But, I'll also add that usually, adventuring isn't usually the money grab that seems to be implied. Most adventuring is costly (in numerous ways), and rarely has a good payout. It normally revolves around doing stuff for other people (and helps the clan) like killing invaders, undead, chaos... And very rarely are they rich... Or even slightly wealthy. And really, anything touched by chaos should be burned... Including those 10,000 gold wheels 😆.

(However, raiding the Lunar garrison's payroll would make for a fine adventure).

[Shiningbrow]

Re: skills. Current skill in hours per roll sounds about right... Not that difficult to calculate (especially if rounding).

A teaching skill should be introduced (or somehow made part of some other communication skill). I think MRQ had this. 

[Akhôrahil]

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

But, I'll also add that usually, adventuring isn't usually the money grab that seems to be implied.

Published adventures don't really support this - they have some hefty loot in them. If nothing else, the magical items you take from your enemies.

[Darius West]

8 hours ago, g33k said:

I think the idea is, you get involved with your community, your clan.  "Full time adventurer" isn't what the rules are aimed at; your "day job" isn't an optional choice you make.  You're expected to be a responsible & engaged member of the clan, the community (more or less non-optionally).

Yeah, but situations change over the course of play.  You might start out as some carl with a herd of sheep and a pile of ambition, but you might not finish that way.  Don't we need to cover those eventualities?  Runelords don't muck out their stables.

8 hours ago, g33k said:

And your god generally cares about this stuff.  Don't expect rune-magic & rune-points if you're behaving selfishly; your god wants their whole community to thrive!  The world doesn't just go on by itself -- if YOU, personally, aren't helping it get along, YOU can expect personal repercussions.

That is a different issue, but one that definitely needs to be addressed.  It may well be that when you hit a certain point in your cult it actually becomes a liability for training purposes, but that is what illumination is for... Dodging the repercussions.

8 hours ago, g33k said:

The "landed aristocracy" isn't the same thing (in Sartar); it isn't a leisure class, and it isn't "landed."  You hold land, and work it, on behalf of the clan ... but it's still Clan land, not YOUR land.  If you delegate the duty to a lieutenant so you can go adventuring, you can expect the Clan may soon decide you were right, and reassign the land formally to your (former) lieutenant, who has demonstrated ability and dedication (unlike some slacker who calls themselves an "adventurer").

Yeah, but not everyone is a Sartarite.  What about Lunar characters or Westerners in the Holy Country?  And if you seriously think that Sartar will not be affected by foreign ideas over the course of its campaign, I would think again.  Again, the rules should cover all eventualities.

8 hours ago, g33k said:

We had an early HR in our RQ2 games:  you could only take one "training" check in any given skill, then you needed some real-world experience before you could get another training-check.  I haven't decided whether to carry that forward to RQG.

I always thought that was a good idea and that is exactly what I am alluding to.

8 hours ago, g33k said:

Something worth considering is the idea of skill-thresholds.  50%, 75%, 90% ...  We already have one threshold, at 100% -- the 100%ers can suddenly split their attacks.  99%'ers can only dream of it!

Well, most people with 99% will generally get over that hump with magic, but that's another story.  And another question come to think of it... If you have 100% and use bladesharp 4 when you do your 2 attack split, will you be at 60% or 70%?  I can see arguments both ways.

8 hours ago, g33k said:

So you might say... for "Ride(Horse)" that somewhere around 30%, you won't fall off (unless somebody knocks you off, or the horse tries to buck, or similar).  Below that, and you may just be inexperienced enough to fail a "ride in a straight line on easy ground" roll, just from the horse changing gait unexpectedly, or something like!  

I suppose in RQ people are riding bareback.  Hmmm... saddle bonuses...

[Shiningbrow]

26 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Published adventures don't really support this - they have some hefty loot in them. If nothing else, the magical items you take from your enemies.

True. I should have said "shouldn't be the money grab". 

[Shiningbrow]

13 minutes ago, Darius West said:

but that is what illumination is for... Dodging the repercussions.

Spiritually, perhaps. But not within the community. 

[French Desperate WindChild]

16 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

On the other hand, it does become far more expensive at the higher levels, and typically, it's money and not time that limits your training in RQ (trainer pay is ridiculous).

I fully agree : I think it is easier to start / learn a new language than to become a fluent guy (i have this experience in english 😛 ) that's why I would prefer a curve.

Same : easy to learn how to be stable on a horse, difficult to learn how to charge chaos monster  on a horse

 

and I like a lot the concept of "between adventures" with community role/experience :

If the PC wants to be a full student, well, he/she must lose money, lose community role / power / influence (be a leader is also a full time activity except maybe high king / high priest), lose role xp check

my issue is not how to become the super hero, it is more to allow people to change a way, learn new thing.

Let see a ernaldan farmer. She does'nt know anything about weapon *. She dedicates all her time to the clan feed. But for any reason, she wants / needs to become a warrior (maran, vingan, whatever)

How much time to become just professional ?

1season = +4% for 1 skill (role + training),  +2% for other occupational training

In one year she has ~50% in only one of her new activity core  skills. It seems hard to change.

 

* start with ~25/30% in sword AND axe AND bow AND spear AND dagger for a "standard" sartarite woman who is culturally not dedicated to fight seems to be too much, doesn't it ? I would prefer a gender table

 

[Darius West]

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Spiritually, perhaps. But not within the community. 

Okay, but if they aren't taking spirits of retribution, the community can hardly say the gods are angry with the "perp" if they are illuminated, and of course they can hardly prove the person is illuminated either.

[tnli]

I believe I've read somewhere in the rules clarification thread, that the notion of training taking an entire season actually means that besides your couple of weeks of adventuring, your duties to your temple, clan, family, city, farm, etc, you can also gain training in one skill in addition to all of the above, but no more in a single season.

The question of how many skills could you gain training in if you trained full time was left without an answer.

So, to summarize my understanding. in one season you can do all of the following:

1) Adventure (for a week or two)

2) Do you duties for your temple

3) Do your duties for your farm/etc

4) Pay and gain training in one skill.

And not much else. So if you're planning to do something that takes plenty of time (like, I dunno, travel all the way to the other side of the Genertela, build a temple, or something), you can't train, and have to make alternative arrangements for your farm not to perish, your temple not to get angry to you, etc.

Edited January 9, 2020 by tnli
Fixed errors & extended

[JustAnotherVingan]

5 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I fully agree : I think it is easier to start / learn a new language than to become a fluent guy (i have this experience in english 😛 ) that's why I would prefer a curve.

Same : easy to learn how to be stable on a horse, difficult to learn how to charge chaos monster  on a horse

 

and I like a lot the concept of "between adventures" with community role/experience :

If the PC wants to be a full student, well, he/she must lose money, lose community role / power / influence (be a leader is also a full time activity except maybe high king / high priest), lose role xp check

my issue is not how to become the super hero, it is more to allow people to change a way, learn new thing.

Let see a ernaldan farmer. She does'nt know anything about weapon *. She dedicates all her time to the clan feed. But for any reason, she wants / needs to become a warrior (maran, vingan, whatever)

How much time to become just professional ?

1season = +4% for 1 skill (role + training),  +2% for other occupational training

In one year she has ~50% in only one of her new activity core  skills. It seems hard to change.

 

* start with ~25/30% in sword AND axe AND bow AND spear AND dagger for a "standard" sartarite woman who is culturally not dedicated to fight seems to be too much, doesn't it ? I would prefer a gender table

 

If shes a Heortling farmer than some women do serve in the Fyrd. She'll get the +15% in a cultural weapon and shield from her occupation.

I'd assume that the Heroquest treatment of Red Women is still part of Heortling culture. If she takes the Red Vows shes entitled to expect support and training from a Vingan Warband or her clan warband.

So each season she'll adventure a bit, get her experience rolls, pick 4 skills from her occupation to get rolls in which includes cultural weapon and shield, and get free training in 1 skill (probably another cultural weapon) from the warband.

A Vingan farmer turned warrior is quite viable although she won't start out quite as skilled or well-equipped as a character with a background of warrior or noble. She will get access to both Ernalda and Orlanth magics.

[Shiningbrow]

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

Okay, but if they aren't taking spirits of retribution, the community can hardly say the gods are angry with the "perp" if they are illuminated, and of course they can hardly prove the person is illuminated either.

No, but I wasn't suggesting that. More that the local priest will know that they're shirking duties, responsibility to the temple, not paying tithes, etc. And most of those things are outside the interests of the gods anyway.

[Shiningbrow]

7 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

start with ~25/30% in sword AND axe AND bow AND spear AND dagger for a "standard" sartarite woman who is culturally not dedicated to fight seems to be too much, doesn't it ? I would prefer a gender table

Everyone in the culture has some weapon ability and training. Whether for defence or food. And using a weapon at 25% is something many of us can do now anyway, with bow being the hardest. 

You should be able to dance around in a melee combat and score a reasonable hit 25% of the time, and maybe parry a strike towards you with some effectiveness about 25% of the time... No???

[Lordabdul]

I do like that RQG assumes you have a main occupation to work on, familial and religious duties, etc... and that you're not a full time adventurer. It means that:

1. You're "training" your main occupation skills along with cult skills slowly but constantly.
2. You only have limited (and probably consistent) time to train anything else.

RQG already supports this. To model (1), you can pick up to 4 occupational and/or cult skills to roll for experience between adventures (RQG p416). To model (2) RQG has the training rules, where you can train only 1 skill or Rune per season. I would liberally interpret the sentence "an adventurer must train with an instructor for an entire season, and can do little else" to either mean that the trainee spends their whole time with the teacher or that the trainee uses all their free time to train, depending on the situation.

Don't forget that checkbox-equipped skills cannot be trained above 75% as per RAW.

What RQG doesn't support is:

1. A skill progression curve
   1. Instinctively, it feels like it's easier to go from newbie to novice, than from novice to intermediate, than from intermediate to advanced. Some games can get away with a linear progression because their resolution mechanics are curved (like a 3d6 mechanic that results in a bell curve where going from skill 9 to 10 gives a lot more success chances than going from skill 16 to 17). RQG however has a "flat" resolution mechanic so if you believe in the curve, it would need to be included either in terms of time or in terms of increase.
   2. If we apply the curve to training time, it means you need to track time in order to know that you can get, say, 3 "sessions" of training as a novice this season. You could make a simple table where different "tiers" of current skill rating give you a different number of experience rolls to make. Like, say, between 0% and 19% you get 4 experience rolls, and each +20% tier gives 3, 2, and 1 experience rolls. It gets weird though when you're at 15% and get 4 experience rolls, and the first roll bumps you to 20% -- I'm not sure how many more rolls you should do then.
   3. If we apply the curve to skill increase, it means you get bigger/smaller rolls based on different "tiers" of current skill. Again, a simple table would suffice. Let's say between 0% and 19% you get 3d6, then between 20% and 39% you get 2d6, and after that's it's 1d6.
2. Different skill difficulties
   1. Yes, learning surgery is probably harder than learning to tie knots. Games like GURPS do model that with different skill difficulties which translate to different character creation and training costs.
   2. I wouldn't try to add this to RQG.

Edited January 9, 2020 by lordabdul

[Shiningbrow]

7 hours ago, tnli said:

 

So, to summarize my understanding. in one season you can do all of the following:

1) Adventure (for a week or two)

2) Do you duties for your temple

3) Do your duties for your farm/etc

4) Pay and gain training in one skill.

And not much else. So if you're planning to do something that takes plenty of time (like, I dunno, travel all the way to the other side of the Genertela, build a temple, or something), you can't train, and have to make alternative arrangements for your farm not to perish, your temple not to get angry to you, etc.

Temple duties for most initiates is only 10% of your time.

Duties to farm will purely depend on occupation.

So, yeah, need a much better answer. How's, as a guess, I'd say normally you can only get a maximum of 2 hours training per day. Remove farming, and you can treble/quadruple that!

Edited January 9, 2020 by Shiningbrow
Typo

[g33k]

7 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

...

* start with ~25/30% in sword AND axe AND bow AND spear AND dagger for a "standard" sartarite woman who is culturally not dedicated to fight seems to be too much, doesn't it ? I would prefer a gender table

I'd be strongly against anything gender'ed.

I cannot tell you how much I hate the idea of "not as skilled, because she's a girl."

Base the differences on the cultural roles,  profession, and the Cults.  People following "peaceful" professions & Cults (Barntar, Ernalda, etc) get many more "peaceful" skills, regardless of gender.  People following "adventurer" Cults get combat-related and other "adventuring" skills, regardless of gender.

 

[Austin]

Quote

However, any ability listed on the adventurer sheet at or above 75% with an experience check box cannot be trained— it must be improved through experience.

RQG 416 seems relevant to this conversation. Most skills can't be trained at the point where they should drop off extensively. Issues still remain for Knowledge skills & a few magic skills.