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Message: <blockquote data-quote="T. Foster" data-source="post: 3683799" data-attributes="member: 16574">The Universal Task Profile (UTP) system in MegaTraveller is brilliant, IMO the best such system ever devised for an rpg. A few points that don't become apparent until you've played around with it for awhile:Having 7 and 11 be the target numbers for the two most commonly rolled difficulty classes makes them easy to remember -- anyone who's ever played craps will be able to remember that you want 7 or 11.The stat adjustment being stat/5 dropping fractions corresponds perfectly to the 2D distribution for character stats: 2-4 = +0, 5-9 = +1, 10-12 = +2; +1 is the standard (2/3 of the distribution), with the bottom 1/6 of the distribution being 1 worse than standard (i.e. 0) and the top 1/6 of the distribution being 1 better (i.e. +2). Bell-curve-tastic!Traveller canonically defines skill-3 as "professional" level (see Doctors); with the standard stat adjustment (and "basic familiarity" with a skill) being +1, a character performing a task at a professional level is likely to have a combined DM (skill+stat or skill+skill) of +4, which is exactly one level of difficulty -- i.e. a professional performing a routine task is effectively simple, a professional performing a difficult task is effectively routine, and so forth. Furthermore, the max DM cap of +8 means that the "best person in the world" has an effective bonus of two levels of difficulty -- the difficult is simple, the formidable routine, and even the near impossible is merely difficult.Because of the interchangeability of stat and skill adjustments in the system, tasks don't always have to be defined as stat+skill and can just as easily be skill+skill or stat+stat (or even statx2 or skillx2 if the referee so desires), which enormously expands the referee's options in defining tasks, and makes the system vastly more versatile.Cautious attempts doubling the duration but making the task one difficulty level easier, and Hasty attempts halving the duration but making the task difficulty one level harder, is brilliant in its logic and simplicity -- if faced with a difficult task, do it carefully and it will effectively become routine; likewise you can hurry through a rotuine task but that makes it difficult.Likewise with Retries and Determination -- if you just barely fail at a task (miss the target by 1) you can try the task again, and even if you failed badly (missed the target by 2+) you can still try again but you have to make an effort to stay Determined or the task will becomes harder (+1 difficulty level) unless you step away from it for awhile (10x the duration of the failed task) to regroup mentally.The UTP is an entire game-system in 3 pages; everything else is just examples and background color. I'm so attached to the UTP system that I honestly have zero interest in any new edition of Traveller that doesn't use it (or at least something very close to it).</blockquote>

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