[+]Training and Reward, not Assumed Advancement

[doctorbadwolf]

Sorry I annoyed you, man. Wasn't my intention. Tried to engage as best I could.

It’s fine man I just get frustrated when even when I try to start over it just doesn’t work.

In Call of Cthulhu 7th, you raise your skills in a two step process.

First, you must successfully use the skill during a session. This marks it.
Second, at the end of an adventure you must attempt a roll for all of the skills you're marked and fail a skill roll. This makes high skills harder to raise.

This seems to fulfill the requirements put forth.

So yeah this is what I don’t want.

I’m fine with being able to start training something by interacting with it in play, but the primary method of improvement in Crossroads is taking the Training Endeavor during downtime in a safe haven. You can try to get a day of training (or another endeavor) during a rest in the field, but if you succeed you can’t do so again until you take an extended rest (downtime in a safe haven).

So, you have some ability to improve during adventuring, but there is very very little reason to ever hunt for checks.

Where this most comes into play is not in skills, but in Traits and especially Techniques.

Traits are like D&D feats, but with Minor and Major Traits. Techniques are a type of traits. You get traits with your starting choices, but from then on you choose them pretty freely.

But with techniques you can improvise them in play, which is riskier but lets you do wild stuff. If you do, or if you defend against a technique, or anything like that, you can start to basically figure out how to perfect it and turn it into a regular technique via training.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So let me try one more time on reading that: this is the opposite of most of the BRP games where, in practice, most of the advancement comes from in-game use, supplemented by training. In yours the primary advancement is done with training, supplemented by learn-by-doing to finish it up on occasion.

Is that a fair evaluation?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So let me try one more time on reading that: this is the opposite of most of the BRP games where, in practice, most of the advancement comes from in-game use, supplemented by training. In yours the primary advancement is done with training, supplemented by learn-by-doing to finish it up on occasion.

Is that a fair evaluation?

Yeah, that’s pretty close to the mark.

I’d be open to more “learn by doing” dynamic, but tbh it’s just a headache any way I’ve seen it done, except maybe The One Ring?

It’s been too long since I got to play TOR 1st edition, but IIRC you have pips in each skill group, and when you get a certain type of result on a check with any skill in that group you get a pip for that group, which can then be spent to improve any skill in that group.

Crossroads only has 3 skill groups (Physical, Interactive, and Magical), so something like this might be fairly smooth.

Still, I’d be wary of it as a common thing.

What might be interesting is allowing a head start on training a new skill or specialty when you either fail X checks with it, or get a critical success in spite of not being trained in it. Failures would incentivize letting failures stand sometimes, rather than always Push them to success.

It’s just that same issue of check hunting.

So as it stands, I don’t have a mechanic like that, but I’m curious about possibilities.

 

[pemerton]

For "check-mongering", you might want to look at how Burning Wheel, Torchbearer or Dungeon World handles it.

 

[TheSword]

I like the fact that trainers can be NPCs the party have met in their careers. It brings a place to life and gives PCs a reason to care about the folks they interact with. Decreases murder hoboism. It’s also an alternative way of rewarding.

WFRP4 uses a system where you can improve within key attributes and skills related to your career but can expand into new skills and attributes with training.

 

[TheSword]

On the other hand the problem with learning by doing is that it can quickly lead to repetition as a way to specialize. Which can get boring fast. Most folks playing Skyrim have spent time grinding out spells or attacks at some early point.

 

[the Jester]

Honestly, training aside, this sounds a bit like the old school "you only earn xp for what you do" approach instead of the more modern "everyone gets xp at the same rate". In other words, actually use xp; don't give it to absent pcs; don't use milestones or story based advancement; and add training time and cost back in. I like the first half of it, but adding in training time and costs is... ehh... a bit problematic.

For example, let's say you are going to require one week of downtime to gain a feat. (An arbitrary amount of time, I know.) Does that include ability score increases? When only one pc qualifies to gain a feat, what do the rest do with that time? What if all of them qualify but only one has enough money to pay for the training?

Are you allowing pcs to gain training in a feat irrespective of whether their level allows it?

I'll also point to the downtime rules for gaining proficiencies, which already exist (250 days, 1 gp/day), though I think by RAW they are only for tools and languages. You could easily adapt them to allow for more skills, weapon and armor proficiencies, and the like- but then, do you care if the pcs take 9 years off to gain proficiency in ten things? How does this compare to just buying/training in a feat for armor proficiency?

(I haven't read the entire thread yet, so maybe some of this has already been addressed.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, that’s pretty close to the mark.

I’d be open to more “learn by doing” dynamic, but tbh it’s just a headache any way I’ve seen it done, except maybe The One Ring?

It kind of is, which is why these days I mostly just use the "here's some experience, spend it as you will" methods, but if you want that sort of relationship from in-game actions to advancement, what you're doing is defensible.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It kind of is, which is why these days I mostly just use the "here's some experience, spend it as you will" methods, but if you want that sort of relationship from in-game actions to advancement, what you're doing is defensible.

Yeah “learn by doing” is tough, but “learn by learning (training/research/etc)” works really smoothly and still gets to that place of “I learned to trick shoot with pistols because I spent time learning how”.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah “learn by doing” is tough, but “learn by learning (training/research/etc)” works really smoothly and still gets to that place of “I learned to trick shoot with pistols because I spent time learning how”.

The only problem with it is that some skills you can end up using much more frequently in the field than any training supplies, of course. Horsemanship is an obvious case, but if you spend a whole lot of time out in enemy territory perception skills and the like apply too, or in a seaborn campaign, Seamanship. But then, nothing is going to be simple about this sort of thing.