Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Rolemaster => RMSS/FRP => Topic started by: Fullerton on April 24, 2008, 01:14:18 PM
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Preface: I'm a RM player from 20 years ago, so I don't have any experience with training packages. I am indifferent toward them, and I'm not interested in a discussion of why they are good or why they are bad.
From a game design perspective, what purpose do Training Packages serve?
Are they intended to:
- Make character generation easier? (If so, how?)
- Offer things a character can't get anywhere else? (If so, what?)
- Alter the rank/level limit? (If so, why?)
- Offer things more cheaply than a character could get elsewhere? (If so, why?)
- Something else?
I'm trying to understand (for example) whether it would be useful to add training packages to a version of RM that does not have them, OR remove training packages from a version that does have them.
Thanks!
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My opinion is they typically made characters more well rounded and fit their background concepts better. Least that is my groups opinion.
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It's also useful for knowing what types of skills a particular job might have. Especially with a large skill list, a player might wonder, "What sort of skills would a detective have?" Voila! The detective TP gives it right to you. Not only that, it gives you at least the chance to pick up some items, contacts, whatever that a person practicing that job might logically possess. It alos tells you how long it takes to develop all that. Apart from the mechanical bits, it's a good role-playing aid as well. And what Dark Mistress said.
jolt
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I'm trying to understand (for example) whether it would be useful to add training packages to a version of RM that does not have them, OR remove training packages from a version that does have them.
I think that the best way to do that would be to list good points and bad points both, and then decide if it is worth it to YOU to include them.
Good
- More well rounded characters
- Fewer choices make for quicker chargen & leveling
- Can be customized to your setting
- Can adds lots of flavor
- Can be used to flesh out backgrounds
- Can be used to give such non-tangible things as contacts/obligations
Bad
- Often treated as nothing more than a way to get skills more cheaply
- Obligations/restrictions often ignored/forgotten
- Has a different cost for each profession (take a look at the Master TP Cost Table in the RMSS/FRP section of the Vault to see how out of hand this can get!!!)
Personally, I would not give items or equipment though Training Packages.
As for what they were intended for, Sorry, but cannot answer that as I wasn't part of ICE when they were created.
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I personally like TPs. They do have a different cost for each profession, and they do offer skills more cheaply, but they also force that character to take all required skills. I always play them so that the skills gained count towards the cost per lvl. So if a TP gives climbing (1) to a character who has climbing at 2/6, the character gets the 2 rank free, and must pay 6 to get a second rank. Of course, if the TP gives 2 climbing ranks, the character cannot buy any more.
However, i agree with Rasyr when he says that the obligations/restrictions must be played out and applied. Otherwise they are just another munchkin tool.
I do think they work very well if the characters start with several levels, where they become something of a lifepath system.
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I'm trying to understand whether it would be useful to add training packages to a version of RM that does not have them, OR remove training packages from a version that does have them.
NB! In the following, the difference in capitalization of "profession" is intentional.
My take on training packages is that they remove focus from the names of the Professions, allowing for more specialized "profession titles". By doing this, the Professions are reduced to being mainly development templates (and should, IMHO, no longer be termed Professions), and effectively provide both a lot of different professions and an easy and painless way of allowing for profession changes for characters.
For example, the character Alpha has the Profession Fighter. This determines the development costs and similar aspects of him. Alpha's player states that Alpha has been a soldier, purchasing the relevant Soldier TP; Alpha's profession is Soldier. Years later Alpha retires to a life of horticulture, and Alpha's player purchases the Farmer TP, obtaining the profession Farmer.
This all works well with non-spell casters. For spell casters, I think the association of spell lists to Professions is wrong, and would much rather have spell lists on the Training Packages. Thereby, a Greek Elementalist who travels to live in China could purchase the Chinese Elementalist TP and start learning Chinese elementalism spells, giving up further development of his Greek elementalism spells. Or the Elementalist could even join a religious order, learning spells relevant to that order instead of the elementalism spells! I'm well aware that this places a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of the GM, but that should not stop us or ICE from producing the best system possible! ;D
//K
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I have used TPs in RMC and they pose no problems at all. I think that they allow for more characterisation. A fighter can be a guard, soldier, marine, watchman, archer........
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First I would have to say I like Rasyrs words above on TP's.
I do use them in my game but I have seen a down side also. Just because you take the weapon master TP does not mean you are a weapon master.
But I also see them have a strong impact on my game in a positive light. Another option is if you have Talent Law or other product that has race creation rules there is an area in which there are a number of free ranks to be givin for adolesent development. I use TL because that is the one I reember the varable #'s of skill for background development. For RMSS a GM can give the racial background up to 60 skill ranks for free if I remember right but most give around 40 or so. So as a GM I can go in a provide more ranks in areas that need it or have more backgruond ranks for PC's to place. IMO it is a great way to flush out the begining PC but IMO it has to be closely watched by the GM as it can be broken quickly by vetern players. ie I put 10 ranks in spells etc.
All in all I am glade I use them and I have even thought of having a TP package for each adventure providing a discount on the skills used during the adventure and maybe proding the player to up some skills instead of looking for a NPC specalist.
MDC
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Thanks for the responses so far. More questions:
Is it true that training packages allow you to "break" any rank-per-level limits that otherwise exist? For example, if my cost to develop a skill is 2/7, I could normally only get two ranks per level. But if I can buy two ranks for 9 points (total) and also get one (or two or more) additional ranks by buying a training package, then the *real* rank-per-level limit is no longer 2.
Could an alternative training package system meet the background/characterization and ease-of-leveling goals if they were essentially just a wrapper around conventionally developed ranks? In other words, in this alternative system, buying a training package doesn't give you anything that you couldn't get by just spending all your development points on ranks normally. Or rather, you could build exactly the same character (with exactly the same final bonuses) by using training packages AND by not using training packages.
Also, I'm not sure training packages really reduce the choices necessary for char gen & leveling. It seems like the opposite to me. Without training packages, you choose from amongst N skills and need to understand the trade-offs associated with those N items. With training packages, you choose from among N skills and M training packages, and thus need to understand the trade-offs associated with N+M items. (Not to mention the apparent complexity of finding the master costs tables.)
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Also, I'm not sure training packages really reduce the choices necessary for char gen & leveling. It seems like the opposite to me. Without training packages, you choose from amongst N skills and need to understand the trade-offs associated with those N items. With training packages, you choose from among N skills and M training packages, and thus need to understand the trade-offs associated with N+M items. (Not to mention the apparent complexity of finding the master costs tables.)
Nicely said, this is one of the my main reasons I stopped using Training Packages. It just makes everything more complex, and It's a lot of bookkeeping to even maintain which ones are valid and their costs. I don't feel they add anything since they are just a mechanism for picking skills. it's not like you can't duplicate the same effect by making a sensible character that matches their background and experiences.
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In RMFRP, the skill ranks gained from Training Packages do not count against those purchased for the level because the ranks themselves are considered to be a side effect of the package. And you are buying the package, not the individual skills (because the TP gives OTHER benefits as well).
In regards to the # of options
I should of have said "can", not implied that it "does". It actually depends on how you use talents. I have seen it where the GM allows only 2 TPs per level, and no individual skill purchases at all. He also created a number of TPs for those professions with spells, that allowed them to get some ranks in base spell lists.
Or, as you mentioned it CAN increase the number of choices as well (knew there was something I forgot to mention on the Bad side... heheh).
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Also the TP has a time factor in it so in general it is tough to buy during a level if adventuring. If you do not use the time factor it can become broken real quickly.
MDC
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Also the TP has a time factor in it so in general it is tough to buy during a level if adventuring. If you do not use the time factor it can become broken real quickly.
IMO, game world time costs are a poor balancing factor.
There are character-building situations where time is not relevant: Characters for a one-shot game, or leveling a character just before an intentional two-year campaign advancement (which happened just after an adventure's climax).
If time costs are the only balancing factor, then it means characters who level in different out-of-game circumstances are not balanced against one another.
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Also, I'm not sure training packages really reduce the choices necessary for char gen & leveling. It seems like the opposite to me. Without training packages, you choose from amongst N skills and need to understand the trade-offs associated with those N items. With training packages, you choose from among N skills and M training packages, and thus need to understand the trade-offs associated with N+M items. (Not to mention the apparent complexity of finding the master costs tables.)
OTOH when doing development without TPs, you have to make development choices for ~90 DPs (in RMSS/RMFRP where TPs exist). With TPs this amount can be dramatically reduced. For new players this can be quite nice as they might have to care about only 10-20 DPs or so when creating their 1st level PC and choose 2 or 3 TPs. Therefore I agree to Rasyr that fewer choices have to be made for chargen (and perhaps also leveling).
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Think of a RM Training package as kind of like a "Job" in Warhammer FRPG or a Kit in A D & D 2nd edition, except you get all the upgrades at once. It's a way to turn a generic character class into a unique person. (A mercenary and an adventurer are both fighters, but have different skills)
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Also the TP has a time factor in it so in general it is tough to buy during a level if adventuring. If you do not use the time factor it can become broken real quickly.
IMO, game world time costs are a poor balancing factor.
There are character-building situations where time is not relevant: Characters for a one-shot game, or leveling a character just before an intentional two-year campaign advancement (which happened just after an adventure's climax).
If time costs are the only balancing factor, then it means characters who level in different out-of-game circumstances are not balanced against one another.
I can say in a fantasy game I only allow TP's for the App Dev level and they can pick 1 TP. To get another one at level App costs 10 talent
points. IMO if you do allow more than this it can be unbalancing if some take it and some do not. But aside from that IMO it also gives players a good idea on what skills a job might require instead of buying the standard weapon, spell, armor, hits and awareness.
So in my case I do not allow them to be bought for higher levels unless I am playing in SM:P where they are a must as it makes background better and more full. I also have players make a backgound that has to be approved by me the GM. So no more I am a Navy SEAL at adol. type stuff.
MDC
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Also the TP has a time factor in it so in general it is tough to buy during a level if adventuring. If you do not use the time factor it can become broken real quickly.
IMO, game world time costs are a poor balancing factor.
There are character-building situations where time is not relevant: Characters for a one-shot game, or leveling a character just before an intentional two-year campaign advancement (which happened just after an adventure's climax).
If time costs are the only balancing factor, then it means characters who level in different out-of-game circumstances are not balanced against one another.
I can say in a fantasy game I only allow TP's for the App Dev level and they can pick 1 TP. To get another one at level App costs 10 talent
points. IMO if you do allow more than this it can be unbalancing if some take it and some do not. But aside from that IMO it also gives players a good idea on what skills a job might require instead of buying the standard weapon, spell, armor, hits and awareness.
So in my case I do not allow them to be bought for higher levels unless I am playing in SM:P where they are a must as it makes background better and more full. I also have players make a backgound that has to be approved by me the GM. So no more I am a Navy SEAL at adol. type stuff.
MDC
I take a different path... the character is encouraged to purchase as many TP's as they can, since I generally start characters at 2nd level... with a maximum of 4-6 TP's total.
This makes the characters with a well-rounded skills set (including those the players might think a waste of DP but the character should have... and the character has a background story to explain a good 3-5 years of pre-game time.
The balance issue is only a issue if you as a GM let it be.
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I've gathered some key points:
1) Sometimes it's useful to have pre-built groups of skills to help players (especially new players) understand which skills are useful for certain roles, or help give flavor to their characters.
2) Sometimes it's useful to have pre-built groups of skills to help a character achieve well-roundedness in their skill set. (This is close to #1, but a bit different.)
3) Some people appear to dislike the cost discount, or at the very least some people can point out problems with the discounts. (I've observed that here and in other threads.) Nobody explicitly said the training package cost discount is a good thing. (But I see some people flirting with the idea.)
4) Consequence of 2 & 3: If well-roundedness is a desirable goal in the game, and if it is primarily achieved through training packages, perhaps that means skill costs are too high*, or there are too many skills in the game.
Or to put it another way, for some future version of RM, it's worth eliminating training packages as they exist today in favor of other mechanisms that directly solve any problems that today's training packages happen to indirectly solve.
* Or maybe development points are too low. But increasing development points in order to increase breadth can backfire, since those extra points can be spent very optimally on things *other* than breadth. So I'm not really in favor of increasing development points. There are probably better ways to solve a problem that seems to be solvable via increasing development points. Or at the very least, if you think you need to solve a problem by increasing development points by 5, you can/should probably try to solve the problem with just 1 or 2 points instead.
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I actually like that the package gives you a slightly discounted bundle. You get them a bit cheaper, and with the capacity for exceeding level limit, at the downside of having to buy the whole bundle (which may not be what you always wanted)
I wholeheartedly love the TP's and would hate to see them disappear.
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Training packages were designed to annoy Rasyr.
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I think another big problem with Training Packages is they very much assume you use the standard set of skills in RMSS. Once you start rearranging skills and/or removing skills, Training Packages start quickly dropping off in utility as now they need to be tweaked to account for skills that no longer are in use.
Since skill sets are one of the most widely tweaked things for RM GMs I think this is one of the more serious flaws of them.
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Well, as currently presented they have that problem. A lot of it could have been mitigated by equalizing the number of ranks in the category with the number of ranks in the skills and providing a standard number of skills in each category. For instance two skills per category would make it so you could just drop the categories or skills while maintaining compatabilty.
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I am with Vroom that I do not like the TP of RMSS, when you combined the TP with the Cultural Packages, it was one of the MAIN concerns that made me NOT switch when RMSS first came out.
I do like the Idea of having a "Cultural" or "apprentice" days Package. I am working on something like this for a Online game I am looking to start up. My packages would basically replace the "hobbies" given in RM2/RMC, and actually may give more than that option did in the first place. These packages can only be chosen at the beginning of character creation and are a one time reward. They represent the Every man skills learned in a specific culture and the skills one Truly would have learned from ones apprenticeships.
The actually number of skills received would be small and some would Costs 0 level DPS.
A Human PC who started out in a city might have a different racial package than a human who started out in a rural community or even a barbarian tribe. Could even have a package for the Abandoned in the wild orphan.
The apprenticeship packages would be things like scholar, Merchant, Farm boy, Blacksmith and street urchin. These would help flesh out the skills of a beginning character. Development of the character after his early years moves as he chooses to learn.
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I do like that TP give a 25% discount [I think] on skills to represent constant use or advanced training. That said I think the 25% could also be expanded to teaching in some way. I kow there are rules for learning from teachers but I do not remember any that really jump off the page to me.
If you as a GM are simply looking to provide a way to "well round" the PC's, I would just give them ranks and say you can spend them in X categories or what ever system from RM2 you use.
MDC
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IMO is for enrich the character creation, you know that you can make different characters with the same profession, simply by ranks, but with background options (using talents, but carefully, is better) and TPs you can create a great different types of characters using the same profession as base.
I see that for lvl 1 characters this is very important, for example you can see that a MA user is very different in lvl 1 if use TP Ninja or use any other based on increasing its MA mainly.
Later (greater lvls), I see that is a good method of trainning, if you have a character some time out of play, you can do a TP and save some DPs.
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I don't like TPs, I think it's basically used to give away ranks and various things. If you want a character without TP, you lose means that characters with TPs do get. Besides that, I don't like to drive the characters towars a second pattern, I think the costs by profession are more than enough.
OTOH I think it's an element that breaks the so-beloved balance in RMSS/FRP, but I'm not the best to speak about it since I don't use TPs and play RM2 ;D
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I like the TP's. However, I only allow them to be chosen at chargen, and only 1 lifestyle package may be taken, but as many vocations as the PC can afford. I treat TP's more like a background or past experiences.
Like many others, I believe they add to a PC's background and character concept...
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The idea makes sense -- there are skillsets that have synergies so that you can advance further in a basket of skills in a particular time than you would expect from considering them alone -- but the execution looks pretty bad, to me (although better than it was in Arms Companion, where they comprised perhaps the worst element of the worst RM Companion). They made sense in MERP as the equivalent of the RM adolescence packages, too, based on race/culture.
Maybe the problem is just that the RM skill-buy system (which I generally like, even the idea, in principle of the RMSS/FRP category/skill divide) wasn't designed with ease of conversion to a potentially large number of training packages across a wide number of professions. Also, people that see training packages as alternatives to professions (ie, classes), which are not about cost synergies but about personal qualities relating to what particular individuals can learn quickly versus what they can't, would be, in my opinion, misusing them.
Arguably, as well, some Training Package costs for vocational style TPs that are attained through an organisation, are lower than the sum of their parts in part because of an established teaching regime with teachers who are good at their job. That's a complicated road down which to go, however.
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I like the TP's. However, I only allow them to be chosen at chargen, and only 1 lifestyle package may be taken, but as many vocations as the PC can afford. I treat TP's more like a background or past experiences.
Like many others, I believe they add to a PC's background and character concept...
That's exactly how we did it. In fact, it never occured to me, or anyone else in my group, to allow someone to take a package after creation. Such a character would effectively be leaving the party to pursue this career path (unless your groups have vastly longer downtimes between adventures than ours ever did). One-shot adventures typically have characters specifically designed for that adventure making the issue rather moot, IMO. I've certainly never come across an instance where a TP "broke " the game.
Also, people that see training packages as alternatives to professions (ie, classes), which are not about cost synergies but about personal qualities relating to what particular individuals can learn quickly versus what they can't, would be, in my opinion, misusing them.
I confess I'm not following you here. How are they being misused; compared to what?
jolt
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I like TPs, they add character depth and make easier to figure out what skills would certain NPCs have. I agree that they also make chargen quicker.
I think that TPs should not make skills cheaper: IMHO they should be used only for flavor (and maybe give a few items/ benefits) or as templates to build character quicker.
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I'm a pretty big fan of TPs as well. I don't mind the reduced cost because it promotes people buying skills that round out there characters. In addition, there might be skills in a TP that the character doesn't really need (or even want), and the cost reduction mitigates him having to take them.
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I'd actually prefer a system where there were less professions and MORE emphasis on TP's and Talents to create the "fringe" professions.
Limit the number of professions to, say about 5.
Non, Arms, Semi, Hybrid, Pure.
That would simplify the DP costs tables both for basic skills purchases and those for TP's.
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I'd actually prefer a system where there were less professions and MORE emphasis on TP's and Talents to create the "fringe" professions.
Limit the number of professions to, say about 5.
Non, Arms, Semi, Hybrid, Pure.
That would simplify the DP costs tables both for basic skills purchases and those for TP's.
I so agree. Five templates would be perfect.
lynn
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I'd actually prefer a system where there were less professions and MORE emphasis on TP's and Talents to create the "fringe" professions.
Limit the number of professions to, say about 5.
Non, Arms, Semi, Hybrid, Pure.
That would simplify the DP costs tables both for basic skills purchases and those for TP's.
I so agree. Five templates would be perfect.
lynn
Or less skill costs ... ;D :Joker2:
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I'm starting a game campaign shortly (Echoes of Heaven) and I'm making the players take two TPs to encourage well-rounded characters, give the characters basic professional skills and to help shape the character background.
I'm actually making the TPs even cheaper so the players spend the remaining DPs on broadening their professional and general skills (this will be enforced) rather than feeling they have to concentrate their DPs on only a few skills.
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Also, people that see training packages as alternatives to professions (ie, classes), which are not about cost synergies but about personal qualities relating to what particular individuals can learn quickly versus what they can't, would be, in my opinion, misusing them.
I confess I'm not following you here. How are they being misused; compared to what?
jolt
Professions are about individuals and their capabilities and talents, with particular regard to how they can learn to do things. TPs are about skill synergies, reflecting that it can be easier to learn skills A and B together than completely seperately, and can also be used to reflect the learning context. Using TPs to reflect professions is to confuse the skills with the ability to learn skills.
As for only five templates, that seems bizarre to me. I don't see how the whole of humanity in <em>our</em> world, let alone a fantasy world including other species, would have their learning capabilities described by five categorisations. You could have five categories and then the ability to shuffle skill costs to individualise, of course, but that means many <em>more</em> professions, just expressed with less explicit lists. It'd also allow epic munchkinising, of course, so maybe there'd be a complex additional set of rules to prevent that (although I'm not a game-balance fanatic, myself).
Incidentally, the choice of the word 'profession' as a name was pretty poor, I think. Professions are chosen, but learning capabilities are not.
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When I GMed RMSS intensively, one of my house rule was to use Rasyr's irregular realms (in TGC IIRC) and giving each player a free TP at chargen. For more example, you can follow that link to TGC (http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/2003/jan/integrat.html (http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/2003/jan/integrat.html)).
That way characters were well rounded and defined. That's the main interest for TPs IMHO.
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Incidentally, the choice of the word 'profession' as a name was pretty poor, I think. Professions are chosen, but learning capabilities are not.
Which is why I always capitalize "Profession" when using the term from the rules. A term like "Aptitudes" would, IMHO, have been better.
//K
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I don't see how the whole of humanity in our world, let alone a fantasy world including other species, would have their learning capabilities described by five categorisations.
This is a game, not the real world. No game will ever portray the real world well. Not even RM does. RM is great and fun, but a lousy simulation of real life.
Forgoing a long and dull arguement about the shortcomings of rpg's to simulate reality, five templates could easily simulate any profession a player wanted. The profession is either a non spell user, a semi spell user, a pure spell user or a hybrid spell user.
Each template can them be better defined by choosing specializations, such as a non spell user specializing in stealth and athletic skills, or combat and stealth, or knowledge and stealth, or perception and combat, etc. The other templates could provide for the same specialization, creating a vast array of possible professions far greater than 20+ pre-set professions. Training packages could fit right in that design.
lynn
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I'm starting a game campaign shortly (Echoes of Heaven) and I'm making the players take two TPs to encourage well-rounded characters, give the characters basic professional skills and to help shape the character background.
I'm actually making the TPs even cheaper so the players spend the remaining DPs on broadening their professional and general skills (this will be enforced) rather than feeling they have to concentrate their DPs on only a few skills.
I did this also in a SM:P game. I gave everyone the high school TP for free and let them go on from there.
MDC
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I don't see how the whole of humanity in our world, let alone a fantasy world including other species, would have their learning capabilities described by five categorisations.
This is a game, not the real world. No game will ever portray the real world well. Not even RM does. RM is great and fun, but a lousy simulation of real life.
Forgoing a long and dull arguement about the shortcomings of rpg's to simulate reality, five templates could easily simulate any profession a player wanted. The profession is either a non spell user, a semi spell user, a pure spell user or a hybrid spell user.
Each template can them be better defined by choosing specializations, such as a non spell user specializing in stealth and athletic skills, or combat and stealth, or knowledge and stealth, or perception and combat, etc. The other templates could provide for the same specialization, creating a vast array of possible professions far greater than 20+ pre-set professions. Training packages could fit right in that design.
lynn
Then with the specialisations you have the situation I was talking about.
Although 20 professions is merely a start. I'm an RM2 disciple and I like the companions (other than Arms Companion), so there are many available professions in my game. However you cut it, though, TPs aren't doing the same thing as professions, which express aptitudes.
As for representation of reality, of course, no game will ever achieve perfection. However, the huge range of aptitude sets we have is not something I'd want to give up; it's part of why we're interesting, why life is interesting and why gaming to roleplay characters is interesting. I'd wave goodbye to, say, 10 martial arts styles without a qualm, of course.
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Smug,
IMO TP's were a way for RMSS to move away from the "need a new profession" of RM2 to explain a new skill set or type of PC. In RM2 I might use TP's to show PC's how or what skills are needed for a "profession"/occupation or a job. I am not saying you can not use TP's in a RM2 game I am just saying IMO they were designed to fill a whole in the RMSS character creation section.
In RMSS we do now have a problem with creating a new profession for each time we need to create a set of base lists, instead of having 1 generic profession for each type of magic and having optional base lists. But IMO it is something I can overlook in the big scheam of things.
MDC
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I don't have a problem with TPs in principle in RM2, but they just aren't the same thing as professions; they aren't defining a set of aptitudes, they're merely codifying the extent of synergies in particular groups of skills when learnt together in a particular context. Indeed, we can see the difference in the fact that the training packages have different costs for each profession (as they should).
As for base lists, sure, I don't see why you need a new profession every time (although sometimes the underlying aptitude set would justify a new profession).
To best reflect the best parts of reality, RM needs many professions or else a 'customise your own profession' system (ie, even more professions in effect).
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Smug,
I think what I was trying to say is that in RM2 you have many professions, in RMSS you can give a profession a spell list as part of the TP. This in essence does not mean you need a new profession but can provide varations on a single profession to fit many areas in which you would need a new profession in RM2. I am not trying to say one is better than the other but just that the TP idea for RMSS and the TP idea for RM2 come about it from two different directions.
MDC
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Well, I was generally excluding spell lists (on which I don't have a strong opinion either way) other than in passing. I'm more interested in skills, in my comments.
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In my opinion, the idea of a training package is to create a more interesting first level character. In RM2, all fighters looked pretty much alike. Now, you can have a focus at the beginning. Amateur Mage, Hunter, and Soldier will change the overall look of a fighter greatly. In addition, you can get a oiece of equipment that is appropriate to your area of study.
Too many traning packages will really mess up a game.
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Back to the proliferation of Training packages and what they are used for.
The most annoying thing about training packages is that they often don't tie in with new supplements when they are released, and then you have to manually work them out yourself.
Case in point. Construct Companion. No costs at all....
This I suspect is because of the sheer mass of Professions available. Reduce the number of Base "Professions" ( I prefer the term personality template myself as it defines the ease with which a person learns specific skills) and you prevent the constant revisions, cross-referencing and redunancy required every time a supplement comes out. This frees up space for background ideas and guidelines for each training package.
I also suspect that, to a degree, the skills within the packages could also be abbrievated...
but that would mean that the Category progressions would need to weighted to compensate. (Perhaps decreasing skill bonuses to +2 and increase category bonuses to +3 per rank)
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I suspect they were done for good reasons, but they irk me.
They encourage you to take a group of related skills for a discount. . .but if your character concept already has you buying a related group of skills you don't get a discount if it's not a group of skills covered by an existing TP.
So perhaps it encourages power gamers with their eye on the costs to pick up skills for the discount they'd never bother with, making them more rounded, but that's what many gamers do regardless, create realistic, rounded characters. . .it's sort of like bribing munchkins.
To that end, I find that munchkins just turn around and game them anyway to min/max ahead. Especially the ranking limits, how often have you seen a character who took serial packages that give OB or spells without caring at all what all the other skills were? So getting way over the top ranks in one skill is the whole goal, and their character accidentally forms from the pastiche of odds and ends in the TPs associated with the one or two skills the character wanted.
There are a lot of TPs, but it's not exhaustive, and in the end, at least for me, it's bribing people to round out, but only from among a limited set, which leads to "It pays to create a rounded beleivable character, but only if you use our building blocks, if you create a rounded beleivable concept on your own, you pay full price." which feels kind of railroady to me. . .and create your own TPs can lead to a mess. . . if you tailor make a TP for each level of each character, then why not just drop the costs of all skills by a fixed percentage?
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I suppose the point is that if you give a set discount on skills, them let them create thier own concept then munchkins will ONLY choose those that have an immediate benifit to thier own character concept with respect to weapons skills and Body Development etc
About the only basic RMSS TP that could be biased that way would be the Weapon Master, and on that score I agree completely....ALL weapon skills nothing else, a very poorly designed TP. Looking at that particular one I can see why people have a bad impression of TP's. (It's not one I allow or choose to take myself).
However, as far as breaking the superfluous 10 rank limit for skills based on training packages... again that's up to the individual GM to assess the effect on the campaign. Spend long enough doing something (training packages)you will get good at it (common sense), the rules already have a diminishing returns on ranks purchased so for most skills (little used Lore/Language skills in particular) exceeding the rank limit is a fairly harmless thing.
I'd like to see more of the TP effectively be "primers" to represent some of the more esoteric professions, rather than just publishing a specific Profession to fit a percieved gap.
Where this system worked well was the "Run Out the Guns" Set.
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There are a lot of TPs, but it's not exhaustive, and in the end, at least for me, it's bribing people to round out, but only from among a limited set, which leads to "It pays to create a rounded beleivable character, but only if you use our building blocks, if you create a rounded beleivable concept on your own, you pay full price." which feels kind of railroady to me. . .and create your own TPs can lead to a mess.
Without having used them myself, that was basically the conclusion I came to after reading the responses to my original question.
. . if you tailor make a TP for each level of each character, then why not just drop the costs of all skills by a fixed percentage?
I'm not sure I'd drop the cost of *all* skills by a fixed percentage.
But I think it might be good to drop the cost of skills that fall into the "well rounded" bucket. I'm not sure what those skills are, exactly, but there you go :)
Alternatively, instead of having one mass of development points to spend on anything and everything, you could compartmentalize some or all of the dps such that they must get spent on certain groups of skills. And they could get moved to other compartments, but at a cost; perhaps a 2-1 transfer rate. For every 2 dps you move from category A, you can add 1 dp to some other category. MERP does this sort of thing, and MERP characters are reasonably well rounded, given their set of available skills.
And a compartmentalized approach also helps solve the "I'm a new-ish player and I have no idea what skills to buy for my role" problem. It's easy to wrap your head around having to spend 10 dps in category A, 15 in category B, and 5 in each of categories C and D, than it is to spending 35 dps on all available skills.
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I always saw Training Packages as 'back-ground' and 'story-teller' options to build a character slightly more quickly.
"My character was raised by farmers, moved to the city and quickly fell in with the 'wrong' crowd resulting in repeated arrests before he was set on the straight & narrow and now is a member of the city watch".
Rural Culture
Thief or other 'sneaky / nefarious' training package
City Watch training package
fill-in the gaps by spendng miscellaneous development points and you're ready to go.
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However, as far as breaking the superfluous 10 rank limit for skills based on training packages... again that's up to the individual GM to assess the effect on the campaign. Spend long enough doing something (training packages)you will get good at it (common sense), the rules already have a diminishing returns on ranks purchased so for most skills (little used Lore/Language skills in particular) exceeding the rank limit is a fairly harmless thing.
I find it's not usually breaking 10 ranks that's a problem, it's 10 ranks by 2nd level that seems to be the result of TPs. . .
You already get oddities out of everyman and occupational skills, tossing in extra skills this way seems many times to have the opposite of the intended effect. . .a character purchases as many ranks as possible in Weapon 1, then takes a Training package for more. . .they do accidentally pick up some other skills, but the goal is to get to the 10 rank sweet spot ASAP. . .and they end up spending 2/3 to 3/4 of their DP per level aimed at one or two skills, the other skills picked up in the TP being incidental, then spend their remaining 1/3 to 1/4 DP on rounding out their core combat related skills.
I've seen plenty of abusive RM2 characters built around the "Skill at Arms" and "Skill at Magic" background options in RoCo1, but every RMSS abuse PC I've seen was an artful mix of TPs and Talents to create monsters. "You have a 100 OB at First level?" 10 ranked skills via TP abuse is usually the foundation the house of Talent Abuse is built on.
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LM,
I would have to say I am on the other side of you on this. I do agree that I do not use talents as listed in the books but instead of reprice them for my campaign. But on TP's, I let PC's pick 1 lifestyle or vocational and can pick another for 10 talent points. I have not had any problems or I should say very few problems with this method. I think it can be a bigger problem if you do not include the time each TP takes and let them be taken over multiple levels. IMO that is a munchkin style of gaming or monty hall style of gaming that some people love to play. But I can say that new players quickly find out how bad it is if they are not well developed in other areas.
I can say that TP have had a good impact on my RMSS and SM:P games and I will continue to use them with the notes I placed abobe on their useages.
MDC
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I think this thread shows that it is not necessarily the TP's themselves that are the problem, it is the way some players (and GM's) use them.
My project at the moment uses TP's for both the RMFRP and RMC versions. They seem to work so far because they are innately tied into the setting, where what you do/did - TP is critical, not what you are - profession.
I still think that if the TP's are keyed to the setting and that if the skills count towards your 2 per lvl, and that time spent and other factors are enforced, They can work really well in either version of the rules.
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I suspect my major reservation is the "counts to your limit" issue, since that both causes problems, and also breaks the logic of "X level = around X power level" concept. Likely if they did count toward your limit, I'd not object. (I have less of a problem with a profession only able to get 1 rank of a skill per level getting 2 per level with a TP than anyone getting 4-5 ranks per level.)
The limits to given choices issue is more a flavor/personal preference thing.
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I agree that TP's break the 2 ranks per level idea but on the otherhand do you do the same for training? Or do you use a different formula for training with a tutor or specialist? I have not doen it but I have thought of providing a TP to players to buy if they go on a long trip some where by boat, horse, caravan etc. But I could also give them DP to spend in the skills I have chosen, given them more DP for the adventure section or any other ways.
I can see that in RM2 it can have a bigger effect than in RMSS because of the difference is skill set up as well as total DP's. But then IMO you will have some trouble using TP's in RM2 because they were designed by using the skills in RMSS. I also am very conscous of the impact that allowing a new PC to take more TP's then the old PC's took at char. gen. and how it quickly can undo the balance of the game. IMO again it is a great tool for what it was designed for (or for what I use it for in my game) but it can become broken if used in ways it was not intened or if soem use it and others do not.
In RM2 if you need something to flesh out PC's it might work or it might not. You could also up the adol. skills or give the PC's DP's to spend in specific areas depending to thier background. Lord Miller has a very good point that if you allow a PC to buy TP's when creating a new PC and players of older PC's can have a significan disadvantage in the terms of the # of ranks in skills.
MDC
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Even if they have some weak points, I'd say I'd much rather have them available, nad then I can restrict certain options or choose not to use them, than have them not be in a new edition
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Even if they have some weak points, I'd say I'd much rather have them available, nad then I can restrict certain options or choose not to use them, than have them not be in a new edition
Whoho, who was talking about a new edition. IMO it will hinge on if the skill system will suport such a thing as TP's. If the skill system is somthing like traveller with % instead of d6's or d20's then I do not think it can work.
But as far as I have heard the new edition is in 2012 or something. I agree it is not too soon to think about but it is a long time off. Also just because I am a moderator it does not mean that I know if or when a new edition is or is not being worked on. [How was that for a statment in this USA political year]
MDC
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Spoken like a true politician :)
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Spoken like a true politician :)
Yes I have been wwatching the news way too much.
MDC
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I have written some about the nature of TPs discounts before in the thread http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=52.0
Might be worth to check out.
The most important part is probably
If a character is killed and the player make a replacement one, the time aspect does not matter and the player can certainly argue that has been labourer, detective, diplomat etc. Making such list of employments is a great help for the GM...that is why the pricing policy is bad in practice even while the theory is nice.
Since then many discussions has passed and I have changed opinion to some degree. I no longer think that the TPs-give-discounts idea is a nice one, my current thought is that the TP discount is a very bad idea even in theory. The number of presented TPs are so many that any character concept will find one lifetime TP and a number of vocational TPs that only include wanted skills so the "discount because some skills aren't interesting for the character" is not a convincing argument. In practice the replacement character will have a discount for free.
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pastaav,
I agree that your point above is a way to abuse the system. And IMO should be removed from the PC's replacement charcter building options.
Also an argument can be made that a replacement PC has not had as much hard experience in the "field" per say so starts at a lower level or has fewer DP's to work with. IMO the level rules are for "adventureer" advancment and non adventurers may not get stat gains and other benifts from leveling up. But that is a house rule not an offical rule or oponion.
MDC
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I've said this in another context, but I'll say it again.
Across all of RM's versions, almost all of the "Problem" areas that people complain about or discuss here on the boards are related:
RM2 Similar Skills
RMSS Category Skills
Skill Categories
Level Bonuses
Training Package discounts
Flat cost Adolecence Packages
All of them relate in one way or another to getting bonuses to related skills for a discount, or for free. . .and all of them seem to end up causing variations of the same problems. In an accounting heavy system like RM these all seem like common sense good ideas, but mostly they bend or break the system or logic. (Some far worse than others)
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Back to the proliferation of Training packages and what they are used for.
The most annoying thing about training packages is that they often don't tie in with new supplements when they are released, and then you have to manually work them out yourself.
Case in point. Construct Companion. No costs at all....
You can find them at: http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item182
Training Packages started as a RMSS means of adding more roundedness to characters, inspired by Arms Companion and probably Warhammer careers progression. Once the crucial breakthrough was made of attaching new spell lists to TPs, it became clear that many RM2 professions could be boiled down to a single new spell list and be reincarnated as a TP. It was also clear to the Old ICE that TPs quickly became the "professions" of RMSS/FRP in terms of the rules crunch that made people buy the new books (RM2 Companions were bought because of the new professions in them, TPs filled the same role given that profession proliferation was being stamped on.)
The disaster of the TPs was that the old ICE kept the secret formula for costing them to themselves and one Editor would arbitrarily change it, so this became an editing nightmare as the number of professions steadily increased and the TPs exploded in number.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
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Back to the proliferation of Training packages and what they are used for.
The most annoying thing about training packages is that they often don't tie in with new supplements when they are released, and then you have to manually work them out yourself.
Case in point. Construct Companion. No costs at all....
You can find them at: http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item182
Training Packages started as a RMSS means of adding more roundedness to characters, inspired by Arms Companion and probably Warhammer careers progression. Once the crucial breakthrough was made of attaching new spell lists to TPs, it became clear that many RM2 professions could be boiled down to a single new spell list and be reincarnated as a TP. It was also clear to the Old ICE that TPs quickly became the "professions" of RMSS/FRP in terms of the rules crunch that made people buy the new books (RM2 Companions were bought because of the new professions in them, TPs filled the same role given that profession proliferation was being stamped on.)
The disaster of the TPs was that the old ICE kept the secret formula for costing them to themselves and one Editor would arbitrarily change it, so this became an editing nightmare as the number of professions steadily increased and the TPs exploded in number.
Best wishes,
Nicholas
You could only replace an RM2 profession with a TP and some spell lists where it had the same skill costs as an existing profession, though, at least if you keep (as I do) the idea of professions as aptitude templates sancrosanct, because TPs are a choice that can be made every time you have DPs and although the total cost of the TP is fixed for your aptitude template, if you have them as an alternative to a profusion of professions then the underlying variety in character aptitudes no longer exists. For me, that's a big deal (and that's why, for me, TPs aren't an alternative to professions). Furthermore, although superficially it looks like you can just stick some new spell lists plus the availability of a TP, that does commit to buying the basket of skills in the TP wheras an aptitude template/profession is about how much they'd cost you if you wanted them; the TP is about synergies when you develop skills at the same time and the profession about your ability to learn them at any time.
Some spell-using professions, of course, are really just differentiated by spells lists and a few skill costs, in which case, sure, they can be "As X apart from these skills and these spell lists" as shorthand.
I guess that my point is that you may have the right of the ICE reasoning (or at least the reasoning on the part of a significant fraction or majority of the ICE people of the time) but I think that, in addition to the other problems that people have with TPs, that underlying reasoning is, itself, mistaken. I wouldn't go so far as to claim that I am representative -- while many other people, like me, didn't move to RMSS/FRP, there are presumably many reasons for that -- but the idea that professions reflect aptitudes (and the consequent fact that there ought to be many, many of them) has always been a key attraction of RM for me.
For myself, the existence of additional professions wasn't the primary motivation to buy RM Companions, although it was a good part of the motivation. After all, one doesn't create new characters that often, compared to how often one might use some of the rules options, for that to be the main attractiion. Some of them were good additions to the game (the pre-existing core MM rules on running, for example, really didn't make sense and the optional replacement was much better; the new language rules from one of the companions were also welcome, plus a whole host of other examples and also other examples that were interesting to read but which I never planned to use).