Topic: What's the goal of training packages?

[smug]

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.

[markc]

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 

[smug]

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).

[markc]

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

[smug]

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.

[rafmeister]

     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.

[Grinnen Baeritt]

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)

[Marc R]

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?

[Grinnen Baeritt]

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.

[Fullerton]

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.

[MidKnight]

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.

[Marc R]

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.

[markc]

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

[bottg]

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.

[Marc R]

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.

[markc]

 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 

[runequester]

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

[markc]

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

[runequester]

Spoken like a true politician

[markc]

Spoken like a true politician

 Yes I have been wwatching the news way too much.

MDC