Re: Jock-o-Trades [sic] (and MegaTraveller Tasks)

[This may have failed; I got an error message right back, so I'm retrying.
My apologies if you get two of these. -- James]

> From: [email removed]

> I've been playing Traveller for some time now, and I just started GMing a
> campaign with a bunch of friends.  One of the characters rolled Jack-o-T 3
> times, and I thought nothing of it.  Then while raiding a frieghter, the pilot
> gets killed and the character with JoT jumps into the pilot chair and flys
> the ship.

> Question:  Do JoT skill levels directly transfer to other skills?
>            (i.e. JoT-3, means also Pilot-3, Pistol-3, etc...)
>            I don't have any books with me, and I'm playing the rules by memory,
>            so can anyone help me.

Sure! There's a couple ways to interpret the Jack-O-Trades skill; the
standard Traveller way or the MegaTraveller way (MegaTraveller is the
newest revision of the Traveller rules).

The standard Traveller rules I have are very old, being edition one.  I
remember cracking open the set of books that I had ordered direct from
GDW back in 1979, when I was just about to enter High School.  The
printing I have is the 10th print run of the first edition of the Basic
Traveller rules (This was even before the Journal of the Traveller's aid
society existed, I think).  Anyway, my set of Traveller rules has very
general, inspecific skill descriptions (which caused me fits of hair
pulling as a Referee in those days), and this is what it says about
Jack-o-trades:


Jack of all trades-- The individual	    The well-rounded individual (the
is proven capable of handling a wide	renaissance man, so to speak) is
variety of situations, and is res-	uncommon in all societies, but is nat-
ourceful in finding solutions and	urally proficient when he occurs.
remedies.				    This skill is a general ability
					which may be applied to nearly any
					endeavor at the discretion of the
					referee.

Note that this doesn't say that Jack-o-Trades-N means ALL-SKILLS-N.  It
merely vaguely says that you can give the player a chance in situations
where he has little or no skill.  What this amounts to is that you (as
referee) have to figure out your own way to deal with Jack-O-T.  Methods
I have used are treating Jack-O-T as skill level 0 for all skills in
which the player is totally unskilled, and skill level +1 for all skills
in which the player has skill; but perhaps this is too generous.

MegaTraveller interprets Jack-O-T much more concretely, giving the
player a second (or third, or fourth...) throw any time a task throw
fails.  It does not allow Jack-O-T to be used as any kind of DM, and
also the disadvantage due to lack of skill is still felt at full force.
But the Jack-O-T rules allows those resourceful characters who have it
to pull off miracles sometimes, just when everything seems to be going
wrong.

In MagaTraveller a task throw is required any time a character needs to
use skill for something; for example:

Example Univeral Task Profile (made this up in about 15 seconds):

	To dodge asteroids while flying any spacecraft:
	Routine; Pilot or Ship's Boat, Dexterity; 2 sec (fateful).
	If the character is attempting any other action besides
	dodging asteroids, the task becomes Difficult.
	    Referee: If the result is failure, determine damage
	to the spacecraft as per... [etc.]

Long-winded Translation of the above (for those unfamiliar with tasks):

The task is Routine (requires an 7+), or Difficult (requires a 11+).
DMs: + Pilot or Ship's boat skill level, +1 if Dexterity 5+ or +2 if
Dexterity 10+ or +3 if Dexterity 15+.  The length of the time it takes
to perform this task is 2 seconds times (3D - above DMs).  Fateful: If
the task fails, some kind of damage to the spacecraft will automatically
occur (The referee will consult the Task Failure table in these cases).

Note that all Univeral Task Profiles assume a skill level of at least 0
(Pilot-0 or Ship's Boat-0), unless the notation "Unskilled okay" appears
in parentheses like fateful is above.  If you have absolutely no skill
in a particular skill, there is an additional penalty (I believe the
task increases in difficulty one level, making otherwise Routine tasks
Difficult, and Difficult tasks Formidable, but that's from memory as my
MT books are at home).

So if a character with Pilot-3 and Dexterity 7 is attempting to dodge an
asteroid with no other distractions, he can do it by rolling 7+, with
DMs 3 (for Pilot) + 1 (for Dexterity) = +4.  Furthermore, the task would
take 2 sec times (3D - 4) to complete.  If the pilot was evading enemy
weapons fire, he would have to roll a base 11+ with the same DMs.

What Jack-O-T does do, in MegaTraveller, is provide any character which
fails any roll with as many retries as their Jack-O-T level (still
quoting from memory -- I may be a little off here).  So, if your Pilot-3
character is dead and the totally unskilled (at Pilot) Jack-O-T-3
character (Dex 10, just for the sake of argument) tries to fill in, this
is what happens.  Since the character is unskilled, the task difficulty
increases one level (from Routine to Difficult or from Difficult to
Formidable), but he gets as many retries as Jack-O-T skill levels.

So if a character with Jack-O-T-3 and Dexterity 10 is attempting to
dodge an asteroid with no distractions, he can do it by rolling 11+
(Difficult), with DMs 0 (for Pilot) + 2 (for Dexterity) = +2.
Furthermore, the task would take 2 sec times (3D - 2) to complete.  If
the fellow was evading enemy weapons fire, he would have to roll a base
15+ (Formidable) with the same DMs.

Example: Tom Jefferson of Astel Tine has JOT-3 and Dex 10.  He attempts
to dodge an asteroid.  He must roll 11+ with DMs +2.  He rolls an 8 + 2
= 10 and fails.  His first retry he throws 8 again + 2 = 10, failure
again.  On his second retry he throws 4 + 2 = 6 (missing the desired
throw of 11+ by this far is considered exceptional failure, so he
doesn't get any more tries.  The referee assigns some amount of damage
to the exterior of the craft.  Woe to smaller craft, which may suffer a
critical hit from the asteroid collision).

Instead, say on his second retry he threw 8 yet again + 2 = 10, failure
again.  He gets one more retry: he rolls a 12 + 2 = 14, and succeeds
(exceptional success!).

Sorry I can't give a definitive answer, but I think this is close to the
way MT deals with Jack-O-T.  This is also an example of how MT brings
sense and concreteness where the Traveller rules were unbelievably
vague, something I find refreshing.  It also shows how quickly and
easily a referee can make up a new Task (I made up the "dodge asteroids"
task on the spur of the moment as an example).  I also personally find
the MT task nomenclature very easy to understand and find it easy to
express desired character activites with it.

However, I still haven't actually used MT in play, but it seems pretty
neat.

James

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| |    / _ \   James T. Perkins, [email removed], [phone removed]
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