Ditto here. And, since we use covenants, I assume that it requires three different scribal folks to do the book production. If my players tries to shoehorn the "only-play-for-highest-skill" rule to get one specialist who does all three pieces of work, I'd have agreed, and then told them that said person takes three seasons of work, since they can only apply one skill per season.
As is, I'm kind, so I let all three sorts of work be done simultaneously. If I really wanted to be ultra-realistic, I think I'd require that any given book spend three seasons in the production queue, as it passes from scribe to illuminator (or vice versa, I can't remember) and finally to binder.
But, indeed, the relatively low book production rate implies that a covenant that is interested in heavy book production probably wants to have more than one scribal team. Keep in mind that in medieval monasteries, scribal work was often an entire cadre of people for precisely this reason.
How does your saga handle the poor and wealthy virtues, then?
If you assume that all gainfully employed folk work four seasons a year (Though I believe you said you were giving them more than exposure experience for working), do they just never learn skills outside of their work?
Are your farmers just racking up nothing but farming experience, or does their tilling of the fields 365 days a year still somehow teach them folk ken?
In our saga, what tends to happen is that while lab work is all-encompassing, many of our magi spend a non-trivial amount of time outside of the lab. Every saga I have been in has actually involved relatively rounded magi, and few lab rats. (One side effect of that is the "here's how to make a magi who can do massive thing X straight out of apprenticeship" builds that people often bandy about on here just don't turn up in my saga.) So they often take a week off at the beginning or end of a lab season to go do something else, or they go have long conversations in the middle of their season reading a book, and so forth. Seasons spent adventuring also often leave a lot of free time to handle other affairs.
Hmm. We are still trying to find our comfort zone with the bookeeping thing. We started trying to use every single rule available but soon we got overwhelmed with the ammount of time we needed out of play in order to keep everything updated. Now we try to focus more on the saga and stories themselves but still sometimes we return to the extreme (you do not want to see the covenant track monster tool we created ....). In any case we more than welcome any new idea that can help us to run the game more smoothly so thank you for sharing yours
Skill level through the ages
End of Year 1. Skill 1
Y2. Skill 2
Y3. Skill 3
Y5. Skill 4
Y8. Skill 5
Y11. Skill 6
Y14. Skill 7
Y18. Skill 8
Quite an easy math evolution, really. I fail to see the problem. A covenant has a highly developed carpeter team. So what? This is way LESS obsessive than most non magi PCs in 99.9% of games and sagas out there, BTW
From a maths POV, our NPC have a main skill, a descriptive profession, V&F if appropiate (like if they have second sight or are fat), a small description and personality traits. I would match them against anyone's saga in the interpretative arena any day of the week and feel confident they would at least tie.
Love this. I wasn't worrying about advancing specialists because it's my first saga and I have enough to deal with, but this scheme takes all the work out of it. Consider it borrowed.
<straightens his collar, pretends he has a fully functioning forebrain...>
Okay, the math is a bit less jarring, but the same problems with your suggested approach...
It's not a bad assumption, but it is just an assumption, and so nothing "usual" about it.
15 pts is usual for CharGen. But this is in game play, not CharGen. You're citing the Character Creation rules, which are inappropriate once the character is created. (If there's a section that implies otherwise, I can't find it atm.) A bit more "usual" might be to look to the Experience and Advancement section - after all, the character is no longer being created, but played, even as an unnamed NPC specialist: Training
...The master gains Exposure experience... just as for the normal use of an Ability to earn a living.
Unfortunately, peasants are not Player Characters - they don't have Adventures, they don't have the time to Study, they don't have the money to hire Trainers. They do their job year round, and call that a good life.
Now, the book accounts for "other time" by requiring that only 2 seasons be "exposure" to work, and the other 2 seasons "free", with the limitation that the character "can only undertake study that he could do in and between his job." Unless literate, that "Study" would be quite limited.
So, it sounds like 4 xp (for the 2 seasons "working") plus 4 more misc are more "usual" once CharGen is over and done with, unless the character is independently wealthy (unlikely for a "specialist") or the covenant is paying a Teacher to come in, etc. For literate characters, this is not the case - allowing a Lore Master seasons off to study texts/etc. should be taken case-by-case - these are not "generic specialists" but are starting to become "grog character" status, more fully developed NPC's.
And this makes much more sense to me than your "Skill 6 in 11 years" - which turns an 18 year old unskilled grog into a Skill 6 by age 29 - not only a year early, but the maximum one could possibly advance - and most specialists are not going to be "maxed". (Except in a min-maxed world, ahem.)
(Of course, exceptions will occur - if the covenant spends the time seeking a truly exceptional and dedicated specialist, they may get exactly that. But as a rule, "max allowed" is not "average", not by a long shot.)
By the above math, at 4 xp exposure/year (and assuming a 20 year old with a starting skill of at least "3" - otherwise they really are not much of a "specialist"), a character would progress more like this...
Age 20 : Score 3 : xp 30
Age 25 : Score 4 : xp 50
Age 32 : Score 5 : xp 78
Age 39 : Score 6 : xp 106, "Skilled"
But that's someone who puts nothing "extra" into their profession - they do their work, they call it a day. No dedication, no drive to improve beyond what happens naturally.
Just putting "half" their extra time into their job (and assuming only "exposure" for that other time, so 6/8 pts/year), it moves to this:
Age 20 : Score 3 : xp 30
Age 24 : Score 4 : xp 54
Age 28 : Score 5 : xp 78
Age 33 : Score 6 : xp 108, "Skilled"
Which is almost exactly what the Age/Max Skill Chart (p 31) suggests.
Regardless whether you're talking 15 xp/year or 8 (from exposure only), or whatever, that sounds a bit high percentage-wise. A "professional" is going to pursue their trade, certainly, but they'll also pursue other General abilities* depending on their personality traits/etc.
(* Or possibly Academic/Knowledge if they are of that ilk, but still some General.)
Let's take some values given by the rules:1) An apprentice (for a Trade) cannot be taken before age 7 nor do they start a real "trade" after age 20 (by the same rationale as for a Hermetic apprentice, and rough common sense).
2) Characters get 8 xp/year from exposure when working (no time/money to "study" - these are not PC's!)
3) A "skilled" craftsman has a Score of 6, or 105 xp (from Covenants)
4) The minimum age for a "skilled" character (Ability Score 6) is 30 years old. (AM p 31, col i)
If an apprentice were taken at age 15 (late on average), and spent only "1/2" of your "usual 15 xp" (7.5/year) on their new trade, they'd still be Level 6 by Age 29 - that's still a bit too early, and that's achieving max at less than your suggested rate and in a time far below average. You're describing an exceptional peasant indeed as "usual".
Your failures are not my concern (but if I were you, I'd not advertise the fact, and certainly not so flippantly).
Your suggested scale is... over optimistic (at best, and a grossly munchy at worst). It clashes with the max Ability/Age chart, aggressively ignores standard advancement rules, and instead relies on irrelevant CharGen values. (Still see no problems? Still proud of that?)
Carouse, Charm, Folk Ken, Guile, Bargain - perhaps a second Craft (one that they're personally interested in, as opposed to one that helps the covenant?), perhaps Music(song), perhaps Athletics - how flat and one-dimensional are your NPC characters?
(Doesn't matter if none of these are noted specifically - a "character", a real person, would pursue something other than work, and at more than a total of "1/3" of their available time and energy.)
Working backwards (and with an eye on that Age/Maximum Ability chart on page 31), a specialist at age 30 (youngest allowed btr) with a Score of 6, who was apprenticed late at age 20, would only have 10 years to achieve their goal - that's the shortest period, to allow for the most points spent. Then they would be spending your 10 xp/year. (If apprenticed at age 7 and they didn't get to Score 6 until 30, they'd be spending significantly less than 5 xp/year - and that's still at pace to achieve "max level possible", a rate that most people would not approach.)
And that "5 xp/year" makes sense if you allow only exposure experience for Specialists - 8 xp/year total. 4 xp go into their Trade, and the others depend on their attitude (special opportunities aside).
The below assumes that a mundane only gets "exposure" - 8 xp/year - that they have no access to any of the other Advancement options, no Trainers, no Study, nuthin'. Just functionaries.
I'd suggest, at most, only 6 of their 8 xp go into "professional" Abilities, and that those be not just one but perhaps a small spectrum of Abilities that work together. For instance, a Prof:Scribe may also have lesser scores in Craft:Percamenarius (Parchmentmaker), Craft:Incrier (Inkmaker), and Craft:Quillmaker - not because they're going to mass-produce those products (altho' the quills, maybe), but so they can judge the quality of the materials they regularly work with. And maybe Bargain if they are the one doing the purchasing.
(* At most! This would be a very conscientious and goal-oriented professional. Lesser rates would be seen in "average" specialists, and some are going to turn out to be far below average - that's the way things work.)
The other points are spent "elsewhere" - on "personal" Abilities, to make the character more "real". Whether or not these are detailed and recorded is up to the needs/desires of the Troupe and Saga.
This is much more realistic to a fully rounded character, and not a convenient tool for a covenant.
For a practical, quick-and-dirty system, try this:
Start a single piece of paper w/ all covenant "specialists" on it, everyone that has Abilities that matter. List only those Abilities you care about.*
When a new professional is found/hired by the covenant, roll a die (0-9). Divide the number rolled by 1/3, rounding up - that's the number of extra xp (0-3) that go into the main skill(s)/year. This is how "dedicated" they are in improving themselves professionally. (1 in 10 just don't care, and put no extra effort into it.)
Roll another and divide by 3 (round down) - this is the number of "related skills" they are interested in improving (0-3). (If you can't think of any, then leave blank for now - they are not important to the Covenant, only to the character and their Trade.) They will thus have 1 main Trade Ability, and from 0-3 "related" Abiliites.
Their main Trade skill(s) get at least the base 4 xp/year - make a judgement whether that's split or not. Then each skill gets 1 xp/year, with any "extra" going into the main skill. (If there are more skills than points, then the main skill gets +1/year, and the others get 1 whenever seems best.)
(* These are a step down from "grogs", as they will rarely if ever be RP'd, so social/general skills just don't matter unless they will be RP'd. If your saga details everything, then by all means, knock yourself out. But the OP didn't sound like this was the goal.)
This will create anything from a lazy specialist who only puts 4 xp into their only skill(s)/year (and is more social/etc) and will increase slowly but steadily, to a dedicated specialist who increases at almost double that rate with multiple backup skills.
If you're looking for "quick and dirty" without being too abusive, the above should cover it just fine.
Speaking only for my saga, I'm looking for quicker and dirtier. All I'm really concerned with (at least for now) is the specialists' primary abilities. If you change Xavi's original scheme from 10 xp per year to 10 xp every 3 years, the rate of advancement is closer to the system-defined benchmarks you described. An apprentice starting at age 7 won't hit level 6 in the ability until age 39, level 7 at 49, and level 8 at 61 (barring any math errors on my part). I realize I'm leaving a ton of detail on the table by slapping it together this way and many (most) troupes won't want something this simplistic. That said, is this rate of advancement more realistic for an average craftsman? Here's the complete scheme, assuming apprenticeship starts at 7:
Age 9 - Ability 1
Age 12 - Ability 2
Age 16 - Ability 3
Age 22 - Ability 4
Age 30 - Ability 5
Age 39 - Ability 6
Age 49 - Ability 7
Age 61 - Ability 8
For the most part, for the player covenant, in my saga, we actually advance virtually everybody of any importance using the normal character rules.
When I'm storyguide and need statistics for grogs/specialists at other covenants and in castles/monasteries/etc, I tend to go with "apprentice" 1-2, "competent" 3-4, "master" 5-6, "I'm old and I've been doing this my whole life", 7-8. On top of that, I give a +2/-2 bonus/penalty if there is some sort of in-character reason why the character would be unusually skilled/unskilled. This seems to work well enough for deciding things on the fly.
I think this is abusive. At the very least his 2 free seasons should be Practice for a strict minimum of 12 xp per year, and that is for a Master that is neither supervised nor trained.
Being supervised in an organised workshop should give you Q5 Practice, if you add a random Training season under the Master you can easily hit 16 xp on that year. Even a covenant specialist could spend his free time at such a workshop, if it exists close by.
Another interesting approach to this is going further down in the Maximum Ability Score for Age. If it takes about 5 years to go from 7 to 8, that means a dedicated craftsman is placing 8 xp per year in his primary skill. Prolly because by 40 he has no desire to put extra points in Carousing or Charm. :mrgreen:
City & Guild (p 42) shows 50-60 xp per 10 year for average guild members.
Together, this paints a picture where you get 120-150 xp per year, close to RAW, but you spend less than half of it on the job.
Take in mind that the rules assumption that "level 5 is experienced, level 7 is awesome" is quite a suspect in itself when you look at the hard numbers. Level 9-11 is master, not level 7. For me level 5 is average-competent. So, Richard's scheme works for us as well, but the numbers are apprentice 3, competent 6, master 9.
My assumptions were (as I mentioned above) in part based on Ability 6 being necessary to get the various bonuses for a "Skilled" specialist, as found in Covenants.
"Abusive"?
I think you mean "conservative", unless you mean "The bad SG is applying the RAW and abusing us poor Players!"
It's certainly not abusing the rules. Quite the opposite, if anything it's too slavish to the rules.
Abusive would be to pretend that any Specialist would automatically spend more than their two minimum "exposure" seasons pursuing their craft - the amount of time/experience that is automatically locked. Abusive would be to assume that they are willing to spend (much) more than 50% of their time improving their Trade for the benefit of the Covenant, and ignoring all else in their lives, year after year.
That is "abusive".
Remember, they're already getting xp from 2 of their 4 seasons of work. The fact that they can do "something else" with those other 2 seasons does not mean they'll want MORE of the same - imo the average, sane person would want the opposite, something, anything different! Hell, get out of the workshop once in a while, get a life!
However, I'll concede that in some rare cases, dedicated craftsmen may indeed spend the occasional additional season "Practicing", and that would gain something like the default 4 xp, leaving them 1 season of Exposure for "social/general" abilities. With the rule found under Training, that (to repeat) - "...the master gains Exposure experience... just as for the normal use of an Ability to earn a living." So "Practice" is not normal use of the Ability, and would replace the normal activity - implying they are not earning a living and so not providing a typical, useful season of production if they are "practicing" and not "earning a living" (again, unless that's in one of their "free" seasons).
That would be 2+2+4 = 8 xp/year (and 2 in something else) - and if that becomes a yearly habit it would race any craftsman quickly toward Ability Scores well in excess of the suggested age maximums.*
(* And, to be clear - that's not an impossible limit to break, but it's the "normal max", and assuming that more than the rare specialist would gladly spend their free time to break those limits - or even come close to doing so - is... well, abusive.)
Agreed, or Training would do that too - but again, it would not be the same as "earning a living". It's different, and designed to produce experience in the craft rather than a product with the craft.
Interesting - yes it does. (And thanks for the page citation!)
It's a little rough - "Age 10-20 = Craft 3; Age 20-30 = Craft 5 + Ability 3" etc. Hard to extrapolate a clear curve from that. It's clearly related to the Max Ability/Age Chart, but expanded a bit to imply broader functionality.
But the extra skill suggestion fits close with my own of "secondary skills", rather than focusing obsessively only on that one Covenant Craft Ability.
("120-150 xp/year"? I know you didn't mean that, but I'm not sure what you did mean... 12-15 pts/year? If so, I don't see where all those points are going...)
But also remember - that is talking about a Guild, and a Guild is going to have active training and support programs in place, providing extra xp, which cannot be said of most Covenants. Much of what an "apprentice" does is Training and Practice - and that's not the case for the average Covenant Specialist, who (far more often than not) is the sole* practitioner of their skill that the Covenant has hired. There is no one to Train under, no one to cover for them if they take an extra season off to "Practice", so if they take any time off or travel their Craft goes un-pursued and the Covenant has little or nothing from them for that season.
16 in a year? As in 2+2 standard exposure, +5 for guided Practice, +7 for...? And all because the craftsman loves his craft sooo much that they want nothing more than to spend 100% of their waking hours improving their skill for the benefit of Mother Kovenant. Such dedication, such a role model, such inspiration to the others... such you wish.
Large covenants may have multiple carpenters, masons, scribes - but few will be large enough to require/support more than one bookbinder, librarian, blacksmith, etc. And almost no Covenant will have a "training program" in place - some, but few, and then with only a few select Specialty pursuits like Scribe. Usually it's a scramble just to get one of each of the specialists you need, and taking a few out of the mix to train lesser ones is extravagance with an aim toward redundancy.
(Hiring a short term teacher/trainer - that's certainly doable. But it's only short term, and again - how many of one type of Specialist (besides Scribes?) does a Covenant need? If they're going to be around all the time, just hire the (more experienced) Teacher full time and make them the Specialist, and make the old one a ditch digger.)
But again - I already agreed to all this. If the Covenant wants to hire special teachers, if they want to give the Specialist special time off from their production, then that Character shifts from generic Specialist to grog, and a fully rounded character, and should be treated as such. Short of that, you really can't expect a craftsman to give more than 4 seasons of work (which is 2 seasons of exposure) - they might, but it's not something to expect.
Very interesting posts, quite realistic IMO, and a refresher from the usual assumption that everyone works under the same regimen as PCs (i.e. free time, access to books and teachers, and dedication to something).
It also fits well with Jonathan.link posts.
Even going with the 2 "free" seasons per year (which I agree shouldn't be used for these guys), I wouldn't have them go to the profession.
For exemple, even then, your specialist could get:
2 * 2 exposure XP per year for his profession
4 practice in Charm for his time spend over the year trying on his own to learn how to seduce the maids
6 XP training in Carouse when his grog friend actively teaches him how to party (and yeah, the grog would "waste" one of his free seasons on this, taking only exposure...)
But I can't see most characters using up their free time for their profession skills, unless obsessed or forced into it.
Ask yourself the question: What's better once you've left your job? Being trained in being a better accountant (Training XP in Profession), or partying with your friends (exposure in carouse)?
That´s more like a craftsman who is lazy and doesnt like his job.
5XP/year is probably the lowest reasonable if the craft only has one main skill.
Also, early on the character will normally get training and/or teaching and practise and get up to around score 2-4 rather quickly.
"However, the master may work at earning a living while training an apprentice." So, a master will prolly spend both his working seasons Training another crafstman. Your specialist should have an apprentice or he's wasting his knowledge.
Erm yeah, per 10 years. And 60 is half of 120.
I said Training. You really need to read Training again.
RAW says 15 xp per year, I just showed it was easy to exceed that using RAW methods. I also said C&G shows 6 of those to job training, pretty close to the 6-8 allowed by maximum Abilities.
minimum work gives 4 xp
self training caps at 12 xp
supported training can hit 16 xp easily
There's nothing that stops your specialist from taking his free seasons to spend a year or so in town every 5 years. That should cover the expected ability advancement and still leave 8 free seasons for personal skills.
Depends on your definition of "normal". "...forced to practice a trade or craft in an environment with immediate feedback..." I rather doubt its possible to end up without any results from doing such even if calling it "earning a living" might be a big stretch.
And, as Tugdual in part already noted, Training is what´s going to give XP early on. Since any halfdecent master craftsman will provide 8-12XP per season of Training, an apprentice will get a Score of 2 or 3 very quickly(2-3 seasons).
Okay... but we weren't talking about this theoretical Master. We're talking about the trainee. (I'm missing your point here, sorry.)
Ah - okay. And no, I really don't.
Training could be twice your +7, or more - you just need the right trainer. But your math still assumes 4 seasons out of 4 dedicated slavishly to improving one's Trade. Unless they're in mortal fear of losing a job, I really don't see anyone trying that hard. And even then, "realistically", it's not always about what one "tries" to do - it's about what feels right. And 100% of a year's effort to improve only one of many possible Abilities just doesn't feel right, not even a little bit.
If you or I dedicated a year to learning something, we would still improve other skills by accident. Even if we sealed ourselves in a room and had our meals delivered anonymously, Concentration might improve, or a language skill (from a year of reading a new technical vocabulary), without our "desiring" it. Learning like that is not something an actual person can "trade off" to maximize something else. Unless one admits that "a Covenant Specialist" is merely a number to be maximized and not an actual character in a story (however minor, colorless or undeveloped), it just doesn't work that way.
After CharGen? Where does it say this? (It might be in there, but I'm missing it.)
And I said that that section of C&G refers to Guilds, which are not Covenants, and Guilds naturally have Training and other support in place that (most) Covenants don't have.
And I just showed (above) that it's not "easy" to exceed it and still pretend we're dealing with a character and not just a Study Total for the year.
Well, except that he has to be able to take the "study" (however it's defined) "that he can do in or between his work" - he doesn't actually get 91 vacation days each year that he can save up for 4 years and then take a year off somewhere else.
I'm not saying that 4 xp/year is the max any Specialist will ever get in their main Ability(s) - far from it (for some - others, that may in fact be all they ever are interested in). I'm not saying that a Training program wouldn't be a great thing. I'm not saying that some Craftsmen won't want to improve more.
What I am saying is that if you want big numbers, just ignore the RAW, start every Specialist at Skill 6, and add +1 to Score every year - simple bookkeeping, and everyone's happy. But if you want to represent a living, breathing peasant with hopes, needs, perhaps a family, who has a life outside their workshop, and who actually rubs elbows with other people - then 4 seasons in a year - any year, much less "some" - is just absurd. Even 3 is pushing it, depending on the personality of that Character. (That, and anything like a steady, automatic 10-15 pts/year, every year, into those skills for (most) any Specialist for is equally absurd, for the same reasons.)
(You're welcome!)
As I said above, it's not even about what a Character "wants" to do. In 3rd(?) ed, it suggested that after an adventure, the SG (or Troupe) assign some of the xp to PC's based on what Abilities they used. So it didn't matter if the warrior wanted to put all their precious xp into Single Weapon - one of those few points went into Leadership, and another into Swimming*, sorry. Something similar should happen here.
(* Dont ask, but it was hilarious)
Doesn't matter if the Craftsman wants to be The Best - some of the year's experience is going to leak out into other Abilities. It's what makes a good story, not what maximizes the output. (And it certainly shouldn't be based on what the Players, or even the Player Characters want.)
....). In any case we more than welcome any new idea that can help us to run the game more smoothly so thank you for sharing yours 
