The Master can handle 2 trainees every year, making this a major source of Ability improvement.
I am assuming you need 20% of your free time to improve reasonably well. The rest of your argument fails here.
Nope, but do you believe covenfolk should do worse than random characters?
If he was a "normal character" chained to his job, yes. If the magi actually forbade covenfolk to leave, yes. If he is so needed that leaving for a week is the end of the world, really. Otherwise he could be absent a week every month and fulfill his training need, even if it takes 2 years (because he spent half his time carousing with the other master). Seasons are a fiction after all.
If you want it lazy-easy, follow C&G and increase the Craft score by 1 every 10 years. If you want pushy-inspirational, find stories and double the rate.
Which I take to mean that you do something, and then someone comes, and throws it way, saying "that's shit, tries again!".
To open up the thing, if people begin to say that a season of normal, productive work is OK to count as practice, what is exposure XP good for, then? You might as well throw it away. This is a can of worms, IMO.
In my work, I was first trained to use a program for about a season.
I then did practice another season on another program (and this yielded no results!!! I just tried different things, and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, until I had a basic handle on it. It'd have gone much faster with training).
Since then, I'm down on exposure, doing roughly the same things each day, and have little desire to learn more about it that what I already do, especially on my free time. Sometimes, I learn a little new trick, but this is less and less common.
I could do Practice again with either programs, but this wouldn't be work. This'd be trying things, seeing what it does, when I manage something and when it doesn't work, but every moment spend discovering how to do things is a moment I don't work.
Not a chance!
A craft apprentice would be doing simpler stuff that isnt ruined easily, and the result would either be sold at a discount or normally if its the kind that either is ok or not(like say, nails from a blacksmith apprentice(or more likely journeyman in the case of nails)).
The raw materials are far too valuable to just waste.
Practice is practice, ie trying to improve the skill while making something useful. I usually go with something like if you want practice, the work takes twice the time and you use up far more raw material. Basically, for a regular craftsman, getting practice means you´re not making a profit, might not even break even.
You get exposure when you do the job as best, fast and cheap as you can. Works very well i think, no canned worms in sight in my experience.
But then you´re also not figuring out how to do it in context of your work, so you might learn stuff, but you wont necessarily learn something useful. Still, dont forget that RAW Practice is 3-8XP, doing nothing but learning should give more XP, simple as that. But being able to learn a bit by testing while doing useful work should also be possible.
First, it's the same rules applied to any other character after CharGen. So just let that go, or admit you're houseruling just to get bigger numbers.
Second... if by "random characters" you mean the Player Characters - OF COURSE they should do worse! They don't have "adventures", they can't (by themselves) afford Trainers, they are often illiterate (because they have absolutely no rationale to induce them to learn to read). They are at best tertiary characters and just bloody peasants - of course they should do worse than the elite in a fantasy story.
And - and I notice you are aggressively ignoring this point repeatedly - they don't act like Player Characters, and should not. They have no reason to obsessively perfect one Ability, nor dedicate themselves to the improvement of The Covenant. They are background characters. No, they should, as characters, not develop as quickly, in any sense of the term.
???
Any crafstman is already spending 50% of his time toward doing that. And you expect them to eagerly spend another 25-50%? And you claim my argument fails?
Exactly.
"Practice" has to be something less than "working as normal" - otherwise craftsmen would always "Practice" and that phrase about "exposure = normal" is a contradiction.
"Practice" has to be exactly that - time spent toward improving an ability rather than producing something useful. (I'd think there's a little room for both, but not much.)
Practice can certainly be done in a "free season... in and between work", and that allows both productivity and the extra xp. But that's 50% of a character's free time - so they'd better have a damn good personal incentive to do that, and not just "Oh, this would be convenient for the main characters..."
And the "Guided Practice" that someone mentioned - don't confuse that with Training. The book example is "being forced to practice a trade". And "on a ship" there is, literally, nothing else to do, and one is side-by-side working with others, and under the constant eye of the captain/officers. Unless your Specialists are slaves and chained to their workshops (which is always an option, I suppose), it's a very diff situation than a specialist in a Covenant - very.
Not really a can of worms, as long as you remember that for non-magi "seasons" are abstract rather than real representations of time spent. A journeyman cobbler doesn't really spend three months doing nothing but making shoes, the next three months doing nothing but trying to make better shoes, the next three months doing nothing but drinking at local taverns and the last three months doing nothing but making shoes. Instead, he spends part if each day making shoes, practicing making shoes, drinking at the tavern. He also spends time with his family, goes to church, and might even have a hobby.
TF is not talking about that, he's talking about the diff between "normal production work" and "practice", and not casually exchanging the two.
As an option of one of their free seasons (which is what you are describing in the latter half of your post), yes - but not "in place of" and still expecting a standard season of production. The two are not interchangeable like that.
+1
For one of my saga's covenfolk, it's quite typical for the two (abstracted) non-free seasons to gain Exposure, one free season to be Practice towards the person's main skill, and the other free season to be Practice towards a social Ability. By RAW that works out to 4 social XP, 4-8 main-skill XP (depending on how Exposure is allocated), and 0-4 Exposure xp towards other Abilities that the character finds important for whatever reason.
On the contrary, what I learned by myself has been quite useful to me in work, and still is.
I know there are things that should be possible and that I'd like to do. But I haven"t the first clue how. Figuring this on my own would take quite a lot of time (I already tried), with the reward/penalty being pretty clear (It works / it doesn't), and I wouldn't do anything useful while practicing these skills.
Setting aside the 3, 3-8 XP is 2 to 4 times what you gain from "normal" work. This is pretty fine for "doing nothing but learning by your own"
Please, don't forget that the game is an abstraction. IRL, there is middle ground. In game, no so much. There's nothing between "full productice craft season" (exposure) and "wasted season" (practice, being teached, reading).
Sigh... And? your point?
Not only is that irrelevant to what I said (that is, answering to DW's affirmation that Practice should produce results, in which case, there's absolutely no reason not to consider every season of work as practice, meaning 2 "free" seasons and 2 "practice" seasons each year), but read again what C-Hound has been telling you again and again and again...
People make shoes for 10 hours a day (exposure). Do you really think they'll want to practice making shoes afterwards or on their sundays and feasts? Try on their own to make better shoes after their work hours and on their rest days?
Read my post above, please. I can very well see practice XP for Carouse, or Charm, anything but work, unless they've got a good reason to.
=> For most characters, you won't see more than 4XP per year go into "work skill", just because they're human beings, they've got no incentive to that.
Similarly, for their "free" seasons, normal people won't have an interest on learning things or figuring them on their own, so yes, they may take exposure too.
Your grog might train on his own (practice for a free season) after doing sentry duty (exposure for a work season) because he's brave and loyal.
But me? After a day at work (exposure for a work season), I'll prefer play badly at a Marvel vs Capcom (taking exposure for a free season) instead of going through the booklet and training to make combos and special moves (practice for a free season).
Just like your librarian will maybe spend more time drinking himself out (exposure in carouse) than trying to spend a night while staying sober and seeing how much he can drink (practice in carouse).
This is the point you all keep missing: Third-tier characters don't care about XP or advancment. They might even do that insane thing called resting, when you do nothing, and don't even get exposure XP, taking only exposure XP for their work. I know, this is insane, considering they might be staying awake late, training to be a better pencil sharpener, but, well, people are strange sometimes.
This is not to say such will be the case and all. This is unimportant to the topic (as you're only interested by how much XP a specialist gains per year in his main skill", to which my answer is "4XP per year, on average"
As I suggested above, just increasing Ability Score by +1/year would work even easier. Why even pretend?
Amen.
No, an exceptional worker, with Training programs and a desire to practice their Trade, might get that much. (Your own examples to achieve those levels rely on Training, self-Practice, etc. etc. - which is not "normal".)
A "normal" worker is happy with exposure 4 seasons out of 4, like most drones.
And that is both an undeniable human truth, and the sad and obvious flaw in the alternate approach. It takes an above-average worker to want to improve more than "normal" - hence the word "normal".
Okay - I'm going to say this once, very slowly for the math-challenged, and then I'm done with this.
2 seasons out of the year automatically go into Exposure. A year has 4 seasons. 2 seasons out of 4 is 2/4, which is 1/2, or... 50%. (Ask someone else for a more detailed explanation of that math if you need it.)
You said "time". Not "experience", not "effort" - time. And in Ars, for experience, time is measured in... (say it with me, Tug)... seasons. 2 seasons go into exposure, craftsmen automatically spend 50% of their year improving their craft.
Out of the mouths of babes. (And completely unconscious of any self-irony - couldn't ask for better.) 8)
Probably true. I have a bad habit about following the tune that is called by others, and responding in kind.
So I'll quit playing Tug's little game...
Troll much, Tug?
I don't know why you can't just answer the question, respond to the points as presented. Maybe you're a masochist and want another smackdown. Well, I'm going to be a sadist - and not give you what you clearly are asking for.
"20%" cannot be parsed into a year - maybe you can realize that (but from your responses it seems not). It's not a season, it's not anything. So, sorry, but I can't parse gibberish, even if it's simple gibberish.
(Personally, I believe it's because, in fact, you're not talking about "time" at all (and know it), but about some "experience total", and that total is based on your assumptions about what is possible for experience gain, as opposed to what is remotely realistic. And just too weak to admit it at this point.)
(And gerg - I guess I don't always (completely) condescend when people ask for it...)
(Xavi - hardly life or death - just hoping for a coherent explanation of a counter-position, and calling a spade a spade when it's not provided.)
I agree. I use a simplified method for all non-magi and non-companion characters:
When they come into play the first time they get generated (normally by the SG as preparation or by the players for fun). They then get assigned a "last played year" which is the current year of the saga.
When any secondary character comes into play they get 15 XP per year since last played at the start of the session. The one playing them this session assigns the XP and updates "last played year" to current year. After any adventure all characters involved get adventure XP. The secondary characters then advance a little faster if they are used in play more often.
I tend to try to play fast campaign with 1 (maybe 2) sessions per year.
Aging of secondary characters are done by ASG (normally me) after sessions. Any character that has been in play get their aging rolls then. Any events happen during the next year/session.
Keeps it relatively close to the rules and saves a lot of time, in my experience.
Well, this is fine, for grogs, guild members and all these, who are quite active characters, with detailed sets of skills and (usually) regular training (the turb training under its captain is a staple of almost all covenants). This won't nescessarily do for everyone.
Anyway, we were talking about specialists, characters defined by only 1 skill, and who, usually, don't have the enforced focus on one skill that grogs have.
=> Whatever the total amount of XP specialists gain, be it 5 or 50, it is irrelevant, only those going into their main skill is.
The point CH and I made was that, whatever their entire supply of XP, the average specialist is as likely to spend more than his 4 exposure/year into his main skill than you're likely to spend your free time learning on how to better repair cars when your profession is being a car mechanician.
If you give him more free time (XP), some will do nothing but sleep their lazy asses of (thus earning no extra XP), other will pursue area of interest, with (training, teaching) or without (exposure or practice) help, but, aside from the few autistic bakers that live and die by the bread they make, any extra XP is no more likely to go into their "work" skill than you to spend your vacations reading about how to write better commercial letters if you're, say, a secretary.
