[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Well the training time doesn't need to be uninterrupted completely, just "reasonably" uninterrupted.  If your karma expenditure requires 2 months of training, you CAN still go on a certain number of training-interrupting escapades, such as Shadowruns.  You just don't get benefit of the expenditure until the total time elapses.

Making it challenging to align everyone's (in-universe) calendars makes for Fun imo.  Making it too difficult however is an unfun exercise in book-keeping... I suppose where the line lies between the two is in the eye of the beholder.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Sure for short runs its just a small interruption and you are back to training, but I've done plenty of runs where I'm sending the team to other cities for weeks on end.  Which I'd generally say falls under the longer interruptions where you have to start over time frame.Maybe the player can work out some way they are training while n the job or something, but maybe not.  Even if its a small run and its only a speed bump and doesn't slow things down, who wants to earn 20 karma spend it but not see the benefit of spending it for 5 or 6 more runs where they earned another 30 karma.

[Marcus]

F-training time. Montage it, play some sweet 80's montage music and move on. lol

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

F-training time. Montage it, play some sweet 80's montage music and move on. lol

There's also that.  The way SRM does training, you just keep your own calendar that only synchs up with other peoples' if your character is doing downtime stuff for/with them.  Unlimited time just ends up being unlimited lifestyle payments.

[Overbyte]

F-training time. Montage it, play some sweet 80's montage music and move on. lol

I can understand that sentiment, but for me.. I run a fairly non-traditional game with only 2 players (currently).
Most of the time, training and "Working for the People" are turned into small adventures in themselves.

For my table, my view of training times is a little special:
If its a skill that you use a fair bit, I don't require training times as I see it as a natural evolution of your use of the skill (and if I am requiring a roll, its more then a causal usage).

Knowledge skills can be "Trained" a head of time through general off time interest. ("My character stays on top on economic developments by reading the Business and Finance media")

However, for new active skills, I do require training. A smart player will decide on a skill and let me know they are planning to pick it up, then they MAY be able to work in some "on the job practice" that could reduce the training time

I agree with this as well... sometimes advance in skill is just organic (and its an easy way to play it).
Something like Perception I don't make anyone train.

[Marcus]

If there is something to be gained narratively or players have fun with it, then by all means. But if its just holding up the fun then forget it.

[mcv]

High reward and rapid progression is important for zero-to-hero games like D&D, where you start with a fairly incompetent character, and really need to get a bit better if you want to survive. In Shadowrun and many other skill-based systems, you already start out very competent, and you don't really need advancement. At least in my experience. When character creation is done, I've got a character that I want to play, not a character that I first need to get to level 5 before I can get access to my signature abilities.

In fact, even in D&D many players feel like advancement is not so important anymore after a certain level. For D&D 3.5, a lot of people felt level 6 was roughly the sweet spot, and some introduced the Epic6 house rule: once you reach level 6, you're Epic and don't advance in levels anymore. You can still get feats I believe, but no levels beyond 6.

In Shadowrun, you already start at level 6. Level 5 maybe. GURPS is the same thing. I once played a GURPS campaign that had no character advancement at all. It was fine. Fantastic campaign, all focused on the story, rather than grabbing XP for extra power.

Going from 6 to 7 in an active skill is 56 karma. 6 x 9 is 54. 6 x 10 = 60. So 10 at the shortest. 4 x 14 = 56. So 14 at the highest.

Mirikon has over 8000 posts on these boards.  That rule failure is so bad I have to wonder if the account has been hacked...

You don't want to know how badly my group interpreted some advancement rules when we were playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as teenagers. Sometimes people don't read a rule correctly, latch on to a wrong interpretation, and never bother to check it for years.

[Ghost Rigger]

High reward and rapid progression is important for zero-to-hero games like D&D, where you start with a fairly incompetent character, and really need to get a bit better if you want to survive. In Shadowrun and many other skill-based systems, you already start out very competent, and you don't really need advancement. At least in my experience. When character creation is done, I've got a character that I want to play, not a character that I first need to get to level 5 before I can get access to my signature abilities.

You're entitled to your opinion and all, but I've found my post-gen improvements to be key to completing the runs I've gone on. Mind you, I haven't actually improved any of my major dicepools yet. It's just that picking up a few more skills, qualities, pieces of gear and improving the gear you already have goes a long way in giving you more options and better options to deal with whatever you encounter.

[Reaver]

I only have a few issues with the karma system.

1. I think its bad design to have skill groups costing the same as attributes which are skill groups+++
2.  Related to 1 I think skills are a smidgen too expensive I think x5 for attributes is pretty good but maybe x1.5 for single skills x3 for groups.

RE 1:
Well, as it stands, most skill groups have 3 skills. So, you actually SAVE karma on improving the skill group as opposed to 3 separate skills.
Raising the Athletics Group from 5 to 6 costs 30 karma.. Raising the 3 skills separately would cost 36 karma... a savings of 6 karma! And if you happen to grab a 4 skill group, even more savings.

RE2: The issue with a 1.5 rating is that at points, you are losing out on karma... every time you raised a skill to an odd level, you are losing a .5 karma as you have to round up.

 

[Ghost Rigger]

RE 1:
Well, as it stands, most skill groups have 3 skills. So, you actually SAVE karma on improving the skill group as opposed to 3 separate skills.
Raising the Athletics Group from 5 to 6 costs 30 karma.. Raising the 3 skills separately would cost 36 karma... a savings of 6 karma! And if you happen to grab a 4 skill group, even more savings.

You're missing his point entirely. Yes, buying a skill group is cheaper than buying the 3 or 4 skills separately, but it's the same cost as boosting an attribute, which increases the dicepool for more than 4 skills (except for Strength, Body and Willpower) while also having a number of other benefits.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

RE 1:
Well, as it stands, most skill groups have 3 skills. So, you actually SAVE karma on improving the skill group as opposed to 3 separate skills.
Raising the Athletics Group from 5 to 6 costs 30 karma.. Raising the 3 skills separately would cost 36 karma... a savings of 6 karma! And if you happen to grab a 4 skill group, even more savings.

You're missing his point entirely. Yes, buying a skill group is cheaper than buying the 3 or 4 skills separately, but it's the same cost as boosting an attribute, which increases the dicepool for more than 4 skills (except for Strength, Body and Willpower) while also having a number of other benefits.

Speaking as a Devil's Advocate... OTOH karma spent on skills gives you skill ranks and karma spent on attributes doesn't give you skill ranks.  It may work out to be the number of dice for the test, but there's a difference when Leadership/Teamwork comes into play.

[mcv]

I've found my post-gen improvements to be key to completing the runs I've gone on. Mind you, I haven't actually improved any of my major dicepools yet. It's just that picking up a few more skills, qualities, pieces of gear and improving the gear you already have goes a long way in giving you more options and better options to deal with whatever you encounter.

Oh, absolutely. I do enjoy increasing stuff, and in particular branching out into skills I neglected at chargen but really kinda wanted to punt a few points in as well. But it doesn't need the steep power climb the way D&D does, and if I had to play with my starting character unchanged, that wouldn't be a big problem for me.

RE 1:
Well, as it stands, most skill groups have 3 skills. So, you actually SAVE karma on improving the skill group as opposed to 3 separate skills.
Raising the Athletics Group from 5 to 6 costs 30 karma.. Raising the 3 skills separately would cost 36 karma... a savings of 6 karma! And if you happen to grab a 4 skill group, even more savings.

You save some, but not a lot. An attribute is generally a better investment, and you wouldn't lose much if you had to buy the skills separately. A skill group only really makes sense if all three skills in it are equally important to you.

I think skill groups for 4 karma would make a lot of sense.

[Michael Chandra]

Attributes cap faster though. So giving a discount on something because of another thing that caps faster, and with some skills going split on attributes (or because they're Magic-tied), seems bad.

[kainite311]

I wish they would do more with skill level to make it more important than just raw stat. It just seems you get punished for high skill + mediocre stat over high stat vs low skill. The high stat always gives you more utility, PLUS the total dice pool (especially since most high stats seem to be determined right at creation due to efficiency..), mostly its on the secondary skill tree monkey (for instance super high agility, then taking 1 skill rank in all groups and throwing 10+ dice). Maybe make skill help counter certain penalties (or negate certain opposed roll bonuses). That way under perfect conditions the 2 builds are equal, but under duress or difficulty the high skill guy compensates. I dunno...

[Overbyte]

I wish they would do more with skill level to make it more important than just raw stat. It just seems you get punished for high skill + mediocre stat over high stat vs low skill. The high stat always gives you more utility, PLUS the total dice pool (especially since most high stats seem to be determined right at creation due to efficiency..), mostly its on the secondary skill tree monkey (for instance super high agility, then taking 1 skill rank in all groups and throwing 10+ dice). Maybe make skill help counter certain penalties (or negate certain opposed roll bonuses). That way under perfect conditions the 2 builds are equal, but under duress or difficulty the high skill guy compensates. I dunno...

That is certainly a good observation.
Off the top of my head it seems like one thing you could do is adjust limits base on skill (i.e. - higher skill = higher limit, but higher stat != higher limit)