Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 40

We're near the end; now we learn about Experience in the game. I'm not sure why this section is here instead of in, say, the Characters book. But here it is, so let's take a look at what we've got.

We start with a basic overview of what experience means in the context of the game; basically, it's just getting better at being whatever your character is.

I suppose that Experience in Traveller will be significantly different from other games, where your character starts out as a novice. Here, you're already retired from your career, and have a full slate of skills, retirement income, and maybe even a starship (the equivalent of a castle in a fantasy game). So, what is experience going to be worth?

Self-Improvement is up first; we get an immediate note that improvement is going to be limited in Traveller. Okay, but how? There are four ways to self-improve, only one can be done at a time. They are education, weapon expertise, other skills, and physical fitness. Hey, does that mean JR can get his Strength score high enough to carry his signature weapon? One can only hope...

"In each field, the character devotes himself to a four-year program--"

Four years?! Holy time sink, Batman! And there's more: "something like obsession, to the general end of self-improvement." So, you have to become a monomaniac to improving yourself in ONE area for four long years, and there's a chance that your character will already be middle-aged or older by then. And it gets better: Not everyone has what it takes to commit four stinkin' years to self-improvement, so you have to roll an 8 or better to succeed. There are no modifiers, unless you're doing a phys-ed program. The only mods you can get are bad ones, based on your intelligence. If you fail, then you have to wait a full year to try again.

So, for the Education aspect, you can improve your education score if it's lower than your intelligence score. You pay 50 Credits a week for tutoring, and you can take up to 2 sessions a week. After 50 sessions, your education score improves by one point. In four years, you can increase your education score a maximum of 6 points. These gains are permanent; however, if your education score is equal to or higher than your intelligence score, you can't improve it at all.

You also have an option to take a four-year sabbatical from adventuring and go to school to gain a single skill at level 2. The only reason I can think of to NOT do this with your character right off the bat (since it's almost the equivalent of taking another tour, without the chance of getting killed) is because it costs 70,000 credits to do it. Actually, 70,000 over four years might have seemed like a ton of money back in 1977...today, that's almost a bargain.

Next up is Weapon Expertise. You can temporarily(!) increase your skill with specific weapons. So, while you're taking the program (for four years), you'll increase your skill by 1 point for one gun and one blade weapon. If it's a skill where you only have 1/2 of a point (for PCs, that's a character who doesn't have the skill on his sheet yet), you can turn that into a permanent one point. So, if JR decided to spend four years working on his marksmanship with the Rifle, he could get it up to Rifle-3 for the duration of his training. If, however, he worked on improving his skill with a Pistol, he would then improve to Pistol-1 permanently.

To close out, we get a note that the skill increase (for pre-existing skills) is lost at the end of the program, unless you continue it for another four years. After the second four-year term, the increase becomes permanent. And you can start over with a new program to improve that skill yet again, or with a different weapon altogether.

So, at this point experience doesn't really apply in the traditional gaming sense; you're not getting experience for adventuring, you're just going to school again. It's a bit odd, but it definitely gives Traveller a different feel. Next time, we'll look at the other two options for self-improvement.