When a player in your gaming group adds a new specialization to his or her character after character creation, how is that handled in universe in your game? Is it purely mechanical or does it have a narrative explanation too?

I use to ask for some "justification" as with every rank on a skill, talent, stat increase, power, etc.

Justification must be scenic like "I looked for someone/something that teaches me X" or "I study/train between scenes or at some point this".

My group encourages RP choices as a foundation for how xp is spent. While completely optional, it's been fun and has helped make our overall story arc more collaborative. For example, our Dark Side Aggressor recently started on his path of redemption and opened up Peacekeeper.

It's been great to see the character grow over the course of the campaign from a haughty, vindictive "might is right" character (his OOC nickname is Darth Surly) to one who is conflicted and trying his best to find a better path. The Peacekeeper specialization didn't fit with his earlier RP at all, but after recent events, it totally does .

Might just be my group but exp tends to be spent on things that we were doing.

And new specs tend to picked for similar reasons.

I mean our marauder went doctor because he was the groups medic (he started with medicine one due to been human), which was probably the weirdest (and cheesy), but it made sense in game an he still hits things with his vibrosword and stun baton.

Might just be my group but exp tends to be spent on things that we were doing.

And new specs tend to picked for similar reasons.

I mean our marauder went doctor because he was the groups medic (he started with medicine one due to been human), which was probably the weirdest (and cheesy), but it made sense in game an he still hits things with his vibrosword and stun baton.

John Connor: You know what you're doing?

Terminator: I have detailed files on human anatomy.

Sarah Connor: I'll bet. Makes you a more efficient killer, right?

Terminator: Correct.

I don't treat the specs as in-game widgets, with the exception maybe of certain lightsaber-oriented specs in F&D - if you want to become an Ataru Striker, for example, you probably need a good training montage on learning Ataru and sparring with experts in it.

Otherwise, nope, I don't think it needs a lot of "justification." You can "justify" starting into Pilot by saying you spend a few hyperspace jumps in the flight simulator or whatever.

I generally don't ask for justification unless the player's trying to get the fifth and final rank in a skill. Even then, the only justification I need is them using it frequently, as in at least once a session or so. That's just generally, and I don't like to require justifications for Specializations because they already cost so much XP.

The only exception is if an EoE or AoR character with one of the universal Force Sensitive specs is trying to take a Force and Destiny Specialization. In my mind, that requires at least a modicum of instruction, so I require the player in question find a mentor or Holocron. Once they do, though, they can immediately start taking those specs.

We don't necessarily require it in our group, but I find that as a player I try and justify stuff like that, even if it's just a brief nod.

You shouldn't have to justify it to much. If your group finds itself needing someone with a certain set of skills, I think that would be justification enough.

I've told the players in my group that I'll only allow new specializations to be taken between adventures/missions, not between sessions (our sessions are only 2-3 hours so missions/adventures take about 2-3 sessions).

You shouldn't have to justify it to much. If your group finds itself needing someone with a certain set of skills, I think that would be justification enough.

"Were you a doctor yesterday?" - "Nope" - "But you are today, that`s cool, we really need one!"

I've told the players in my group that I'll only allow new specializations to be taken between adventures/missions, not between sessions (our sessions are only 2-3 hours so missions/adventures take about 2-3 sessions).

Not sure I see the reason for this kind of restriction. Buying the specialization doesn't get the character anything right away, just expends XP to open the tree for later use.

You shouldn't have to justify it to much. If your group finds itself needing someone with a certain set of skills, I think that would be justification enough.

"Were you a doctor yesterday?" - "Nope" - "But you are today, that`s cool, we really need one!"

Buying the Doctor tree doesn't make you a doctor. More like buying the specialization opens the path to BECOMING a doctor and seems to be taking the names of the trees a bit literally. heheh.

You shouldn't have to justify it to much. If your group finds itself needing someone with a certain set of skills, I think that would be justification enough.

"Were you a doctor yesterday?" - "Nope" - "But you are today, that`s cool, we really need one!"

Buying the Doctor tree doesn't make you a doctor. More like buying the specialization opens the path to BECOMING a doctor and seems to be taking the names of the trees a bit literally. heheh.

Seems to be taking the joke a bit literally. hehe...

I don't ask for a lot of justification beforehand (although I definitely appreciate it if a player takes the effort to set up his career change) but I do make it clear to my players that I expect them to live up to their new specialization once they take it. Changing specializations is a lot like changing jobs, the way I see it; you quit your job that you're doing today and start a new one that requires you to do something new and different. It all depends a little on context, like what your character is currently doing, what specialization you're taking and so on, but still.

As an example, I had one player (a Thief/Scoundrel with Bounty Obligation and Criminal Motivation) who wanted to take Assassin. Since he was not a bounty hunter or governmner/military agent with access to "officially sanctioned" training I basically gave him the choice of two criminal organizations that offered that kind of training as well as a group of mysterious freelance assassins that could be approached. The player went to the freelance assasins, received training and was then (not surprisingly) asked to kill someone. With that first kill under his belt he was then given an actual contract to fulfill within a given time. The player didn't want to actually murder anyone, so he neglected the contract and now has a group of angry assassins looking to kill him as an example to future defectors.

I also have a player who took the Big Game Hunter specialization and whose character has never shown the slightest interest in hunting anything. I plan on having that come back to bite him in his tender parts quite soon now...

The point I'm trying to make, in my long-winded kind of way, is that the decision to take a new specialization may just be a way to get new cool abilities to a player, but to the character it represents a fairly major change in his day to day life and I expect the player to at the very least acknowledge that in some way. It doesn't have to be a huge deal, but some sort of "yeah, I'm doing this new thing now" is a bare minimum.

I let my players do what they want and have fun. There is plenty of downtime that is glossed over, "after 4 days in hyperspace…" or "later that month…" etc, that can easily be "justified" as their training time.

Even with Force powers, you don't need a teacher. A lot of people just fake it till they make it, or are self starters, etc. the XP expenditure is all the in-game reason I need to let someone get what they want to have fun with their character.

-EF

You shouldn't have to justify it to much. If your group finds itself needing someone with a certain set of skills, I think that would be justification enough.

"Were you a doctor yesterday?" - "Nope" - "But you are today, that`s cool, we really need one!"

I was thinking more of the lines of:

PC A - "We need a Doctor"

PC B - "I can help"

PC A - "Are you a Doctor?"

PC B - "No, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express Last night"

I don't ask for a lot of justification beforehand (although I definitely appreciate it if a player takes the effort to set up his career change) but I do make it clear to my players that I expect them to live up to their new specialization once they take it. Changing specializations is a lot like changing jobs, the way I see it; you quit your job that you're doing today and start a new one that requires you to do something new and different. It all depends a little on context, like what your character is currently doing, what specialization you're taking and so on, but still.

That sounds like forcing the old school Dual-classing option from D&D where humans changing their "class" had to basically give up what they were until they both had the same XP. So, if a player takes a new specialization, then they can't continue taking Talents from the old ones or leveling up skills that aren't "career" to the new specialization?

I don't mind asking for justification within reason. I had one GM who if you wanted to raise knowledge focused skills but didn't get the chance to use them for a period you could raise them by reading books or magazines on the topic for example. He had a dice roll table for determining what bookstores were available on a world or in a city, another table to determine the size of the store's inventory of the store (Cheap thrift store, local store, small and large store from major chains, and such) plus more tables determining exactly what books a store had with different books allowing you to boost different skills by different amounts plus costs for the books. I loved this but it was a lot of work for the GM.

My main problem with justification based systems is sometimes other players feeling things that I and the GM feel are justified aren't. In one example I'll never forget my character had low grade flag rank in the trade division of an organization that had trade fleets and PMC fleets with my character commanding a small feet of freighters, and high cargo space customs ships most of which belonged to my character or other characters in the fleet.

Eventually the trade division gets disbanded as part of a merger wit another shipping company and everyone gets transferred to the PMC division at their current rank. The campaign ends with a new small alliance of worlds forming, and the PMC providing the core of the alliance's officer corps (The various home fleets and customs forces of member systems and stations become defense commands while the PMC's fleet became both a strategic reserve and a fleet for operations outside of our territory.) We don't have enough flag rank officers for each defense command to get one so my character who is our primary shipwright is promoted to command of the defense command assigned to our major shipbuilding center.

Eventually we do a sequel campaign set two years later with each player being given 75 points to spend representing whrat they had been learning and doing during the timejump. I tell the GM my character would have spent a lot of time studying tactics, strategy and such and ask if I can spend my points boosting the relevant skills. He's fine with it so I do so. Other players start complaining saying that I shouldn't be allowed to raise skills I haven't used in scenes much. The GM adds a couple of small space battles to the plot we are in with my character commanding a light task force so he can use the skills in question. Then some of the complaining players whine that I'm getting special treatment. The GM was furious with them. His exact words were "You complain that he spent two years learning new skills rather then refining old ones. You claim he shouldn't be allowed to raise the skills without using them on screen. Now you're upset because he got to use the skills in scenes?" And they had no way to know that the scenes in question weren't part of the original plan for the plot because he had called me on the phone to talk over the issue between sessions and it was during the discussion he decided to had the space battles, which took place three days before the session the first space battle was in. (The plot was a civil war on a small planet with both sides having support from factions offworld. The first space battle was our fleet being sent to intercept an incoming convoy destined for our enemies as it approached the world. The second was us fighting off a mercenary fleet hired by the enemy faction.)

That sounds like a pretty awesome campaign, and like something I'd like to run. I'm curious as to what system that was in.

When a player in your gaming group adds a new specialization to his or her character after character creation, how is that handled in universe in your game? Is it purely mechanical or does it have a narrative explanation too?

Yes.

The first paragraph was basically every campaign that GM runs. He's done D&D every official system of Star Wars Several Star Trek systems, Traveler, Babylon 5. Star Hero and Battlestations. When our group decides to take our next break from Star Wars he's planning one for Rogue Trader though I don't know how he'll adapt it for there.

The rest, aka the horror story was an old Star Wars D6 campaign.

there is a babylon 5 game? cool, now i have something to ask google

In my group, it s not needed that u invent some cool story about ur new spec, but its always cooler if u do invent something. To say it pathethic: every challange in the game or the gamesystem is a opportunity for good roleplay. Lets say u wanna become forcesensitive, u just just pay the EP and skill ur new tree, and at some point, if one of ur firends recognizes that u do mind-freak-stuff, he says "wow". Thats it.

Or u speak with ur GM, how u could handle it, and maybe he has a great idea about a adventure about a lost jedi-temple or who-knows-what. Or, a step smaller and easyier, the guy who wanna learn about artillery gets contact with a weapondealer, a mechanics or smht because he tries to learn more about the weapons he is handling.

Oh, and another point, when you just buy the spec nothing changes (exectp of your forcepoint). The changes start when u buy something from that tree.

there is a babylon 5 game? cool, now i have something to ask google

There are two that I know of, the Chameleon Eclectic game which was ok but the system wasn't great, and the D20 version of which there were two editions.

I played both but was referring to the latter. I played the Chameleon Eclectic B5 with one of my former groups rather then the current one.