I have a player in my group that created a CCoreillian Human character. When he picked his career and specialization however he didn't get Core Worlds Knowledge. His backstory supports him having Core Worlds Knowledge so he was to change his Outer-Rim Knowledge to Core Worlds Knowledge.

Has anyone else had this problem and how did it get resolved?

I personally have never had this problem but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. It sounds like an easy enough thing to fix. If you and the pc want to Change the knowledge it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

There's little harm in a player making small changes to a character to make it fit their idea within the first few sessions of play.

Question: How did the player come by their one rank in Know (Outer Rim)?

If it was something they bought as a non-career skill, then no problem switching it from one to the other.

If it was something they got as one of their starting skill ranks, and either their career or starting specialization offers both of them as career skills, then again no problem switching from one to the other.

if it was something they got as one of their bonus non-career skill ranks for being a bog-standard Human, and Know (Core Worlds) isn't a career skill, then once again no problem in switching them.

Where it might be an issue is that if the PC got Know (Outer Rim) as a starting career skill, or bought it at the career skill rate, but Know (Core Worlds) isn't a career skill for this character. By allowing him to swap it in this instance, you're effectively handing the guy 5 XP for free.

Or if the opposite is true, and that Know (Outer Rim) is not a career skill and the player paid 10 XP for the skill rank, but Know (Core Worlds) was, then by simply switching it you're penalizing the player 5 XP.

In the grand scheme of things, it's probably not going to be that big of a deal, but honestly I'd just have the player pony up the XP to buy a rank of Know (Core Worlds). There's no hard limit to how much XP a character can earn, and 10 XP is about half of what seems to be a fairly typical reward for completing an adventure.

Has anyone else had this problem and how did it get resolved?

How does it get resolved?

Step 1: Place the character sheet in front of you

Step 2: Erase the +1 from Outer Rim

Step 3: Write in the +1 to Core Worlds

Problem solved.

In the grand scheme of things, it's probably not going to be that big of a deal, but honestly I'd just have the player pony up the XP to buy a rank of Know (Core Worlds). There's no hard limit to how much XP a character can earn, and 10 XP is about half of what seems to be a fairly typical reward for completing an adventure.

If there's any inside/outside career skill difference, I'd just tell him "Next game, make sure five of your points goes to buying this skill" or "Here, take these five points back."

Sorry. I must not have been clear. He want to make Core Worlds Knowledge a career skill instead of Outer-Rim Knowledge without changing his career or specialization.

Sorry. I must not have been clear. He want to make Core Worlds Knowledge a career skill instead of Outer-Rim Knowledge without changing his career or specialization.

Is it vitally important that this be a career skill? Seems to me it could just be a selection made on the human species and be done with it. Sure, it'll cost more to upgrade, but there is a give and take with Careers and Specializations. I see little harm in making it a career skill until everyone at the table starts asking for a similar complication.

This just opens a door that's hard to close later, and pretty soon everybody wants a custom spec. People complain about a lot of specs not having a particular skill, e.g.: Explorer:Scout doesn't have "Stealth", even though they have talents that make use of it, so your player isn't alone. But they should just suck it up.

If the player really wants the career discount on that skill, let them look at other specs that might have it and something else they want, and let them buy that spec. I do find the "new spec" surcharge a bit onerous, so I offer a pretty serious discount on new specs, but to keep the players from bouncing around and picking up low-hanging fruit I also require a considerable investment in the specs they have before offering the discount.

Sorry. I must not have been clear. He want to make Core Worlds Knowledge a career skill instead of Outer-Rim Knowledge without changing his career or specialization.

In that instance, I'd tell him to suck it up. The worst that happens, assuming that he gets the skill up to max, is that he's spent 25 points on the Out Of Career Tax. That's what - two games worth of XP? That's nothing.

Sorry. I must not have been clear. He want to make Core Worlds Knowledge a career skill instead of Outer-Rim Knowledge without changing his career or specialization.

Yeah, that generally falls under the heading of "suck it buttercup."

As Whafrog noted, not every career/spec combo is going to give a player everything they want for their character. For instance, most of the FaD characters that I've played had to accept that Discipline (a pretty handy skill for Force users) was a non-career skill and that I'd either be paying extra to increase it (likely the case for my Sentinel/Shien Expert), or would have to purchase a second specialization that offered Discipline as a career skill (such as going into Niman Disciple for my Warrior/Shii-Cho Knight), or snagging the Insight from FSExile/Emergent (what I did for my Seeker/Ataru Striker).

At first I was like, sure go ahead just make the **** switch. But then, no. There are mechanics for this, starting down this path just opens up for more customizations again and again. If the player is dead set on playing this specific career, then he must buy his way into the skills he want.

Either by spending the extra XP on skill ranks or for example buying the Well Rounded talent (make two skills career skills), a 5 XP talent in some trees (Archaeologist f.ex.). If his specialization is not in one of the around 6 specializations that have Well Rounded, well he gotta buy one of them then.

At least that's how I'd roll with it.

Why does he want it? If its because he's from Corellia and thinks he should have knowledge about the place, remember that Core Worlds isn't just Corellia the planet and that it doesn't just represent a working man's knowledge of the area they live but quite a high indepth studying I think. He can still roll with his green dice and there isn't any compulsion for him to put points into Outer Rim just because its a career skill.

Honestly, if the Knowledge(places) were based on where you live they wouldn't be career skills based on which career you choose, so I take it to mean a more scholarly knowledge.

Okay. Plus, narrative wise, the XP they are spending is them developing their skills as they learn. He has been removed from the events of the core worlds anyway so to learn more (getting ranks in that skill) would take more effort.

While it's true that being from Corellia isn't going to translate into knowledge of all of the core worlds (or making core worlds a career skill), it would justify a boost die when dealing with Corellia specifically.

I personally wouldn't see too much of a problem with switching Knowledge skills around as careers skills provided it was only once and only at character creation. I would also only allow swapping Knowledge skills as once you get into swapping Combat skills and General skills you get into a very messy area.

Knowledge skills are nice utility skills to have but they don't really provide too much of a benefit to really give that character an edge. I also think that Knowledge skills are great for character flavour. If a player has a good reason for the swap I would allow it.

I think it is also important to point out that making concessions like this for your players is slippery slope. Let one player have something special and everyone else will want their own special allowance.

While it's true that being from Corellia isn't going to translate into knowledge of all of the core worlds (or making core worlds a career skill), it would justify a boost die when dealing with Corellia specifically.

Tangent: I find it really odd that a species--notably the Muun from the Outer Rim--start with a free rank in Knowledge (Core Worlds). That would be like be like the inhabitants of Australia all knowing more about the Northern Hemisphere than they do about their neighbors in the Southern Hemisphere. OTOH, maybe that's not too far off...

While it's true that being from Corellia isn't going to translate into knowledge of all of the core worlds (or making core worlds a career skill), it would justify a boost die when dealing with Corellia specifically.

This is probably the best solution, as it provides the PC with an edge about knowing things about their home system, which it seems is what the player is asking for in the first place.

While it's true that being from Corellia isn't going to translate into knowledge of all of the core worlds (or making core worlds a career skill), it would justify a boost die when dealing with Corellia specifically.

Tangent: I find it really odd that a species--notably the Muun from the Outer Rim--start with a free rank in Knowledge (Core Worlds). That would be like be like the inhabitants of Australia all knowing more about the Northern Hemisphere than they do about their neighbors in the Southern Hemisphere. OTOH, maybe that's not too far off...

I'll admit to not being 100% up to date on the lore regarding Muunilist, but I wonder if it's a similar case to Eriadu, which is pretty much a Core World in just about every definition except location. Or perhaps the Muun, being a species that's heavily invested in economics have made intense study of Core World economic patterns, as the economic patterns of the outlying regions are probably too erratic or disconnected to reduce proper economic forecasting to blind guesswork, as opposed to the highly educated and well-informed guesses that most legitimate economists rely upon.

While it's true that being from Corellia isn't going to translate into knowledge of all of the core worlds (or making core worlds a career skill), it would justify a boost die when dealing with Corellia specifically.

It is definitely true. Just look at some of Jimmy Kimmel's segments where he asks simple questions to random people on the street. Some Americans would not pass a basic civics test to become citizens, etc. So if the PC did not take a specialization where he would have studied the local region of space, he just isn't that knowledgeable. Basic things that he would know from being there would probably be easy or average difficulty anyway.

I had a player make a Colonist - Performer. He was a shock boxer who had his career ruined early. But Performer has the melee skill as career. We simply changed it to Brawl instead. It worked out great.

In my opinion, the game is about telling stories, not perfectly adhering to the rules. A minor change to encourage player enthusiasm and immersion is definitely worth the risk.