So I'm in between adventures with my players and was just looking at their experience and skills mind wandering about all sorts of things including how much I hate FFG for giving us DotDG and Creatures leaving me with a headache of too many ideas lol. Anyway I was wondering if any of you other Gamemasters impose penaltys on how long it takes to get a skill or if you all just go "ya 200 for that skill next adventure time!".

What I mean is I think i'm maybe too concerned with narative time in my adventures. Once a mission is done I like to give the players a set amount of time (say 4 weeks for example) to rest & recover, buy new stuff and train up new skills. The reason for this is so they only have a limited amount of time to buy things before shoved off to the next thing their Inquisitor wants investigated.

Using the reasoning it takes time to track things down I figured the same should apply to new skills or talents. I know part of the justification of earning a new skill/talent can be from doing something previously like for example firing weapons in your off-hand then later buying ambidextrous but I figure some time is still required to polish up skills/talents so I usually knock of a week or two for training.

So is it just me that does this? any other quirks you have about skill buying?

I don't worry about how a character gains a skill or talent or how long such should take. If the talent or skill is listed in their advancement tree at a level they can purchase it on, then they can do so at any time without me so much as batting an eye. Internal story logic is maintained quite easily by simply assuming that the character had always known said talent or skill or had polished up on it at some nebulous time in the near past and has just never had the opportunity to use it or show off with it.

If the game we're playing was a book or a movie, the audience wouldn't have access to the character sheets and, as such, wouldn't know what a character can or can't do unless it's specifically come up at some point in time during the story. If that's happened, all that needs to be done is a simple explanation as to why they couldn't do it then but can do it now which is usually painfully easy. Most any basic skill has probably been tested before if it's come up which means the character may have actually succeeded with the skill without ever having it -no continuity issues with buying that skill and probably no explanation needed. If the skill or talent in question has come up and it was shown that the character absolutely could not preform the needed action because of this, then the player will need to come up with some justification for either learning what they previously had proven they didn't know or a reason why they couldn't / didn't preform the action that proved they didn't have the skill. If the player can do something to preserve the internal logic of the story, then that's really all that's needed.

The only time I would concern my self with actual time needed to learn a new skill or trying to practice said talent in-game before being able to buy it is with elite advances... but then none of my players have asked for one of those yet.

In my games, if a character absolutely has to go off somewhere to train for longer than a few weeks (two of my current DH players say they want to do this to become a Commissar and full-fledged Arbitrator respectively) I allow them to roll up and play a different character for a gaming session or two, and then transfer the XP they got from the second character back across (usually once I've killed them off).

Be aware that characters don't stop learning whilst they're within their adventures (some players I know think that the characters only learn at the end of the session when they get XP), so it's quite possible to learn basic stuff just by being around someone who knows what they're doing or through trial and error (hanging about the cockpit whilst in aerial flight would give you an inkling about air vehicle piloting that training would only enhance, and you can learn byu doing if you survive the first few cock-ups). If you make the characters work this into their upgrade requests (remember you can veto anything even if it's part of the character progression if they don't come up with an at least halfway decent reason for it) it makes for a better experience. So if, for example, an Adept finds a boltgun (without the skill), decides to keep it, use it, lug it around, fire it, clean it, unjam it and generally fight the -20 BS when trying to kill stuff, it's well within the players rights to ask for an elite upgrade of only 200XP after a month or so (game time) of fighting, even if he can't get Basic Weapons (Bolt) for his job. They'd be able to ask for it even sooner if someone shows them how to work the #"!£$-ing thing. Conversely, just suddenly having Basic Weapons (Bolt) appear in green letters above a characters head doesn't (and can't) work. So try to work in little contextual hints about what your characters can (and can't) learn by doin in this particular area/town/story arc. Also, listen to what the players want to level up in. If you overhear someone talking about leveling up their Drive (Ground Vehicle) skill, perhaps work in a high-speed chase so that the player can reasonably assume they're getting better at it. If they crash into a wall, then this too can be construed as experience (although in a "How Not To Do It" fashion).

Skills that take longer to learn or that require intense study, such as Trade (Smith) or any of the Tech-priest skills that require surgery, should be available, but only BETWEEN arcs of the major, multi-team, millennium-spanning, apocalyptic overplot you probably have barreling about your brain (I know I've got one MWAHAHAHAHA!!) when the Acolytes have more time to train (Smithcrafting can take years of practice to get right, but if we assume it's only a month between the =][= showing up and demanding service, the character would never even finish their apprenticeship). Between arcs, you can add months or even years to the Acoltyes service, saying any other team members still in Inquisitorial service have been on wild goose chases in the meantime (to get around the "If I've been working for the Inquisition for a year, why haven't I got XP to show for it?" thing without using the mod-hammer). That way you can keep the team balanced and still fit in various talents and skills that seem to require way more time than is available, whilst keeping your team amused (which is your job as DM after all )

Darkshroud said:

I would agree that you are maybe too concerned with the narative time.

As soon as my players want a certain thing for their pc (be it a talent, skill or equipment) I start to ask myself " is there any need for him not to have it?"

For example, If a player would haven been provenly unable to speak HighGothic and then wants to learn it in mid-adventure, I would disallow it.
If he wants to learn it in one meager week downtime & have the xp... I would start to fudge things in that way that his =I= grants him access to some very special sleep-training-machine in sacred machine temple of the slumbering wisdom. A great honour, indeed!

I try only to say "no!" if it is to blatantly "wrong" that most of the players wouldn´t be able to live with it..or if it is going to destroy some challenges I really need for a running or planned adventure.

Otherwise...haven them whatever they want.

Remember: if they "learn" a new skill/talent they never used before, it could be they new it all the time before. This "free" approach spares you a lot of book-keeping and mind-crunching you better put into these pesyk creatures and heretics !