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[etheral]

was chatting with a player yesterday on food run and had the idea for generalist asset. I seem to remember there was posted on here at some point but I can't seem to find it.
I haven't entirely worked out the rules but the general idea should make sense.

ASSET : "jack of all trades" cost: not sure thinking d8 and/or d12
this trait allows general skills to go up to d8 (or d10 for higher cost??) before specializations start. as a side affect specializations can only go to d10.

there was also discussion of a more focused version for skill sets or professions as follows

ASSET: "combat specialist" cost: again unsure
you have undergone a wide range of combat training. this trait allows 3 of the following general skills to reach d8 (again maybe d10 for higher cost). guns, heavy weapons, melee weapons, ranged weapons, unarmed combat.

ASSET: "MEDIC!" cost: again unsure
you have undergone a wide variety of medical training. this trait allows 3 of the following general skills to reach d8 (again maybe d10 for higher cost). medicine, knowledge, perception, science


as I was writing this I also thought of a complication

complication: specialist. cost: no idea
your dedicated training and specialization has left you lacking in many general skills. choose X general skills that will max out at d4.

any suggestions and tweaking are appreciated.

[Sarge]

Something like this was invented for the Serenity game.  IIRC, it was a major asset that allowed all general skills to go up to d8 and was called "Renaissance Man."

[speshul]

Its also mentioned as a global change in big damn hereos, changing where the specialisms start.

And I beleive you are correct about Renaissance Man."

[koeran]

I seem to remember having a remarkably similar conversation, on a remarkably similar food run, myself.

Though I failed to articulate my ideas fully.  As seems to be typical for me with oral communication.

For a Jack of All Trades Asset there are a few options.

As you've mentioned, one is to allow general skills to go up to d8, but cap specialisations at d10.  Which is fairly fitting, given that the expanded name/phrase is, "Jack of all Trades, Master of none".  And d12 level is considered "Master" in all the Cortex books I own.

Another option would be to halve (or otherwise lower) the AP cost of general skills and double (or otherwise increase) the AP cost of speciality skills.

Another option would be to combine the two.  Halving the AP cost of general skills, but maxing out specialities at d10.

I'm reluctant to allow a single trait to allow all general skills to go to d8, or at least one named/themed "Jack of all Trades" as a d8 level is too high for someone who dabbles in many different skill sets.

Of course the other issue is, the suggestions so far (including mine) don't function strictly as Traits function.  I may be mistaken, but as far as I know, all Traits are either wholly beneficial (Assets) or penalising (complications), they don't combine benefits and penalties.

The other concept I was trying to convey was a Role Asset.

Most RPGs, Serenity in particular, require characters to fill a particular role in the crew/party/team.

There are some Assets already which cover this.  Born Behind the Wheel, Mechanical Empathy and Healers Touch to name a few.  These all work by adding the Trait die to any rolls with a particular General Skill, or one of its specialities.  There are several general skills which aren't covered by one of these assets.  And maybe they don't need to be.

I can understand limiting what type of skills are effected by those kinds of traits, as things get very messy if they're involved in direct roll off situations.  Namely, a pilot with BBtW who is flying against a pilot without it is surely going to win (assuming similar Attributes and Skills).  However, most of the traits, the ones that boost Animals, Mechanic, Medicine and Tech aren't likely to be used in roll off situations.  They're mostly going to be against target difficulties, in low/non combat situations.

Were there to be a "Combat Machine" Asset that functioned in the same manner, it would very quickly make any character with the trait overpowered (at least in combat situations) and then the GM is forced to have NPCs with the same Trait just to make things more challenging for the Combat character.  Which quickly causes issues because the rest of the party who don't have the trait then find themselves quickly outmatched.

That said, I wanted a Trait that could be used to reflect a characters focus in a particular skill tree, while showing that they've neglected others to achieve that focus.  Maybe that's redundant, given that where they spend their skill points should already reflect that.  But in my opinion, it's too hard to get strong skill sets to represent that level of focus.  And as I've mentioned, there aren't enough Traits to cover all the general skills, and some of them shouldn't be covered in that manner anyway.

So, back to the Trait.

The original idea I was working with, was something very similar to what etheral has presented (unsurprising since it was from the same conversation).

Role
Choose 1 general skill.  You can now take that general skill up to d8, before having to buy specialities.  However you must pick 2 other general skills which only go to d4 before you must specialise, and further, you must train 1 speciality within both of those skills to at least d6.

How much the trait should cost, I don't know.  As I haven't done the maths to work out just how much of an AP advantage it is.  But it could have several levels.  The cheapest boosting 1 skill while penalising 2, the next boosting 2 while penalising 3 (or 4) and the last (should it have 3 levels) boosting 3 while penalising 4 (or 6).

But as I mentioned earlier, it functions differently to standard Traits, by combining an Asset with a Complication.

[etheral]

I do agree that majority of complications have a purely positive or negative side to them however the idea behind the specialization caps was to prevent players abusing it to amp up the few skills they want beyond expected levels.
maybe it would work better as a bundle of sorts where the net trait cost is small because it's a bundle of one very good positive trait and one negative trait?
on another note though the maximum specialization may only apply on character creation so characters could develop higher during play.

[Fnord43]

I think Renaissance Man and Jack of all Trades could be don as two different assets. Renaissance Man would be someone who is good at a variety of things, Jack of All Trades would be someone who is competent at most, if not all things.

Here is the Renaissance Man trait from the Completely Unofficial compilation from Waves:
Renaissance Man [Minor/Major]
You specialize in not Specializing.  Benefit: All your General Skills may be raised to a maximum of d8 (instead of d6); however, buying any skill at d10 (which is now the first level at which they become Specialties) or higher costs an extra 4 Advancement Points at each level. Note: During character generation, you CAN buy General Skills at d8, but the cost penalty above that level ONLY applies during advancement later on, and NOT during character generation. Instead, dur-
ing character generation, you are limited to a d10 in all skills: no Specialty can be raised higher than d10 with your starting Skill points. This level of Renaissance Man counts as a Minor Asset because the value of it is decreased by the additional cost of highlevel Skills—otherwise, this is extremely powerful, and even with it, GMs should consider whether or not to allow it.

As a Major Asset, once per session players can spend
2 PP to add a +1 Step Skill bonus to one General
Skill for the remainder of the session. This DOES
NOT apply to Specialties; use it ONLY when the
General Skill itself is rolled. This can increase the
chosen General Skill to d10 if it was already at d8.
Jack of All Trades, Master of None [Minor]
Halves the advancement cost of general skills, and reduces the cost during character creation by 2 (however the first level still costs 2 points).  This limits specialization to d8, and increases the cost by 2. No specializations may be taken during character creation.

OR
[Minor]
Halves the cost of general skills during both character creation and advancement, but you cannot specialize in anything.
[Major]
Same as above, but you may specialize after character creation, it just costs double.

Role playing summary:
You love learning new things, but once you are moderately competent it rarely hold your interest.