Traveller Skill Specialty Idea

 Traveller character skills are recorded in integer increments: Engineer-1, Mechanics-2, and so on.

In Mongoose Traveller 2e, some skills have specialties. You have to choose one of those when you reach level 1 in a skill that has them. In the case of Engineer, the player must choose one of Jump Drives, Maneuver Drives, Power Plant, or Life Support to receive the benefit of the "1", the other specialties being treated as skill "0", which removes the Untrained penalty of -3.

Disclaimer - Hot Sports Opinion: I hate level-0 skills. And I think all the above is overly complex and isn't worth the effort. Sure, they aren't complex mechanics and players can quickly learn them, but it would be better not to have to learn them at all. I think this approach is a crutch to support other inelegancies.

Let's say in character generation you end up with two levels of Engineer. That could be:

• Engineering (Jump Drives)-2, Engineering (all others)-0; or
• Engineering (Jump Drives)-1, Engineering (Maneuver Drives)-1, Engineering (all others)-0
• (substitute other specialties as you like).

What is the point of this? To reward you for being specialized but also also less useful in generic play. You could be the chief engineer of a ship with Engineering (Jump Drives)-3. But if the life support system is crapped out, you're just Engineering-0.

The more specialties as skill has, the worse this dynamic gets.

So to be most useful in the widest variety of circumstances (because Traveller play is usually very unpredictable), for skills that have specialties, the prudent character would put one level of skill in every specialty before moving to a second level of specialty. In other words: Engineering (Jump Drives)-1, Engineering (Maneuver Drives)-1, Engineering (Power)-1, Engineering (Life Support)-1 is wiser than Engineering (Jump Drives)-4.

An Alternative: For each level of skill, choose a specialty to add to.

Remove the specialization requirement and make it additive. Engineering-2? Great. You're good at all the engineering stuff. But you can choose two things to be even better at. And maybe a list that's longer than the current list of specialties. For engineering that might be Damage Control, Hull Structures. For Mechanics, which has no specialties, maybe Grav Bikes, or Firearms, or Ship Salvage. History-2 (Specialties: The Fifth Frontier War, The Ziru Sirka).

This could be extended to specific abilities such as Gun Combat-1 and take the feature Quick Draw, or Sniper. Melee-1 could be Grappling. 

Specialties can be added, optionally, for additional flavor and detail, rather than mechanically constricting a character's ability.

Mercenaries, Bonds, and Dog Tags

On Reddit, someone asked what proves someone is a mercenary? Copying my reply here for future reference.

Comparing to real world history, there are laws of war that typically require participants or "recognized belligerants" to abide by certain rules, such as wearing uniforms, in exchange for certain protections, such as the Geneva convention, access for the International Red Cross, and so on.

For mercenaries, you'd want a Repatriation Bond from an institution that is recognized by the belligerents in a war so that they honor it. For instance, if you the Zhodani and Third Imperium are fighting and you're a mercenary employed by either side, you'd want a repatriation bond backed by a powerful bank or entity that both sides recognize such as at Arden (a neutral system between Zhodani and Imperium in the Vilis subsector).

So that if you're captured, the captors can return you to your home, or an acceptable neutral intermediary and cash in that bond (or your remains for a smaller fee).

In a Traveller setting, I imagine this would involve some kind of quantumly-entangled subcutaneous chip whose authenticity could be easily scanned and verified (and probably a redundant actual dog tag or UPC tattoo.

More:

Classic Traveller Book 4 Mercenary discusses the legal conditions of a mercenary ticket listing: conditions of payment, type of service, financial support, and repatriation bond ("generally posted in an escrow account in a neutral bank with sufficient funds to provide low passage off-planet to the personnel of the contingent . . . mercenaries become non-combatants and are given free transit to the nearest spaceport." - All this in the case the employing entity ceases to function.

Mongoose Traveller 1E Book 1 Mercenary has a whole several pages on the mercenary ticket but adds to the repatriation bond as a form of guaranteed payment for a mercenary when the employer ceases to function.