Question on skills in WNMHGB

[TardisCaptain]

So I've been looking over the rules for Where No Man Has Gone Before and I have a few questions.

On the skills, there are six of them, Communication, Engineering, Knowledge, Medicine, Physical and Subterfuge.  There is something also called the Trained Skill.  Is this one of the six selected or something the character chooses on their own?

Say for example one character wanted to have the skill of swimming or another character wanted to be proficient in a musical instrument.  Would this be a Trained Skill?

Thanks for the clarifications.

[slortar]

It's really more of a state thing. There are only six skills, and they can be "trained" or "not trained". If you're not trained in a skill, your total bonus will be half your level, rounded down, plus. If it's trained, then the bonus is going to be your level +3.

So, a beginning character might be Trained in Communication. At level one, they be +4 to Communication rolls, but the other five skills would be untrained, so they'd only get a +1 when, say, sneaking around, or doing science stuff.

The system is meant to reflect that Star Fleet officers tend to be good at a lot of things, due to cross-training and a rounded education, but they tend to really excel in one or two areas.

[TardisCaptain]

That makes sense. We've seen several episodes where Uhura takes over navigation and the like.

Do you have any suggestions for "rounding out" the character for those that demonstrate musical skills?

[slortar]

I'd probably just do it as flavor if it's something relatively minor in game. Or I'd use the Specialist Talent. If it's something where a +2 seems a little anemic, I'd hack together a new Talent somewhat in line with the existing ones.

But yeah, Star Trek is basically space opera masquerading as harder science fiction. Everything's constructed from varying amounts of Handwavium.

[TardisCaptain]

I was re-reading this and something else popped up.

A 1st level character names one of his skills as trained. So they get the character level + 3 for the skill bonus (+4). The other skills are half the level, rounded down. So first level characters untrained would be .5 (or 0 after rounded down)? You mentioned above that they would get a +1 for the untrained skills at level 1. Which one is correct?

Thanks

[slortar]

Round down, then add one. From the book: "All other skills will be at half your level, rounded down, plus one ((Level/2)+1 )."