Talk:Rules:Instructors

Given that we can acquire Rating 6 Skillsofts in a skill for ¥2,400, I think we should have the costs for flesh-and-blood instructors be greater than that. I have a proposal which divides the instructor cost into three parts, the referral fee, the fixed cost, and the variable cost.

-- This seems like the opposite of true - Humans are competing with software, and so they seem like they want to be cheaper? --Malta^Talk 23:21, 14 June 2021 (EST)

>> Maybe for a regularly scheduled class or such, but since we're effectively paying for a one-on-one tutoring session the expectation is to be better than the software (in unexpected curcumstances) and thus more expensive. — Revàn^(Talk) 11:27, 15 June 2021 (EST)

Referral Fee

Use the networking rules on SR5 p.388 with threshold of half the desired Instruction Skill of the instructor. The threshold may be lowered if the contact used has expertese relevant to the skill being trained. Since this represents trying to find an *avaliable* instructor, no oppertunity for a new contact is given.

-- What fee is this? There's no costs. --Malta^Talk 23:21, 14 June 2021 (EST)

>> Using the Networking of a contact counts as a service/favour and the aforementioned fee is assuming that the contact is willing to take cash. — Revàn^(Talk) 11:27, 15 June 2021 (EST)

>>> This is the 7-Loyalty * 100¥ thing? --Malta^Talk 19:58, 15 June 2021 (EST)

>>>> This is either the [Connection Rating] * 100¥ or 1000¥ depending on if Networking is information or a service or something in between (SR5 p. 389, Favour for a Friend) — Revàn^(Talk) 00:22, 16 June 2021 (EST)

Fixed Cost

This is the cost to have the instructor show up on short notice (i.e. on your training schedule). This cost is [Instruction Rating] x ¥500.

Variable Cost

This is the cost for training and is [New Skill Rating] x ¥10 per day of training actually given (i.e. after the 25% reduction and Instruction die roll reduction).

This means without any other reductions in time, if we wanted to improve a skill to 7, this would be Referral Fee + ¥3,500 + (37 - Instruction Hits) x ¥70 ≈ ¥800 (connection 4 x ¥200 (double contact price for "information")) + ¥3,500 + ¥2,380 (34 x 70) = ¥6,680

We may also want to allow for a Negotiation reduction on the Fixed Cost, maybe something like 5% off per net hit up to a max of 10 net hits.

Discussion

-- Why not use the rules for buying skill checks from Cutting Aces? --Malta^Talk 23:21, 14 June 2021 (EST)

>> 'cause I can't find anything in the damn book and thus didn't know about it. Can you give an example of what that might look like? (i.e. are you applying it to the dice pool of the instructor's Instruction? Are we counting 8 hours a day of daily tutoring over weeks (seems unreasonable, but I think we suggested an hour a day of tutoring time in an email thread which sounds more reasonable)?) — Revàn^(Talk) 11:27, 15 June 2021 (EST)

>>> Bargaining Table, pg 162, the big question is how many hours is instruction? --Malta^Talk 20:10, 15 June 2021 (EST)

>>>> In an email I sent dated Feb 22nd, I calculated the cost of getting an Instruction 7 to teach Summoning 7 (the use case where I will want an instructor better than software) using what turns out to be for knowledge skill in Cutting Aces (100¥ x skill rating) at full 8 hours a day for the requisite amount of time, and this turns out to be 207,200¥, which is 40% of buying a Medium lifestyle. In the email I suggested one hour a day for each day after the Instruction roll, which applying the same calculation with the updated Cutting Aces dice pool (450¥ * 37 days) = 16,650¥, which is still a hefty sum. We could also do 8 hours for the first day (so you will still need to pay for an instructor even if you get it down to one day) and then an hour each day after that or something if we're worried about that edge case. Honestly, the idea of seperating the fixed cost and variable cost is to make the long training times more feasible/affordable to have an instructor for all of it. — Revàn^(Talk) 00:22, 16 June 2021 (EST)

>>>>> Ok, perfect, makes sense. I mean, someone with Instruction 7 is pretty bonkers good and gonna be very hard to get a hold of. Right now, in Street Grimoire pg 140 it says that 5 weeks of instruction (for Initiation) is 10000¥. Which puts the 16650¥ is probably on par for that (Summoning 7 is gonna be 14 weeks - right? And Instruction 7 is a lot). The knowledge skill thing in Cutting Aces is for *one* event, and it's Pool*100. The other one is ongoing use of Active Skill (previous item on the table), it's gonna be, assuming a Cha 6 Instructor, (6+7)/4*150 300¥/hour, at 40 hours a week it's gonna cost 12,000¥/day. Which is also gonna be super spendy. The real question is how long does it take to make a Instruction test. Is it one day? Can you make more than one per training time? --Malta^Talk 15:40, 16 June 2021 (EST)

>>>>>> The example is Instruction 7 because under Using Instruction (SR5 p 141) it says "The teacher can only teach up to their own Instruction Rating". It's also 7 weeks (it's not 2 weeks per until you try to raise it to 9), and with the 25% "instructor show up" reduction it's 37 days. What I am proposing is that it is probably not neccessary for an instructor to show up for 8 hours a day for all 37 (less Instruction hits) of those days (maybe the first) because a lot of it will be practice and homework.

TO recap, I'm proposing an instructor to be broken up into:

• Referral cost: Cost to your contact to find an avaliable instructor (using contact service/favour rules on SR5 p 389)
• Fixed cost: Cost for the instructor to show up and reduce the training time by 25% on your schedule
• Variable cost: Following up by the instructor checking up on your progress as you go though the material across the training period

Fixed cost I have proposed [Instructor Rating] x ¥500, although after reading the Cutting Aces rule this probably should be the knowledge pool x ¥100 in the knowledge of the skill being trained (which I think needs to be at least as high as the new rating of what is being trained?). Variable cost I am currently proposing [Instruction Die Pool / 4 round up] * ¥150 as per the Cutting Aces active skill rules, per day of the training.

(Also worth noting that I will be using this with Apt Pupil and Chosen Follower so I won't actually be using the full 37 days in the example) — Revàn^(Talk) 21:34, 16 June 2021 (EST)

Update Referral to use new Contact Rules

Reason: We're no longer using the rules on SR5 p.398

The section for Referral cost was written before Contacts Redux. Here's my suggestion, split into two halves:

• If you want to use your contact to find someone to teach you:
  • Your contact makes an extended Networking roll, difficulty instruction dice pool of instructor, 1 hour interval. The number of hours they take is the length the extended service of a rating 1 favour. The rest of the process would work as proposed already.

• If you want to use your contact to teach you:
  • Your contact needs to have a relevant aspect and an Active DP greater than or equal to double the skill being trained. This counts as a Rating 2 extended favour, at one hour per day.

> I'm okay with the proposal being edited to reflect this. — Jynx^(Talk) 21:24, 30 October 2021 (EST)

Added glitch effects and retry stipulations, as well as an option to try and find an instructor yourself. Core idea is street cred vs instructor street cred (represented as instructor die pool). + skill rank represents how well known you are at that skill specifically, -2x noteriety and public awareness represents risk to the instructor at being associated with someone known. — Revàn^(Talk) 10:53, 2 November 2021 (EST)

> I like some of the ideas, but two major concerns:

1. Extended test feels like it takes too long. The point of finding an instructor is to reduce the time and as is they are not great at it, making it take days to find them feels unfun for me (even for the 25% reduction on large times). I'd rather have a simple/opposed test with a retry interval, even if that is less "realistic".
2. Formula feels clunky. I think this is actually resolved if going to a straight up opposed roll: something like Street Cred + Skill - 2×Notoriety vs. Instruction Pool reads a lot cleaner to me. I also don't think PA should be a negative factor in general.

If people are OK with Rules:Harder Extended Tests, I would like to change the test to Street Cred + Cha + Current Skill [Social] (2x Instructor DP, 8 hours) {Noteriety + Public Awareness} — Revàn^(Talk) 10:40, 5 November 2021 (EST)