Back in the day, it was difficult to match Traveller characters with their equivalents in games like D&D. Some Referees looked for an equivalent of Level for Traveller to allow character advancement on a schedule.  Starting my own Classic Traveller campaign forced me to consider this for the first time in over forty years.

Also, I found this interesting video by Servant of Shiloh at RPG Elite. It points out the Elephant in the room and got me to thinking about how I would fix this for my players. Here is his video, I have my answer below.

I ended up with the solution because of the following:

1. Character progression should progress similarly to career progression during character generation.  In other words, the character now inters the profession adventurer and gains skills at a rate of about two per term.
2. I needed a way for the characters to gain points in statistics as well as skills.
3. The players needed a means to concentrate effort toward a particular skill instead of gaining a random skill.

4. It needed to resolve quickly with little in the way of new mechanics.

The similarity to career progression during character generation and the quick resolution made me consider a very similar mechanic to character generation. It also naturally led to a rate of occurrence of about 1 year game time.  This meshes with the 4 year tour in character generation.

What I show is a version that covers this first method.

Type A, Annual check for skills:

Roll DR for skill acquisition (8+) gains a single roll on the skill tables. To gain a specific skill, you need to roll (9+) or higher. Note rolling to gain a skill from the skill table will only allow a roll on the skill table regardless of the DR is a 9+. If attempting to gain a specific skill and the resulting DR is 8, the character gains no skill. Optionally, the player can lose a random skill if the result is a 2, and/or the roll of 12 gaining 2 skills.

To roll for a specific skill, the player first declares that the character is rolling for a specific skill and names that skill. Players cannot declare Jack-of-all-Trades and leadership as specific skills and can only gain them from the tables. In addition, the tables are the only source from which players can receive statistic increases to a statistic that is already above 10.

When rolling for skills on the skill tables, the player may choose from the personal development, service skills, or advanced education skill tables from the services that the referee believes reflect the play during the previous year, in addition, the player may roll on the skill tables of the character’s previous profession because of familiarity with the process.

To determine which services are available for skill advancement, the referee checks if the characters could have used any skills during the previous year of game play. We do not limit this to the character but to the adventure group. The adventurous activity of the crew exposes people to experiences that would typically only be available to members of that service.

For example: fighting has taken place, both brawling and gun combat, that puts army and marines as possibilities. Spaceflight specific activities take place indicating that both Navy and Scouts are relevant. They have done some commercial activities to make the Merchant services relevant. Last, since it is adventuring, the Other service is always relevant. Note: the careers of the Citizens of the Imperium are also possibly relevant if using that sourcebook.

Example Specific Skill: Dr. Nina Tryon is an example character seeking to do skill acquisition. Before skill advancement, she has the following: Dr. Nina Tryon 6B6356 F  Age 22  1 Term  Cr 0 Administration-1, Medical-2; Nina will try to gain an additional specific skill Computer.  She rolls a 6 {5,1} meaning she gains no skill for the year and is now 23.  This is consistent with many 4-year terms where it is highly unusual to gain a skill every year. The following year she tries again for the specific computer skill and rolls a 12 {6,6}. She gains the Computer-1 on her character sheet and is now 24 years old.

Example General Skill: Later, Dr. Tryon wants to roll on the tables on year 3. She rolls an 11 {6,5} this means that she can roll on one of the Personal Development, Service Skills, or Advanced Education tables of the Other service. Note that her education score of 5 does not allow her on the second Advanced education table. Also note that the roll of 11 does not allow her to pick a specific skill she must still roll on a table. She opts for personal development and rolls a 1, increasing her strength by 1. Her strength is now 7. The following year, Dr. Tryon wants to continue rolling on the tables. She roll an 7 {6,1} gaining no skills.