Mentor & Instruction


There is now a universal system for the Mentor Background as a tutelage method. Just like in real life, most people develop skills and learn facts from teachers. Even in antiquity, the best educated individuals were not wholly self-taught. There are several good reasons for the use of the following systems. For explanation on any of them, contact Cam. Note that with the exceptions below, the Instruction and Mentor rules apply as written in the corebooks.

Instruction
The Instruction Talent can only be used to teach Abilities, namely Skills and Knowledges. Some Talents can be taught (Storyteller's discretion). However, all XP gained from the benefit of Instruction may be "stored up" for use on the Ability being taught. That is, an XP pool may be set aside provided the character remains an attentive student to the instructor for many months. This differs from the Mentor system (see below) in that excess successes are simply dropped and cannot be stored. (The other benefit of Instruction over Mentor is the larger potential dicepool, and thusly the greater amount of tutelage XP possible.)

The core rules of the system remain as follows:

  • Instruction can only be rolled once per month; if a student is learning multiple Abilities, whether from the same teacher or not, he must choose which Ability he focuses on (as it were) the most to gain the tutelage XP.
  • The student must roll Willpower (difficulty 8) to stay on task (and thus earn tutelage XP) in the face of any distractions (like many Storylines!).
  • Regardless of XP earned, any Ability can only be raised one level per month. This isn't The Matrix. Most Abilities take years to master and some restrictions may apply.
  • The instructor cannot comprehensively teach any Ability in which he has a score of less than 3.
  • The instructor can teach any Skill or Knowledge, and certain Talents.
  • All XP gained through an Instruction roll must be spent on the Trait being taught.
  • Any XP gained through an Instruction roll and not spent may be saved and put towards the next level of the Ability provided the student is learning from the same teacher (teacher-student bond does affect learning!).


Mentor
 This is an extrapolation from Mage and Changeling put towards all of the White Wolf games used in the CoLA troupe. It allows players to roll their Mentor Background to gain tutelage benefit towards certain Traits, similarly to the Instruction Talent. However, unlike Instruction, Mentor XP can be put not just to Abilities but to appropriate Advantages -- namely, "magic powers". That includes Spheres, Wu Tan, Arts, Arcanoi, Paths, & Disciplines. It does not apply to the Gifts of shapeshifters; learning a Gift from a fellow shifter is actually harder than hunting down a spirit and learning it the old-fashioned way (this difficulty is made up for in Gifts' comparative cheap costs). In short, the character rolls his Mentor rating at difficulty 6. Each success reduces the XP cost of the Trait -- Ability or "magic power" Advantage -- by one.

Mentors were always meant to be more than teachers. Indeed, teaching is usually not the mentor's primary responsibility. And even if it is, even the most prestigious elder is limited by his own knowledge. Therefore, despite the rating of a character's Mentor Background, the number of dice rolled to gain tutelage XP is limited to the Mentor's score in the particular Trait being taught. (Obviously, it should go without saying that the Mentor must at least have one dot in the Trait to be taught!) The following rules also apply to the Mentor Background used as a tutor system:
  • Mentor can only be rolled once per month; if a student is learning multiple Traits, whether from the same Mentor or not, he must choose which Trait he focuses on (as it were) the most to gain the tutelage XP.
  • The student must roll Willpower (difficulty 8) to stay on task (and thus earn tutelage XP) in the face of any distractions (like a Storyline, heh).
  • Regardless of XP earned, any Trait can only be raised one level per month. This isn't The Matrix. Most Traits take years to master.
  • The Mentor Background's dicepool for tutelage XP is limited by the Mentor's own ability -- only a number of dice equal to the Mentor's ability in that Trait can be rolled. If the Mentor's ability in that Trait exceeds the Mentor Background, roll the Mentor Background as a full dicepool but do not add dice.
  • The Mentor can teach any Skill or Knowledge, certain Talents, and Advantages of the "magic powers" category (Disciplines, Arcanoi, Spheres, Wu Tan, Arts, Paths).
  • All successes rolled can only be applied to the one Trait being focused on.
  • "Cross-species" Mentors cannot teach "magic powers" to one another, only Abilities. Thus, regardless of paradigm similarity, hsien cannot teach mages Sphere magick, wraiths cannot teach vampires Disciplines, and so forth. The only exception is true mages and hedge mages. If the paradigm is alike, a mage can instruct a hedge mage in her Paths so long as he also has the Knowledge of Sorcerer (Hedge Mage) Lore to bridge the gap.


The following rules apply to both Mentor and Instruction:
  • Instruction and Mentor tutelage rolls can be botched, but such botches only have social repercussions.
  • They cannot be used in conjunction -- not in the same month at any rate.
  • If the player has access to both, he must choose which to roll per month. He can't gain the benefits of both Traits even if they're two separate teachers for two seperate Traits.
  • In any event, any Trait will always cost the player at least 1 "regular" XP! Nothing's free!


The Library Background works the same as Mentor and obeys the same laws as noted above. Library cannot be used in conjunction with Mentor for the same Traits.

Remember, these systems are more to present a real-life approach to learning and acquiring new skills and abilities. They are not means to superpower your characters in under six months. Hence some restrictions which help to accurately reflect real-life learning progress may be applied.