Macro Origins!

[Aragathor]

I went through my old and not so old 1.0 books, there I found a lot of good "Real Life"® origins.
The problem with them was that the old Department system did not go smoothly into the 2.0 Talnet + Specialty system.
The first idea was to boil it down into several separate Specialties like Wet Point or St. Cyr, Yakuza or Cosa Nostra. But they would be all very similar to each other.
So I went along with the idea of a Macro Specialty. It would give a small and constant bonus, additionaly the player would choose the variable element of the Specialty.
The first project was to convert the Officer Training Dept. into a Macro Specialty, it's not done yet (Sandhurst and the Baghdad Military College are missing) but it's worth a look:



Shared Benefit (every graduate has it):
[1.0]Tactics is always a class skill for you plus your result cap with this skill is increased by 5.
[0.5]You are considered to have 1 additional feat for the purposes of any ability or feat that is based on the number of Style  feats you possess.


Australian Defence Force Academy
[1.0]Bonus Feat: Hard Core
[1.0] You gain 1 Interest. you gain an additional interest at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20.
[3.0]Choose 2 skills. They are always class skills for you. Further, your result cap with those skills increases by 5 (maximum 60)

People's Liberation Army National Defense University
[1.0]Bonus Feat: Scholar
[1.0]Bureaucracy is always a class skill for you plus your result cap with this skill is increased by 5.
[1.0]Once per Session, you may make a Bribe check at the minimum Bribe value without paying its cost.
[1.0] You gain 1 acquaintance-grade contact. This contact improves by 1 grade at Carer Levels 6, 12, and 18
[1.5]Once per scene, you may roll 2 dice when making a Will save, keeping the result you prefer. You may use this ability an additional time per scene at Levels 7 and 14

South African Military Academy
[1.0]Bonus Feat: World Traveler
[1.0]Once per session, you may request a hint from the GC for which the GC gains no action dice. If the GC refuses, you gain 1 bonus action die.
[1.5]You gain 1 Cultures skill focus and 1 forte relating to that focus
[2.0]You gain a +1 bonus to Knowledge checks. This bonus increases by a further +1 at career levels 4, 8, 12, 16 & 20.

St. Cyr Military Academy
[1.0]Bonus Feat: Any Covert feat
[4.0]You gain 2 additional vitality points at Career Level 1, and 1 additional vitality point at each Career Level thereafter.

United States Military Academy at West point
[1.5]Bonus Feat: Political Clout
[1.5]Increase lower of 2 Intelligence or Constitution, applied after Talent.
[1.0]You gain an extra Cultures focus
[1.0]You gain a +2 bonus to request checks for Weapon mission gear picks. This bonus increases by an additional +1 at Career Levels 6, 12, and 18.

[EDIT]
Baghdad Military College
[1.0]Bonus Feat: Any Advanced Skill feat
[1.0] You gain an extra acquaintance grade contact. You gain another such contact at career levels 6, 12 & 18
[1.5]Once per scene, you may roll 2 dice when making a Will save, keeping the result you prefer. You may use this ability an additional time per scene at Levels 7 and 14
[2.0] You gain +1 insight bonus with Bureaucracy checks. This bonus increases by an additional +1 at Career Levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20

Sandhurst Military Academy
[1.0]Bonus Feat: Fortunate
[1.0] During the Intel Phase, you may choose to hold some or all of your Resource gear picks in reserve, in addition to your normal reserve picks.
[1.5]Increase lower of 2 Intelligence or Wisdom, applied after Talent.
[2.0] You gain a +1 bonus to Knowledge checks. This bonus increases by a further +1 at career levels 4, 8, 12, 16 & 20



Most of the elements were directly converted from the Soldier/Wheelman Guide, but elements were added by me to fully flesh out the specialty.

[Mister Andersen]

They'd actually be Talents

[tenebrae]

I'd disagree, Mister A. I see talents as inborn (personality or race), while Specialities are training (Doctor, Hunter).

[Mister Andersen]

It's been established quite clearly by now that named organisations provide Talents, not specialties as a means of modeling those who are exemplars of those organisation (Hence the military service Talents in the SG-1 conversion, and the faction Talents in World on Fire).

Also, West Point Researcher makes grammatic sense. Brainy West Point does not.

[Krensky]

Brainy West Point Graduate does.

[Aragathor]

Also, West Point Researcher makes grammatically sense. Brainy West Point does not.

In this case it would be Brainy Officer (West Point).

Turning it around makes less sense in my eyes, it implies that you can be everything else after a Military Academy, but in most cases it's a one way road to a stint in the Army.
After all who would like to see a Sandhurst Pickpocket or a St. Cyr Tribesman?

I'm working on the Dept. conversion from U.S. Militaries which will be made of Service Branch (Talent) and Military Department (Specialty).
It will look like this:
-U.S. Army Artilleryman
-Marine Corps Combat Engineer
-Navy Submariner

[Mister Andersen]

Oh, I dunno: Frank Burns, West Point Doctor, Advocate 1.

[Aragathor]

Oh, I dunno: Frank Burns, West Point Doctor, Advocate 1.

Sorry to jump on you but:
-Frank Burns (M.A.S.H. character I assume) attended medical school according to the Novel.
-West Point does not offer medical Bachelor of Science courses. Anything coming close to medicine is the Life Science course, which has almost nothing to do with practical medicine.

[Morgenstern]

Grammatically is could be made to work in either position (Talent/Specialty) as long as the naming scheme is clearly and consistently either an adjective ("West Point") or a noun ("West Point Graduate"). The main difference would be do you see a full course of educaton at one of these places resulting chiefly in a) a uniform mindset amongst it's graduates, or b) a uniform skillset. I'm not really sure either are strictly true (being colleges that hae a broad palatte of courses and serving multiple nations) but as presented in 1st edition I'd lean towards their being developed as Specialties representing their core skillset output. If they were done as Talents, they would probably need to have an allegiance requirement and my experience with those institutions is they are too international (if not exactly cosmopolitan) to make that requirement work properly.

However. While I can see building them with a core package of benefits that all military academy graduates share, I don't know that I'd bother pointing it out as a common feature under the Origin rules. I think I'd just present them as a similar/related group of Specialties. In 1 first edition, the total package that was your Department was a bigger mass than either a talent or a specialty, so having part of it remain fixed while part of it shifted from scool to school would be maybe more analogous to having a  Orgin option that was a set of talents that could only be taken if your specialty was graduate, and graduate was a specialty that could only be taken if your talent was one of the military academy Talents. In other words going to one of these academies took up the whole of your Origin.

But as inspiration for a set of Specialties, I can certainly see it.

[Aragathor]

While I can see building them with a core package of benefits that all military academy graduates share, I don't know that I'd bother pointing it out as a common feature under the Origin rules.

I asked myself the same question. The answer was "to make sure that everyone knows that those Origins are based around a core idea".

Orgin option that was a set of talents that could only be taken if your specialty was graduate, and graduate was a specialty that could only be taken if your talent was one of the military academy Talents.

This will be the case when I come to US Military origins.

But first Sandhurst and Baghdad.

[Desertpuma]

I just like the design of it. Nice work, Aragathor.

[Aragathor]

Here’s the first batch of the US Military macro-origin, the Talents that describe 5 branches of the US Military. They are however not complete without the Specialties, because the Talent only specifies which attribute gets the axe and the Specialty determines which gets boosted.

Army: There’s Strong. And then there’s Army Strong.
[1.0] -2 Wisdom
[1.0] Profession (Military) is always a class skill for you plus your result cap with this skill is increased by 5.
[1.0] You gain DR 1/-
[4.0] You gain a +1 insight bonus to Reflex saves. This bonus increases by an additional +1 at career levels 4, 8, 12, 16 & 20

Air Force: Cross Into the Blue
[1.0] -2 Charisma
[1.0] Profession (Military) is always a class skill for you plus your result cap with this skill is increased by 5.
[1.0] Electronics is always a class skill for you. Further, your result cap with this skill increases by 5 (maximum 60)
[4.0] Choose 1 skill. This is always a class skill for you, and you may chose an additional skill to gain this benefit at career levels 4, 8, 12, 16 & 20

Marines: The Few. The Proud.
[1.0] -2 Intelligence
[1.0] Profession (Military) is always a class skill for you plus your result cap with this skill is increased by 5.
[1.0] You gain the Fearless I quality
[4.0] You gain a +1 insight bonus to Will saves. This bonus increases by an additional +1 at career levels 4, 8, 12, 16 & 20

Navy: Non Sibi Sed Patriae!
[1.0] -2 Strength
[1.0] Profession (Military) is always a class skill for you plus your result cap with this skill is increased by 5.
[1.0] You gain an extra Associate grade contact. This contact improves by 1 grade at career levels 6, 12 & 18
[4.0] You gain 4 additional skill points at career level 1, and 1 additional point per character level gained thereafter

Coast Guard: “We gotta go out. We don’t have to come back.”
[1.0] -2 Dexterity
[1.0] Profession (Military) is always a class skill for you plus your result cap with this skill is increased by 5.
[1.0] At the start of each mission you gain a free Caliber II Dossier tradecraft gear pick
[4.0] You gain a +1 insight bonus to Fortitude saves. This bonus increases by an additional +1 at career levels 4, 8, 12, 16 & 20

The specialties will come later. I hope to be doing them over the weekend. And yes I know that some specialties will cancel themselves out with the talent, I'm thinking about it.

[Gatac]

Um...why not just gear them for standard specialties? More flexibility and you don't have to deal with the strange attribute spread thing. As it stands now, it's seriously weird.

Gatac

[Aragathor]

Um...why not just gear them for standard specialties? More flexibility and you don't have to deal with the strange attribute spread thing. As it stands now, it's seriously weird.

Gatac

Because all branches are so diverse that you can't say that all members of one have the same abilities. Every branch attracts certain people, this explains the attribute reduction, but every type of work boosts the most important one.
For those interested in simplicity over precision, here are the "standardized" attribute modifiers:

Air Force: +2 Dex -2 Cha
Army: +2 Str -2 Wis
Coast Guard: +2 Wis -2 Dex
Marines: +2 Con -2 Int
Navy: +2 Int -2 Str

[Psion]

I'd disagree, Mister A. I see talents as inborn (personality or race), while Specialities are training (Doctor, Hunter).

Not per Crafty Pat. A while back, when discussing organizations as origins, he suggested that an organization like 24's CTU would be a talent, permitting you to create different, er, specialties in the organization... like CTU suit, CTU investigator, etc.