Here’s an idea that was suggested by a player a few months back near the end of our Battlestar Galactica campaign. He was suggesting that all the time he was giving to certain maneuvers (in this case, touch & gos to prepare for combat landings) for training his vipers should pay off with either a bonus to their skill die or a modification to the difficulty of a task.
Hard skills get easier for people — dirt bikers practice certain kinds of jumps over and over again ’til they get it right, but you still see them drop their motorcycles from time to time on the dead simplest maneuvers; freerunners do amazing stuff, and certain jumps or tricks they do so well they look effortless, but others they flub regularly; navy pilots practice landing and takeoffs on aircraft carriers over and over because they’re hard…yes, they get better overall, but some maneuvers have just been drilled into them; shooters on the firing range can drill sub 2″ groups with their pistol or rifle, but put them in a fluid, moving environment and they don’t do as well (and some people shoot action drills superbly, but can’t group standing still worth a crap.)
So how to reflect this? If your special ops team or spy does a lot of indoor range practice, they might gain a benefit when they have the time to take up the right stance, aim, and shoot. Your viper pilot might ace combat landings on their battlestar after months of practice while running from the Cylons or is particularly adept at a 180 roll or yaw that puts them flying backwards to fire at something in their six. Say your researcher is very good at combing through archives in a library, but they don’t do search engines too well… Maybe your archeologist/adventurer has practiced snagging objects and swinging over chasms with his whip multiple times, but snapping a cigarette out of someone’s mouth is a new trick…these characters might get a benefit for something they’ve repeatedly done in game, or that had been a stated part of their regimen of training. If it’s not something they practice, no benefit.
The Black Campbell 
25 May, 2011 at 18:13
How much a part of a character or group’s roleplay do you think you will require in order to qualify for this earned benefit?
Is this something which can be entirely relegated to downtime, is it something that should be regularly referenced in play,is it something that will need specific time devoted to it, or D (other/none of the above)?
26 May, 2011 at 11:32
Depends — if it’s something they’re doing over and over again in play — like one pulp characters “Indian throw” to cock his Winchester .357mag…I just assume after the first few times he can do that without a test, and if he does it under duress, it’s not that hard.
For things like practicing touch and gos for combat landings — if they’ve stated they want their people trained, I assume they can do it with some level of increased competence after a few weeks; if the character specifies that they “work out a lot”, they doesn’t equate to much, but if they stress a regimen of, say, house clearing for urban combat operations, I assume they know not to get in each others’ fields of fire, know how to go through a door in tandem, and are more adept at identifying targets in those environments…but it might not equate as well on their own, as they are used to having someone watching their back or sides.
It’s really Freedom City on the GM and group, I think.