Do You Use Training Rules?

I really wanted to write about this new TV show I've started enjoying and introduce the d30 chart the show inspired, BUT &%$#!ing Adobe InDesign (the version I own) doesn't work with the newest version of Windows I have and I'm not subscribing, especially at the rate they want ($240 a year?!) I haven't fully evaluated it's replacement (I'm thinking Affinity Publisher 2), so that bit will have to wait a week.

Aside from this post, the only other thing I had to do is finish some homework for an online college course I'm taking. It's been a hot minute since I've been to college, but I do have a few degrees, but not anything worthy of bragging about. I've been considering a shift in my career and this course is a relatively cheap way to get some intel on that new career path, see if it feels right.

Like everything else I blather on about here, my Sunday deadline (as it was) tends to take what I'm doing and filter it through a RPG lens. The schoolwork, and my so-called-attempt to "better myself" made me think about PC's "leveling up". Most of my experience with a formal training process for PCs is with HackMaster (I'm sure someone here just groaned), and I never recall any training with my 1st or 2nd (hell, even 3.5) edition PCs. Since HackMaster is basically 50% 1st Edition, 25% 2nd Edition, and 25% the D-Team's home-rules*, I really thought that maybe formal training was part of that 25% home rules.

Nope. 

There isn't a lot there, but the 1st Edition DMG has less than a page (page 86 to be precise) on the level-up training process and it's little more than a quick formula for cost and if you played your PC "excellently", according to the GM you can pay twice as much and train yourself or go find a mentor and pay the set amount.

2nd Edition has even less about training, maybe half a page and is quite a bit vague. All of it is an optional rule, but there's so little to work with you might as well just do you're own thing.

Now, the HackMaster (4th Edition) GMG has the same base information, maybe explains it a bit better, but adds maybe four more pages about the types of school/mentors PCs can use. Personally, I think it's a great resource for role-playing and I'm... disappointed that it isn't available (at least legally) unless you get a second or third-hand copy. The splat-books are great too, but they tend to detail the training of PCs before they start adventuring.

Now I get it, training rules can be seen as "too crunchy" by some, I'm assuming most since they went from a robust single page, to a half page, to (checking 3.5....and I don't have a copy of that) nothing (I'm guessing)? I don't think training rules are too much myself, and they can add a lot of role-playing possibilities. Making contacts, using up PC/Party resources, and possibly even introducing more opportunities for adventure.

Hmm....I think I could probably do a d30 table on that, but right off the bat I don't think I'd improve what's already out there......