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Old 10-21-2016, 09:31 AM   #7
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills

Quote:
Originally Posted by McAllister View Post
I'll edit the main post to incorporate the suggestions! They all look good to me.

It COULD be a huge book, but how many skills justify a full-page write-up, anyway? Many, I'm sure, but maybe not 100. It should include the combat skills, but Martial Arts goes into them in detail, so no need to reprint everything in there; the category skills like Electronics Operation might spill over a page to get into all the subcategories, but for every skill like that, I'm sure there are several that don't need a full page. With no experience in the matter whatsoever, I feel it could be 3/5 the size of Powers or Martial Arts and get its job done.
The thing is, Martial Arts already IS a book about skills. And it's huge! Social Engineering includes a lot of material on skills, and it's not small. So covering all the skills in one book would mean simply duplicating a lot of material from those two books, which would lessen the appeal.

If you didn't duplicate, but did a book on "all the other skills," its appeal would be a lot less focused. "This is the book to go to for information on how to do scientific research/create works of art/repair machinery/build things/survive in the wilderness/run a business."

Skills as a concept are really simple, much simpler than powers or magic. You can sum up all the general principles in a few pages. And then all you have left is details on how particular skills work.
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