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Old 05-02-2016, 12:33 AM   #13
starslayer
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Default Re: GURPS PC 'roles'- a thought on pen and paper role playing in general

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eukie View Post
A lot of these are redundant or just ways of murdering things. Murder is just a way of solving a problem. Social interaction also falls under problem solving, and what doesn't obviously fall immediately under the umbrella of problem-solving in survival are generally aids to murder. Support is another category that is mostly aids to murder.
I'm not sure I agree.

Murder is a way of getting things dead- which is often a desired end result in both life and role playing, and is sometimes a means to an end.

Social interaction is just that- dealing with others, it differs from problem solving in that problem solving is personal your rolling on YOUR search/chemistry/traps skill, rather than trying to convince someone to do something.

Support is literally that, it will generally boost (or penalize) any one of the other 4 categories. Healing boosts survival, cursing boosts anything that deals with others.

Real life example: I had an infestation of rats (farm land, fact of life). I used problem solving to do some research on the internet and learn about my rodent invaders. I used some more problem solving to go around the outside of the house and reinforce the roof/soffit connections where ice heaving had made the gaps wide enough for the creatures to get in. Then I used more problem solving to actually patch those holes. I still had rats in the house, but more could not get in.

Now I switched to murder (indirect- poison), and when that failed Murder (indirect- traps), a few times I had to switch to murder (Ranged- indirect engagement) and once I even had to do Murder (Direct engagement- close up; stomping)

All that murder meant that I had to do more problem solving (cleanup and sterilization), and when I realized the attempts to poison the rats had failed problem solving to get rid of the poison.

Survival fortunately never played into it (Unless perhaps you count that direct engagement- close up; stomping as having required some type of resistance roll to not have gotten sick from the result)

I also did some social interaction when I called experts to make sure I was on the right path, and the wife provided some much needed support when I had to do unpleasant things like mop up blood and sterilize the area.

Had my rather mundane life been converted into a full campaign I would have used 3 or 4 of my 5 items encompassing research, prof skill (household repair), traps, Guns (Air rifle), Knife, brawling, prof skill (cleaning), diplomacy/public speaking, and leveraging my average wealth to buy all of the things I needed.

My wife would have been using her own problem solving skills to analyze my ideas and tell me which ones were really crazy, and her social skills to explain that to me as well as give me positive encouragement and support during the more unpleasant parts of the endeavor.

That'd be a thoroughly boring campaign- but I think it nicely shows how I think all of this comes together.
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