Quote:
Originally Posted by Donny Brook
I would be interested in hearing how GMs choose among Urban Survival, Area Knowledge and Streetwise for various tasks.
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Streetwise is fairly specifically the social skill of interacting with the underworld and the not-quite-underworld. The examples of things it lets you do all seem to come from social interaction.
Area Knowledge is knowing about an area already; several of the Streetwise examples seem to come from using Streetwise to make use of other people's Area Knowledge.
Urban Survival is about figuring out an environment by yourself, and making use of it.
Say you're looking for someone in a town. You know he's fond of gambling, that it's illegal here, and that he is familiar with the gambling scene in this town.
If you have Area Knowledge for the town and Streetwise, you know plausible places for him to be: roll Area Knowledge, Streetwise is a prerequisite for having that specific information.
If you don't have Area Knowledge for the town, use Streetwise to talk to people and find out where the action is, but don't ask about your target: word will get to him faster than you.
If you lack Streetwise, you can look for plausible place for illegal gambling dens with Urban Survival, but it's going to be slow work. You might also try helping out some street people via Urban Survival, and then use another social skill on them to get them to use their Streetwise. Again, slow work.
But once your target has found out about you and is after you with his gang, Urban Survival is the go-to skill for finding places to hide and ways to live without anyone knowing where you are.