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McAllister · 10-21-2016, 10:18 AM

I disagree with the assertion that Martial Arts is a book about skills. It includes skills, sure, but it expands on maneuvers, it has templates, it has weapons, it has the most codified system for perks I'm aware of; it goes far beyond skills. Perhaps later I'll give an example of what the write-up for Boxing might look like in GURPS: Skills.

When you say omnibus books, you're thinking of universal things like Powers and Martial Arts, rather than specific settings/systems like Mars Attacks and Dungeon Fantasy? I have observed that trend, but perhaps that's because an edition of GURPS is always going to have a wealth of focused supplements and fewer omnibuses. And it's my humble opinion that GURPS is always going to struggle to beat abstracted-mechanics systems at their own game, so it might as well embrace being skill-based.

For the record, I asked if there would be a market for a supplement like that among forumgoers, not because I expect that we're SJG's target audience, but because we're the audience I personally have access to. I'd love to know whether there'd a market among non-forumgoing GURPS players, but I haven't got them on my mailing list to ask, have I? But I'm not sure weird edge cases would be the ideal target for GURPS: Skills, not that "weird edge cases" is even something I can define. Is "what does Sewing look like at TL11" an edge case? "What can I do with Acrobatics 30"? I'm confident "what can I do with Finance, period" is worth answering, but taking any given skill to TL11 or skill level 20 seems like something that could reasonably happen.

Frex, I remembered I'd been thinking about this idea and posted it because I ended up with Acrobatics 20 on a character without trying too hard, and I thought, none of the uses of the skill that I can find are penalized.* I thought, what do those last four levels do for me, aside from making my acrobatic dodges and controlled falls more consistent if I'm drunk or in the dark or something? Now, is that a weird edge case? I contend that humans can have DX and/or IQ 20, so getting any skill up to that level should be expected, and the benefits of doing so are worth considering.

Exception: "a difficult jump (into a pit, for instance)" on p. 352, which doesn't exactly explain to me which jumps are hard enough to merit a penalty or why - but which GURPS Skills would!

10-21-2016, 10:18 AM	#9
McAllister Join Date: Jun 2013	Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills I disagree with the assertion that Martial Arts is a book about skills. It includes skills, sure, but it expands on maneuvers, it has templates, it has weapons, it has the most codified system for perks I'm aware of; it goes far beyond skills. Perhaps later I'll give an example of what the write-up for Boxing might look like in GURPS: Skills. When you say omnibus books, you're thinking of universal things like Powers and Martial Arts, rather than specific settings/systems like Mars Attacks and Dungeon Fantasy? I have observed that trend, but perhaps that's because an edition of GURPS is always going to have a wealth of focused supplements and fewer omnibuses. And it's my humble opinion that GURPS is always going to struggle to beat abstracted-mechanics systems at their own game, so it might as well embrace being skill-based. For the record, I asked if there would be a market for a supplement like that among forumgoers, not because I expect that we're SJG's target audience, but because we're the audience I personally have access to. I'd love to know whether there'd a market among non-forumgoing GURPS players, but I haven't got them on my mailing list to ask, have I? But I'm not sure weird edge cases would be the ideal target for GURPS: Skills, not that "weird edge cases" is even something I can define. Is "what does Sewing look like at TL11" an edge case? "What can I do with Acrobatics 30"? I'm confident "what can I do with Finance, period" is worth answering, but taking any given skill to TL11 or skill level 20 seems like something that could reasonably happen. Frex, I remembered I'd been thinking about this idea and posted it because I ended up with Acrobatics 20 on a character without trying too hard, and I thought, none of the uses of the skill that I can find are penalized.* I thought, what do those last four levels do for me, aside from making my acrobatic dodges and controlled falls more consistent if I'm drunk or in the dark or something? Now, is that a weird edge case? I contend that humans can have DX and/or IQ 20, so getting any skill up to that level should be expected, and the benefits of doing so are worth considering. Exception: "a difficult jump (into a pit, for instance)" on p. 352, which doesn't exactly explain to me which jumps are hard enough to merit a penalty or why - but which GURPS Skills would!