[Mgellis]

Okay, here is a question...

It sounds like Connoisseur is mostly a social/merchant skill rather than an academic skill. It allows you to assess value, impress people at parties with trivia that makes you sound educated (whether you are or not), know if a certain style is "in" or "out." It does not give you a truly genuinely detailed understanding of the disciplines connected to those objects. For that, an academic skill or an appropriate interdisciplinary expert skill is involved.

An example...

Connoisseur (Visual Arts) lets you look at a painting and say whether it is valuable, and if the "art crowd" will think it is hot, lets you recall some interesting facts about the artist, etc.

Expert (Visual Arts) gives you an academic understanding of art history, theories of art, psychological effects of art, perhaps some knowledge of related topics like great museums of the world and art restoration, etc.

Does this make sense?

I'm asking because one of my players may decide to play a Jonny Depp/Ninth Gate rare book dealer type character. I'm figuring he might have...

Literature = You have actually read lots of these books and know what they mean, how they use symbolism, how genres have developed over time, etc., but you may prefer a Penguin Classic over a signed first edition because the notes and the critical introduction will be more useful to students

Connoisseur (Literature) = You can predict which books will be "hot," which contemporary authors are darlings of the smart set, which editions of a book are valuable and how much they're worth, etc. <-- it seems to me this is almost two separate skills, though...would a book dealer know if a new book is going to be a critical hit?

Professional Skill (Bookbinder) = You can bind and repair books

Hidden Lore (Rare Books) = Unlike Connoisseur, this skill is not connected to the financial and social value of a book, but all the esoteric, perhaps quirky details about these books that have been ignored, forgotten, or maybe even suppressed. (Of course, making these things public might change the value of a book and if you have both skills you might have an idea of what that change would be...)

And I'm guessing that if you have these skills, you do not need Expert (Rare Books). In fact, I'm not sure what such a skill would cover that isn't already covered by Connoisseur, Literature, and Hidden Lore.

Am I missing anything? Any thoughts on all this?

Thanks.

Mark