Skills of the average

[Dangerious P. Cats]

What skills would an average TL 8 person generally have to get by?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats

What skills would an average TL 8 person generally have to get by?

The resident misanthropes shall chorus, "Defaults a plenty!"
On the road? Driving default.
Service industry? Professional default with a familiarity after a couple of weeks on the job.
etc.

Seriously with 12 considered professional, I don't see much room in the RAW for many skills for the average shmoe.

[mhd]

Well, Incompetence(Carousing) certainly doesn't help, believe me...

Depending on where you live, you might have to actually put a point in Driving. Defaulting is probably okay for Kansas, but try to get through Italian rush hour and every bit helps. Other than that, it's really mostly defaults.

[OneSeventeen]

Note, I have a bad memory for skill names, so forgive me, please...

1 point in Computer Use
1 point in Driving (Automobiles)

I think, if you drive to work, you have at least one point in driving. Think of how many hours of practice that is. Remember when you had to learn to drive to pass a test? If you're that good, that's a point. Now, some people are bad drivers (they have unlearned the skill or have incompetence) and some people have low DX... I really can't make the idea of someone with a drivers license defaulting (student driver, anyone?) for their entire lives.


117

[Bruno]

It of course depends on the person and what they do, where they live.

North Americans may get away with Driving at a default, although familiarity with their car and a +4 or more for not talking to people, keeping both hands on the wheel, and knowing your route usually helps offset penalties. This is why some people are a disaster on four wheels once they start trying to talk on a cellphone and eat lunch and drive at the same time.

Most people probably have a point in Area Knowledge: Home town, possibly more if they walk or jog or cycle or explore for a hobby. Taxi drivers, delivery men, and other folks who drive locally for a living probably should have a 12 in AK: Local area to be good at their jobs (if not more)! Although a GPS system will help, it won't tell you "There's usually traffic at this time of day at Hunt Club and Riverside, I better take an alternate route."

Theoretically an adult who can survive on their own should have a point in Housekeeping. Bachelors who live out of frozen food and canned food, and who's homes look like disaster areas, are using Housekeeping at a default. Folks who can make simple meals from scratch (or close to scratch), can handle minor home repairs on their own, and make an effort to keep the place vaguely clean, probably have a point in Housekeeping.

Full-time homemakers have Housekeeping at 12.

Many people have Computer Operation at 1 point, but there are still a lot of folks out there working at a default, and relying on the +4 for sticking to totally routine tasks (checking email, hanging around in Myspace, writing a simple letter in a word processor). If you can create a basic home finances spread sheet in Excel or a similar program, or make a newsletter with two or three columns of text and embedded graphics, you probably have a point in Computer Operation.

For folks that work outside the home, they probably have a Professional Skill related to their job. For some jobs, it's a skill already on the skill list - a car mechanic has a specialty of Mechanic, for instance.

Other than that, I'd pick a random hobby skill for most folks - even couch potatoes probably have a point in Hobby: TV Trivia or Hobby: Soap Operas, or something.

EDIT: People with lots of hobbies can pick up all sorts of skills, similarly people who have changed careers repeatedly can have all sorts of "professional" skills, some of which may have degraded from 12 or never reached 12 in the first place.

The more "interesting" a persons background, the more likely their skill points will be spread out.

On the other hand, a teenager working a job on the weekend, or someone trapped in a call center run by a company that doesn't actually care about customer service as long as the phones get answered - these folks don't have points in the main skill for their job yet.

Depending on the environment, they may never get points in that skill - task modifiers for day to day operation, equipment bonuses for really good flowcharts and guidelines, and passing off difficult situations to a manager can give you enough bonuses to handle most routine situations, and a saftey net for when you get something out of the routine and lose all your bonuses.

Of course, that ONE person you got when you called for help with your computer who was totally awesome and got everything fixed, and was nice to you? They've probably got a point or three in Computer Operation and Savoir Faire.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats

What skills would an average TL 8 person generally have to get by?

You can probably "get by" on defaults. Remember skills are for difficult or adventuring uses, you don't actually need Computer Operation to check your e-mail, Cooking to boil water, or Driving to start your car.

What's realistic? Well I'd say until you hit your mid teens, pretty much everything is absorbed by learning defaults. After that, somebody just drifting through life should pick up around 3 points a year from time use - I'd suggest 1 of them goes into IQ (+1 per 20 years, not an unreasonable amount, put it disproportionately into Will if you don't think you are getting smarter), 1 into a job related skill or advantage (until you have 3 or 4 job relevant skills at 12 to 14, at which point (two decades or so without changing jobs) you probably stop accumulating this annual point) and the third into something you do a lot on your own.

For that last one Driving (automobile) isn't a bad candidate, Housekeeping, Finance (would've been Merchant in the old days, but nobody haggles much anymore, so the kinds of money decisions you make now which actually matter are mostly here), Area Knowledge (home town), Current Events (your choice of specific interest) and your go-to social skill (likely Diplomacy, Fast Talk, Intimidation, Psychology or Sex Appeal) are reasonable. Your annual point for the first few years out on your own should go into a different one of those each year. There really *should* be a Parenting skill, though it might come out of your job skill time, and I suppose you can use Teaching. After that, maybe your main hobbies - yeah if you are obsessive and devote it to one skill the results can be slightly excessive by the time you die, but even then from your attribute 10 base you still won't have it above 20 or so, which isn't all that unreasonable for a hobby you've dedicated your free time to your entire life.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The resident misanthropes shall chorus, "Defaults a plenty!"

Mostly defaults, for sure... though many people will have points in something <see B's post>.

I am NOT a misanthrope :|
;)

[Figleaf23]

Common (though not universal) skills encountered among modern people:

-Driving
-Swimming
-Bicyle
-Current Events (Pop Culture esp.)
-Area Knowledge (various)
-Computer Operation
-Carousing
-Make-up
-Skating
-Skiing
-Sports or Games (Var)
-Savoir Faire
-Merchant
-Administration
-Public Speaking
-Fast-talk
-Diplomacy
-Sex Appeal
-Erotic Art
-Housekeeping
-First Aid
-Connoiseur
-Observation
-Literature
-Research
-Typing
-Streetwise

[Kromm]

I'd say that even Driving is optional. With apologies to my American friends, it's hardly the world-average assumption . . . I've never owned or driven a car, and know lots of people in the same boat. There are plenty of places where Bicycling is significantly more common.

If I were making a short list for the world at TL8, I'd say that most everybody would have a default for all of these, where there's a default, and that the majority of people would have a point in at least 1/5 of them:

Administration
Area Knowledge (Home Town)
Bicycling
Carousing
Computer Operation
Current Affairs (Headline, Pop Culture, Regional, or Sports)
Driving (Automobile, Motorcycle, or Heavy Wheeled)
Farming
Freight Handling
Games
Gardening
Hobby Skills
Housekeeping
Lifting
Merchant
Musical Instrument
Panhandling
Professional Skills
Scrounging
Soldier
Sports
Streetwise
Typing
Urban Survival
Writing

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by mhd

Defaulting is probably okay for Kansas, but try to get through Italian rush hour and every bit helps.

Actually, Kansas drivers tend to be pretty good and often need to be. There's the periodic penalties for poor road condition (on county roads), for restricted visibility (either from curving roads or the hills of eastern Kansas), for avoiding the large amount of semi traffic on the roads, and especially for weather conditions such as high-speed winds and ice storms. Area Knowledge (Kansas road system) usually has to be pretty good, too, since many pieces are often under maintenance and others may be inaccessible in a heavy rain .....

Granted, it's not the hair-trigger reflexes you'd need in Rome or Chicago, but trust me: once you get off of I-70, driving in Kansas is not necessarily for sissies.