ESSENTIAL skills for various settings

[Kawaii_Koneko]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

What I don't get is the people who have a mania for the Housekeeping skill, while at the same time doubting that people have the Driving skill. What gives? Why is Housekeeping a more likely skill to have than Driving?

no matter how old you are you normaly need to clean up your room but you don't always need to drive someplace to get there thats why there are busses car pools taxis sub-ways bikes skates ect.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Molokh

I'm with Kromm regarding the learned-ness of Computer Ops as a skill. I see people doing stupid things because they simply don't know they're doing something wrong.

Where I think this discussion goes off the rails most of the time is assuming "learned thing" equates to Computer Operation skill. I'm not convinced such a skill even exists at TL8 and up, that is Computer Operation appears in GURPS for historical reasons based on when the rules happened to be written.

The analogy I like to use is that sometime around the end of TL5 just about every craft skill shifted from using hand tools to power tools. Using power tools is definitely learned, and TL5 craftsmen both with and without it are perfectly reasonable characters, so Power Tool Operation/TL5 is a perfectly reasonable skill (though for 4e I think I'd call it a Perk). But this does not mean every craftsman at TL6+ must have it, or indeed anything at all recorded on his character sheet. By then it is simply part of every craft skill, and coming from a country where they don't have power tools and hence you are unfamiliar with them is a subset of the Low TL disadvantage.

Computers have essentially gone through the same transition, the skill you use to do something with a computerized tool is the skill connected with the something, not a skill connected to computers. In any case, if you are using Computer Operation for "routine use" of things like your cell phone, in what situation do you envision every making a skill roll? If it can't be anything that would call for an EO (Communications) roll, there isn't anything left but trivial stuff that you'd be a fool to bother rolling for in the first place right?

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by Molokh

What I meant was that people with 12+, maybe even 14+ in COps totally failed to do the tasks I'm capable of doing with COps 10-11 reliable. Configuring the network to use DHCP (provided by the router) is not any sort of -4 task. However, the fact that they only studied COps (Windows) made them completely incapable of handling a Linux-KDE desktop. The programming example is even more extreme, because they're experienced programmers, while I have zero points in Computer Programming (which doesn't have a default) but had a familiarity with GCB's C-like scripts.

With computers, sometimes I feel that Familiarity penalties should be as harsh as -10.

Alternatively they may have had an actual Cops skill the same as yours but bought up the technique "Wiindows op" to a higher level while you might have had both a familiarity with linux and perhaps a point in the "Linux" technique for computer ops.

Is suspect from a strict reality perspective a lot of different computer programs and differentiating between macs and pcs could justify either the inclusion of techniques or alt computer skills. From a gaming perspective though the additional detail would simply clutter up the sheets and come into play rare enough to not matter.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Molokh

With computers, sometimes I feel that Familiarity penalties should be as harsh as -10.

They actually do go that high on Computer Hacking (p. B184), Electronics Operation (p. B189), and a couple of other skills, and Computer Operation itself just says "-2 or more," so I wouldn't laugh this off.

[Anaraxes]

I think that "computer use is a skill, but one that I have and most poor saps don't" is a meme among the self-selected geeks who read Internet message boards

No doubt I'm a self-selected geek, but it's not a matter of pride. It's simply that if Computer Operations means "operating anything that has software no matter what the task", then the skill is so immensly broad that at TL8, there's very little you can do that's _not_ Computer Operation by this definition.

Driving was much discussed earlier in the thread. Can you drive a car without Computer Operation skill? Not by the interpretation established thus far. The ignition and engine these days are controlled by software, every bit as much as a iPod or or PC. Pull out the green boards with black rectangles on them, and your car won't operate at all. If starting an MP3 playing on an iPod by turning the wheel and pushing a button on the file name is Computer Operation because you're talking to a microprocessor and software, then so is starting a car by pushing a bit on the throttle and turning the ignition key (or pushing a button, as with the Honda S2000 and other recent cars). The steering on most cars is still mechanical, but there are drive-by-wire prototypes. Why isn't Driving covered by Computer Ops?

If the skill is that much of a basic everyman skill so that everyone has it and there's nothing you can do without it, it's not really worth calling out as a skill at all. Computer Ops then gets an easy default from IQ (which, remember, includes general education for your culture), and most skill rolls are extremely simple, way below a 12 (average professional level). This starts to sound like requiring an Area Knowledge roll to get to the grocery store you visit every week.

On the flip side, if Computer Ops did not mean "anything with software anywhere in it", then it would have to be a much more limited domain of operating just "computers" (whatever those are) in computer-like and computer-unique ways (as distinct from hundreds of job-specific tasks that involve gadgets with software that are covered by other skills) That more or less leaves the tasks generally handled by "IT" employees, as opposed to, say, computer programmers, since we also have to carve out room for the Computer Programming skill to exist. If Electronics Ops is just for unusual and stressful uses, it seems like Computer Ops would be the same way, only called into play in unusual circumstances and thus not the province of most average citizens.

The third possibility seems to be a "fundamental skill" system, where the level of any TL8 skill is capped by your skill in Computer Ops. You have to have two skills to do anything: the skill in question, and Computer Ops because everything involves software. (This starts to sound like some of the uses for Thaumatology or Ritual Magic...)

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Computers have essentially gone through the same transition

I agree with everything in your analysis but the quoted bit -- and only because you're using the wrong tense. I'd agree with "are essentially going," but not with "have essentially gone." There are still enough non-computer users and associated gear in many professions that you can't assume that everybody in those professions will have "use computers running the software needed to do my job" as part of their base job skill. I believe that "practically everybody in the surrounding society has Computer Operation" is a necessary interim step in the subsumption you're talking about, and I think that's where we are today. Once the holdouts and luddites are gone, and Computer Operation becomes a 1-point gimme for nearly everyone in a civilization, you'll be able to say that it's a non-skill.

Which is to say, I basically agree with you except that I think it's actually being in the transitional period that's derailing the discussion, not the existence of the transition per se.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

It's simply that if Computer Operations means "operating anything that has software no matter what the task", then the skill is so immensly broad that at TL8, there's very little you can do that's _not_ Computer Operation by this definition.

Well, yes . . . that's rather the point. As malloyd said, it's basically a nonskill for being the everyskill. My caveat was that it's basically becoming a nonskill for being the everyskill. Either way, it is very broad and does cover just about everything with "TL8" on it. Once everyone has it, you can retire it and simply say all skills marked /TL8 assume computer use. But already I doubt the existence of computer operators as a valid professional class, although I acknowledge that lots of people still get paid for it. I'd say it's a job that anybody could do with minimal training, and in years to decades, it will be exactly like that. It isn't 1978 any more, or even 1988 or 1998. I'm betting on retiring the skill around 2013. And I totally agree that it's a bizarre "blip skill" that really only existed for a bit of TL7/8 and probably could have been left out of the game with minimal effect.

[kidbrock9]

Originally Posted by Kromm

[*]Housekeeping, unless you're either filthy rich (and have "people" for that) or just plain filthy (and have no social life down there in the basement).[/list]

Put a geeky way, if you're running on default for these mostly IQ/E skills -- which is IQ-4 -- then you'll be assumed to have an IQ that's four points lower than it really is, because people expect everyone to have these skills at IQ level, at least. Some people will assume that's because you have IQ 6 or thereabouts, and are mentally challenged. The rest will assume that's because you have from -2 to -5 to IQ due to the drunk, euphoria, or hallucinating afflictions (pp. B428-429), mostly likely as a result of substance abuse. Neither is likely to be good for reactions.


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I'm with you 100% when you say that the non-adventuring uses get a bonus. I'd give anybody IQ-4 (default), +10 for utterly trivial -- or IQ+6 -- to pick up their socks, if for some reason they had Absent-Mindedness and needed to roll.

So clarify for me Kromm, which is it? Is someone with Housekeeping at default: "assumed to have an IQ that's four points lower than it really is, because people expect everyone to have these skills at IQ level, at least,"

Or, is non-adventuring Housekeeping something which is "utterly trivial," and therefore at "IQ +6."

I'm not usually this picky about points, but on one hand you say that anyone in your campaigns who keeps these skills at default will be (effectively) punished with bad reaction bonuses, etc, while on the other hand, you say that non-adventuring type housekeeping is so trivial that even someone at default can do it well.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. Maybe I'm too invested in the subject. Your answers seem very wishy-washy to me.

P.S.... I think you're great... don't turn me into a forum Pariah with your awesome powers! ;P

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Computers have essentially gone through the same transition, the skill you use to do something with a computerized tool is the skill connected with the something, not a skill connected to computers.

Originally Posted by CattyNebulart

I'd say 90% of first worlders don't have the skill have computer operation.

... it means you can use any wordporcessor out there without being trained for that particular version.(I remember scoring as an expert on Word in an employment test, and that was the first time I ever used Word. Since Computer! is a cinematic skill I rather doubt I have that.)

I think that this may be an example, as I can do this trick, but I'm pretty sure that I don't have many, if any, points in CO skill. I think that I'm using the Writing skill, which at TL8 includes knowing about how to use word processors.

Originally Posted by CattyNebulart

Computer operation means that if you sit in front of a computer you can in fairly short order figure out how to use it regardless if it's DOS, Windows, Mac, Unix or a system you have never heard of before. sure you get a penalty if it is GUI or Command line and you are used to the other but that is what familiarities are for.

Computer operation means you know the difference between the computer and the monitor, it means you can check if the power is plugged in.

I actually can do all of those things, but I wouldn't trust myself to be able to install and OS, or at least not to deal with anything going wrong in the installation, and among my friends, I'm considered to be fairly helpless with computers in general.

[Ed the Coastie]

I suppose it depends on what you are using. Driving, for example, is a completely different skill for me and my wife; she is limited to Automatic transmission automobiles, while I can drive both Automatic and Manual transmissions.

Likewise, I am as comfortable with non-powered hand tools as I am with the "modern" powered versions...and, in fact, I favor the former for routine tasks. (I use powered tools only if I have a lot of work to do, or if I am under a time constraint.)

For Computer Operations, I would assume that someone attempting to use an Apple or Linux system when he is accustomed to a Windows OS would suffer a non-familiarity penalty rather than just saying "Well, I only know one OS, so I must not have Computer Operation skill."

One of the running jokes in my family involves a metal-working question that came up when I was in Basic. The instructor asked many in my class knew how to weld. Nearly every guy, and a couple of the gals, raised their hands. Then he asked those who primarily used arc-welding to put their hands down -- and about half the class did so. Then he said for those who primarily gas welded to put their hands down. After they had done so, I was the only person with his hand still in the air. The instructor looked at me and said, "Well, which one are you? Gas or electric?"

"Neither," I replied. "I can do both, but most of my welding is done at a forge with a hammer."

(OK, so that would be Blacksmith skill...but it still gave the instructor a moment's pause.)