Learning Skills and Advantages

[Mithlas]

Improving an attribute is not cheap, but does not appear to take any time. Social traits are the same way (sort of, acquired in play).

According to the characters book (Ch292), it takes 200 hours per skill point or character point for the learnable advantage (8.3 days not including rest and necessary activities, more like 25 days if taking 8 hours a day). One proposed method was simply doubling the rate of acquisition so it's 100 hours per skill point (4.1 days not including rest, 13 days if taking 8 hours a day).

However, "This is not to say you found time to hit the books - only the genuine experience of an adventure can be equivalent to a much longer period of study." The Quick Learning Under Pressure allows a person to buy a skill the next gaming session. I'm no more a fan of time sheets than my local groups, but deferring that long only encourages forgetting or frustration. I may be missing something, but have some alternate means been proposed?

[whswhs]

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking.

On one hand, most advantages cost 5 or more points to improve. Earning those points takes two or more sessions of play. If a character gains an advantage in that way, I'm going to assume that they've been developing it over the full length of those two or more sessions. In fact I may ask for a narrative to account for how they got it.

On the other hand, it sounds as if you're saying that the delay from session N, where you earn the points for an advantage or skill, to session N+1, where you buy the advantage or skill, is excessively long and makes it hard to keep track. I haven't found it so. I normally end every session by awarding eeps. Then at the start of the next session I ask if anyone wants to spend eeps on improving their character. The players can usually manage to remember what they did that could justify doing so. In fact, most of my players keep track of what skills they used successfully, so that at the start of the next session they can check their notes.

Or maybe neither of these is what you're asking about?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Mithlas

I may be missing something, but have some alternate means been proposed?

You aren't very clear here, but are you under the impression that you need to spend 200 hours per point to buy skills and learnable advantages when you're buying them with experience earned on adventures?

Because that isn't so. 200 hours per point is a (pretty rough) figure for the time taken to learn a character point in a skill purely by training, without using any of the experience points earned while adventuring.

What can be confusing is that there isn't a rule for the time you need to learn the first point of a new skill if you're buying it with adventuring experience. By default in the absence of rules, this is no time, but some people find that unrealistic.

[Culture20]

Part of the problem for understanding this is in many cases GURPS is very realistic or at least more realistic than cinematic, but in other cases, your character can earn 20 cp over the course of several gaming sessions that all take place in a 24 hour period, and suddenly earn 2 ST, 20 new skills, undeserved good reputation, or many other things.

[Varyon]

The rules for learning skills/Advantages through study and training are for when the character isn't spending earned points on the trait in question. If you reward 3 points for a typical session, and during the session one of the characters went through 200 hours of study and training for a particular skill/Advantage, that character functionally gets 4 points for that session, but 1 of those can only be spent to improve whatever he studied and trained for.

For typical character points, it's up to the GM when and on what they can be spent, but typically this is done at the beginning of a session and the points can be spent on anything available in the campaign. If you have long periods of time between sessions, and players are unlikely to remember what they should spend their points on, let them "level up" their characters between sessions. If you don't trust them to do so without some supervision, have them e-mail you their ideas (or call you, or talk in person, whatever works best) so you can approve or deny them. If they don't have the ability or inclination to do this between sessions (say, they don't have the books or are too busy between home and school/work), set time aside at the end of each session to let players spend their points.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by Culture20

Part of the problem for understanding this is in many cases GURPS is very realistic or at least more realistic than cinematic, but in other cases, your character can earn 20 cp over the course of several gaming sessions that all take place in a 24 hour period, and suddenly earn 2 ST, 20 new skills, undeserved good reputation, or many other things.

This falls pretty squarely under rule zero, and there are plenty of guidelines for needing to establish the baseline for an avatar before purchasing it. (Ie you don't suddenly get an ally, but you get the opportunity to purchase one after you help someone or compelling then with domination)

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by johndallman

What can be confusing is that there isn't a rule for the time you need to learn the first point of a new skill if you're buying it with adventuring experience. By default in the absence of rules, this is no time, but some people find that unrealistic.

Wrong. RAW states that you may put 1 point into learning any skill you attempted at default during your last session (or during the entire adventure, if points aren't awarded until the quest is complete).

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

Wrong. RAW states that you may put 1 point into learning any skill you attempted at default during your last session (or during the entire adventure, if points aren't awarded until the quest is complete).

And for skills you didn't try to use? Such as ones with no defaults? AFAIK, there's no rule saying you have to go through 200 hours of training for those.

[WaterAndWindSpirit]

Originally Posted by johndallman

And for skills you didn't try to use? Such as ones with no defaults? AFAIK, there's no rule saying you have to go through 200 hours of training for those.

You have to have been in a situation where they were put to use. Don't remember the page, but if you're traveling with people who regularly use Survival and weapon skills, you can spend points to have learned from their pointers, that's the example they use.

[Mithlas]

Thanks for the responses and clarifications.

Originally Posted by johndallman

What can be confusing is that there isn't a rule for the time you need to learn the first point of a new skill if you're buying it with adventuring experience. By default in the absence of rules, this is no time, but some people find that unrealistic.

That's part of where my confusion comes in, as I couldn't find examples of how to solve skills acquired during gaming. Implications of skill and power progression yes, but not examples of how fast progression should be in certain types of games. It's possible I've missed them, working full time and going to uni full time can do that.

As johndallman pointed out, there are also skills that have no defaults and there's got to be a way to get those without somehow finding a teacher. There have to be alternatives, especially if you're in a restricted setting like a post-apocalypse where you're trying to pick up Mechanics to fix the tractor so your town doesn't die of starvation. Or you want to learn Psychic Lance to fight back against Ethereal aliens besetting humanity but you're (among the) first humans to "awaken".

What about adding skills during a game (as during rest breaks)? Can a thief who used a lot of Lockpicking, loafing about on a cart when the team "fast travels" to Town B, add a level to his Lockpicking skill before getting there if he has the character points?