Skills and Techniques are too expensive

[Refplace]

To me most of this is as was said back on page 1 like a solution looking for a problem.
Attribute: Buy up for concept or generalists.
Skill: Buy up to specialize in up to 4 skills off the same attribute.
Technique: Buy up for signature moves or flavor for up to 3 techniques.

Attribute purchases also help speed up character design and less worry about skills you forgot to add.
If your good at several attribute related skills it makes sense to me that you either put a lot of time into mastering them or have a natural ability (hence high attribute or Talent). Meanwhile specializing is viable.
Skills defaulting to other skills can expand the trained expert concept, as do Talents.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I actually don't see DX bought up super high for primary combatants the way I see it for other stats.

I ask... what to you is super high? To me, anything above 14 is super high...

Originally Posted by Brandy

Back in the early days of 4e I remember a few suggestions for improving technique costs not by lowering them to fractional points, but to have 1 point in a technique increase the technique by +2.

I've been toying with the idea of mirroring points spent on a skill into 'free' points for Techniques.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Some consider it desirable for sensible character builds at the power level of "normal people" to have some resemblance to real people.

What's 'normal'? I've been thinking lately that 150 points is right about the 'right' spot. Depending on the person.

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

Players will treat character points as a measure of usefulness.

Ehhhhhh... I don't. I treat them as a measure of "can I buy what I want"? And a lot of what I might want is sometimes not "useful".

Originally Posted by Kesendeja

I solved alot of the problem by putting a cap on the attributes. You can only be so good at them, before you have to start focusing on skills.

Hey, ditto! Although I didn't cap Attributes so much as cap where they continued applying to skills.

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

You don't have to. GURPS doesn't.

Actually, GURPS does. Usually via Unusual Background Costs or gatekeeper Advantages. Sometimes via removing them.

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's inconsistent with my experience.

Completely consistent with mine however.

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

A swimming skill is more useful in a setting where you expect to do a lot of swimming.

Ehhh... not quite true. A skill might only come up once, but when it does it might be critical.

As such, I'd prefer not to price skills on perceived utility.


(Swimming is actually one of those skills that you almost never need, but when you do, it's critical.)

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That winds up as an exponential scale with each +1 multiplying cost by 1.4-1.5.

If anyone is interested in that esoteric topic, here's some eye-glazing reading for you: http://www.gamesdiner.com/escargo

It yields some really interesting results, though we're talking very alternate GURPS here!

[dcarson]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

(Swimming is actually one of those skills that you almost never need, but when you do, it's critical.)

I wonder what the percentage of people that take a CPR class are that ever actually use it.

[PTTG]

In response to the OP, one reason to invest in skills at high levels is that skills float.

Want to be good at biology? Gonna need to make a DX-based Biology check to get that sample. Or throw in a Per-based Biology to spot anomalous data. Maybe even a ST-based Biology to shove a large hunk of lab equipment in place to block a door, since a more experience scientist would be more likely to know which piece of equipment is prone to tipping over...

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by whswhs

So I think it looks like a straw man—a straw tuba player, which is an image to give anyone pause.

It's a thought experiment, designed to isolate a variable. It demonstrates the incentives that prices create. If you raise the price of a trait above its relative utility, you discourage people from taking it. It's not a straw man. It shows what I intended it to show: incentives matter.

Whether it's desirable to create those disincentives is a different discussion. Before anyone can have that discussion, though, the way prices relate to player decisions needs to be established.

I'm trying to explain to you why the original poster thinks that skills might be overpriced.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

The same skills don't have the same need in every game

That's true. It also applies to the advantages and disadvantages as well. It's always true of all traits.

You might as well give every skill the same price and just accept some skills are going to be bought more than others.

Sometimes Surfing is more useful than Guns. In the same way, sometimes Dark Vision is more useful than Unkillable 3.

This isn't evidence that all advantages should have the same cost, or that they can't be over- or underpriced. Nor is it evidence of the same thing in regard to skills. Four points per level for Surfing skill is almost always overpriced. The same isn't true of Guns skill. We can understand that without having any particular genre in mind. It's the same thing we do when we think about Dark Vision and Unkillable 3.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Ehhhhhh... I don't. I treat them as a measure of "can I buy what I want"? And a lot of what I might want is sometimes not "useful".

Which is what leads to people feeling ripped off. I often sees players with character concepts that they're set on. Say they want to play a blind samurai. They would be willing to pay points to get to be blind. If the game asked them to do so, they would. But then they would feel like they got ripped off. The game would seem unfair.

This is what happens when you ask someone to pay four points per level for Surfing skill for their Vietnam soldier. Sure, someone might be willing to pay that price, but they feel ripped off.

I think the goal should be to price the traits on their utility. That way players don't feel ripped off when they make the characters they want to play.

Players are stubborn. They're playing GURPS because they want to be able to make and play any character they can dream up. They shouldn't be punished for doing so.

The only thing worse than discouraging players from taking certain traits is ripping them off when they do it anyway. For instance, I've seen players take Regrowth even though they know they're being ripped off. They're unhappy about it. But it's their character concept. I've done this myself many times. My character has this background skill that's not very useful at a high level, but I waste half my points on it anyway, because that's my character concept. My character might be much, much less effective in game play than they would have otherwise been, but I still do it anyway. It feels bad. The rules shouldn't punish the players for making the characters they want to play. And that's what happens if you charge too much or too little for traits relative to other traits.

I think it's important not to miss the unseen effects of overcharging for traits. If you play enough, it becomes obvious what happens when you undercharge for something. It gets taken a disproportionate amount of the time. Those traits are like black holes; players bend their character concepts around them so they can justify taking the underpriced trait. But with the overpriced ones, they just disappear into the background. They show up disproportionately less often than they otherwise would. As a player building characters, I've noticed that these traits have sort of vanished into the mist. I just never think about them. Why would I? I know I'm not going to buy them. If someone plays mostly in science-fiction games, for instance, then they just won't think about buying DR. It's horrendously overpriced. Hundreds of points of DR do nothing. So no one makes a combat robot character. The GM probably never thinks about it. It's just something that's never come up.

That happens all the time--in every game, I think--and it remains unseen. I don't like that.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

Whether it's desirable to create those disincentives is a different discussion. Before anyone can have that discussion, though, the way prices relate to player decisions needs to be established.

I'm trying to explain to you why the original poster thinks that skills might be overpriced.

(a) That changing costs can create incentives or disincentives is obvious, and I find it strange that you would think I wasn't aware of it.

(b) It seemed to me that you were not stopping at stating that descriptive point, but were going on to an evaluative conclusion: that if some people would feel that changing costs made them worse off, then it was unfair or undesirable to change costs in that way. But since every change in relative costs makes some things more and others less favorable, every change in relative costs will make some people feel worse off when things they like or want become harder to afford, and therefore that criterion of unfairness blocks any change. I think that is too conservative a policy. And in any case it would make this entire discussion pointless.

(c) The alternative is to suppose that some changes are improvements even though they are disliked by some people who feel worse off because of them.

(d) I don't think I said anything to suggest that I didn't understand why the original poster thought skills were overpriced. What I said was that the original poster was wrong: that there was in fact a case to be made that skills should cost more (my minor point, though it's been the focus of our discussion, I think), and that in any case the argument for making them cost less fails to take certain things into account.

Okay so far? Then here's the core of my argument: In the current GURPS approach, it's efficient to buy up DX or IQ; to buy one average Talent or a couple of lesser ones for each core stat; to push no more than four skills per stat, and no more than two skills per average Talent, up to 4 points/level; and to take no more than one Hard technique for such a highly developed skill. That gives you a character with a fair measure of focus—say, the physicist who has above average IQ, Mathematical Ability, high levels of Mathematics (Applied) and Physics (powered off of those) and of Computer Programming and Hobby (Chess) (powered off of IQ), and maybe a couple of Hard techniques. If you go to a character who can afford two average Talents, and three skills per Talent at high levels, and two Hard techniques per skill—then you've got a character who doesn't have as much focus. There gets to be too much detail for the audience's mind to retain it all.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

This is what happens when you ask someone to pay four points per level for Surfing skill for their Vietnam soldier. Sure, someone might be willing to pay that price, but they feel ripped off.

I find point buckets to help here, Offer a small bucket for background skills and possibly advantages for things that fit the background but are unlikely to come up in play.
Also I try to make sure they do come up once in awhile as a spotlight.