Background Skills [House Rule]

[AlexanderHowl]

A typical serf woman is likely to have inferior equipment (-2 to skill) and inferior materials (-2 to skill), for a total of a -4 penalty. Since they will likely be working in dim lighting when cooking, sewing, etc. inside, they will likely suffer an additional -3 to skill, for a total of a -7 to skill. Taking extra time is probably unlikely because of the demands on their time, so an unskilled character would have a net -7 to -9 when defaulting for a routine activity

Under those circumstances, character with Cooking-15 or Sewing-15 would have an effective skill of 12 when making simple meals or making simple repairs. If they were using Housekeeping-15, they would instead have a skill of 8 when making simple meals or making simple repairs, meaning that they would be burning the majority of the meals they cooked and ruining the majority of clothes they repaired, making them hilariously unsuitable for marriage. In effect, the realities of the situation of the vast majority of humans for the vast majority of civilized history requires them to have a lot more competence than most people assume.

In many ways, the only difference between a serf and a craftsman is the quality of equipment, materials, and lighting. A tailor can afford fine needles (+1 to skill), fine cloth (+1 to skill), and adequate lighting (+0 to skill), allowing a tailor with Sewing-12 to function at Sewing-18 for simple repairs. Even though the serf woman possesses much higher skill than a professional tailor, her circumstances make her seem much less capable than the professional.

[Crystalline_Entity]

I don't think we're going to agree on this I'm afraid.

To me, the difference between a serf and a craftsperson includes training too. There's an element of specialisation here; a serf has to cook, sew, farm, look after animals, repair the house, etc. All the training time the serf puts into those, the craftsperson can dedicate to their craft (as they have servants, a spouse, etc). So a serf may be more of a generalist with a point in a number of skills and a Dabbler perk or two, whereas a craftsperson may have a point or two in serious hobby skills, but the majority of their points will be in their professional skills, the hyper-specialisation perk, etc. And of course, a craftsman will have a much higher wealth level than a serf to explain why they're not a serf, and hence a higher point total.


A "typical serf woman" probably has one point in Sewing. She may or may not have DX 11 or a level in an applicable talent, but for the sake of argument let's say she doesn't, so basic skill is 10.

• Basic equipment, +0. I can't find where "Inferior equipment" is listed, but Improvised, Basic, Good, etc are on B345. She wouldn't be able to afford Good, but she's clearly not using Improvised if she's interested enough to invest a point in the skill.
• Poor light, -3. Okay, let's do this indoors in poor light.
• Assistance, +1. Assistance from her daughter, holding cloth in place, spooling thread, etc. I believe pre-modern children had to help with work from a young age.
• Easy task, +5. As per B345 this includes rolls by ordinary people doing day-to-day jobs.

This gives her effective skill 13. That's success 84% of the time. The majority of failures are going to increase the time taken or resources used (unpicking stitches, wasted cloth), say by 10%. Whether the wastage is worth spending Extra Time on is one of the questions we all answer when we do a job. In this case, doubling the time taken for an extra +1 increases the odds of success to 91%. She'd probably not bother, and take the risk of wasting a bit of time and materials.

A craftsperson on the other hand might have two points in Sewing, and a level of talent or DX, for base skill 12 (or four points in Sewing).

• Good equipment, +1. She could afford good equipment for her primary occupation.
• Adequate light, +0. She's in a workshop with windows rather than a hovel.
• Assistance, +1. Assistance from an apprentice.
• Very favourable task, +3. A professional tailor would do more challenging work than a serf.

This is skill 17, which is success 98% of the time. That's plenty for an everyday job for a professional. She'd be able to take on much more challenging work (abstracted by the task difficulty modifier) than a serf and still have a reasonable chance of success.

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A typical serf woman is likely to have inferior equipment (-2 to skill) and inferior materials (-2 to skill), for a total of a -4 penalty. Since they will likely be working in dim lighting when cooking, sewing, etc. inside, they will likely suffer an additional -3 to skill, for a total of a -7 to skill. Taking extra time is probably unlikely because of the demands on their time, so an unskilled character would have a net -7 to -9 when defaulting for a routine activity

I have a different way of seeing this mechanic in my TL3(ish) worlds. We are splitting fictions now, but I think the Serf making a work smock/tunic is more representative of the bulk of a TL3 sewing "proficiency" (a 1pt skill). This would also include the basic needle, thread, and cutting implement as well as basic homespun cloth and thread. I could see giving a trained/equipped tailor more pluses but I wouldn't ding the serf more than a -1 for equipment and materials and then, only when less than the basic tools were present.

I also think that your Serf is fully capable of doing a basic cost benefit analysis and realizing it is in everyone's best interest to take some extra time to produce a suitable garment (or at least the best one they can do). Wasting the materials would be a significant waste of time and money, I cant see that being overlooked so cavalierly.

Lighting is actually the one thing where I'm willing to throw you a bit of situational agreement in that this kind of work was likely done when it was the least impact to another more necessary tasks. Possibly evenings or put off till the winter months where there was less manual labor to do and less option to work outside. I doesn't mean that a compelling case can't be made that doing this near a sunny door/window or outside would be factored into the production time.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In many ways, the only difference between a serf and a craftsman is the quality of equipment, materials, and lighting. A tailor can afford fine needles (+1 to skill), fine cloth (+1 to skill), and adequate lighting (+0 to skill), allowing a tailor with Sewing-12 to function at Sewing-18 for simple repairs. Even though the serf woman possesses much higher skill than a professional tailor, her circumstances make her seem much less capable than the professional.

Cant disagree more with this... it's like saying the difference between a trained swordsman and a raw recruit is just a better class of sword, lighting and some nicer armor. The SKILL difference matters greatly, and the time dedicated to the craft would vary significantly between a Serf that is finding time to make a once in a lifetime wedding garment, or a basic work tunic, compared to a tailor that makes a day to day living sewing pretty much every day and likely more complicated items. Time spent actively perfecting a craft makes a difference.

Crystalline_Entity
I don't think we're going to agree on this I'm afraid.

Im right there with you, I see a couple things a little different but in general I would not 'argue' your math if I was a player.

I would say that the Serf's lighting thing is pretty easy to mitigate unless there is a specific reason that it has to be done under those circumstances (and I realize you arent advocating that in your description, I just want to reinforce that). Working in or near an open door or window during daylight hours or flat working outside takes care of the lighting situation simply.

I would say that the Serf is at best a +3 task difficulty because this is not something done every day. While a probably relatively uncomplicated task, its only done as needed and might have been a while since it was last done. A Serf has plenty of other things to deal with from day to day. Unlike cooking which probably happens every day, possibly multiple times a day.

I would give the Serf more credit for time spent because this represents a much bigger investment of time and resources so they would likely be more careful to try and get it right the first time. Such a simple thing to a Tailor is unlikely to get their attention in reality, but that was not the exercise.

I would adjust the Tailor to a task difficulty of +5 maybe even as high as +8 for such a simple garment. Again I see you're referencing a more difficult garment for the tailor but that makes me twitchy not carrying the same example all the way through.

To your edit, I wouldn't consider someone with only a skill of 12 a craftsman (semantics really). Skill of 14 or 15 would be a senior apprentice or a junior journeyman, around skill 15 is where I would start using the term "Craftsman". Regardless of the title though, in most cases I would attribute a skill of at least 15 to someone owning a shop and being a professional (full time) Tailor. Meaning their main source of income is Tailoring.

[AlexanderHowl]

Professional levels of skill for Average Jobs are skill-12 (Low-Tech Companion 3 gives plenty of examples). This is suitable for journeymen (apprentices would have lower levels of skill). An individual with skill 14 would likely be a master, worthy of +1 Wealth while an individual with skill 16 would likely be a grandmaster, worthy of +2 Wealth.

The advantage of wealth is profound in pre-modern societies, as they allow you to purchase better equipment and better materials. A Grandmaster will not only have skill 16, they will also use fine equipment (+2 skill) and fine materials (+2 skill), allowing them to function at an effective skill of 20. Not only that, they will likely be capable of demanding extra time for their work, allowing them to get up to a +5 to skill (for example, taking a month to complete a sword that would normally take a day to make), allowing them to function at skill 25.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I give free points for background skills all the time: I usually use templates or give 10 points of "Flavor" skills. I find that 10 points is usually more than enough, and I think 20 points would be excessive.

Agreed, if you want the players to take background skills, simply require them. In my Star Trek game, they are required to take a 10 points Background that has the following background skill requirement:
Background Skills
– choose one
1 Area Knowledge (choose specialty) E IQ Planet (or Interplanetary State if you're well travelled) are appropriate. See the Area Knowledge Specialties tab below.
1 Current Affairs/TL (choose specialty) E IQ See the Current Affairs Specialties tab below.
– choose two
1 Area Knowledge (choose specialty) E IQ Planet (or Interplanetary State if you're well travelled) are appropriate. See the Area Knowledge Specialties tab below.
1 Computer Operation/TL E IQ
1 Current Affairs/TL (choose specialty) E IQ See the Current Affairs Specialties tab below.
1 Driving/TL (choose specialty) A DX Automobile or Motorcycle are appropriate
or Piloting/TL (choose specialty) A DX VERTOL (for a Blade-Runner-esque aircar) is appropriate
1 Hobby (choose specialty) E DX or IQ or a suitable substitute, e.g. Artist, Games, Gardening, Musical Instrument, Poetry, a Sport, etc. Combat Art and Combat Sport skills are okay, but no pure combat skills. See Hobby Specialties tab below.
1 Housekeeping E IQ to clean up after yourself, *wink* *wink*.
3 Total Background Skills