Food & other stuff production in a farm

[AlexanderHowl]

How exactly would you stat a creature that creatures a poison or toxin that can be harvested without harm to the creature in question? For example, venomous snakes can be milked for their venom while certain frogs can have their toxic excretions harvested by wiping their skin with a moist towel. Is it just a perk associated with a relevant limited use Toxic Attack?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

How exactly would you stat a creature that creatures a poison or toxin that can be harvested without harm to the creature in question?

Again, if the substance is valuable and acquiring it takes relatively little time, it's Independent Income. If it takes more time, it's a job, while if it isn't valuable enough to be worth 1% of starting wealth per month, it's basically just a perk, yeah.

[(E)]

While I dont have my books with me would snatcher have any use when modeling this?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by (E)

While I dont have my books with me would snatcher have any use when modeling this?

Probably not. Snatcher needs a lot of modifiers to do this, including a rather expensive one to make objects snatched permanent, and then limiting it to one type of item only, making it based on HT instead of IQ, etc., etc. Plus, Snatcher is base cost 80, which means you can't get it down below 16 points, which is almost certainly going to be far more expensive than someone is going to want to pay for this (unless they're, like, sweating diamonds or something).

[Varyon]

A rather speedy response from Kromm (which I kind of expected, the man is a machine):

Originally Posted by Kromm

Tenure means only one thing: "I can't lose my job." You still have to work to get paid – although "I didn't bother to show up to work this week/month/year" is among the many things that won't get you fired. Generally, GURPS takes the approach of paying points for each benefit separately. The benefits "I can't be fired" and "I get paid for doing nothing" aren't the same; those are Tenure and Independent Income, respectively.

I believe the mention of keeping your salary is more just that you don't get a paycut, not that you still get paid. I'm not certain exactly how freelance/self-employment is meant to work in GURPS, when it isn't part of the adventure (as it is in DF and the like), but my guess would be you should still go through the normal "find a job" rules if you didn't start with one, and that failure to work semi-regularly means you lose whatever connections that represented and have to try again next time you need a job (continuing to work means more work keeps coming in, so it's just like having a normal job, but with a variable pay scale).

With all that in mind, I'd say my Tenure build is appropriate for production that is time-consuming/labor-intensive (that is, production that is itself a job), while Independent Income is appropriate when it's something you produce passively.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

How exactly would you stat a creature that creatures a poison or toxin that can be harvested without harm to the creature in question? For example, venomous snakes can be milked for their venom while certain frogs can have their toxic excretions harvested by wiping their skin with a moist towel. Is it just a perk associated with a relevant limited use Toxic Attack?

Either Tenure or Independent Income, dependent on how much like work the extraction is. If acquiring it weakens you - eats up one or more daily uses of your poison, say - that's worth a discount, but I'm not certain how much of one (Alternate Ability might work for Independent Income, but not for Tenure).

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

How exactly would you stat a creature that creatures a poison or toxin that can be harvested without harm to the creature in question? For example, venomous snakes can be milked for their venom while certain frogs can have their toxic excretions harvested by wiping their skin with a moist towel. Is it just a perk associated with a relevant limited use Toxic Attack?

Out of curiousity what were you considering marketing it for.

I am getting amused now at the symbolism of the thought of a femme fatale who uses perfume made of snake venom.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Thanks for posting the response, and good to know. You're definitely right about Tenure not giving money if you don't work, I guess. That said, I still don't think Tenure is the right thing here.

Originally Posted by Varyon

I believe the mention of keeping your salary is more just that you don't get a paycut, not that you still get paid. I'm not certain exactly how freelance/self-employment is meant to work in GURPS, when it isn't part of the adventure (as it is in DF and the like), but my guess would be you should still go through the normal "find a job" rules if you didn't start with one, and that failure to work semi-regularly means you lose whatever connections that represented and have to try again next time you need a job (continuing to work means more work keeps coming in, so it's just like having a normal job, but with a variable pay scale).

I'd disagree on that interpretation. I think the critical difference between a freelance job and one where you're working for an employer is simply the variable pay for the freelance one. The Job rules in Campaigns say "at the end of every month in which a character works, he must roll..." (emphasis mine, p. B516), and under "Finding a Job", it says "A PC seeking a job that requires an employer (that is, one at which he is not self-employed) may roll against IQ once per week to see if he finds work." (p. B518). I'd say that suggests, particularly the 2nd reference, that someone who's self-employed can always just not work in the month, and not make a job roll. They just won't get any money for it. But they can go back to the job next month. I certainly wouldn't prevent someone from rolling on a self-employed job after putting it down for a month, barring a previous critical failure.

Anyway, the point of all this, is that Tenure is really only appropriate for people with salaried jobs with employers - it has no benefit if you don't have an employer. And characters like the original poster is describing, who produce some useful material, can simply treat that as a self-employed job.

[Hide]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

(...) Thanks for posting the response, and good to know. You're definitely right about Tenure not giving money if you don't work, I guess. That said, I still don't think Tenure is the right thing here (...)

Independent Income is a good choice if I want to sell the goods. But right now I am waiving income per-se.

If not with tenure, how would you justify and rule the capacity of a creature to naturally produce a good (for means intended beyond natural needs)?

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

If production takes a substantial amount of your time in a day, I agree, that's not Independent Income. But I'd argue that in that case, it's just a regular job, just a "freelance" one that you can't be fired from (but a critical failure of the job roll can mean no income that month). I'd put the cutoff at about 1 hour a day - if producing your stuff takes longer than that, treat it as a job, less it's Independent Income.

I think being a freelancer is different towards tenure, because it is not a passive quality as tenure might be. Being a freelancer roughly means you are a one-man enterprise, the only guy at the top in the chain of command within such enterprise; yet, a freelancer seeks a job, finds an employer, does the job and then gets paid (and if he does not work, he is fired).

I understand that someone with tenure, will always keep the job regardless of the situation, as long as it meets the specific conditions defined under tenure.

A freelancer with tenure working for Mr. X won't get fired even if he does not deliver accordingly. Maybe this freelancer is an awesome artist and it gives good reputation to Mr. X.

Maybe the silk-spiders I originally bought for silk production make good pets; even if I know I can harvest their silk and also sell it, I won't do it right away, perhaps I will in a month. Yet, the spiders "natural" or "original" purpose still remains. I would consider that a tenure.

You may ask, "why tenure and not a perk?" Well, in the first place the perk "produces silk" does not appear in the books, right? Second, what if I have magical beasts that produce rubies? Then, said rubies won't be cheap.

In the end, tenure does not justify a capability per-se, but I think tenure gives room to establish the requirements and a mechanisms to roll dice in order to determine the production and success ratios of naturally produced goods. Quoting B93: "You can only lose your job (and this trait) as the result of extraordinary misbehavior: assault, gross immorality, etc." I think that allows me (the GM), to establish certain rules around things under tenure.

Finally I am considering that such creatures cannot control their capacity as a skill, but their behaviors might impact their results. And in most creatures, behaviors often result from the conditions of their surroundings.

That said, what would you suggest?

Thank you,
- Hide

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Hide

Independent Income is a good choice if I want to sell the goods. But right now I am waiving income per-se.

Not actually an issue. If you don't use it to gain Money, but you still use the product and give it to others to use, its still a good canidate for independent income, particularly if the substance is worth something in and of its self.

Finally I am considering that such creatures cannot control their capacity as a skill, but their behaviors might impact their results. And in most creatures, behaviors often result from the conditions of their surroundings.

I don't think that's actually a big limitation, nor a complex one. Just slap an accessibility limitation on it like "only after staying in one place for a day" or something else like that.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Out of curiousity what were you considering marketing it for.

I am getting amused now at the symbolism of the thought of a femme fatale who uses perfume made of snake venom.

Venoms and toxins often have therapeutic and/or recreational properties when diluted and/or purified. Some poison frogs produce opiates thousands of times stronger than heroin, and there is always the example of Botox.