Bulldancing and Bullfighting from 3e

[chipjamieson]

Hey all!

I'm looking at setting up an Old West game, and noticed in GURPS Update a couple skills that sound cool. I'd like to read about them.

Apparently, they were located (according to Kromm's 3E list) in a book abbreviated BY. (As in BY page 45).

I cannot see to located what book corresponds to this code. Can you help a cowboy (or more likely a vaquero) out?

As an aside, I'm planning to keep some old 3e skills in my game as well because I like the names better: Equestrian Acrobatics, Flint Sparking, Telegraphy (much better than Electronics Operation/TL5 (communications).

[Phantasm]

I'm not sure which book BY was, but they're also in Compendium I. Hope that helps.

[whswhs]

Flint sparking was part of the endless proliferation of GURPS skills that grew to make character design insanely complex. Making it an application of Survival (or Housekeeping) strikes me as a change for the better. Adding a skill that does things already covered by two other skills, and that really only does one thing, seems kind of inelegant as far as rules design goes.

I suppose you could keep it alive as a technique if you really like the name. There are rules for it in the new edition of GURPS Low-Tech, on p. 35. Or you could make it a Hobby Skill for an early anthropologist.

Bill Stoddard

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by chipjamieson

Hey all!

I'm looking at setting up an Old West game, and noticed in GURPS Update a couple skills that sound cool. I'd like to read about them.

Apparently, they were located (according to Kromm's 3E list) in a book abbreviated BY. (As in BY page 45).

I cannot see to located what book corresponds to this code. Can you help a cowboy (or more likely a vaquero) out?

As an aside, I'm planning to keep some old 3e skills in my game as well because I like the names better: Equestrian Acrobatics, Flint Sparking, Telegraphy (much better than Electronics Operation/TL5 (communications).

The official Abbreviations for GURPS Titles list is still accessible, BY is not on that list!?

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by SCAR

The official Abbreviations for GURPS Titles list is still accessible, BY is not on that list!?

I just looked; it is not.

Come to think of it, I don't see any books on that list remotely matching what it could be.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by chipjamieson

Telegraphy (much better than Electronics Operation/TL5 (communications).

I've been wondering, what skill would one use in 4e for various forms of signalling and communications which don't rely on electronics?

In my fantasy campaign, one mage who is heavily into fire magics also likes to fly around. Using Gesture skill, he can send various simple messages to anyone in range to see him, which is a surprisingly long distance when he's flying, on fire and the spotter is using Keen Vision, Hawk Vision and, if appropriate, Infravision or Dark Vision.

If the PCs want to develop a more complex messaging system, what skills do they use? There are no electronics in use, but a system of telegraphy could be developed...

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

I just looked; it is not.

Come to think of it, I don't see any books on that list remotely matching what it could be.

A Search on the SJG site does find Kromm's List of Ads, Disads and Skills which would appear to be where the OP got the references.

BY page references are also listed for Familiars and Were-Forms (Advanced Rules)

BY might have applied to Bestiary (listed as BE now), but the preview/table of contents for the latest 3e Edition has Prehistoric Animals on page 45 (so a reference to Bulldancing seems unlikely) - perhaps an older edition.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I've been wondering, what skill would one use in 4e for various forms of signalling and communications which don't rely on electronics?

In my fantasy campaign, one mage who is heavily into fire magics also likes to fly around. Using Gesture skill, he can send various simple messages to anyone in range to see him, which is a surprisingly long distance when he's flying, on fire and the spotter is using Keen Vision, Hawk Vision and, if appropriate, Infravision or Dark Vision.

If the PCs want to develop a more complex messaging system, what skills do they use? There are no electronics in use, but a system of telegraphy could be developed...

We added the skill of Machine Operation, in parallel to Electronics Operation, for GURPS Underground Adventures, to cover purely mechanical devices. Complex devices such as heliographs could be covered by that.

Beyond that, a short list of signals with stereotyped meanings could be covered by Soldier or Crewman, or, as you suggest, by Gesture. A fully flexible system comparable to Morse code, or to the British navy's use of flags to spell things out, is effectively a new system of writing in a different medium. The closest parallel I can see in existing canon is Shorthand, which is defined in LTC1 as a perk.

Bill Stoddard

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I've been wondering, what skill would one use in 4e for various forms of signalling and communications which don't rely on electronics?

In my fantasy campaign, one mage who is heavily into fire magics also likes to fly around. Using Gesture skill, he can send various simple messages to anyone in range to see him, which is a surprisingly long distance when he's flying, on fire and the spotter is using Keen Vision, Hawk Vision and, if appropriate, Infravision or Dark Vision.

If the PCs want to develop a more complex messaging system, what skills do they use? There are no electronics in use, but a system of telegraphy could be developed...

Sounds like the equivalent of semaphore to me, but I'm not sure what skill that uses.

Originally Posted by SCAR

BY might have applied to Bestiary (listed as BE now), but the preview/table of contents for the latest 3e Edition has Prehistoric Animals on page 45 (so a reference to Bulldancing seems unlikely) - perhaps an older edition.

My copy hasn't got either of those skills, and the new skills it does have are on p.53. As a note to the OP, Bulldancing is hugely out of place in a Wild West game; it is not a skill native to the milieu.

[Kromm]

"BY" was a pre-standardization abbreviation for GURPS Bestiary. Note well that there were multiple editions of that book with rather different interior arrangements . . . do not trust any reference you can't verify book in hand. At any rate, both of these would be Sports skills in Fourth Edition.