Survival (Urban).

[Michele]

Originally Posted by namada

To complicate things, there's also the Scrounging skill. . .

Indeed, maybe Scrounging is the skill for finding food that belongs to nobody (such as edible food in garbage bins) or food that belongs to somebody (but that the character might be willing to steal) in a city. I think it might be, because Survival (any natural environment) explicitly mentions finding food, while Urban Survival only mentions finding good clean water.

Knowing where to find soup kitchens, temples that distribute food for free, or restaurants that leave leftovers in the back alley might fall within the province of Area Knowledge (City).
However, if these locations are relatively common, then Urban Survival might allow you to find them (as opposed to knowing where they are), even in an unknown city (as opposed to how Area Knowledge works), simply because Urban Survival lets you assess where it is more likely to find those locations thanks to the "feel" you have for how cities are laid out.

Nothing wrong with achieving the same results in different ways and thanks to different skills, naturally. It happens in real life, so why not in GURPS with its rich skill list.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Michele

Nothing wrong with achieving the same results in different ways and thanks to different skills, naturally. It happens in real life, so why not in GURPS with its rich skill list.

There are indeed a number of canonical tasks that can be performed with a variety of skills (often at different penalties depending on which skill is used).

[namada]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

If you want to sneak aboard a ship, you'd need Stealth. If you wanted to find a place to stow away where you'd be least likely to be found by the crew, I'd want a roll against Professional Skill (Sailor) with success granting a bonus to Stealth.

If you want to find a guy who knows a guy who might know a crew willing to risk smuggling a wanted fugitive to Casablanca, that's Streetwise. :)

Originally Posted by Joe

Side note: for those situations, I'd also throw Smuggling into the mix.

I assume, Joe, you meant the final sentence in tshiggins' post was where you'd throw the Smuggling in? If so, it would be the Crew that had the Smuggling skill, not the character, for that, I'd say tshiggins' got it right, that's just a Streetwise roll to find the crew.

[Joe]

Originally Posted by namada

I assume, Joe, you meant the final sentence in tshiggins' post was where you'd throw the Smuggling in? If so, it would be the Crew that had the Smuggling skill, not the character, for that, I'd say tshiggins' got it right, that's just a Streetwise roll to find the crew.

I really meant this sentence:

Originally Posted by tshiggins

If you wanted to find a place to stow away where you'd be least likely to be found by the crew, I'd want a roll against Professional Skill (Sailor) with success granting a bonus to Stealth.

If I were GMing, and a player wanted to work out a good place to stow away aboard a ship, then I'd definitely allow them to use Professional Skill (Sailor) to do so, as tshiggins suggests. But if the PC was,say, an ex-sailor who used to smuggle goods, and therefore had Smuggling, I'd certainly allow them to use that, too. And while we're at it, Crewman would work for me, too. If they had all three skills, then I'd probably ask for a roll against Smuggling, since it seems like the best fit - you're looking for a place to hide secret cargo, after all; it's just that the cargo is you. I'd probably treat the others as complementary.

Not sure if any of this is RAW, but I think that's how I'd do it in practice.

Just to make the inevitable reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O-KbyEAhBw (warning: that's a youtube clip, in case that isn't obvious)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Joe

If I were GMing, and a player wanted to work out a good place to stow away aboard a ship, then I'd definitely allow them to use Professional Skill (Sailor) to do so, as tshiggins suggests. But if the PC was,say, an ex-sailor who used to smuggle goods, and therefore had Smuggling, I'd certainly allow them to use that, too. And while we're at it, Crewman would work for me, too. If they had all three skills, then I'd probably ask for a roll against Smuggling, since it seems like the best fit - you're looking for a place to hide secret cargo, after all; it's just that the cargo is you. I'd probably treat the others as complementary.

I think that the Seaman version of Crewman IS Professional Skill (Sailor). I don't see why there would be two different skill. And in any case I don't think you would use either for this particular task, if you interpret it as "hiding human cargo." Canonically, the skill for figuring out where to put cargo is Freight Handling, and the skill for figuring out how to hide it is Smuggling.

Perhaps it would be fair, though, to say "Smuggling, Freight Handling-2, or Seaman-4" or something like that.

[dcarson]

I'd allow Smuggling at a penalty for the roll to find smugglers that will smuggle you. You should know where to contact people in the business having been in it yourself.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by dcarson

I'd allow Smuggling at a penalty for the roll to find smugglers that will smuggle you. You should know where to contact people in the business having been in it yourself.

You could also use Merchant with an optional specialization in illegal or smuggled goods.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by dcarson

I'd allow Smuggling at a penalty for the roll to find smugglers that will smuggle you. You should know where to contact people in the business having been in it yourself.

Or you might have Smuggler skill without having ever been in or near 'the business'. Physical-task and social-knowledge skills shouldn't be merged casually.

[Joe]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I think that the Seaman version of Crewman IS Professional Skill (Sailor). I don't see why there would be two different skill.

Quite so. For consistency and simplicity, it's better to use the existing Crewman (Seamanship) rather than adding a new Professional Skill (Sailor), when they would cover pretty much the same territory. But I was just responding to tshiggins' suggestion. If one of my players had Professional Skill (Sailor) written down on his/her sheet, then I'd be happy to run with it in this situation - why sweat it?

My point really was just that by RAW, in this situation, Smuggling would be best.

Originally Posted by whswhs

And in any case I don't think you would use either for this particular task, if you interpret it as "hiding human cargo." Canonically, the skill for figuring out where to put cargo is Freight Handling, and the skill for figuring out how to hide it is Smuggling.

I thoroughly agree about Smuggling (in fact, that was my initial point)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Or you might have Smuggler skill without having ever been in or near 'the business'. Physical-task and social-knowledge skills shouldn't be merged casually.

Finding smugglers and doing business with them would not have to give you any Smuggling Skill. The social end is probably Streetwise. Smuggling itself is about hiding and moving the goods.