Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 07-05-2018, 12:18 AM   #41
dataweaver
 
dataweaver's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Making Skills Matter More

In terms of Techniques, I think it very significant that they were originally conceived within the context of Styles. I don't think much would break if you said something like “for every 4 points you spend in a Style's primary skills, you get one free point to spend on the Style's Techniques”. This would simultaneously make both skills and techniques matter more — within the context of Styles, at least.
__________________
Point balance is a myth.[1][2][3][4]
dataweaver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2018, 12:33 AM   #42
dataweaver
 
dataweaver's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Making Skills Matter More

Quote:
Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw View Post
That's a good one. Personally I'd want to find a way to extend it to the base skill system: maybe the points are granted per skill, but you can use them on categories of skills rather than individuals (so something like "all science skills", "all combat skills", etc).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
Nice idea! I think each GM would have to come up with categories that make sense and are balanced for the particular campaign, but I could see it working.
Template Toolkit 1's chapter on Niches could help here, as could Styles, as both group skills together thematically.

Talents would be another thing to look at, even if no points end up being spent on the Talents themselves: what's important is which skills are grouped together. In fact, I would not count points in a Talent when determining how many “Competence Points” to award each session.
__________________
Point balance is a myth.[1][2][3][4]

Last edited by dataweaver; 07-05-2018 at 12:36 AM.
dataweaver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2018, 12:48 AM   #43
Boomerang
 
Boomerang's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Melbourne, Australia (also known as zone Brisbane)
Default Re: Making Skills Matter More

What I don't understand is why it matters if a player spends lots of points on attributes and not much on skills. Where is the harm in players optimising a little?
__________________
The stick you just can't throw away.
Boomerang is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2018, 01:09 AM   #44
dataweaver
 
dataweaver's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: Making Skills Matter More

One of my main gripes with point accounting systems is that it skews the results away from “what fits my concept” and toward “what's point-efficient”. In this case, the tendency is to skew toward character concepts with abnormally large amounts of innate potential (be it attributes like IQ or DX or advantages like Talents) over characters with abnormally large amounts of training. It just isn't point efficient to say “I'm not unusually smart or agile, not do I have any remarkable talents; I got to where I am through years of dedication and hard work.”

That's why the relative costs of skills vs. Talents and Attributes can be problematic.
__________________
Point balance is a myth.[1][2][3][4]
dataweaver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2018, 03:18 AM   #45
evileeyore
Banned
 
evileeyore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
Default Re: Making Skills Matter More

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boomerang View Post
What I don't understand is why it matters if a player spends lots of points on attributes and not much on skills. Where is the harm in players optimising a little?
Zero harm, as long they aren't stomping on someone else's niche.


That's what prompted my initial decisions to temper Attributes, I had 'high IQ engineers and scientists' that were also socialites... when that wasn't their niche. Because when you can default to any (mental) skill and have that default be 15+, or worse, drop a single point in a skill and hit 18 or higher it sorely begins to undermine the social Character.
evileeyore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2018, 04:46 AM   #46
SilvercatMoonpaw
 
SilvercatMoonpaw's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2017
Default Re: Making Skills Matter More

Quote:
Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
Talents would be another thing to look at, even if no points end up being spent on the Talents themselves: what's important is which skills are grouped together. In fact, I would not count points in a Talent when determining how many “Competence Points” to award each session.
Good points!
SilvercatMoonpaw is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2018, 05:27 AM   #47
Boomerang
 
Boomerang's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Melbourne, Australia (also known as zone Brisbane)
Default Re: Making Skills Matter More

Quote:
Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
One of my main gripes with point accounting systems is that it skews the results away from “what fits my concept” and toward “what's point-efficient”. In this case, the tendency is to skew toward character concepts with abnormally large amounts of innate potential (be it attributes like IQ or DX or advantages like Talents) over characters with abnormally large amounts of training. It just isn't point efficient to say “I'm not unusually smart or agile, not do I have any remarkable talents; I got to where I am through years of dedication and hard work.”

That's why the relative costs of skills vs. Talents and Attributes can be problematic.
Maybe.

I think the opposite. People often want to play the classic hero who starts unskilled and naive about the world but has stacks of potential and is destined to greatness. It is great that GURPS facilitates this so well.
__________________
The stick you just can't throw away.
Boomerang is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2018, 05:33 AM   #48
SilvercatMoonpaw
 
SilvercatMoonpaw's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2017
Default Re: Making Skills Matter More

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boomerang View Post
People often want to play the classic hero who starts unskilled and naive about the world but has stacks of potential and is destined to greatness. It is great that GURPS facilitates this so well.
In that case, though, there might still be an arguement that while they can start out with high attributes and low skills the concept probably calls for raising skills rather than attributes. And part of the problem is others are saying the system doesn't push this well.
SilvercatMoonpaw is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2018, 06:31 AM   #49
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Making Skills Matter More

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boomerang View Post
What I don't understand is why it matters if a player spends lots of points on attributes and not much on skills. Where is the harm in players optimising a little?
There is nothing wrong with it from a game mechanics point of view because that is what the GURPS system rewards. And I do not want to change the point cost of anything or see any of the radical changes proposed in a number of the posts. But I do want to see some mechanical benefit for experience and training that makes them equal to the mechanical benefit of innate talent because I see it as a major game balance issue.

Right now, a character who spends 60% of their point total on attributes and 20% of their point total on skills will almost always outperform a character who spends 60% of their point total on skills and 20% of their point total on attributes if both characters share the same theme. A 200 CP character with DX 16 and 40 CP of skills will be a much better overall character than one with DX 12 and 120 CP of skills, despite the latter representing decades of experience and training. Now, the latter can specialize to an absurd degree, but specialization is dangerous in GURPS, as the system rewards generalists over specialists.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2018, 06:35 AM   #50
Kromm
GURPS Line Editor
 
Kromm's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: Making Skills Matter More

Quote:
Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post

Zero harm, as long they aren't stomping on someone else's niche.
That has been my experience as well. I've run a lot of GURPS since 1986, using all four editions. Some of those campaigns have lasted for years! What usually happens is this:

Almost everybody raises DX and IQ lots, so "Agile Person" and "Smart Person" cease to be niches . . . or to be precise, they become weak niches defined by having +1 or +2 to DX or IQ relative to a uniformly high "heroic baseline." The strong niches end up being defined by skill profiles: "lots of DX and IQ plus a few points in each of dozens of combat skills" ("Fighter"), "lots of DX and IQ plus a few points in each of dozens of thieving skills" ("Rogue"), "lots of DX and IQ plus a few points in each of dozens of academic skills" ("Sage"), etc.

Under those circumstances, niche protection becomes a matter of controlling access to training in new skills – not a question of limiting attribute improvement. A Rogue or Sage who wants to invade the Fighter niche has to find a Master of Defense, get a superior reaction, pay lots of money, and either set aside other plans between adventures or sit out an adventure. A Sage or Fighter who wants to invade the Rogue niche must succeed at a side-quest for the Thieves' Guild and once again invest time and cash. A Fighter or Rogue who wants to invade the Sage niche needs to petition for admission to a university and yet again commit to study and tuition. In practice, this makes crossing niches less attractive, and most people are happy to get by on their decent-enough DX- and IQ-based defaults.

The exceptions are niches defined by ST and HT, actually, which are linked weakly if at all to skills. "Strong Person" and "Indestructible Person" are important niches and harder to protect, as it's trivial to justify ST increases and not difficult to explain at least modest HT increases – almost anybody could decide to lift weights, jog, swim, eat better, stay hydrated, cut down on alcohol, etc. Protecting those niches is when to think about tinkering with attribute costs . . . or asking the players to be respectful. I've always done the latter; players have been uniformly civilized about accepting, "Being the party's battering ram or meat shield is so-and-so's job, so I'll respect that and keep my ST and HT at the heroic baseline for this campaign."

For reference purposes, I'm the sort of gamer who thinks it's justifiable for anybody in a 150-point action-adventure game to start with 12s across the board. Thus, it isn't as if asking the Rogue or the non-battering-ram Fighter to keep ST at 12-13 is dooming that person to feeble damage output, nor as if requesting that the Sage or non-meat-shield Fighter keep HT at 12-13 is handing out a death sentence. And of course once the designated ST or HT monster is way out at 16+, it isn't so invasive to let the others have a 14 or 15. To a certain extent, such logic applies to all attribute-intensive niches.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com>
GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games
My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News]
Kromm is online now   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 09:45 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.