07-11-2018, 05:47 PM | #21 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Minimum Skill Count
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A lot of daily routine has been deliberately swept up into Housekeeping, at least in part to *reduce* the number of skills people will otherwise insist everybody ought to have. It might actually be a pretty good idea to do something similar with some of these other clusters - say creating a single skill to consolidate Cultural Familiarity/Area Knowledge/Current Events/Local History/Savoir Faire etc. - all the "stuff everybody knows" about their surroundings skills that make up a lot of the rest of these lists. Edit: I'm more than a little tempted to say that what Driving skill many modern people have is actually part of Housekeeping - with the justification your car is just another household machine you are expected to be able to operate at a basic level. A third basic employment/paperwork/computer skill (Salaryman?) might not be a bad idea either.
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-- MA Lloyd Last edited by malloyd; 07-11-2018 at 05:56 PM. |
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07-11-2018, 07:17 PM | #22 |
Join Date: Jun 2018
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Re: Minimum Skill Count
I learned how to ride a bike when I was like 5 years old.
It shouldn't be a skill a person needs to spend points on unless it's some kind of special bicycling, like "fighting on a bike" and biking sports. Similarly, computer operation should not be a points skill in TL8 and above. Not knowing how to drive in TL7/8 should be some kind of negative quality (like a quirk) not a points skill. So, the OP's post suggests to me that both arguments are right but are missing the bigger point: an excessive number of points skills. |
07-11-2018, 07:23 PM | #23 |
Join Date: Jun 2018
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Re: Minimum Skill Count
Perhaps this quirk would solve some of this:
Oddly Untrained In contrast with nearly every other person over the age of sixteen, you lack some basic skill. examples: Oddly Untrained: Bicycling Oddly Untrained: Driving (auto) Oddly Untrained: Computer Operation |
07-11-2018, 07:25 PM | #24 | ||
Join Date: Nov 2004
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Re: Minimum Skill Count
You are not everybody. There are plenty of people, especially those who've spent their lives in highly urbanised and auto-centric places, who never learned to ride a bike.
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Possibly, although there's a distinct difference between a power user and someone who can actually write code or the like (I am arguably the first, and have a modicum of knowledge of the second) Quote:
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07-11-2018, 07:35 PM | #25 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Minimum Skill Count
From the Basic entry on Bicycling "This is the ability to ride a bicycle long distance, at high speeds or in rallies etc.". It's very likleyt he Professional Skill for a bike messenger too.
Just peddling down the street is done at +4 and for a Skill that defaults to DX-4 that adds up to DX. So many fewer people in the US have Bicycle Skill than might be supposed just by looking at Skill _names_. An actual Gurps skill is usually much more than simply performing some activity in the simplest possible manner.
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Fred Brackin |
07-11-2018, 07:52 PM | #26 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Minimum Skill Count
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If a character is truly lacking in some or all of the skills needed to live a normal life, they take a Social Stigma for that.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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07-11-2018, 08:22 PM | #27 | |
Join Date: Oct 2008
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Re: Minimum Skill Count
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Edit: In Finland seems more to be an increasing trait among younger urban populations, as example in Helsinki only 34 755 of 57 456 (60.5%) 18-24 year olds have drivers licenses, but 320 278 of 427 555 (75%) of 18-64 year olds have drivers licenses. Last edited by weby; 07-11-2018 at 08:37 PM. |
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07-11-2018, 09:10 PM | #28 |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Minimum Skill Count
I treat Bicycling like Hiking or Running in my games, really only needed for long-distance travel or races.
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07-11-2018, 09:14 PM | #29 |
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Dreamland
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Re: Minimum Skill Count
As the user who said the "4-10", I also know that campaign type really does matter and skills themselves matter. Three things that I know "shrink" that list;
A) I ignore "flavor" skills when looking at that number. It's usually a small list (such as hobby or profession skills that no one is expecting to see much use). I don't do this if the skill is going to or was intentionally bought to be used much. One PC has Housecleaning and he ended up using it more often than the rest of his skills, maybe combined. 2) I honestly can't remember the last time I played a campaign without supernatural effects. Those don't have to be skills or even use them. Flight doesn't need Aerobatics or the Flight skill. A character with a combination of Doesn't Eat, Drink, Sleep, or Breathe and Immunity to Metabolic Hazards has a lot less to worry about than a normal person (especially with the "Tireless" advantage on MyGurps where you don't lose FP). 3) My groups tends to and I especially like to play young and/or inexperienced characters. One PC did have zero skills; she did not have good parents (but they were "enough" that she never worried about being fed or needing shelter), she had no idea how the world worked due to a lack of any training, and her only real "hobby" was reading, but not to the degree that would give Connoisseur. To give an example of one of my characters; She has Diplomacy and Erotic Art. That's it. She had a few things she likes to do, none of which required skills (except the aformentioned EA). She's all about solving her issues with either words (Diplomacy) or magic (something similar to Sorcery). With some high bases (IQ16 Will20) and choice advantages, she has a wide variety of options at hand without basically any training. With the exact set up she has, she could get away with 2pts in skills, let alone only two skills. These are extremely low as exaggerated examples. In my longest running campaign, the "wizard" has tons of spells but maybe eight skills, the "warrior" has (I think) nine skills, the "rogue" has 18 skills (and a few of those he was thinking of "taking back"), and the "face" has six skills because she relies a lot more on advantages (especially passive ones) to support being the face. (The archetype names aren't quite correct, but it's the closest words for summarizing the characters. For instance, all are quite capable of combat.) Now, on the other end of the spectrum, I have had campaigns with Wildcard skills, which seem to be about 20 skills in one. One PC even asked about taking Boom! skill, which is just a wildcard skill that happens to include every skill (at a much higher cost per level). I'll absolutely agree that certain campaigns (say, modern day espionage) would require all sort of skills, but the thing is skills are merely one place for determining competence. Last thing; Defaults do suck. But I see characters get around that by just buying DX or IQ to 18 to "get rid" of them (the common default ends up being 12 then). |
07-11-2018, 10:55 PM | #30 | |||
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Luxembourg
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Re: Minimum Skill Count
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And it work perfectly well when all characters are and stay in a area with the same cultural background. I prefer to have players buy those basics skills. The skill list is much longer, and they do need more points, but it pay when they are or travel to different culture/time/dimension.. As I said above, a matter of taste, both approach work. Quote:
Last edited by Celjabba; 07-11-2018 at 11:05 PM. |
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