Skills, skills everywhere

[Gollum]

In our modern western world, most of us learn a lot of different things: at school, at university, during our job, our leisures, etc. Of course, we also forget a lot. But we still remember a lot of different skills at low level.

Just try to create yourself as character. It's hard to do it without taking less than 20-30 skills as soon as you aso take into account all your leisures (Chess, Role Playing Games, Wargames and Poker are also Skills in GURPS), all the things you regularly do at home (Cooking, Gardening, Housekeeping...), etc.

So, having a lot of Skills is normal as soon as you want to create a realistic character, one who is not like D&D characters: only focused on the skills and abilities which are absolutely necessary for his class.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Gollum

Just try to create yourself as character. It's hard to do it without taking less than 20-30 skills as soon as you aso take into account all your leisures (Chess, Role Playing Games, Wargames and Poker are also Skills in GURPS), all the things you regularly do at home (Cooking, Gardening, Housekeeping...), etc.

Don't forget Dabbler! If most people are 25 point characters with no severe disadvantages, we probably don't actually have 30+ points in skills. Especially when you consider that most of us have one or two job related skills at professional levels.

[simply Nathan]

Cooking, as most people use it, is covered by the -3 default from Housekeeping (which in turn is usually known only at the 1-point level, except by professional housekeepers, stay-at-home wives, and the like). Many other such skills many of us think about putting on our character sheets are covered by defaults for the extent to which we use them; it's mostly the main skill of your profession, the main skills you trained for in college if you actually went there, a point or maybe two in your most dedicated hobbies, and a point each in major life skills like Driving, Housekeeping, and Current Affairs.

Average people are only supposed to have 12-20 skill points total.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

and a point each in major life skills like Driving, Housekeeping, and Current Affairs.

Driving is supposedly a default for most people according to Kromm (but he lives in Montreal and not say Yucca Valley California so maybe he's talking about urban Canadians).

At any rate Dabbler plus sizable TDMs covers most everything everyman fairly well.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Kenneth Latrans

Average people are only supposed to have 12-20 skill points total.

This may only apply to young people.

The time use rules should give 2 or 3 points a year from "on the job" use of stuff you do all the time - i.e. when you aren't even trying to learn anything. Yes, after a while anything gets so routine you probably don't learn anything more from it, but before you've earned the first point? If you've spend a thousand hours doing something in your lifetime, you probably *should* have for a point in the skill. That's a few years of daily commutes or meal preparation or routine cleaning, but not decades worth. Likewise if you've worked a job for most of a year, you really should have a point in its key skill. If you make it to middle aged, you really ought to break 20 skill points. Admittedly they'll mostly be points in stuff adventurers consider "boring background", but still.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by malloyd

This may only apply to young people.

You also will start to lose skills you don't use (specifically an IQ roll modified by Eidetic/Photographic Memory every six months).

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The time use rules should give 2 or 3 points a year from "on the job" use of stuff you do all the time - i.e. when you aren't even trying to learn anything.

I have always thought that this was a poorly worded section. It is a single paragraph, but it is an oversimplification that distorts the relative skills of PC's and NPC's alike. Realistically, your OTJ skill development is going to be tied to the occurrence of new situations or constraints, and after a while (a few months or a few years) those things realistically go away. From that point on, your improvement OJT essentially stops - you can try to improve, but there just may not be any real opportunities.

Plus, in most jobs you are not even improving the base skill - you are improving specializations and techniques instead.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Driving is supposedly a default for most people according to Kromm (but he lives in Montreal and not say Yucca Valley California so maybe he's talking about urban Canadians).

At any rate Dabbler plus sizable TDMs covers most everything everyman fairly well.

That is because Driving skill, is more focused on High Speed control aspect not the getting from a to b commute aspect of the task

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Driving is supposedly a default for most people according to Kromm (but he lives in Montreal and not say Yucca Valley California so maybe he's talking about urban Canadians).

At any rate Dabbler plus sizable TDMs covers most everything everyman fairly well.

Yeah but when the eternal driving thread came up most of us agreed that the average commutter is probably operating at default too.
Most get a TDM bonus with a penalty for texting or other distractions while driving as well. Anyone who has a point in driving is someone exceptional rather then the norm IMHO. Or professional driver.

[Trigonomicon]

I see dabbler mentioned a lot in this thread, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere in my books, what is it/were can I read more?