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Old 01-03-2012, 08:21 PM   #31
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Default Re: Skill: General Education

Yes, I'm aware. Don't get me wrong: to my mind GURPS skill list is great and allows a degree of customization, but still it can't cover it all.
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Old 01-03-2012, 09:38 PM   #32
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Default Re: Skill: General Education

Of course there are also suitable modified variations of Wild Talent or Cosmic Modular Abilities.

Frex:

Cosmic Modular Ability (10/L) (Knowledge-Skills only -40%, Reduced time +20%, Takes Recharge: 5 secs -10%, Unreliable 14- -10%, Cannot buy more levels -0%, Net -40% = 6/Lvl. ) [6]

Last edited by Figleaf23; 01-04-2012 at 06:09 AM. Reason: Added build
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Old 01-04-2012, 05:48 AM   #33
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Default Re: Skill: General Education

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Originally Posted by gruundehn View Post
I want to thank everyone who has responded. However I think what I said was not exactly what I meant. Let me try again. Defaults are nice but someone from different regions/society classes/wealth classes will default to the same number if their attribute is the same.
There sort of is a rule for this, it's just one nobody much applies. It's if you haven't been exposed to it, you don't get a default *at all*. If you want one anyway, buy the Background Knowledge perk. A lot of GMs allow any PC to claim pretty much every listed default, but if it bothers you enough you are looking for a solution like this, you shouldn't.
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Old 01-04-2012, 06:10 AM   #34
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Default Re: Skill: General Education

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
There sort of is a rule for this.
The rule is called "Who Gets a Default?"

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
Actually, I would rule that those individuals don't belong to a society where those skills are known, as defined in Who Gets a Default? (p. B173). It is, after all, quite possible to be from a different society within the same population . . . and "uneducated people" is its own subculture, which is part of what Social Stigma (Uneducated) (p. B156) is trying to represent.

The GM must be aggressive about allowing only those defaults that make sense given a character's background. I certainly don't let cloistered monks default Carousing, Erotic Art, and Sex Appeal, and I wouldn't let a high-school dropout default Literature and Physics. I feel that those rulings demonstrate the spirit of the rules. Making "defaults to anything" an inalienable right of all PCs -- regardless of background -- is strongly against the spirit of the rules. Who Gets a Default? exists to make this clearer.
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Old 01-04-2012, 08:19 AM   #35
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Default Re: Skill: General Education

OK, again thanks to everyone. I think I have it now. Defaults are not as allowed as first I thought and the penalties I was thinking of applying to someone who was (for example) lower class trying to fit in with upper class should be done by the single point in Savoir Faire or whatever. If I want to reward someone for doing general knowledge research which might apply to a skill I just wing it and forget any continuity in that regard. I think that making the players put a point into skills will be one way from keeping them from getting too high in other skills which is to the good since I do not like being arbitrary in saying "no you can't raise that skill to that level."
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Old 01-05-2012, 02:01 PM   #36
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Default Re: Skill: General Education

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Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty View Post
Expert Skill (General Education) (IQ/H) wouldn't be unreasonable, as long as it was understood that it only allowed rolls for the sort of non-practical, non-adventuring knowledge you'd pick up in school. For example, you could use it to replace Mathematics to know what a sine wave is, but you couldn't use it to survey land, calculate the height of a building, or as a prerequisite for Engineering.
I have somemthing like that in Sagatafl, except split in two: General Humanities and General Sciences. Cost-wise it's a "Profession", a bit like GURPS' Bang skills.

One could also add a third option, General Weirdness, for occult stuff, UFOlogy and so forth that is rarely included in formal education but which some characters may still have a broad knowledge in.

If the GM frequently requires IQ rolls to test general character knowledge, then the solution is IQ -80%: Knowledge Checks Only, which of course does not add to skill rolls, or to non-knowledge IQ rolls.
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Old 01-05-2012, 07:34 PM   #37
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Default Re: Skill: General Education

Some thoughts...

I wouldn't normally make someone pay points for a general education. I figure that's something you get for free along with your CF and your native language; that kind of everyday knowledge would be an IQ roll.

For someone who is an expert in that kind of academic knowledge, however, I would allow an Expert Skill that could stand in for about six or seven subjects that were the core courses in a general education. These would need to be defined for each character and could vary a bit because they would be based on the character's personal history. I wouldn't allow it to stand in for more than about six or seven skills.

A typical content list for Expert Skill (American Education) might be Biology, Chemistry, Literature, Mathematics (Pure), Writing, and one or two other skills, most likely some specialties of History, Artist, Geography, etc. But others are possibilities, too.
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Old 01-06-2012, 12:19 AM   #38
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Default Re: Skill: General Education

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Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
Someone with less book learning than is normal in his setting sounds like a candidate for someone with lower IQ than Per, no academic talents, and no points or Dabbler in academic skills.


There are hundreds of skills in GURPS. Do you really want to have to track people's exact defaults in each? You would need to track general education (which is quite setting-specific), physical education, general life experience (did the character's parents keep a garden and some chickens?), part time work, reading, hobbies ... Just saying "everyone has a default to every skill common in their society" is a playable simplification like giving most characters one ST score or combing injuries into generic HP loss.
I wasn't the one who brought up defaults. My point was that saying "Well, isn't that what defaults are for" doesn't really cover it.

(and in any case, we do have abilities that muck with defaults, like the Dabbler perk)
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Old 01-06-2012, 07:50 AM   #39
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Default Re: Skill: General Education

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Originally Posted by Mgellis View Post
I wouldn't normally make someone pay points for a general education. I figure that's something you get for free along with your CF and your native language; that kind of everyday knowledge would be an IQ roll.
That makes sense. They're basically rolling against a default skill level, but the task modifier bonus for recalling such widely known information results in their basically rolling against IQ.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mgellis View Post
For someone who is an expert in that kind of academic knowledge, however, I would allow an Expert Skill that could stand in for about six or seven subjects that were the core courses in a general education. These would need to be defined for each character and could vary a bit because they would be based on the character's personal history. I wouldn't allow it to stand in for more than about six or seven skills.

A typical content list for Expert Skill (American Education) might be Biology, Chemistry, Literature, Mathematics (Pure), Writing, and one or two other skills, most likely some specialties of History, Artist, Geography, etc. But others are possibilities, too.
In what way would someone who had Expert Skill at IQ level which included a skill "A" be inferior to someone that actually had skill "A" at IQ level, when using skill "A"?
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