Dancing + Playing an instrument + Singing

[tanksoldier]

Don’t forget the benefits of rehearsal.

Any production is going to have hours and hours of rehearsal doing whatever singing/dancing/playing is required.

I suspect that an experienced performer would fall back on familiar routines if called on to perform extemporaneously.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Would three hard techniques at -4 do it?

For example:
Dance While Playing [H/Dancing-4]
Sing While Dancing [H/Singing-4]

This means that you can do the three of them at (Lowest of Dancing/Musical Instrument/Singing)-8, or two of them at Lowest-4. Training three hard techniques to the maximum would cost 15 CP and allow to do the three without penalties. Sounds fair?

Generally GURPS tends towards a -2 penalty for "doing two things at once". Three things could be -4 then. Just remember it's all the skills that suffer the -4. You could allow a technique to buy if off sure.

I think Wonazer has a point. We often tend to focus on combat penalties and forget modifiers for other skills, unless they are outside modifiers like "it's raining, or dark, or you have poor instruments".
A good/advanced musical number might be at -2 penalty. So if you wanted to sing while playing it, you'd be at -2-2=-4 to play and -2 to sing. Unless the song is also difficult of course.

But singing and dancing and playing could be at -4 to all. But if it's just a simple repetitive song playing the same 4 accords over and over and doing the same steps then you might get a +2 bonus for it, for a total of -4+2= -2.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by Maz

Generally GURPS tends towards a -2 penalty for "doing two things at once". Three things could be -4 then. Just remember it's all the skills that suffer the -4. You could allow a technique to buy if off sure.

I think Wonazer has a point. We often tend to focus on combat penalties and forget modifiers for other skills, unless they are outside modifiers like "it's raining, or dark, or you have poor instruments".
A good/advanced musical number might be at -2 penalty. So if you wanted to sing while playing it, you'd be at -2-2=-4 to play and -2 to sing. Unless the song is also difficult of course.

But singing and dancing and playing could be at -4 to all. But if it's just a simple repetitive song playing the same 4 accords over and over and doing the same steps then you might get a +2 bonus for it, for a total of -4+2= -2.

Where may Ï find this -2 penalty for doing two things at once? All I can find is Dual-Weapon Attack and things like Horse Archery, both working at -4. So in this case doing the three things at once would work at -8.

[Dalillama]

I've never played an instrument that was even theoretically possible to do all three, but singing while playing the piano isn't notable hard if you know the song, and I was never very good at the piano.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Where may Ï find this -2 penalty for doing two things at once? All I can find is Dual-Weapon Attack and things like Horse Archery, both working at -4. So in this case doing the three things at once would work at -8.

Well, it's not a fixed rule stated anywhere. I just remember it as a rule used many palces. Let me try to find some references...

There is Move and Attack (p.365). Which IMO better reflex for instance dancing while playing an instrument than Horse archery or Dual attack does.

But I think I picked up it up in Martial Arts. p.107 mentions:
"The GM should consider extending the -2 for “trying to do
two things at once” to all success rolls except defense and
resistance rolls against enemy attacks. For instance, it would
modify DX rolls to evade or to keep someone from evading you
(see Evading, p. B368), Fast-Draw rolls, rolls to stay standing
after suffering knockback (see Knockback, p. B378), and Sense
rolls to notice something in combat."
This is also under a section about move and attack. But as you can see it suggest to expand it to other skills.

There is no mention anywhere I can remember or quickly find, of "three things at once". But -4 to all of them do not seem unreasonable.