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Old 01-08-2021, 08:26 AM   #21
Phil Masters
 
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Default Re: Real World Elite skill levels

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Originally Posted by Anders View Post
Wasn't there a Chess skill? Or is that from 3rd edition?
I think that is 3e. By definition, any games skill is a Games skill in 4e.
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Old 01-08-2021, 08:44 AM   #22
Kromm
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Default Re: Real World Elite skill levels

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So if I buy a professional skill in the high teens I should be buying reputation as well?
I wouldn't. Ability and recognition are at best loosely related.

Recognition stems from who your trainers/mentors were, where you work, how commercially successful your major projects have been (often more a function of marketing, sales, and investors than of the projects' true quality), how good you (or, in professions that have agents, your agent) is at hyping your personal brand, and very often even things like who your family are and whether you're charismatic and good-looking. Oh, and your skill. Sure, if you're naturally talented, you might be able to get into better schools and attract better mentors . . . but those things are still influenced by family connections and wealth, and personal charisma. And if you go on to develop great skill, you might get hired by higher-profile organizations with more impressive projects that get a lot of hype . . . or you might not get past the HR person because of intangibles like "fit to culture" and whether you used "sir" or "ma'am."

Exceptional amounts of pure talent and levels of learned skill can sit entirely in the shadows if you have a black queen in some or all of the other areas. I've seen it personally: A hugely capable person who came from an unsupportive family in a small town, went to an unknown school, worked at tiny companies, and never developed the "gift of gab" to ace interviews and talk up their abilities. In a fair world, they'd be acknowledged as a world-class expert, win awards, and innovate their field. But in the real world, they use their skill 20 to fill out forms and warm a chair.

I've also seen rank incompetents pass off their technicians', assistants', or company's work as their personal vision and achieve great recognition mostly on the basis of Compulsive Lying and mediocre Fast-Talk targeting clients and decision-makers with low Will, Gullibility, and/or Oblivious.

TL; DR: Almost any combination of skill and Reputation for skill is realistic. You can have confidence artists with default skill and Reputation +4 in their field for being experts, savants with skill 20 and a negative Reputation in their field for being hard to work with, and all kinds of other things.
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Old 01-08-2021, 08:54 AM   #23
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Default Re: Real World Elite skill levels

The exceptions to what I just wrote are all in fields that are purely competitive. It's difficult to train, compete, and win at rarified skill levels yet not be noticed, or to enjoy recognition while being incompetent. Both are possible, but that isn't the same as likely. However, those fields are almost always Games, Sports, Combat Sport, and the like – not Professional Skills – and I was responding to "So if I buy a Professional Skill in the high teens I should be buying Reputation as well?" It's difficult to imagine facing enough "resistance" to train Games (Chess) or Sports (Tennis) to 20 without competing, and for competition at that level to go unheralded; it's very easy to imagine raising Professional Skill (Editor) or Professional Skill (Human Resources) to high levels through sheer years of service, yet to go utterly and completely unnoticed your whole life.
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Old 01-08-2021, 12:12 PM   #24
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Default Re: Real World Elite skill levels

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
The exceptions to what I just wrote are all in fields that are purely competitive. It's difficult to train, compete, and win at rarified skill levels yet not be noticed, or to enjoy recognition while being incompetent. Both are possible, but that isn't the same as likely. However, those fields are almost always Games, Sports, Combat Sport, and the like – not Professional Skills – and I was responding to "So if I buy a Professional Skill in the high teens I should be buying Reputation as well?" It's difficult to imagine facing enough "resistance" to train Games (Chess) or Sports (Tennis) to 20 without competing, and for competition at that level to go unheralded; it's very easy to imagine raising Professional Skill (Editor) or Professional Skill (Human Resources) to high levels through sheer years of service, yet to go utterly and completely unnoticed your whole life.
It depends partly on the size of the group where you have the Reputation. For example, Nikki is in a profession that gains, perhaps, even less recognition than yours. But I think we have established empirically that her Reputation is quite favorable among people who write GURPS books. We're just a quite small group! There's some tradeoff between "do they have a Reputation?" and "among what group?"
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Old 01-08-2021, 12:19 PM   #25
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Default Re: Real World Elite skill levels

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
It depends partly on the size of the group where you have the Reputation. For example, Nikki is in a profession that gains, perhaps, even less recognition than yours. But I think we have established empirically that her Reputation is quite favorable among people who write GURPS books. We're just a quite small group! There's some tradeoff between "do they have a Reputation?" and "among what group?"
Does Reputation even count among people you personally know?

I suppose a better way to put it is: how small does a group have to get before Reputation is superseded by personal relationships?
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Old 01-08-2021, 12:34 PM   #26
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Default Re: Real World Elite skill levels

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Does Reputation even count among people you personally know?

I suppose a better way to put it is: how small does a group have to get before Reputation is superseded by personal relationships?
See Trivial Reputation in GURPS Power-Ups 2: Perks.
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Old 01-08-2021, 05:22 PM   #27
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Default Re: Real World Elite skill levels

Honestly, a person with Housekeeping-25 is unlikely to be a world renown housekeeper. Now, they might be known among headhunters, and they will probably end up working earning a Wealthy lifestyle managing the mansion of a billionaire, but they will likely not be famous.
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Old 01-08-2021, 05:50 PM   #28
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Default Re: Real World Elite skill levels

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
See Trivial Reputation in GURPS Power-Ups 2: Perks.
Thanks!

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Honestly, a person with Housekeeping-25 is unlikely to be a world renown housekeeper. Now, they might be known among headhunters, and they will probably end up working earning a Wealthy lifestyle managing the mansion of a billionaire, but they will likely not be famous.
Especially if they use their mad skillz to clean up crime scenes for the mob. (TBH, sounds like a minor Batman villain.)
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Old 01-08-2021, 05:57 PM   #29
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Default Re: Real World Elite skill levels

Being able to take major penalties to get stuff done is less time does explain how Alfred keeps a whole mansion done by himself.
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Old 01-08-2021, 07:16 PM   #30
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Default Re: Real World Elite skill levels

Of course, but I do not think that he is world famous for it.
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