Real World Elite skill levels

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

There used to be some guidelines from GURPS Who's Who. GURPS Tactical Shooting has two experts' comments on the skill levels which give shooters realistic-feeling effectiveness in combat. There is always p. B172

There are conversions of the Who's Who 1 and 2 characters into 4e on the GURPSwiki.

Of these IIRC Leonardo Da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein are the only ones that got to 20 or above in one skill. I suspect techniques might allow the skills to be lower then the were in 3e but it is unclear how they might work.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

Especially if they use their mad skillz to clean up crime scenes for the mob. (TBH, sounds like a minor Batman villain.)

I ran one campaign whose PCs were a group of consulting criminals. They had a planner/hacker, a face, a second-story woman, an assassin, a transport specialist . . . no housekeeper, but that would be a plausible member of the supporting cast.

[AlexanderHowl]

I do not worry about the skill levels. People with higher skill levels just tend to work faster rather than to work better. A character with skill 25 is going to be doing the same quality of work as someone with skill 16, but they are going to be doing it in a tenth the time and spend the rest of their time chatting, helping their peers, napping, etc.. Their phenomenal skill level may actually go unnoticed as, while they do really good work, they make sure no one notices that they spend 90% of the workday goofing off.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I do not worry about the skill levels. People with higher skill levels just tend to work faster rather than to work better. A character with skill 25 is going to be doing the same quality of work as someone with skill 16, but they are going to be doing it in a tenth the time and spend the rest of their time chatting, helping their peers, napping, etc.. Their phenomenal skill level may actually go unnoticed as, while they do really good work, they make sure no one notices that they spend 90% of the workday goofing off.

They also manage to turn in great work even on days when they're an hour late due to traffic, spend the afternoon in meetings, and generally have a terrible day.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by Rupert

They also manage to turn in great work even on days when they're an hour late due to traffic, spend the afternoon in meetings, and generally have a terrible day.

Yes. In general though, I have noticed that supervisors tend to remember the fact that you were an hour late more than they remember the fact that you still turned in good work.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Yes. In general though, I have noticed that supervisors tend to remember the fact that you were an hour late more than they remember the fact that you still turned in good work.

Well, yes. But that helps hide the fact that you're goofing off - if they remembered both they might put two and two together. It also explains a high skill and low rank and poor rep.

Arriving before your boss and leaving after them is a good way of having them think of you as a hard worker in many cases. Of course it also means you're spending extra time at work, probably without solid reward (a promotion with better pay might cover the time spent, but a bonus almost certainly won't, and neither is a sure thing).

[AlexanderHowl]

Paradoxically, it is something that a lower skilled worker may have to do. If the experienced people in the firm possess skill 16 and Efficient, then they are able to do skill 12 work in 40% of the time, so they can attend two hours of meetings a day without hindering their productivity. In the case of the newbie with skill 12 though, they have to make up those two hours by coming earlier or working later.

In this case, the newbie might spend 50 hours a week working because of the meetings while their more skilled colleagues will do the same level of work and attend the same meetings, but they will also spend 14 hours a week goofing off and still leave on time. The newbie may start complaining because they might feel that they are the only one working while it is just that the newbie is too inexperienced and unskilled to work better rather than to work more. Unfortunately, a supervisor with a business degree and no experience in the industry might listen to a newbie's complaints and seek to stop the goofing off, erroneously thinking that it will improve productivity.

Of course, it will harm productivity instead, as the goofing off is just the social grooming required to build and maintain trust within a team. If people are discouraged from socializing during the workday, they will instead play on their smartphones, meaning that their engagement with their colleagues and their work goes down. Work becomes less pleasant and the experienced people start leaving as they will seek a better place to work or just decide to retire.

While the supervisor may think that they are just getting rid of the deadwood, they are instead getting rid of the people who can deal with difficult problems. All that they have left is that skill 12 people who have to work 50 hours a week because of 2 hours a day of meetings. When they encounter a problem that inflicts a -4 to their skill, then they are truly boned, as they need to spend three weeks on a problem that the more experienced people would have solved in a day.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I ran one campaign whose PCs were a group of consulting criminals. They had a planner/hacker, a face, a second-story woman, an assassin, a transport specialist . . . no housekeeper, but that would be a plausible member of the supporting cast.

That sounds nearly identical to the characters from the TV show, Leverage.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That sounds nearly identical to the characters from the TV show, Leverage.

It could be. The players chose the specialties, and I'm fairly sure some of them had seem episodes of Leverage. Of course there are only so many reasonable options in that sort of group.

[Miles]

Originally Posted by Kromm

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.

Agree with most of this post, but if they're not facing any sort of complex or challenging task and staying on the cutting edge of their field, I think they're almost certain to face difficulty with the Maintaining Skill Levels rules, if they ever actually reached that level of mastery. A skill of 15-16 with the potential to be much higher is more likely. And possibly a Quirk level Delusion (I'm still at the top of my game).

To the broader point, I'd say that professional reputations are almost always trivial perk level ones, at least for careers outside of adventuring and the media. A skilled character who has a lot of contacts or is generally extroverted is likely to have a good reputation, a "wizard locked up in the basement" much less so.

If the character runs an independent business or is in a role where they're supposed to be bringing in clients/funding, they had better have some kind of positive reputation or be in the process of developing one, or else.