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Old 02-14-2018, 11:29 AM   #151
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Default Re: Do Blacksmith and Machinist exist side by side in TL8 industry?

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
Which option sounds better; Machinist replacing Blacksmith in all industrial applications or Blacksmith/TL8 simply looking a lot different than the skill at earlier TLs, but still common in industry independently of Machinist?
Machinist doesn't seem to cover things like making objects out of metal, but the 'smith' skill specifies working metals by hand, which is not necessarily sensible at higher tech level, and its specializations also seem more suited to lower TLs.

This seems like a case where GURPS would have been better off being more generic and replacing specific skills with generic skills -- for example, a generic Crafting skill with mandatory specialization, and then delete skills like carpentry and leatherworking and smith.
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Old 02-14-2018, 12:07 PM   #152
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Default Re: Do Blacksmith and Machinist exist side by side in TL8 industry?

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Which option sounds better; Machinist replacing Blacksmith in all industrial applications or Blacksmith/TL8 simply looking a lot different than the skill at earlier TLs, but still common in industry independently of Machinist?
A blacksmith makes Blacksmith/TL hand tools, basically. I can use my forge and hammer to make a lot of tools -- hammers, drifts, axes, punches, files. tongs, etc. Whatever TL, it's not Blacksmith to use power tools, plasma cutters, arc weld, or use a cutting torch, that's Machinist/TL6+, IMO. A Machinist/TL makes tools or parts (using or making power tools) used in whatever setting of his TL. And those aren't tools in the sense of hand tools only, but most any applicable tool that's not a complex machine. So grinders, sanders, complex dies, routers, drilling/rifling jigs, presses, blowers, etc. IMO, a Blacksmith/TL5 cannot make an industrial setup for interchangeable gun parts at TL5, a Machinist/TL5 can. It's not hard, for instance, to make a knife grinder from parts you get on the internet. A Blacksmith/TL8 could use that knife grinder, but to build it you'd use Machinist/TL8.
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Old 02-14-2018, 12:15 PM   #153
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Default Re: Do Blacksmith and Machinist exist side by side in TL8 industry?

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Either Machinist does everything at TL6+ that Blacksmith did at TL5 or lower, with Blacksmith TL6+ being relegated to hobbyists and people who make a living by being better than hobbyists at doing the same thing, or Blacksmith and Machinist both exist at TL8, covering different trades.
My view is that Blacksmith is exactly what it always is -- using hand tools and a forge to hammer metal. You might include some incidental use of cutting torches, grinders, etc., at higher TLs, but a specialist in making complex metal parts is going to use more complex and extensive use of those tools -- Machinist, Armoury, etc. People often send me pictures of "blacksmith" work and I look at it and immediately say "that's pretty, but that's a welder's work." Not the same thing as smithing.
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Old 02-14-2018, 12:43 PM   #154
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Default Re: Do Blacksmith and Machinist exist side by side in TL8 industry?

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My view is that Blacksmith is exactly what it always is -- using hand tools and a forge to hammer metal. You might include some incidental use of cutting torches, grinders, etc., at higher TLs, but a specialist in making complex metal parts is going to use more complex and extensive use of those tools -- Machinist, Armoury, etc. People often send me pictures of "blacksmith" work and I look at it and immediately say "that's pretty, but that's a welder's work." Not the same thing as smithing.
Ok, so Vargas would not need to look for anyone with Blacksmith/TL8 for any conceivable purpose?

All the research, design and construction of his dream armour of late TL8 materials black and intimidating full plate harness can be done without relying on Blacksmith skill rolls?

Vyacheslav would have Armoury (Body Armour) at whatever TL you learn it to make reproduction TL4 armour in a TL7 to TL8 smithy (most methods are the same, but there are some higher TL tools). He's also have some Blacksmith/TL4 but we're not expecting that to matter much.

Carlos 'Caló' Renteria is a mechanical engineer who used to work for someone like Ford or GM in Mexico. He'll have the skills appropriate for designing, setting up and managing assembly lines for making automobiles, for training local mechanics in maintaining their cars, for designing regional variations of car models, and, after some six years working for a drug cartel, he's also learned how do set up and manage facilities for customising vehicles to function as armoured troop carriers and many other things.

In GURPS terms, various Engineer specialties (Mechanical and Automobiles being highest), Machinist (he's hands on) and Mechanic (Automobiles). Some Metallurgy, perhaps with an optional specialisation in steel alloys or otherwise reflecting that he will be much better informed about the materials (steel and aluminum, AFAIK) most automobiles are constructed with than he'd be at identifying, making or designing exotic alloys of precious metals for jewelry, titanium for aerospace applications, whatever metals are used in musical instruments, etc.

Caló has also added Armoury (Vehicle Armour) and has spent some years (extremely part time) trying to raise Armoury (Body Armour) from default without a teacher.

Both of them, plus the unnamed Texan (who is a machinist-fabricator and also a custom-knife maker who makes a lot of other, decorative, things out of metal, using whatever tools make the most sense for a struggling craftsman), and anyone else working at this, will have been trying to develop Engineer (Armour)/TL8, maybe with an optional specialisation in metallic or rigid armour for Vyacheslav and maybe others. Metallurgy is also something everyone would have been raising from default, but here it is plausible that they have access to at least a grad student or two studying the field, perhaps someone Vargas plucked from the ranks of drug dealers, lookouts or sicarios and sent to college to learn how to be an assistant to 'Caló' Renteria.
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Old 02-14-2018, 12:57 PM   #155
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Default Re: Do Blacksmith and Machinist exist side by side in TL8 industry?

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Ok, so Vargas would not need to look for anyone with Blacksmith/TL8 for any conceivable purpose?

All the research, design and construction of his dream armour of late TL8 materials black and intimidating full plate harness can be done without relying on Blacksmith skill rolls?
Unless players are likely to try to do the same thing, it probably doesn't matter. Just define his real-world skill set and don't worry about what GURPS would call it (or just give him a Profession).
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Old 02-14-2018, 01:59 PM   #156
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Default Re: Do Blacksmith and Machinist exist side by side in TL8 industry?

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Ok, so Vargas would not need to look for anyone with Blacksmith/TL8 for any conceivable purpose?
No, it's just Armoury (Body Armour).

Quote:
All the research, design and construction of his dream armour of late TL8 materials black and intimidating full plate harness can be done without relying on Blacksmith skill rolls?
At TL8, Yes. And even at TL4.

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Both of them, plus the unnamed Texan (who is a machinist-fabricator and also a custom-knife maker who makes a lot of other, decorative, things out of metal, using whatever tools make the most sense for a struggling craftsman), and anyone else working at this, will have been trying to develop Engineer (Armour)/TL8, maybe with an optional specialisation in metallic or rigid armour for Vyacheslav and maybe others. Metallurgy is also something everyone would have been raising from default, but here it is plausible that they have access to at least a grad student or two studying the field, perhaps someone Vargas plucked from the ranks of drug dealers, lookouts or sicarios and sent to college to learn how to be an assistant to 'Caló' Renteria.
These guys would be, in my game, just Contacts (Body Armor).
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Old 02-14-2018, 02:00 PM   #157
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Default Re: Do Blacksmith and Machinist exist side by side in TL8 industry?

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Unless players are likely to try to do the same thing, it probably doesn't matter. Just define his real-world skill set and don't worry about what GURPS would call it (or just give him a Profession).
Players, being players, might very well try something similar at some point.

Also, I don't really have the knowledge required to define real-world skill-sets as they relate to steelworking, welding, engineering or a myriad of related fields. Which is why I'm asking fellow forumites. And GURPS rules give us a shared frame of reference. If necessary, experts can explain how reality varies from GURPS rules and I can decide whether this needs modelling, but at least we're speaking the same language, without having to begin with days of defining terms.

GURPS rules are specifically useful to this discussion as it relates to defaults. I don't expect that Raul Vargas, El Jefe of the Caballeros Templarios cartel, can just call up someone with Professional Skill (Making TL8 Plate Harness). He'll find it difficult enough to find people who have skill sets who'll provide good defaults to the skills he really needs, Armoury (Body Armour)/TL8, Engineering (Armour)/TL8 and Metallurgy/TL8.

Considering and discussing what kind of skill-sets are necessary, as well as where Vargas would plausibly recruit people with these skills, is helping me come up with NPCs who might be living at Vargas' hacienda if the PCs visit it (likely), as well as guidelines on who among Vargas' people might have skills that are useful for armouring trucks as 'monstruo' (cartel tanks / APCs), who might only work on his hobby project for a personal dream armour, 'Project Black Knight', and who might have skills valuable to both the boss man's toy and the actual operations of their fleet of vehicles.
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Old 02-14-2018, 02:57 PM   #158
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Default Re: Do Blacksmith and Machinist exist side by side in TL8 industry?

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No, it's just Armoury (Body Armour).
Okay. Would you use Armoury (Body Armour) even for the Invention rolls?

What about the rolls to adapt the flash bainite process to harden steel pieces of the size and shapes required for body armour?

That's probably mechanical Engineering and maybe Metallurgy for the Invention rolls, Machinist for doing the work.

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At TL8, Yes. And even at TL4.
Fair enough. Though I've always had some difficulty imagining how someone at lower TLs would learn how to make swords or plate armour without learning anything else about using a smith's tools. Since there is only a default from Blacksmith to Armoury and not vice versa, the RAW theoretically lets someone be a master armourer who can make the finest articulated plate armour, with duplex plate, fluting and various flourishes, but couldn't make a nail or a hatch from iron or steel.

I figure realistic armourers at lower TLs must learn some Blacksmith skill as well, as part of a basic apprentinceship. I guess I'm just wondering what kind of foundational knowledge of a similar sort you might pick up in the process of learning to make steel alloy armour at TL8.

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These guys would be, in my game, just Contacts (Body Armor).
That doesn't give me the information I need to come up with plausible backgrounds for the NPCs the PCs might encounter in the part of Vargas' lair where they've been working on finding a way to make armour to Vargas's exacting specifications or what kind of clues to Vargas's history, contacts and operations the PCs might discover from the computers there (or if they manage to convince an armourer he doesn't want to work for a lethal sociopath anymore and turn him into an informant).

The PCs are meant to offer Raul Vargas conditional amnesty if he'll work for Onyx Rain, their bosses, but chances are he'll decline, politely or otherwise. He might kill the PCs or the PCs might kill him, but ideally, considering that he's excellently suited to be a long-term villain/rival/other NPC, everyone (or almost everyone) will survive their encounter. And in that case, especially if Vargas comes to believe that Onyx Rain is prepared to use the frightening resources of the United States, such as JSOC, to kill or capture him, he might well abandon his territory in Chihuahua.

In that case, the PCs might have to track down another of his properties in Mexico, either an existing one or a newly acquired hideaway. Assuming that Vargas, at some point, wants to continue his hobbies and dream projects, he might well try to contact someone who assisted with the armour project before, but wasn't at his home in the Juarez Valley, Chihuahua, when the PCs might visit.

So I'll try to figure out any skill set or arcane knowledge that might have been necessary, even if the someone who provided such aid isn't currently living with or near Vargas to work on the armour, because details on any known acauintances might come in handy if PCs do well exploiting the site for intelligence.

Yes, I'll need to do this for a lot of other things as well, but I don't figure it will be as hard to work out details about the people involved in the methamphetamine production, drug transport and wholesaling, prostitution, kidnapping, paramilitary operations, logistics, training and personnel, intelligence, counterintelligence and all the other fields the CT cartel requires, if only because I've read a lot more fiction and reference works on such subjects.

Even with the cooks, servants, gardeners, field hands, grooms, stable hands, veterinary, IT people, roofers, carpenters, plumbers and other support people trusted enough to be allowed at the hacienda, I feel more confident about making up plausible backgrounds. But for this sort of specialised work, in a field I know essentially nothing about, I'm trying to learn more from the forumites. Help me come up with what kind of experts are required for the project and where such people might have been found. What their degrees, if any, are in. Where they learned their skills.

Considering that one PC visits people's dreams and can roam their subconscious, one PCs has supersenses and is pretty good at sensitive sige exploitation and two PCs are federal agents with investigative skills, I expect the the PCs will learn a lot about the Caballeros Templarios on their visit. Have to be prepared with a lot of background.

Especially as the two PCs who are federal agents are very familiar with Mexican DTOs and have been assigned to the Vargas case for a long time. Both of them are very good at criminal intelligence and analysis. One is a former SOF support HUMINT specialist and then DEA undercover agent in border areas and Mexico. The other is from CBP intelligence and has been assigned to the El Paso Intelligence Center for the past two years and his primary focus has been gathering and analysing all-source information on the Caballeros Templarios cartel, and Vargas, specifically.

The PCs might be able to turn up some of this information on sufficiently good rolls on Area Knowledge, Carousing, Criminology, Elicitation (Diplomacy), Expert Skill (Drug Trade), Intelligence Analysis, Streetwise and other skills they have, not to mention reaching out to their local contacts.
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Old 02-14-2018, 03:26 PM   #159
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Default Re: Do Blacksmith and Machinist exist side by side in TL8 industry?

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
Okay. Would you use Armoury (Body Armour) even for the Invention rolls?
Yes, for sure.

Quote:
What about the rolls to adapt the flash bainite process to harden steel pieces of the size and shapes required for body armour?
Metallurgy/TL8 is what I would use.

Quote:
Fair enough. Though I've always had some difficulty imagining how someone at lower TLs would learn how to make swords or plate armour without learning anything else about using a smith's tools. Since there is only a default from Blacksmith to Armoury and not vice versa, the RAW theoretically lets someone be a master armourer who can make the finest articulated plate armour, with duplex plate, fluting and various flourishes, but couldn't make a nail or a hatch from iron or steel.
It's also possible to know nothing about swords, knives, maces, axes, and armour and just make hammers, punches, nails, and horseshoes. Not likely, but certainly possible. I think the default assumes you can work it out from theory if you take your time.

Quote:
I figure realistic armourers at lower TLs must learn some Blacksmith skill as well, as part of a basic apprenticeship. I guess I'm just wondering what kind of foundational knowledge of a similar sort you might pick up in the process of learning to make steel alloy armour at TL8.
I suspect at low TL you could pick up Smith/Iron as an apprentice, then get training in Armoury, but only if you do metal armour (not say, leather or fabric only). At high TL you can have a metal Armoury shop that doesn't include a forge at all! You cut your sheets with shears and hammer all things to shape cold. My father used to be a farrier and he did a lot of horseshoing cold.

Quote:
That doesn't give me the information I need to come up with plausible backgrounds for the NPCs the PCs might encounter in the part of Vargas' lair where they've been working on finding a way to make armour to Vargas's exacting specifications or what kind of clues to Vargas's history, contacts and operations the PCs might discover from the computers there (or if they manage to convince an armourer he doesn't want to work for a lethal sociopath anymore and turn him into an informant).
Understood.
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Old 02-14-2018, 03:59 PM   #160
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Default Re: Do Blacksmith and Machinist exist side by side in TL8 industry?

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Yes, for sure.
Okay, so Armoury (Body Armour) would be both the Design and Repair skill, in the sense of the standard GURPS tripartite division of technical skills, Design/Repair/Use?

Unlike more complicated devices, such as guns or cars, e.g. Engineer (Small Arms)/Armoury (Small Arms)/Guns or Engineer (Automobile)/Mechanic (Automobile)/Driving (Automobile)?

I suppose that makes a certain kind of sense, as it was already obvious that armour didn't quite fit into that model, as it lacks a Use skill.

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Metallurgy/TL8 is what I would use.
Metallurgy might actually be a good fit for the Design skill for new types of metal armour or even an incremental advance in the kind of alloys you can practically work into armour.

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It's also possible to know nothing about swords, knives, maces, axes, and armour and just make hammers, punches, nails, and horseshoes. Not likely, but certainly possible. I think the default assumes you can work it out from theory if you take your time.
Yeah, I don't have any problem believing in an ordinary village blacksmith who only has a -3 default to smithing weapons and armour and may lack the familiarities to make such elaborate things as swords and, especially, articulated plate armour.

It's the guy with Armoury (Body Armour)/TL4 at skill 15 and not a single point in Blacksmith/TL4 (and no default, because there isn't one) that I don't quite know how to make sense of in terms of a plausible background.

Where would you learn how to expertly forge all kinds of metal armour, from the simplest clasp to an articulated plate harness, without learning how to make even a single other metal object? By the rules, you couldn't even make a belt buckle for an ordinary belt, even though you could make an identical buckle that served as part of the fastenings for leather armour.

In any event, not strictly relevant, just the same line of reasoning that led me to consider how and where real people might plausibly pick up the various fields of study, information, experience, skills and techniques that collectively make up the body of knowledge GURPS calls Armoury (Body Armour).

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I suspect at low TL you could pick up Smith/Iron as an apprentice, then get training in Armoury, but only if you do metal armour (not say, leather or fabric only). At high TL you can have a metal Armoury shop that doesn't include a forge at all! You cut your sheets with shears and hammer all things to shape cold. My father used to be a farrier and he did a lot of horseshoing cold.
Okay.
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