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Old 08-03-2020, 05:51 AM   #11
Phil Masters
 
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Default Re: New Expert Skills

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
For a science writer, for example, I would add Research, Current Affairs (Science and Technology), and these days Computer Operation.
Which gives the character a working knowledge of recent events and active personalities in the sciences, and the ability to dig out more information insofar as they can understand it, but no actual knowledge of science.

The arts correspondent has an appropriate Current Affairs skill, and could doubtless use Research if they wanted to find out about past exhibitions, dig out old reviews and critical works, and so on, but they also need Connoisseur to actually speak of the arts with conviction and credibility - for actual knowledge of art. A science correspondent should I think (ideally) know as much about science as the Connoisseur-correspondent knows about the arts. Research doesn't cut it, because that doesn't magically grant understanding of the facts it turns up.

Expert Skill (Scientific Theorising) is also appropriate for government scientific advisors, who have to be able to tell the boss what some new announcement means, more effectively than just parroting hastily researched facts.
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Old 08-03-2020, 06:21 AM   #12
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Default Re: New Expert Skills

Phil gets the point. For decades letters showing that France was suckered by Imperial Russia into taking the brunt of a German attack so Russia could attack Germany from the East relatively unopposed, and have a victory without significant losses, were available in the French archives. They were even quoted, and fairly widely too, for the France suckered Russia argument. Then one guy went to research the Russian Imperial archives and got the other side of the story. Once you had the Russian narrative to the French, the Russian internal debates, and checked the facts the Russians focused on, the real story comes out. But lacking context, the French archives couldn't solve the mystery.

Phil is right about some kind of actual science knowledge being necessary to both the science reporter and the scientific advisor. Because, without some actual science knowledge, neither of the two could say or communicate anything of importance. An expert skill that allows both the reporter and the advisor to shift the wheat from the chaft is vital.
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Old 08-03-2020, 09:09 AM   #13
whswhs
 
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Default Re: New Expert Skills

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Expert Skill (Scientific Theorising) is also appropriate for government scientific advisors, who have to be able to tell the boss what some new announcement means, more effectively than just parroting hastily researched facts.
I think that saying "hastily researched" is biasing the argument. I don't claim to have even one point in any science skill; I couldn't be useful in any sort of laboratory, except maybe as a bottlewasher. When I write a supplement that includes scientific information, I hit the library and do research. But I'm doing it on a time scale of a month (or a few months), and making the equivalent of a job roll against Research to find out things like how animal senses work or the historical development of radio. That's more than "hastily researched facts." I don't just skim the sources looking for isolated facts; I think about what they are actually saying, and its logical structure, and how different facts are connected with each other. And I have to suppose that the author of a popular book, at least, is doing at least that much research before they write.

I do have to be able to understand what I'm reading, of course. But I don't know if I consider that to be a distinct skill. My first approximation would be to treat it as based on my general education, and thus as requiring an IQ roll. To be sure, a man-in-the-street general education for someone with IQ 10 won't include much real scientific knowledge, but then I don't think that people with IQ 10 often become science writers. Making it an Expert Skill seems problematic, if nothing else, in that a broad general knowledge of science would have to include at least Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geology, a couple of branches of Mathematics (in addition to Applied, you ought to have Statistics to make any sense of scientific results), Meteorology, Paleontology, Physics, and Physiology; a case could be made for Psychology (Experimental) as well, and at least the kind of popularization that Gould did calls for History. And that seems overbroad for an Expert skill.

Perhaps a way to approach this would be to give the writer a couple of Dabbler perks invested in a wide selection of sciences. That would go beyond IQ rolls for simple things and default skill rolls for harder ones.
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Old 08-03-2020, 09:26 AM   #14
Celjabba
 
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Default Re: New Expert Skills

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And I have to suppose that the author of a popular book, at least, is doing at least that much research before they write.
One would hope ... and then you read this :

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2020/8...search-results
(Granted, it is not scientific writing...)

I could see an expert skill for someone dedicated to researching and writing on multiple science topics as a full time job, understanding the topics discussed even if he cannot reproduce the demonstrations, use them or link them together in a true understanding of the subject.
On top of the research/writing/current affairs skills, not replacing them !

I agree that a few dabbler perks would be more logical, but they would encumber the character sheet, perhaps needlessly.

Last edited by Celjabba; 08-03-2020 at 09:41 AM.
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Old 08-03-2020, 10:53 AM   #15
whswhs
 
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Default Re: New Expert Skills

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One would hope ... and then you read this :

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2020/8...search-results
(Granted, it is not scientific writing...)
This is why Poul Anderson wrote "On Thud and Blunder."
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