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Old 07-11-2018, 05:47 PM   #21
malloyd
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Default Re: Minimum Skill Count

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Originally Posted by tanksoldier View Post
I have responded to a tidy house exactly once. Most people do not keep tidy houses or apartments... not messed up from a fight or whatever, just normally and obviously untidy and unclean.
Housekeeping isn't exclusively, or even primarily about cleaning. Most people buy, store and cook food, wash their clothing and dishes occasionally, keep track of some sort of budget, mow the lawn at least a few times a year, know how to change the light bulbs, plunge the toilet or tap the hinge pins back in.... It's also noteworthy that you need to do a fair amount of cleaning to hit modern standards of "unclean" - historical unclean qualifies as unspeakable squalor that causes the neighbors to report you to the health department or something.

A lot of daily routine has been deliberately swept up into Housekeeping, at least in part to *reduce* the number of skills people will otherwise insist everybody ought to have. It might actually be a pretty good idea to do something similar with some of these other clusters - say creating a single skill to consolidate Cultural Familiarity/Area Knowledge/Current Events/Local History/Savoir Faire etc. - all the "stuff everybody knows" about their surroundings skills that make up a lot of the rest of these lists.

Edit: I'm more than a little tempted to say that what Driving skill many modern people have is actually part of Housekeeping - with the justification your car is just another household machine you are expected to be able to operate at a basic level. A third basic employment/paperwork/computer skill (Salaryman?) might not be a bad idea either.
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Last edited by malloyd; 07-11-2018 at 05:56 PM.
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Old 07-11-2018, 07:17 PM   #22
artichoke
 
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Default Re: Minimum Skill Count

I learned how to ride a bike when I was like 5 years old.

It shouldn't be a skill a person needs to spend points on unless it's some kind of special bicycling, like "fighting on a bike" and biking sports.

Similarly, computer operation should not be a points skill in TL8 and above.

Not knowing how to drive in TL7/8 should be some kind of negative quality (like a quirk) not a points skill.

So, the OP's post suggests to me that both arguments are right but are missing the bigger point: an excessive number of points skills.
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Old 07-11-2018, 07:23 PM   #23
artichoke
 
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Default Re: Minimum Skill Count

Perhaps this quirk would solve some of this:

Oddly Untrained

In contrast with nearly every other person over the age of sixteen, you lack some basic skill.

examples:

Oddly Untrained: Bicycling
Oddly Untrained: Driving (auto)
Oddly Untrained: Computer Operation
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Old 07-11-2018, 07:25 PM   #24
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Default Re: Minimum Skill Count

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Originally Posted by artichoke View Post
I learned how to ride a bike when I was like 5 years old.
You are not everybody. There are plenty of people, especially those who've spent their lives in highly urbanised and auto-centric places, who never learned to ride a bike.


Quote:
Similarly, computer operation should not be a points skill in TL8 and above
.
Possibly, although there's a distinct difference between a power user and someone who can actually write code or the like (I am arguably the first, and have a modicum of knowledge of the second)
Quote:
Not knowing how to drive in TL7/8 should be some kind of negative quality (like a quirk) not a points skill.
As with bicycling, it depends heavily on your background. Many residents of NYC or London, frex, don't drive and don't know how to.
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Old 07-11-2018, 07:35 PM   #25
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Minimum Skill Count

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Originally Posted by artichoke View Post
I learned how to ride a bike when I was like 5 years old.
From the Basic entry on Bicycling "This is the ability to ride a bicycle long distance, at high speeds or in rallies etc.". It's very likleyt he Professional Skill for a bike messenger too.

Just peddling down the street is done at +4 and for a Skill that defaults to DX-4 that adds up to DX.

So many fewer people in the US have Bicycle Skill than might be supposed just by looking at Skill _names_. An actual Gurps skill is usually much more than simply performing some activity in the simplest possible manner.
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Old 07-11-2018, 07:52 PM   #26
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Default Re: Minimum Skill Count

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Originally Posted by artichoke View Post
Not knowing how to drive in TL7/8 should be some kind of negative quality (like a quirk) not a points skill.

So, the OP's post suggests to me that both arguments are right but are missing the bigger point: an excessive number of points skills.
It's not actually solving anything to make it a quirk to not have the equivalent of a point in certain skills. That takes up at least as much space on the characters sheet and the player's memory, especially as the list of things people are expected to know changes with time and place. At TL0 the basic skills are something like Survival, Area Knowledge, and some vaguely specialist skill such as Trapping, Leatherworking, Hunting, Naturalist, Housekeeping, or Religious Ritual. At TL8 it's more like Housekeeping, Driving, and some professional skill, but that varies a lot with where you are in the world - many inner city dwellers don't need Driving, for example.

If a character is truly lacking in some or all of the skills needed to live a normal life, they take a Social Stigma for that.
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Old 07-11-2018, 08:22 PM   #27
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Default Re: Minimum Skill Count

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Originally Posted by artichoke View Post
Not knowing how to drive in TL7/8 should be some kind of negative quality (like a quirk) not a points skill.
Maybe in the US,but in in many parts of the world where there is working public transportation the proportion of people who ever learn to drive is much lower.

Edit: In Finland seems more to be an increasing trait among younger urban populations, as example in Helsinki only 34 755 of 57 456 (60.5%) 18-24 year olds have drivers licenses, but 320 278 of 427 555 (75%) of 18-64 year olds have drivers licenses.
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Old 07-11-2018, 09:10 PM   #28
evileeyore
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Default Re: Minimum Skill Count

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
From the Basic entry on Bicycling "This is the ability to ride a bicycle long distance, at high speeds or in rallies etc.". It's very likleyt he Professional Skill for a bike messenger too.
I treat Bicycling like Hiking or Running in my games, really only needed for long-distance travel or races.
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Old 07-11-2018, 09:14 PM   #29
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Default Re: Minimum Skill Count

As the user who said the "4-10", I also know that campaign type really does matter and skills themselves matter. Three things that I know "shrink" that list;

A) I ignore "flavor" skills when looking at that number. It's usually a small list (such as hobby or profession skills that no one is expecting to see much use). I don't do this if the skill is going to or was intentionally bought to be used much. One PC has Housecleaning and he ended up using it more often than the rest of his skills, maybe combined.
2) I honestly can't remember the last time I played a campaign without supernatural effects. Those don't have to be skills or even use them. Flight doesn't need Aerobatics or the Flight skill. A character with a combination of Doesn't Eat, Drink, Sleep, or Breathe and Immunity to Metabolic Hazards has a lot less to worry about than a normal person (especially with the "Tireless" advantage on MyGurps where you don't lose FP).
3) My groups tends to and I especially like to play young and/or inexperienced characters. One PC did have zero skills; she did not have good parents (but they were "enough" that she never worried about being fed or needing shelter), she had no idea how the world worked due to a lack of any training, and her only real "hobby" was reading, but not to the degree that would give Connoisseur.

To give an example of one of my characters; She has Diplomacy and Erotic Art. That's it. She had a few things she likes to do, none of which required skills (except the aformentioned EA). She's all about solving her issues with either words (Diplomacy) or magic (something similar to Sorcery). With some high bases (IQ16 Will20) and choice advantages, she has a wide variety of options at hand without basically any training. With the exact set up she has, she could get away with 2pts in skills, let alone only two skills.

These are extremely low as exaggerated examples. In my longest running campaign, the "wizard" has tons of spells but maybe eight skills, the "warrior" has (I think) nine skills, the "rogue" has 18 skills (and a few of those he was thinking of "taking back"), and the "face" has six skills because she relies a lot more on advantages (especially passive ones) to support being the face. (The archetype names aren't quite correct, but it's the closest words for summarizing the characters. For instance, all are quite capable of combat.)

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, I have had campaigns with Wildcard skills, which seem to be about 20 skills in one. One PC even asked about taking Boom! skill, which is just a wildcard skill that happens to include every skill (at a much higher cost per level). I'll absolutely agree that certain campaigns (say, modern day espionage) would require all sort of skills, but the thing is skills are merely one place for determining competence.

Last thing; Defaults do suck. But I see characters get around that by just buying DX or IQ to 18 to "get rid" of them (the common default ends up being 12 then).
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Old 07-11-2018, 10:55 PM   #30
Celjabba
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
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Default Re: Minimum Skill Count

Quote:
Originally Posted by artichoke View Post
I learned how to ride a bike when I was like 5 years old.

It shouldn't be a skill a person needs to spend points on unless it's some kind of special bicycling, like "fighting on a bike" and biking sports.

Similarly, computer operation should not be a points skill in TL8 and above.

Not knowing how to drive in TL7/8 should be some kind of negative quality (like a quirk) not a points skill.

So, the OP's post suggests to me that both arguments are right but are missing the bigger point: an excessive number of points skills.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artichoke View Post
Perhaps this quirk would solve some of this:

Oddly Untrained

In contrast with nearly every other person over the age of sixteen, you lack some basic skill.

examples:

Oddly Untrained: Bicycling
Oddly Untrained: Driving (auto)
Oddly Untrained: Computer Operation
Your approach does reduce the clutter on the character sheet.
And it work perfectly well when all characters are and stay in a area with the same cultural background.

I prefer to have players buy those basics skills. The skill list is much longer, and they do need more points, but it pay when they are or travel to different culture/time/dimension..
As I said above, a matter of taste, both approach work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Last thing; Defaults do suck. But I see characters get around that by just buying DX or IQ to 18 to "get rid" of them (the common default ends up being 12 then).
I would prefer players with 10 more skills at 1 cp than players with IQ and DX 18... But in a power based game, why not ? IQ 18, DX 18, boom!!-16, now let's focus on what's important. It is not for me but why not.

Last edited by Celjabba; 07-11-2018 at 11:05 PM.
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