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Old 12-17-2018, 10:35 AM   #31
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
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Default Re: Making Skills Matter Again

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Originally Posted by hal View Post
As I've also pointed out to some individuals, just because you've been involved in computer operations for 10 years, doesn't mean your character now has the computer operation skill at obscene levels (based on the rules for On the Job experience). 10 x 52 = 520. At 1/4 learning rates for on the job training - ie, every 4 hours working equals 1 hour training - that amounts to 520 x 10 (assuming a 40 hr work week), or 5200 hours of training. Dividing by 200 due to it takes 200 hours of training to gain 1 character point) and our wonderful computer operator could in theory, gain a total of 26 points in computer operator skill.
GURPS Social Engineering: Back to School discusses ways to avoid this. See the text box "Learning and Realism" on p. 6.

But the real answer with this, as with many other things in GURPS, is that GURPS isn't a comprehensive world simulation model, and isn't intended to be. It's designed to produce gamable abstractions for the purposes of a campaign. A campaign is comparable to a story or drama; it has unities of action, time, and place—that is, it doesn't represent indefinitely prolonged sequences of events—and its rules aren't designed to do so. Using them to represent someone's career from first job to retirement is like using a yardstick to measure the distance to Saturn.

If you want to figure out what skills people have in a large organization that has been operating for fifty years, more power to you. But put the GURPS rules aside and figure out what actually makes sense. Then use the GURPS rules to describe the current state of the organization.
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Old 12-17-2018, 12:15 PM   #32
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: Making Skills Matter Again

I really do not have a problem with people earning 2.5 CP per year of work. Of course, the skill development will likely be divided among multiple skills, which I think that many people forget in discussing on the job training. For example, in my own work as an academic, I am continuously developing Administration, Criminology, Diplomacy, Research, and Teaching, meaning that I only give 0.5 CP to each skill every year. After eight years, I might get +1 to each skill, which is hardly abusive. After 24 years, I might have a skill 18 in each (maybe), but that will not matter, as I will be retiring.
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Old 12-21-2018, 05:26 AM   #33
Yako
 
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Default Re: Making Skills Matter Again

I think the original suggestion fails to take account of the dual nature of the skill / attribute problem.

Yes, on the one hand, attributes win out because buying more than three skills per attribute up to a the fourth increase, where you start to pay 4 points per level, just does not make sense mechanically. You would just buy up DX and buy down basic Speed in the "ideal scenario" instead of spending 16 points to increase four skills.

...but on the other hand, buying up your one or even two core skills for 4 points each is actually an extremely effective way to spend points.
High combat skills mean you can do deceptive attacks that make sure you hit your foe or target weak points or do more rapid strikes.
High combat skills are already a great investment and I tend to see that there is actually a bit of a problem that you should set limits so people do not just pump up their Gun skills and routinely make the perfect headshot for a very low point expenditure.

I still think the best fix is making the purchase of multiple skills based on the same attribute cheaper and setting limits on how much a skill can exceed its basic attribute.
...or make a smaller skill list.
GURPS has very few attributes for skills and a huge skill list.
Compared for example world of darkness / Chronicles of Darkness with 9 attributes and depending on the edition 24 skills and their ratio of attribute cost to skill cost is 2 to 5 with their current flat XP cost system.
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Old 12-21-2018, 10:27 AM   #34
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Default Re: Making Skills Matter Again

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Compared for example world of darkness / Chronicles of Darkness with 9 attributes and depending on the edition 24 skills and their ratio of attribute cost to skill cost is 2 to 5 with their current flat XP cost system.
That approach works if you assume one of two things: either that only a very narrow range of activities will ever be sufficiently relevant to campaign activities and themes, or that skills are very broadly defined, to a degree that simply does not match the real world (for example, the World of Darkness games on my shelves have one skill called "Science"). If you want a game that's both open-ended about activities, and detailed about what a character can and can't do, you need a longer skill list.

For example, in my current GURPS campaign, Hanno, one of the PCs, has 4 or more points in Diplomacy, Leadership, Linguistics, Merchant, Ritual Magic, Savoir-Faire (High Society), and the ritual magic Path of Trade. And his flavor skills include Animal Handling (Parrots), Aquabatics, Boating (Unpowered), Connoisseur (Furniture), and Sports (Competitive Kayaking).
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Old 12-21-2018, 12:13 PM   #35
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Default Re: Making Skills Matter Again

It might be interesting to know what happens if you get rid of Attributes and only buy their derived stuff directly.

I'm not advocating GURPS do it, but it would be interesting to see an Alternate GURPS tackle it.

(<-- Does not have complete working knowledge of GURPS rules.)
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Old 12-21-2018, 12:16 PM   #36
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: Making Skills Matter Again

And, with eight important IQ-based skills with 4+ points, it is much more cost effective to increase IQ than to increase all of them, especially since the character also gains +1 Per, +1 Will, and +1 to IQ-based defaults. Without a mechanism that rewards experience over faculty, it will never pay to raise more than three or four skills past the 4 CP/level point instead of an attribute.
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Old 12-21-2018, 12:53 PM   #37
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Default Re: Making Skills Matter Again

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And, with eight important IQ-based skills with 4+ points, it is much more cost effective to increase IQ than to increase all of them, especially since the character also gains +1 Per, +1 Will, and +1 to IQ-based defaults. Without a mechanism that rewards experience over faculty, it will never pay to raise more than three or four skills past the 4 CP/level point instead of an attribute.
I don't see that as a problem.

If you want a character who's a Renaissance man or woman (or multitentacled alien entity), of course you buy up their IQ or DX as far as you can afford to indicate broad general competence.

If you want one who's good at a group of related skills, you buy one or more levels of Talent.

If you want them to have specific skills, you buy those specific skills.

There's a general pattern in GURPS that characters don't have a lot of advanced abilities. They can have one broad talent or two or three narrow talents per stat; they can have from one to three skills per talent; they can have one Hard technique or a couple of Average techniques per highly developed skill. That gives you a character with focus: smart but especially good at music, musical but especially good at singing, good at singing but especially good at throat singing or singing falsetto. As you multiply the things the character is good at, you start to lose the archetypal quality.

And let's suppose, for example, that you increase the ratio. A technique still costs 2/1; a skill goes from 1/2/4 to 1/2/4/8 (with the 1 buying an Easy skill at stat-1, an Average skill at stat-2, and so on); a Talent goes from 5/10/15 to 25/50/75; a stat goes from 10/20 to 100/200. Now building a character requires spending about 10 times as many points, and takes a lot longer. I think GURPS already pushes at the limits of fussiness of design; I wouldn't want to make it drastically finer-grained.
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Old 12-21-2018, 01:17 PM   #38
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Default Re: Making Skills Matter Again

There is one way to insure that it doesn't become cost effective to raise attributes instead of skills...

Require that at start of game, the attributes of any given character are deemed to be the "Adult" stats. Once game play starts, the only way to increase an attribute is to pay x3 points to raise an attribute the first time, and x4 to raise an attribute the second and final time.

The only attribute that is exempt from that approach would be ST in so far as "lifting St" and such.

HP - are they "bulk" such that a Fat person gains more HP? Are they some sort of "ideal" that is closely linked to HT and Bulk?

In the end, I'd simply suggest that lifting ST and HP be limited to a maximum gain of +30% after the character has reached its adult stats (ie, once game play begins).

This way? It costs 60 points to raise a single IQ/DX stat, 30 points to Raise HT, and ST could be raised +30% before the rule kicks in where it would cost 30 and 40 respectively.

Rolemaster had the idea that you rolled for your initial stats, and then rolled for the ceiling on those stats (ie, how high they can improve to past the start of the game). If GURPS were to have a similar ceiling on stats, maybe the issue of min/max once game play started, would ease up?

I know that by implementing such a rule, people will min/max on their attributes right off the bat.

For what it is worth, I have one player who loves his Cyberpunk game setting. He always seems to want to take a High IQ character with a talent for hacking to where his effective stats for skill purposes are 17 or 19.

Then I tell him the consequences of that arrangement. During school, he excells at computer programming. The corporations fund schools just so they can get first dibs on people with the talents and skills they desire. Students would be tested non-stop to see what their aptitude is in any given year to insure they find the golden children and mold them into the corporate image.

In the end, the player realized that High Attributes in that kind of an environment make it difficult to fly under the radar.

In any event, much of this discussion seems to be about changing how Rules as Written Function.

One way to have fun with the players is this:

Keep the cost to improve stats as the rules specify. However...

Once the player invests the points, they roll against the attribute they wish to improve. If they roll equal to or over the attribute in question, the points produce the hoped for result. If they roll under their current attribute value, the points are lost.

In the end, it simply boils down to finding what ever solution appeals the most to the perceived issue.
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Old 12-21-2018, 01:31 PM   #39
naloth
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Default Re: Making Skills Matter Again

Over the years I've toyed around with a few different ideas but the one that seemed to work the best was allowing one specialization (+2 skill) per +1 over the attribute. Ex: you have Guns (pistols) at DX+1, you can have a free specialization in using .38 specials. Defaults work from base skill, not the specialization.
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Old 12-21-2018, 02:29 PM   #40
Rupert
 
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Default Re: Making Skills Matter Again

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Require that at start of game, the attributes of any given character are deemed to be the "Adult" stats. Once game play starts, the only way to increase an attribute is to pay x3 points to raise an attribute the first time, and x4 to raise an attribute the second and final time.

The only attribute that is exempt from that approach would be ST in so far as "lifting St" and such.

HP - are they "bulk" such that a Fat person gains more HP? Are they some sort of "ideal" that is closely linked to HT and Bulk?

In the end, I'd simply suggest that lifting ST and HP be limited to a maximum gain of +30% after the character has reached its adult stats (ie, once game play begins).
Striking ST is trainable just as lifting ST is. All that work boxers, etc., do isn't just about learning to punch right - it's about becoming stronger too.
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