[Basic] Skill of the week: Fishing, Survival and Urban Survival

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Yrah, but Fishing isn't a TL skill. Seems to me that Fishing is a skill of catching a handful of fish, say enough to feed you and your family.

I don't think there's anything to that effect in the rules.

Compare Farming. Running a medieval peasant holding (say England in 1150), with one yoke of oxen and a plow and enough yield to feed your family in good years and pay the rent in good years or bad, is Farming; running a modern wheat farm in Alberta with heavy equipment and fertilizers is Farming too, even though the yield is probably enough to feed you and a hundred or two families.

[Flyndaran]

Not every skill is a tech skill.
Fishing is described, and used, more like Survival and that isn't a tech skill, unless you want to call it TL 0+.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

What happened to the "or whatever method is used in your culture"? Also, it explicitly talks about proper equipment, and surely a spinning rod and biochemical lures are beyond the understanding of someone coming from TL0? (Latter TL9 rod-and-hook example given just for example.)

That would also mean present day fishers would have a massive penalty to use a TL 1 hook, string, and wooden rod. That's silly.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That would also mean present day fishers would have a massive penalty to use a TL 1 hook, string, and wooden rod. That's silly.

That sort of nonsense is why I dropped taking penalty from using lower tech equipment long ago. It's all Familiarity now in that direction in my game.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That would also mean present day fishers would have a massive penalty to use a TL 1 hook, string, and wooden rod. That's silly.

As long as they learned to fish with a hook, string and rod, that gear is also current TL. With perhaps a low quality modifier if they are really tl1, but not a TL one. Same with a seamstress using a needle, or a carpenter an hammer.

Celjabba

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Compare Farming.

I did. The first thing I saw is that Farming is a TL skill while Fishing isn't. Second, Farming is an IQ/Average skill while Fishing is Per/Easy.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

As long as they learned to fish with a hook, string and rod, that gear is also current TL. With perhaps a low quality modifier if they are really tl1, but not a TL one. Same with a seamstress using a needle, or a carpenter an hammer.

Celjabba

I would say that most sewing machine trained tailors are not very competent using just a needle and thread.

TL skills aren't just about materials, but how one uses the skills. Knowing how to stack, toss, and retrieve crab pots from a ship has nothing to do with rod and reel fishing.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

That sort of nonsense is why I dropped taking penalty from using lower tech equipment long ago. It's all Familiarity now in that direction in my game.

I think the optimal would be to assess skills and tools on a case by case basis.
Very few modern tailors know how to operate a loom or spinning wheel, while ancient fishers would take mere hours to get the hang of modern carbon fiber fly fishing rods, I think.

But if just using one rule, yours makes no less sense that TL adjustments across the board.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I think the optimal would be to assess skills and tools on a case by case basis.

Just how much work do think I want to do when I make sweeping rules the one just mentioned?

Pssshah! I'm far lazier than that, that's why I prefer GURPS.

Very few modern tailors know how to operate a loom or spinning wheel, while ancient fishers would take mere hours to get the hang of modern carbon fiber fly fishing rods, I think.

I'm somewhat lenient on upward TL learning. I don't treat it like a 'Familiarity' if it's an actual TL based skill though, not in that direction.

But if just using one rule, yours makes no less sense that TL adjustments across the board.

To me it does.

[acrosome]

I'm all for just making tons of specializations for Fishing skill, as opposed to a new Professional skill. I'd say that the captain of the commercial fishing boat has Fishing (Commercial Trawling) or Fishing (Commercial Crabbing), and that his crew use Seamanship as a complimentary skill to give him a bonus.

Regarding defaulting from Fishing (Commercial Crabbing) to Fishing (Fly Fishing)- don't forget that he'll also probably get lots of familiarity penalties, possibly for each of: changing from salt to fresh water, changing extent from commercial to individual sport fishing, and changing equipment paradigm (rod vs net vs pot). Maybe even for changing from open water to stream, or shallow water to deep. In this way I'd treat it not unlike the (rather excessive) familiarity penalties to Guns skill which IIRC include -2 each for different feed mechanism, different grip, different caliber, etc.

Where I'd say that you don't get a lot of these sort of familiarity penalties is, for instance, defaulting to Fishing (Fly Fishing) from Fishing (Spin Fishing). You're still using a rod individually in the same environment, after all.

On another amusing note, I guess we'd have to allow Fishing (Fish Wheel), eh?