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Old 07-01-2014, 11:17 AM   #31
Ulzgoroth
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Area Knowledge

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Which I think is very much the case for many professional geographers.
Plausible, though it stands it in poor stead for adventurers who are likely to want the general power of Research and not to one-skill-wonder in Geography.
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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
I'd also mention that a librarian would know how to look up information about San Diego, but a geographer specializing in that branch of regional geography would already have looked up and learned a lot of that stuff, and could probably give you a quick lecture on urban economics, demographics, politics, and the like without cracking a book, the same way I could tell you a lot about GURPS without looking anything up, only more so.

Area Knowledge (San Diego), on the other hand, would tell you where and when the trolleys run, and that Hillcrest has lots of good (but expensive) restaurants, and that the big malls are concentrated down in Mission Valley, and that Todd Gloria is an influential local Democratic politician, and that Interstate 8 slows to a crawl around 3:30 weekday afternoons.

Bill stoddard
It seems clear that Area Knowledge also would allow you to have that knowledge of local economics, demographics, and politics. In fact, considering the way the Geography (Regional) definition points to Area Knowledge, "City: All important businesses, streets, citizens, leaders, etc." applies equally well to either.

Geography might come with the additional understanding of how to phrase that knowledge in academic terms, as a sort of trivial cultural familiarity. (I tried to find rules about that in Social Engineering but didn't turn any up.) It doesn't appear to come with very much grasp of the principles of economics, demographics, or politics as opposed to the particulars of the locale, as no applicable skills seem to have defaults to Geography.
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Old 07-01-2014, 01:55 PM   #32
johndallman
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Area Knowledge

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Originally Posted by thulben View Post
One thing that would make me love it even more is a sampling of situations with varying TDMs (much like the workup of Driving on B345).
Added to my list of things to put into each thread start message.
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Old 07-01-2014, 01:58 PM   #33
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Area Knowledge

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
It seems clear that Area Knowledge also would allow you to have that knowledge of local economics, demographics, and politics. .
Yes and no. The knowledge it would give is the kind of knowledge of such things as would be sufficient for a typical PC's needs, but for example if you take a bit of undeveloped land, Area Knowledge will tell you it's undeveloped but won't tell you whether it has been zoned residential or commercial. And it would be handicapped when it comes to telling whether building a store there would be a good idea based on the proximity of competitors and markets.
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Old 07-01-2014, 02:36 PM   #34
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Area Knowledge

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Yes and no. The knowledge it would give is the kind of knowledge of such things as would be sufficient for a typical PC's needs, but for example if you take a bit of undeveloped land, Area Knowledge will tell you it's undeveloped but won't tell you whether it has been zoned residential or commercial. And it would be handicapped when it comes to telling whether building a store there would be a good idea based on the proximity of competitors and markets.
Why will Area Knowledge know less about zoning than Geography? Mind, neither of them is likely to cover the zoning of a particular, not especially significant plot above the Town scope.

Either skill will let you know about nearby competitors and markets. Neither skill includes any business analysis ability to determine whether building a store in a particular place would be a good idea.
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Old 07-01-2014, 03:01 PM   #35
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Area Knowledge

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Geography might come with the additional understanding of how to phrase that knowledge in academic terms, as a sort of trivial cultural familiarity. (I tried to find rules about that in Social Engineering but didn't turn any up.) It doesn't appear to come with very much grasp of the principles of economics, demographics, or politics as opposed to the particulars of the locale, as no applicable skills seem to have defaults to Geography.
I don't know how you figure that. Regional geography is specified as including physical properties of the surface, climate, terrain, political regions, land claims, overpopulation, regional economic disparities, and transportation networks; that's not nothing.

And things like where the census districts are, and what the population is in each, and how it's been changing, are much more specific and quantitative than the kind of things you would pick up from Area Knowledge.

Bill Stoddard
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Old 07-01-2014, 03:11 PM   #36
johndallman
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Area Knowledge

The distinction seems to be that Area Knowledge is what you learn from living somewhere without looking stuff up, beyond a map and the 'phone book.
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Old 07-01-2014, 03:12 PM   #37
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Area Knowledge

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I don't know how you figure that. Regional geography is specified as including physical properties of the surface, climate, terrain, political regions, land claims, overpopulation, regional economic disparities, and transportation networks; that's not nothing.

And things like where the census districts are, and what the population is in each, and how it's been changing, are much more specific and quantitative than the kind of things you would pick up from Area Knowledge.

Bill Stoddard
Indeed, I'd say that I currently have 1-2 points in Geography (the city I live in), and no points in Area Knowledge (the city I live in); I do know things like this, but I usually don't know where the good restaurants are, the shortcuts from point a to point b, whether you can take street x to destination y, etc.
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Old 07-01-2014, 03:40 PM   #38
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Area Knowledge

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I don't know how you figure that. Regional geography is specified as including physical properties of the surface, climate, terrain, political regions, land claims, overpopulation, regional economic disparities, and transportation networks; that's not nothing.
I don't know what you think I said. What I actually said was that it gave you no principles of economics, demographics, or politics. It covers all those facts, certainly. But it surely doesn't give you any Economics, Sociology, Politics, and what-not to interpret those facts for yourself, since those skills don't default to Geography.

So to go back to what you had said, sure, you've got the content for a lecture, but it's a lecture about the very specific facts on the particular ground that you know...
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And things like where the census districts are, and what the population is in each, and how it's been changing, are much more specific and quantitative than the kind of things you would pick up from Area Knowledge.

Bill Stoddard
Taking the text as written, those things don't seem like they'd fit into any scope. Town or lower scope gives you high enough resolution that you could just about perform a census in your head, but anything higher gives knowledge so much shallower I don't see why that would be included. Since it makes no sense for it not to show up somewhere I guess it probably belongs at the city level, but nothing really says so.

It probably makes sense for collected statistics to be covered by Geography but not by Area Knowledge, in cases where such statistics exist. But frankly that's pretty much just making things up, the book doesn't say so.
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Indeed, I'd say that I currently have 1-2 points in Geography (the city I live in), and no points in Area Knowledge (the city I live in); I do know things like this, but I usually don't know where the good restaurants are, the shortcuts from point a to point b, whether you can take street x to destination y, etc.
Those are Area Knowledge Town or Neighborhood scope questions, mostly.
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Old 07-01-2014, 04:41 PM   #39
ericthered
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Area Knowledge

Ok, so modifiers have been asked for.... Size modifiers are going to effect things a lot hear. It seems the fastest way is to identify the level at which something is known and subtract 2 for each level going up or down.

A knight is being guided through foreign countryside by a plucky local and asks who owns that castle over there (owned by a minor, rather boring local lord)
Local Village: +10
Local Town: +5
Local City: +0
Local Duchy: -2
Nation: -4
World: -8 (though I honestly would not allow this specialization to be bought in that setting.)
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Old 07-01-2014, 05:00 PM   #40
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Area Knowledge

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Ok, so modifiers have been asked for.... Size modifiers are going to effect things a lot hear. It seems the fastest way is to identify the level at which something is known and subtract 2 for each level going up or down.

A knight is being guided through foreign countryside by a plucky local and asks who owns that castle over there (owned by a minor, rather boring local lord)
Local Village: +10
Local Town: +5

Local City: +0
Local Duchy: -2
Nation: -4
World: -8 (though I honestly would not allow this specialization to be bought in that setting.)
Where are you pulling those huge bonuses from?

Also, World is only three steps up from City, not four.

(I'd also contest that the owner of a castle is a detail that would fall at the Duchy scope, but that's a minor and fuzzy point either way.)
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