Minimum Skill Count

[scc]

Some people in my recent thread about the Magic seem to think characters shouldn't have very many skills, one person saying a character should have between 4 and 10, and I believe another saying that if a character has more then 15 skills the GM should be looking over the campaign, lets look at how wrong this was.

So using a character from modern day New York City as an example we'll look at what skills a character should have.

Housekeeping, because they need to eat and keep their apartment clean.
Navigation (Land) so you can find your way around.
Area Knowledge, how can you not know stuff about the city you live in?
Current Affairs, at the very least for NYC, also possible a state and national or even international versions depending upon how much you keep up with the news.

Computer Operation, you live in the 21st century after all, you can use a computer.
Savoir-Faire or Streetwise, you can talk to people right?
Hiking, Driving, or Bicycling, you have some means of getting around.
Accounting assuming you can balance a checkbook and aren't living paycheck to paycheck.
Administration or maybe something like Bureaucracy, because you have to deal with the government at some point
Urban Survival, enough said.

And that's a minimum of 10 and possibly more if you decide to take multiple options and this doesn't cover occupational or dramatic role and it's easy to add more like Sex Appeal for women or Hidden Lore (New York Subway System) for a humorous campaign.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by scc

Area Knowledge, how can you not know stuff about the city you live in?

I'm living proof of it.

Originally Posted by scc

...like Sex Appeal for women...

Since when does this apply to only women?

[whswhs]

You don't need Navigation (Land) to find your way around, though it does help. But you can do it with Area Knowledge (or even with default Area Knowledge) for a place you're familiar with. Or you can ask for directions.

Many people don't ever balance their checkbooks; they trust their banks to keep accurate figures, and go online to check their current balances. Or so the teller at my bank told me. And in any case balancing a checkback uses Accounting at default; it's single-entry, after all.

If you've never had to live out of doors overnight in your city, you won't have Urban Survival at higher than default.

I think a lot of people don't have Administration; when they have to deal with government, they go in, say what they want, and are given a list of documents they need to bring. And if they make money from drug dealing, for example, they may never have occasion to deal with government for anything, at least not voluntarily.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by scc

S

So using a character from modern day New York City as an example we'll look at what skills a character should have.

Housekeeping, because they need to eat and keep their apartment clean.
Navigation (Land) so you can find your way around.
Area Knowledge, how can you not know stuff about the city you live in?
Current Affairs, at the very least for NYC, also possible a state and national or even international versions depending upon how much you keep up with the news.

Computer Operation, you live in the 21st century after all, you can use a computer.
Savoir-Faire or Streetwise, you can talk to people right?
Hiking, Driving, or Bicycling, you have some means of getting around.
Accounting assuming you can balance a checkbook and aren't living paycheck to paycheck.
Administration or maybe something like Bureaucracy, because you have to deal with the government at some point
Urban Survival, enough said.

Housekeeping: for a TL6 housewife who works at it all day but a TL8 urbanite who works at it part-time at best? Not so much. Maybe at default.

Navigation(Land): is for finding your way through the trackless wilderness. Not places with street signs.

Area Knowledge is a maybe but a lot of people probably use it at default.

Current Affairs is a pretty definte no. See late night talk shows shows and their "Man in the street" segments.

Computer Operation is a probable yes.

Savoir Faire is for high status people and Streetwise is for low Status types. there's no Skill for talking to people of equal Status. There isn't really a Skill thatis required jsut to talk to people anyway.

Hiking si for people who walk all day with the seriouis intent of covering ground. You don't need the Skill jsut to walk. Bicycling the same. Driving is a maybe for people who drive every day.

Adminstratiomn is for working bureaucrats. Just because regualr folks ahve to deal with bureaucracies doesn't mean they're any good at it.

Accounting is another Prfessional skill gnerally limited to persons working in that profession.

In general there was a lot of "If someone does something they have to have a Skill to cover it!" on your list and that just isn't true as a basic principle.

[Celjabba]

There are 2 schools of thinking about default/1 point in skill for routine, day-to-day skills:

-One consider that most people operate at default, or at most a dabbler perk on most day-to-day skills, with a full skill point (or more) reserved to notably skilled people.
-the other consider that anyone using a skill more than occasionally have at least a dabbler skill, with a full point gained very fast as soon as you start using it regularly. Higher level being harder to earn.

If yous subscribe to the first, "common" people operate at default on most skills in your list.
If yous subscribe to the second (I do in most games), they would have at least Area Knowledge(local), Housekeeping, computer operations and (if they own a car) driving at the 1 point level. And a dabbler perk for a few more area knowledge(s) and current affair(s).

other likely skills to consider (default or 1 pt, as above): hobby skill, professional skill, art skill, sport skill, Sex-appeal, carousing, swimming, first-aid
Hiking, bicycling : if they walk/cycle everyday.

Streetwise, urban survival are unlikely for "common" people with a stable housing.
Accounting, administration, savoir-faire, navigation : unlikely unless their job involve those skills.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Navigation(Land): is for finding your way through the trackless wilderness. Not places with street signs.

I agree. I see much of technology and infrastructure – like street signs – as niceties that do away with the need for a special skill. That's the purpose of something like a street sign.

Now, remove the signs from the streets – or require PCs to locate destinations that aren't labeled/mapped/etc. – and they'll probably have to rely on skills. Probably Area Knowledge if the destinations can be figured out from known urban landmarks, Urban Survival if the destinations can be guessed from knowledge of city layouts/features in general, and Navigation (Land) if compass directions, terrain, and other physical features would do the job.

(Or a person can just use social skills to ask for directions, if you're not the stereotyped guy with "Quirk: Would Rather Chew Off Own Limb Than Ask Directions". <checks own RL character form; yep, there it is. : > )

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by tbone

Now, remove the signs from the streets – or require PCs to locate destinations that aren't labeled/mapped/etc. – and they'll probably have to rely on skills.

You don't even have to remove street signs. Just don't give someone a map, stick them in an Unfamiliar city, and keep them from asking directions and you'll get some hard skill rolls.


I use Navigation (Land) all the time in my city because the streets like to twist and wind and I sometimes like to just go exploring on bicycle (without maps). Once you get 'good and lost' you head a cardinal direction till you hit a major road, a quick Area Knowledge roll later and bob's your uncle.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

You don't even have to remove street signs. Just don't give someone a map, stick them in an Unfamiliar city, and keep them from asking directions and you'll get some hard skill rolls.

If all that happens and you're tasked with finding the museum, the only way to succeed is to wander around until you happen to run into the museum. Your skill at Navigation isn't going to come into it.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

If all that happens and you're tasked with finding the museum, the only way to succeed is to wander around until you happen to run into the museum. Your skill at Navigation isn't going to come into it.

Its useful if they give you an address for the museum. Conversely, if you're handed a map in the desert and told to find an arch not marked on it or given coordinates to you're just as lost. In both cases you can figure out where you are on the map, and in both cases you're the victim of a map maker or sadist who didn't give you the tools you needed.


And modern GPS tools cut right through both problems.

[malloyd]

A few of these I expect a majority to have 1 point in; most people probably do in Housekeeping, and one of those transportation skills, though it's certainly possible not to. Others (like Area Knowledge or Current Affairs) have good enough "defaults" for your home area you don't really need to - those probably should have been implemented as free points, like your native language, but they weren't. I'd add the Sex Appeal/Savoir Faire here as another pick one requirement - default reaction rolls in GURPS are pretty bad, so I expect plausible characters have a point in a go-to social skill. And I expect one point in something you could have used to hold the job that fed you before you took up adventuring.

For the rest, well Navigation (Land) is a no (you find your way around with Area Knowledge, nobody travels a city with a compass). Urban Survival is pretty much out unless you've spent months homeless. Computer Operation is relatively common, but certainly not a majority - if you install or configure software for something other than defaults perhaps, but you don't need it to operate out of the box stuff any more than you need Electronics Operation to operate a pay phone or change the TV channel. And nobody who has ever worked a public facing government job is going to believe a majority of people have actual Administration skill - even at the level of filling out forms, which probably doesn't call for an actual skill roll, you are lucky if they've even *read* the directions, let alone followed them with understanding.