Minimum Skill Count

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Speaking as someone who grew up with towns that use actual grids (complete with numbers for streets and addresses that are actually coordinates), not really.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Grids may apply to big cities with central planning mostly. the rest of the US might tend to be more "sprawly" and eccentric.

However compared to European cities such as London, Paris, Rome, US cities are very clearly laid out.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Kromm

And then there are cities where the locals routinely talk in terms of compass points, but the "canonical" city compass has nothing to do with reality. Here in Montréal, I live on what locals call a north-south street . . . except that it runs almost precisely NW-SE. It could just as easily be an east-west street in another reality. So when receiving directions from a local, a visitor really hopes those directions are in terms of landmarks and intersections and turns. Because even the most savvy navigator, trusting a local's concept of "north" and "south," would be hosed.

And then you bump into a culture where there are no relative directions (left, right) or one where the cardinal directions used in daily conversation are unrelated to the axis of rotation of the Earth ("Uphill" and "To the sea"). Often these two attributes are combined, making things even worse when combined with the kinds of quirks Kromm mentions ("This street is uphill" "But. what. The street runs uphill and downhill" "No, it's uphill.").

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

That said, I can't remember the last time I gave or recived directions that focussed on compass terms. They tend to be all about roads, landmarks and left or right turns.

If you were using Navigation (Hyperspace) on your starship, you wouldn't use compass terms either. Each specialization of Navigation is its own skill with its own tools.

If we were to imagine a Navigation (Urban) skill, it would have to be applicable in any city, and it would have to use its own tools. Likely tools are maps and compasses (for those cities where you get turned around on winding streets). The use of landmarks would be important (as in Navigation (Land)). It would not be about following directions.

We would then have to imagine that a person unused to navigating cities could be given a map and compass, told to find some location, and they'd roll a default, presumably with a task difficulty or time spent bonus because we're not asking them to rush rush rush! All the Navigation specializations have their own defaults, so we could make the defaults for Navigation (Urban) fairly easy.

And this skill would differ from Area Knowledge in that it's applicable to techniques for navigating any city, not specific knowledge of one city.

Yeah, I could see such a skill making sense. As a not-great-traveler, I don't really know how much of a trainable technique there is to actually navigating random cities with maps and compasses, so I can't say whether having such a skill passes a reality sniff-test. But it seems reasonable that there are people who can become skilled at navigating cities with tools in general.

[Celjabba]

I had training in both navigation land and sea. And I have used map and compass often while hiking.
I have used a compass navigating a city exactly once : it was snowing enough that I couldn't spot any landmark and I used the compass to check which way I was going in a long street with few intersections and confusing curves after exiting an underground station. I had a basic map, thankfully.
I had never received direction in a city in term of compass directions.
I would not count the compass as an usual tool in navigation(urban). It can be useful, especially if you cannot see the sun, but less so than other tools.
Street Map, GPS, a visual guide of landmark and distinctive buildings, a public transport network map, knowing how house numbering work in the area, those are the tools of urban navigation.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Speaking as someone who grew up with towns that use actual grids (complete with numbers for streets and addresses that are actually coordinates), not really.

And 4) Simple geography. Orlando is a grid city, but... there are significant geographical features (lakes) that cut up and rereoute the grid frequently.

And as you mentioned in (3), a lot of Orlando Metro is other cities who's grid do not align well. And some roads that used to run through have been chopped into smaller roads... and then the 'old' road picks up again on the other side.

Originally Posted by Kromm

And then there are cities where the locals routinely talk in terms of compass points, but the "canonical" city compass has nothing to do with reality. Here in Montréal, I live on what locals call a north-south street . . . except that it runs almost precisely NW-SE. It could just as easily be an east-west street in another reality. So when receiving directions from a local, a visitor really hopes those directions are in terms of landmarks and intersections and turns. Because even the most savvy navigator, trusting a local's concept of "north" and "south," would be hosed.

Exactly. A fair bit of North Semoran runs directly west-east, but because it's on the north side of town and the majority of the road runs north-south, it's called North Semoran.

Originally Posted by Celjabba

I had never received direction in a city in term of compass directions.

It is [was] pretty common (in my city) to be told to 'turn north on X' because the person giving directions isn't sure where you're coming from or how exactly you're getting to X (this was usually directions being given over the phone)*.


* Granted, asking for directions is something I haven't heard people do for a long time. Now a days I just hear people asking for the address and then using their smart phone to get a map.