[Basic] Skill of the week: Scrounging

johndallman · 10-07-2016, 01:54 PM

Scrounging is the Per/Easy skill of coming up with equipment and supplies by means less direct than purchase, usually in an urban environment. It involves improvisation, salvage, or just searching for things, and doesn't necessarily involve theft. The only default is Per-4, and no skills default to it. Each attempt takes an hour. Modifiers are up to the GM, depending on what you need, and what's around, and you may need to use some other skill to actually get the use of whatever you're after, since Scrounging is mainly about finding stuff, and figuring out where to look. The skill appeared at GURPS 1e.

This is one of the distinctive skills of GURPS. I recognised it immediately when I first read it: this was the skill my secondary school's woodwork teacher used to get decent timber for his classes. It's expensive in the UK if bought directly, so he needed to find surplus from businesses that used a lot, or that was going spare for other reasons. I've used something like this skill a lot while running SF and RPG conventions: there's an awful lot of stuff in a hotel or conference centre, and a great many problems can be solved using it, and possibly a little Fast-Talk or Diplomacy.

Scrounging is a common adventuring skill on published templates for any kind of character who uses equipment, although rarely a primary skill. It's part of the Born Soldier talent, and especially valuable to the kind of cinematic gadgeteer who can make devices rapidly in the field, given the right parts. Action uses it for getting equipment without spending budget, repairmen needing parts or tools, finding materials for home-made explosives, hackers searching for written-down passwords, and more general intelligence-gathering from rubbish. It's the key skill for scavenging in After the End and DF uses it for getting free equipment (better with Serendipity), finding saleable stuff in dungeon scrap, and collecting sling stones, but sages don't write manuals about it. High-Tech has lots of "dirty tech" that can be made from scrounged parts, Low-Tech uses it for finding lead for musket balls, and LTC1 for grindstones. Dungeon Magic's Iron Mage metalworkers excel at it, as do Monster Hunters' Handy Sages. The Power-Ups series has lots of Talents that include Scrounging, but only a few Wildcard skills. It's an important skill in both Seals in Vietnam and Reign of Steel: Will to Live; Social Engineering uses it for acquiring fine clothes cheaply, or materials for making them, and Back to School for improvising teaching equipment. Supers uses it for repairing and improving costumes but Thaumatology bars it from reducing materials costs for alchemical gadgeteering. Scrounging is important in surviving after an outbreak of Zombies, like other post-apocalypse genres, and can also reduce the cost of creating a plague.

High levels of Scrounging are easy to achieve in GURPS, as an Easy Per-based skill, and fairly plausible: people I've known who did this kind of thing were very effective at it. Epic Scrounging is also great fun. Our G:WWII party had gone ashore in Algiers on the evening of the first day of Operation Torch and rapidly discovered that we needed to pursue someone who had fled the city eastward by car. There were too many of us for a car, so we needed a truck. I paraphrase:

GM: Scrounging?
Player 1: Ah ... critical success, rolled 5 against 17. It's a very nice truck.
PC2: I like the leather upholstery. And the radios. And the wine rack.
PC1: If a French general just leaves his command vehicle parked and unguarded...

What problems have you solved with this skill?

10-07-2016, 01:54 PM	#1
johndallman Night Watchman Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Cambridge, UK	[Basic] Skill of the week: Scrounging Scrounging is the Per/Easy skill of coming up with equipment and supplies by means less direct than purchase, usually in an urban environment. It involves improvisation, salvage, or just searching for things, and doesn't necessarily involve theft. The only default is Per-4, and no skills default to it. Each attempt takes an hour. Modifiers are up to the GM, depending on what you need, and what's around, and you may need to use some other skill to actually get the use of whatever you're after, since Scrounging is mainly about finding stuff, and figuring out where to look. The skill appeared at GURPS 1e. This is one of the distinctive skills of GURPS. I recognised it immediately when I first read it: this was the skill my secondary school's woodwork teacher used to get decent timber for his classes. It's expensive in the UK if bought directly, so he needed to find surplus from businesses that used a lot, or that was going spare for other reasons. I've used something like this skill a lot while running SF and RPG conventions: there's an awful lot of stuff in a hotel or conference centre, and a great many problems can be solved using it, and possibly a little Fast-Talk or Diplomacy. Scrounging is a common adventuring skill on published templates for any kind of character who uses equipment, although rarely a primary skill. It's part of the Born Soldier talent, and especially valuable to the kind of cinematic gadgeteer who can make devices rapidly in the field, given the right parts. *Action* uses it for getting equipment without spending budget, repairmen needing parts or tools, finding materials for home-made explosives, hackers searching for written-down passwords, and more general intelligence-gathering from rubbish. It's the key skill for scavenging in *After the End* and DF uses it for getting free equipment (better with Serendipity), finding saleable stuff in dungeon scrap, and collecting sling stones, but sages don't write manuals about it. *High-Tech* has lots of "dirty tech" that can be made from scrounged parts, *Low-Tech* uses it for finding lead for musket balls, and *LTC1* for grindstones. *Dungeon Magic's Iron Mage metalworkers excel at it, as do Monster Hunters' Handy Sages. The Power-Ups* series has lots of Talents that include Scrounging, but only a few Wildcard skills. It's an important skill in both *Seals in Vietnam* and *Reign of Steel: Will to Live; Social Engineering* uses it for acquiring fine clothes cheaply, or materials for making them, and *Back to School* for improvising teaching equipment. *Supers* uses it for repairing and improving costumes but *Thaumatology* bars it from reducing materials costs for alchemical gadgeteering. Scrounging is important in surviving after an outbreak of *Zombies, like other post-apocalypse genres, and can also reduce the cost of creating a plague. High levels of Scrounging are easy to achieve in GURPS, as an Easy Per-based skill, and fairly plausible: people I've known who did this kind of thing were very effective at it. Epic Scrounging is also great fun. Our G:WWII* party had gone ashore in Algiers on the evening of the first day of Operation Torch and rapidly discovered that we needed to pursue someone who had fled the city eastward by car. There were too many of us for a car, so we needed a truck. I paraphrase: GM: Scrounging? Player 1: Ah ... critical success, rolled 5 against 17. It's a very nice truck. PC2: I like the leather upholstery. And the radios. And the wine rack. PC1: If a French general just leaves his command vehicle parked and unguarded... What problems have you solved with this skill? __________________ The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. Last edited by johndallman; 10-07-2016 at 02:10 PM. Reason: Better detail from DF2.