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Old 04-26-2009, 12:25 AM   #1
Pragmatic
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Default Lenses for high-tech education, citizenship, PDA?

Not quite THS, but it's the closest setting to my "thought exercise." :-)

I'm cobbling together (for my personal amusement) a colonized world where Fifth-Wave tech is the norm. I'm trying to decide what skills would be typical for a citizen to receive, to be able to operate in a high-tech world. Are there any lenses available? (E.g. Is there one in Changing Times? 3E THS books? Adaptable from other sources, like Uplift or Alpha Centauri?)

One of the things that I envision for this world is that any citizen with a post-secondary education may be called upon to serve in the legislature, selected at random. What skills would a rational government want its citizens to have? (E.g. Law, Administration, and so on?)

And finally, I'm imagining that the PDA (personal data assistant, palmtop computer, whatever) of the future might be more versatile than today. I'm imagining that the LAI (non-volitional AI, in GURPS Ultratech) would have skills such as Accounting. What other skills, at what levels, would one expect a future PDA to contain?

Thanks ahead of time!
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Old 04-26-2009, 02:16 AM   #2
walkir
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Germany
Default Re: Lenses for high-tech education, citizenship, PDA?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pragmatic
Are there any lenses available? (E.g. Is there one in Changing Times? 3E THS books? Adaptable from other sources, like Uplift or Alpha Centauri?)
Uplift has the 15-point terragens education lens, which is mandatory unless you take a disadvantage.

Quote:
What skills would a rational government want its citizens to have? (E.g. Law, Administration, and so on?)
Basic knowledge of area knowledge and economics at the very least. The rest would depend on the setting: A second language? Politics? History?
I would propose something like law, administration, economics,area knowledge: one for 4, one for 2, two for 1 point each.

Last edited by walkir; 04-26-2009 at 07:26 AM. Reason: for for ==> one for
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Old 04-26-2009, 02:40 AM   #3
gjc8
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Default Re: Lenses for high-tech education, citizenship, PDA?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pragmatic
I'm cobbling together (for my personal amusement) a colonized world where Fifth-Wave tech is the norm. I'm trying to decide what skills would be typical for a citizen to receive, to be able to operate in a high-tech world. Are there any lenses available? (E.g. Is there one in Changing Times? 3E THS books? Adaptable from other sources, like Uplift or Alpha Centauri?)

One of the things that I envision for this world is that any citizen with a post-secondary education may be called upon to serve in the legislature, selected at random. What skills would a rational government want its citizens to have? (E.g. Law, Administration, and so on?)
Keep in mind that a single skill point represents 200 hours of learning, under more or less ideal circumstances. That's a lot of time. Assuming each student takes 15 credits, and works for a bit over 40 hours a week, half of that unsupervised, you can expect about 1 character point for every 6 credit hours taken, or about 20 total. Some people might get more, but others will get less. And that includes the courses in the major.

Combine that with degradation for skills that haven't been used for 20 years, and I'm not sure expecting every citizen to have, say, Law, above the default is realistic. Something that everybody has to use (like Driving in the modern US), maybe. But something from a few classes taken in college, then never used by most people, is not likely to be ubiquitous.

That said, assume 8 points in one skill (the major), 1 point in Writing, 1 point in Research, and 10 points in "electives" (some of which would go into the major for intensive or professional curricula like engineering). Maybe 2-4 of the "elective" points could be pushed into "civic" skills, if the government were sufficiently motivated. Most people would also have 1-4 points in an appropriate vehicle skill and 1-4 in Computer Operation.
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Old 04-26-2009, 02:48 AM   #4
gjc8
 
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Default Re: Lenses for high-tech education, citizenship, PDA?

Quote:
Originally Posted by walkir
I would propose something like law, administration, economics,area knowledge: one for 4, for for 2, two for 1 point each.
Seriously? 14, 15 points? I don't have Uplift, but that's a 3000 hours of supervised training (and frankly, calling an average college classroom "supervised" is a stretch). If even a fraction of that time is unsupervised or wasted, you're looking at two years of full-time, year-round education, just for "general" knowledge (most people need a professional skill, too).

Maybe, if the length of education increases as life expectancy increases, but not for something like modern post-secondary education.

Area Knowledge, though, is a good catch, as another skill (like Driving and Computer Operation) that people will pick up on their own.
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Old 04-26-2009, 05:46 AM   #5
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Default Re: Lenses for high-tech education, citizenship, PDA?

I just had the random idea that you could do education like a talent; a group of skills you've had training in but that you only get the benefit of if you make use of the things you've been taught in your everyday life. Most people forget what they learned at school but those who stick with it get the bonus of it later, even if it's years later.
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Old 04-26-2009, 06:52 AM   #6
Frost
 
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Default Re: Lenses for high-tech education, citizenship, PDA?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pragmatic
One of the things that I envision for this world is that any citizen with a post-secondary education may be called upon to serve in the legislature, selected at random. What skills would a rational government want its citizens to have? (E.g. Law, Administration, and so on?)

And finally, I'm imagining that the PDA (personal data assistant, palmtop computer, whatever) of the future might be more versatile than today. I'm imagining that the LAI (non-volitional AI, in GURPS Ultratech) would have skills such as Accounting. What other skills, at what levels, would one expect a future PDA to contain?
Given the requirements I am not sure that there is one specific skill set that would work. In fact I might be tempted to work upon the assumption that rather than specifying any specific profesional and academic skills such a state would choose to emphasise the ability to assimilate and process information generaly.

By this I mean a high quality general secondary education emphasising retoric (particularly the ability to formulate and analyse arguments), statistics and research. With this training it should be possible to make meaningful decisions based upon expert advice.

LAI could easyly provide a valuable addition to this providing independent tools to study specialised information. While I may not have studied law, an LAI Legal program could certainly counteract this providing I have the information handling skills to understand its summaries and to form decisions based upon them.

Last edited by Frost; 04-27-2009 at 11:06 AM.
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Old 04-26-2009, 07:26 AM   #7
walkir
 
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Default Re: Lenses for high-tech education, citizenship, PDA?

Quote:
Originally Posted by gjc8
Seriously? 14, 15 points? I don't have Uplift, but that's a 3000 hours of supervised training (and frankly, calling an average college classroom "supervised" is a stretch). If even a fraction of that time is unsupervised or wasted, you're looking at two years of full-time, year-round education, just for "general" knowledge (most people need a professional skill, too).

Maybe, if the length of education increases as life expectancy increases, but not for something like modern post-secondary education.
If you are thrown into a society that will destroy your race if a single member of it uses the wrong greeting form for a member of a minor bureau, you tend to do stuff like this.
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Old 04-26-2009, 07:46 AM   #8
whswhs
 
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Default Re: Lenses for high-tech education, citizenship, PDA?

I think that trying to do this with skills may be the wrong way to go. Yes, you can calculate hours spent in education and ask how many skills it buys. But note that an 18-year-old who has not dropped out of school has had at least 12 years of education, at, say, 30 hours/week and 36 weeks/year; that's about 5 CP per year even if you don't count hitting the books at home for half value. Yet we don't build "everyman" characters with 60 CP of skills! Those hours are going into general knowledge, which means into a pool of default skills and things covered by basic IQ rolls.

So how about this? You want a society where people have more extensive education? Say that every character in that society gets +1 or even +2 to IQ. IQ isn't just innate talent; it also includes background general knowledge. You're giving them +2 to those rolls, say, plus +2 to every IQ-based default skill. That's pretty good.

Just a suggestion. . . .

Bill Stoddard
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Old 04-26-2009, 01:41 PM   #9
Pragmatic
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Default Re: Lenses for high-tech education, citizenship, PDA?

Okay, looked into Uplift.

Terragens Education Lens: Computer Operation, First Aid, Naturalist, Psychology, Research.

Five points in three or more of the following: Anthropology, Astronomy, Autohypnosis, Botany, Chemistry, Ecology, Economics, Geology, History (Earthclan), Mathematics, Physics, Xenology, Zoology.

Languages: (3E) Five points, with at least two towards Galactic languages.
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Old 04-26-2009, 02:17 PM   #10
gjc8
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Default Re: Lenses for high-tech education, citizenship, PDA?

Quote:
Originally Posted by walkir
If you are thrown into a society that will destroy your race if a single member of it uses the wrong greeting form for a member of a minor bureau, you tend to do stuff like this.
Yeah, that would do it. As I said, I know nothing about Uplift (well, one thing, now).
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