Making Skills Matter More

[ericthered]

30 skills seems to be a fairly normal number for me. In my current game the two PC's whose sheets I can check quickly (pdf) have 35 and 33 skills. A couple of Play by post characters I recently checked give me 34, 42, and 37 skills.



when I go looking for large characters in my gaming history, I quickly dig up 53 skills on a space mechanic (who even has Wild card Engineer!). The most ridiculous sheet on file is actually a character being currently negotiated, with 117 skills, not counting multiple dabbler perks. The character is not approved, but I was still handed a sheet with 117 skills on it.


No magic skills on any of the sheets described.

[Kalzazz]

For a 250pt campaign that just kicked off my character has 9 skills, 3 of which are imbuements

I do find starting characters of mine trend toward skill light, as I never have enough points, so cutting skills down to only the most vital tends to happen, they may pick up more skills as the game progresses though

[Anthony]

I think a lot of the problem is that GURPS just has too many skills; even in cases where you do want to specialize, you'll naturally wind up with a lot of 1 or 2 point skills. Most game systems have a few catch-all skill categories (Knowledge, etc) and 10-50 skills with their own specific rules; GURPS has 300+.

[AlexanderHowl]

You have generic skills in GURPS. They include Area Knowledge, Current Affairs, Games, Hobby Skills, Sports, etc. Most systems with 10-50 skills end up being unrealistically broad, with one skill for all melee weapons or one skill for all scientific knowledge.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Most systems with 10-50 skills end up being unrealistically broad, with one skill for all melee weapons or one skill for all scientific knowledge.

That's a granularity problem. The basic problem is that when you have 200 skills hanging off of one stat, the stat should cost more than 5x as much as the skill. Raise IQ and DX to 100 points each and people will spend a lot more on skills.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Raise IQ and DX to 100 points each and people will spend a lot more on skills.

And probably nothing on Attributes.

Some part of me wonders if in this situation Attributes adding to skills could be replaced by Talents. I recognize, though, that this messes with the simulationism of Attributes as inherent stuff.

[AlexanderHowl]

Once again, I do not see how changing the point value of attributes makes skills better, it just makes attributes worse. Even if you change the point value of attributes though, you are just driving people to advantages rather than skills. If you make DX 100 CP/level, it does not make people invest those points in Climbing or Escape, it makes them purchase Double-Jointed because they still get +5 the skills for only 15 CP. What game mechanisms can make skills and techniques worth purchasing instead of attributes and advantages?

Let us take the example of Sex Appeal again. I can have Sex Appeal-24 with 66 CP of attributes and advantages and only 2 CP of skills. Now, I can just spend 56 CP on Sex Appeal-24 with a HT 10, but the former character is remarkably better with the 12 extra points purchasing HT 12, Allure 4, Appearance (Very Beautiful), and Voice. What can we do to make it worthwhile to make a player think spending 56 CP on Sex Appeal-24 is worthwhile when compared to spending 12 CP more for HT 12, Allure 4, Appearance (Very Beautiful), and Voice to also get Sex Appeal-24?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Let us take the example of Sex Appeal again. I can have Sex Appeal-24 with 66 CP of attributes and advantages and only 2 CP of skills. Now, I can just spend 56 CP on Sex Appeal-24 with a HT 10, but the former character is remarkably better with the 12 extra points purchasing HT 12, Allure 4, Appearance (Very Beautiful), and Voice. What can we do to make it worthwhile to make a player think spending 56 CP on Sex Appeal-24 is worthwhile when compared to spending 12 CP more for HT 12, Allure 4, Appearance (Very Beautiful), and Voice to also get Sex Appeal-24?

That's not a question I would ever worry about in one of my campaigns, unless the PCs were gods or high-end supers. I think that skills higher than 20 (a) should be extremely rare and (b) are mostly a waste of points. And I think my players mostly agree with me, as they don't go for skills that high, even in campaigns based on several hundred points.

[Kalzazz]

I see skills above 20 or well above 20 fairly frequently, there are a lot of penalties in GURPS and if you want to be awesome at something you need skill enough to tank them

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Under those circumstances, niche protection becomes a matter of controlling access to training in new skills – not a question of limiting attribute improvement.

In my experience (drawn from a singular incident) it isn't always 'new skills'.

When the (supposedly 'not social') Ritualist with an IQ of 20+ has defaults equal to the 'social' Character's paid for skills, there is a problem.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

I'm not sure, other than spellcasters, if I've ever had a 30 skill character.

I'm not sure aside from meatthugs*, I've ever had a Character with less than 30 skills.


* And my current meatthug has 19 skills†! So clearly I prefer skill heavy builds.

† Which after a quick check of a few other meatsheilds I've made in the last few years is a tad low as the average amongst them is 25 skills. And many are missing "key necessary skills" like Search, Observation, Traps, and Stealth because I was clearly going for "unobservant mountain of meat" rather than clever, perceptive savage (which is my other meaththug style and tends to fall in around 35 skills).

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Once again, I do not see how changing the point value of attributes makes skills better, it just makes attributes worse.

Any time you make X better, you're going to be making Y worse in some manner. Or at least 'less desirable" (unless you are gate keeping Y).