Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-19-2019, 03:03 PM   #21
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Make contact skill great again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alonsua View Post
If those modifiers are fine for one skill, for the others too. There are more references to these facts in the Action books.
Supporting quote, please, or at least page number.
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-19-2019, 03:06 PM   #22
Alonsua
Banned
 
Join Date: May 2017
Default Re: Make contact skill great again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Supporting quote, please, or at least page number.
May the p. 13 on Exploits work?

Did you read my edited text?

Quote:
Although I prefer to use the speed/range table, but I do not have this last idea cleared, I need to make more inquiries and tests with it, such as setting limits, otherwise, with a sufficient number of "slaves", colossal bonuses can be obtained...
What do you think of that? Would a logarithmic formula fix it?
Alonsua is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-19-2019, 03:07 PM   #23
David Johnston2
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: Make contact skill great again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alonsua View Post
From an organization perspective and as far as I know, the contact skills are limited to the level 21 according to basic. Are there any rules to surpass the limit, aside of increasing its cost? Does the advantage appear in any other book? What would you think should be the top level and why?
I'm fine with the limit as it stands since it represents not the actual skill level of the contact but the degree to which it can and will help you. The greatest surgeon/politician/pilot/intelligence analyst/stock trader/detective/scientist in the world is going to be a busy person and if you can call upon their full abilities to solve your weekly problems then they should probably be categorized as a Patron or Ally.

One thing I do, do however is treat their skill as more or less a Wild Card skill. Your medical contact can provide you with surgery, infectious disease diagnosis, and hospital gossip with equal facility.
David Johnston2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-19-2019, 03:10 PM   #24
Alonsua
Banned
 
Join Date: May 2017
Default Re: Make contact skill great again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
One thing I do, do however is treat their skill as more or less a Wild Card skill. Your medical contact can provide you with surgery, infectious disease diagnosis, and hospital gossip with equal facility.
I also do something similar, but I'm trying to finish polishing the content of "Mass Combat" and "Boardroom and Curia" and seems like "Contacts" are the way to go to represent organizational capabilities...
Alonsua is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-19-2019, 04:10 PM   #25
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Make contact skill great again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alonsua View Post
If those modifiers are fine for one skill, for the others too. There are more references to these facts in the Action books.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alonsua View Post
May the p. 13 on Exploits work?
I can't see anything on that page that says specific bonuses for one skill can be applied to others. Quote what you're referring to?
johndallman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-19-2019, 04:30 PM   #26
Alonsua
Banned
 
Join Date: May 2017
Default Re: Make contact skill great again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
I can't see anything on that page that says specific bonuses for one skill can be applied to others. Quote what you're referring to?
I do not know what you're talking about anymore, I hope this works:

Quote:
Treat successes at planting keyboard bugs (above) or engaging in computer monitoring (p. 14), Dumpster-Diving (p. 14), and/or Social Engineering (pp. 15-17) as complementary skill rolls to weasel manuals and passwords. And both Computer Programming and Expert Skill (Computer Security) act as complementary skills if the hacker writes his own code.
For a total of +6, as in the Biotech example.
Alonsua is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-19-2019, 05:10 PM   #27
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Make contact skill great again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alonsua View Post
I do not know what you're talking about anymore, I hope this works:



For a total of +6, as in the Biotech example.
You are equating two entirely different things. What Bio-Tech says, per your quotation, is

Assistants: +1 per assistant with Physician, Surgery, or (if appropriate to the equipment used) Electronics Operation (Medical) at 12+; +2 for skill 15+. Maximum bonus is +6.

That is, you get a +1 if your assistant has skill-12, and a +2 if they have skill-15.

On the other hand, what Action says is

Treat successes at planting keyboard bugs (above) or engaging in computer monitoring (p. 14), Dumpster-Diving (p. 14), and/or Social Engineering (pp. 15-17) as complementary skill rolls to weasel manuals and passwords. And both Computer Programming and Expert Skill (Computer Security) act as complementary skills if the hacker writes his own code.

Complementary skill rolls give you +1 if your assistant makes a skill roll, and +2 if they make a critical success; they also give you -1 if your assistant fails, and -2 if they fail critically. The conditions on which the bonuses are gained are different (to start with, in the former case no skill roll is required, in the latter case one is), and also the complementary skill rules give you a chance of a penalty of -1 or -2, which the Bio-Tech rules do not.

I also note that the passage from Action (vol. 2, p. 13) is explicitly talking about rules for treating hacking unrealistically/cinematically, to avoid making it boring for the other players. The rules from Bio-Tech seem to be intended as realistic rules for treating patients. The two are not intended for use in the same modality, nor for the same kind of task, nor are they at all the same in what they allow. There is no basis for treating them as cases of a general principle that applies to everything. And there is doubly no basis for using them to estimate that a Contact can have a higher effective skill than is specified in the rules in the Basic Set.

What you seem to be doing is looking for any passage in any rule anywhere that seems to do roughly what you want; reading it out of context, and without regard for the exact meanings of its words; and then generalizing it to entirely different cases that have nothing to do with the passage where it is stated. When players do this we call it "rules lawyering," and experienced GMs learn to recognize it and suppress it ruthlessly, before such players use it to destroy their campaigns. I'm not sure what to call it when a GM does it, but I'm certain it's a bad sign.

In any case, it establishes nothing about what the rules actually say.
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-19-2019, 05:20 PM   #28
Phantasm
 
Phantasm's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: On the road again...
Default Re: Make contact skill great again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
What you seem to be doing is looking for any passage in any rule anywhere that seems to do roughly what you want; reading it out of context, and without regard for the exact meanings of its words; and then generalizing it to entirely different cases that have nothing to do with the passage where it is stated. When players do this we call it "rules lawyering," and experienced GMs learn to recognize it and suppress it ruthlessly, before such players use it to destroy their campaigns. I'm not sure what to call it when a GM does it, but I'm certain it's a bad sign.
It's still rules lawyering, IME, and in a way that's 99.44% of the time guaranteed to drive players away from the GM's game.


Alonsua, the idea in GURPS is that the specific cases apply only to those specific cases; when no specific case is given, revert to the general rules in the Basic Set, particularly those in Campaigns. The game often breaks, and breaks hard, when you try to rules lawyer a specific case into applying generally to something completely unrelated to the original specific case.
__________________
"Life ... is an Oreo cookie." - J'onn J'onzz, 1991

"But mom, I don't wanna go back in the dungeon!"

The GURPS Marvel Universe Reboot Project A-G, H-R, and S-Z, and its not-a-wiki-really web adaptation.
Ranoc, a Muskets-and-Magery Renaissance Fantasy Setting

Last edited by Phantasm; 01-19-2019 at 05:24 PM.
Phantasm is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-19-2019, 05:27 PM   #29
Alonsua
Banned
 
Join Date: May 2017
Default Re: Make contact skill great again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
In any case, it establishes nothing about what the rules actually say.
In both cases the rules allow for a bonus of +6, while on the invention rules they allow for up to +4. There are different ways of understanding a system, the one I have chosen analyzes principles inherent to cases of sem characteristics to extract general principles.

As for the "effective skill" it does not seem legit to me, since that would make an easy task as difficult as a hard one.
Alonsua is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-19-2019, 05:31 PM   #30
Alonsua
Banned
 
Join Date: May 2017
Default Re: Make contact skill great again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantasm View Post
The game often breaks, and breaks hard, when you try to rules lawyer a specific case into applying generally to something completely unrelated to the original specific case.
Sure, but I think tasks gets easier when more people cooperate to solve a problem, and thats what the bonus tried to represent in those cases (?), isnt it?
Alonsua is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:15 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.