Wildcard Skills for a Space Sci-Fi Game

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

However, I could never find out what - other than inventory control, probably the Freight Handling skill and/or a related Professional Skill - would be involved.

Understandable, as apparently the meaning of "quartermaster" varies widely by place, time, and organization – everything from procurement and supplies management to security oversight, management of navigation duties and equipment, actual helmsman duties, electronics systems oversight and maintenance, gadgeteering (James Bond movies; Q = Quartermaster), and sometimes command duties having nothing to do with supplies (pirate quartermaster = high-ranking officer who leads boarding party).

But, yeah, it'll usually be understood to mean someone in charge of logistics and provisioning. In game terms, this is boring ol' Administration, or a number of Administration specialties covering these tasks, and/or Professional Skill (Quartermaster) that plays a similar role.

Assuming a quartermaster with cinematically broad abilities (not realistic specialties and sub-specialties), though, let's see what might fit:


* Administration. GURPS doesn't break this down into specialties like Procurement/Requisitioning, Inventory Management, Maintenance Management, etc.; for game purposes, full Administration seems fine.

* Accounting. For tracking the inflows and outflows of goods and payments (including crew pay, etc., if the quartermaster is in charge of that too). Again, narrow specialties are probably in order, but what the heck.

* Current Affairs (Business). Call this one optional; but if anyone on board is keeping an eye on exchange rates and trade back at the space ports, who would that be if not the quartermaster?

* Freight Handling. Assume this covers both movement and storage of supplies.

* Hazardous Materials. Cargo comes in all types...

* Housekeeping. The quartermaster is presumably the top officer overseeing janitorial, laundry, kitchen, etc. staff.

* Merchant. A key duty if the quartermaster has to make deals, not just rubber-stamp transactions made elsewhere.

* Packing. For low-tech games only.

* Scrounging. Like Merchant: makes sense if the quartermaster himself has to somehow find what can't be procured normally. (Could also be a remnant of the quartermaster's past.)

* Professional Skill (Quartermaster). The master skill that ties all the above together for job purposes. Use for anything job-related that doesn't quite fit into the above (or use as a complementary skill).


All in all, sort of the ship's all-round interior administrator, supplies manager, and go-to businessperson.

Notes:

At very top levels of a big organization, Economics and Finance might come into play. But otherwise, I'd leave these to their defaults from Accounting and Merchant.

The quartermaster presumably has whatever social skills needed for requisitioning and purchasing, possibly including Gesture if dealing a lot with aliens, and Streetwise if the dealings are often shady. But all of those may be best covered by their own Wildcard skill.

Likewise, skills like Leadership and Teaching are important if the quartermaster oversees staff. But that applies to any of the other Wildcard roles in the game; maybe they're best left out of the Wildcards, other than leadership-focused ones like Captain!. (Then again, if the quartermaster is also the officer in charge of staffing and training, maybe they're good fits for Quartermaster!.)


What do you think?

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Bridge Bunny!

Appearance(attractive)
Coffee Carrying, Technobable, attending wishes of command staff unobstrusivly, looking good for male members of audience, keeping perpetual smile, asking dumb questions she should already know so the captain will have to explain it in the audience's hearing.
...

That's a Trek bridge bunny, or possibly a Trek yeoman.

An anime-space-opera bridge bunny would have Electronics Operation (Sensors); a high notice roll from senses, skills, or both; a voice that carries over the din of combat to inform the Captain that there's yet another threat out there... and Appearance (attractive).

[Phantasm]

Hmmm... given that your cinematic Quartermaster! skill covers anything to do with cargo, you might also want to toss Smuggling into the list of skills. He'd know precisely where to hide contraband so that scanners and search parties won't pick it up. :)