[Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by malloyd

So if your campaign is set in 19th century China...?

The skill is Physician, at whatever TL that would be (5 probably).

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The skill is Physician, at whatever TL that would be (5 probably).

And if you are playing a western missionary, who has a skill that *isn't* the standard that is taught around here?
The problem with defining any skill by the local standards is that it means the skill changes between settings.

It's much the same issue that I object to in Hidden Lore - what do you call it in settings where it isn't hidden.

But yeah, the ideal case is probably it's all Physician, Physician requires specialization, and Esoteric Medicine(s) are specific specialties of it.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by malloyd

And if you are playing a western missionary, who has a skill that *isn't* the standard that is taught around here?

Physician (Western). Or have rules for familiarity with technical languages.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by malloyd

So if your campaign is set in 19th century China...?

Depends on where doesn't it? A peasant from the inland might have different opinions about which doctor he hires then a tong merchant in Hong Kong.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by malloyd

It's much the same issue that I object to in Hidden Lore - what do you call it in settings where it isn't hidden.

Theology, Naturalist, Biology, Physician, Thaumaturgy, etc...

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

No, it really isn't. Two skills that do the same thing are the same skill, and most claimed benefits of esoteric medicine are firmly in scope for conventional medicine (though conventional medicine may not claim to have effective treatments); if it actually works, it's just Physician (or a related skill) via an alternate tech path.

They're not doing the same thing. Just like what Pharmacy and Surgery do are not the same thing as what Physician does, even though all three can e.g. stop bleeding. You don't use Physician to stop internal bleeding (Brain/Vitals/etc.), you don't use Surgery to make a bloodclotting gel. You also don't use Surgery nor Pharmacy for long-term care through traditional rational reductionist approaches.

I'm totally sympathetic towards a game system having skills split by what they're trying to achieve (so that Lockpicking, ElOps (Sonic Screwdriver) and the Locksmith Spell would all be different familiarities of a single skill), but that's not the way GURPS works.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Massage therapy, to the degree it does anything, fits under Physician (specifically, physical therapy. GURPS can be odd about what it requires specializations for, having mandatory specialization for esoteric medicine and no specialization at all for physician is... silly).

That's begging the question, X is Y because X is Y.

But the fact is on the contrary, massage is firmly a Professional Skill (Masseur) or a subset of Esoteric Medicine specialties (LT154).

[TGLS]

Honestly, I think that esoteric medicine and veterinarian should have more of a relation with the triplex of regular medicine skills (Diagnosis, Physician, and Surgery). Of course, some esoteric disciplines wouldn't have surgery.

[Ashtagon]

I wonder if there is a way to make Esoteric Medicine work on a "clap your hands if you believe" basis. Perhaps it could have a required specialisation (by Cultural Familiarity), function as if Diagnosis and/or Physician as needed, but only work for people who share that CF specialisation. Perhaps the patient should be required to make a roll to check on their level of cultural immersion and how much they "appreciate" the particular variety of Esoterica, and it succeeds based on the lower or the medic's and the patient's roll.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

They're not doing the same thing.

There's two possibilities for what esoteric medicine is doing. One is that it's useless. The other is that it's doing the same thing as physician, though possibly with different efficiency. Physician is not 'traditional rational reductionists approaches', physician is 'long-term medical treatment with TL-appropriate methods'. Most esoteric medicine is effectively Physician/TL4 (aka useless), hypothetical more useful methods would be something like Physician/TL4+4.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There's two possibilities for what esoteric medicine is doing. One is that it's useless. The other is that it's doing the same thing as physician, though possibly with different efficiency. Physician is not 'traditional rational reductionists approaches', physician is 'long-term medical treatment with TL-appropriate methods'. Most esoteric medicine is effectively Physician/TL4 (aka useless), hypothetical more useful methods would be something like Physician/TL4+4.

Physician/TL8 doesn't seem to include some aspects long-term recovery from injury, such as physical therapy, or specialised techniques for making the most of sport training and avoiding minor injuries.

Most modern professionals in such fields learn a Professional Skill, but I don't see any harm in allowing a Hard skill like Esoteric Medicine to include effective massage techniques, among other things.