[Basic] Skill of the week: Tracking

[johndallman]

Tracking is the Per/Average skill of following tracks on the ground, left by people, animals, or vehicles. It should not be confused with the advantage "Enhanced Tracking," which is about aiming ranged weapons. The defaults are Per-5 or Naturalist-5, and no skills default to Tracking. The skill appeared at GURPS 1e.

To use tracking, roll against skill to pick up the trail, and then re-roll periodically to stay on it. The frequency of those rolls depend on the terrain, using the Survival types; terrain also gives skill penalties:

Urban: Every minute, -6.
Swamp: Every five minutes, -4.
Arctic, Desert, Island/Beach or Mountain: Every 15 minutes, -2.
Jungle, Plains or Woodlands: Every 30 minutes, no penalty.

Obviously, these times and penalties can require GM adjustment; a muddy Dark Ages village street is rather different from the self-cleaning pavement of an ultra-tech city. There's a thread that discusses these issues here.

There are plenty of modifiers: Acute Vision, Discriminatory Smell, Infravision, and Subsonic Hearing can boost it, and Colourblindness penalises it. Being tracked or wheeled makes you easier to track, but the Light Walk skill can make you untrackable by sight. There's +3 for following people, rather than animals, or +6 for a group of people; -5 for tracks that are more than a day old, or -10 for more than a week.

This skill is also used to conceal your tracks, through some combination of covering or blurring them, and using routes that avoid leaving a trail. Concealing tracks halves your travel speed, and prevents unskilled trackers following you. If someone with the skill attempts to follow your trail, his periodic rolls become quick contests of skill with you, and if he loses, he loses your trail.

Tracking is a common skill on templates for scouts and other outdoors types, plus detectives, and is worth having in the party for almost any setting. Caravan to Ein Arris has several examples for the skill, including going back along your own tracks when lost. Action points out that Tracking can tell you how many people were present at an event, for reasonably small numbers, and After the End expands considerably on the hunting rules. Bio-Tech has engineered insects with this skill, and DF10 has a magic broom that will follow you, sweeping away your tracks, if you can stand the laughter. DF14 allows psis with Psychometry to boost their Tracking, and DF16 has lots on this skill, including pursuits, terrain effects and using it to draw pursuers into danger. Several DF monsters have Tracking, notably puddings. High-Tech has equipment to help and hinder this skill, as does Horror. Infinite Worlds has a mystery that will be answered when Infinity teach their patrolmen Tracking, and Locations: St George's Cathedral has modifiers for terrain covered in pigeon droppings. LTC1 and LTC2 have tracking dogs and expanded hunting rules.

Magic and Plant Spells have spells to disguise tracks and that help with Tracking, while Monster Hunters has bio-enhancements that can aid this skill, and some opponents who will track the PCs, given a sniff of a chance. The Power-Ups books have talents, wildcard skills and a quirk for this skill, and Powers gives characters with Psychometry +4 to Tracking if they know exactly who they're following; Enhanced Senses has several more abilities that give bonuses. Social Engineering uses Tracking as a complementary skill for the right kind of lie, by laying a false trail. Ultra-Tech could use equipment for doing that, but does have plenty of devices that boost the skill.

One question I have about Tracking is "how much of urban tracking consists of asking people if they're seen your target?" That could also be done with an appropriate social skill, and it's not quite clear where the boundary lies.

The uses I've made of this in GURPS have mostly been investigative, since most of the games I've played have had urban and/or modern settings. What have you done with it?

[ericthered]

Tracking always feels weird, because its one of those skills a PC rolls again and again until they fail. I like to use inverse time modifiers to use a single roll to find out how far they get.

I was running a TL10 detective game and the pivotal clue was delivered by a PC who was at the right place at the right time and had tracking (a feline race PC with an enhanced nose, it wasn't hard to be good at it). The snow was coming down hard, but the PC was close enough on the heals of the bad guys. Knowing where the guy went sent all the criminal cover tumbling down.

Never thought it'd happen in a TL10 game.

[(E)]

This skill has seen lots of use in my games.
I use it as a "foundation" skill for elves who want to have the light walk ability. Using the logic that a master tracker who walks with no trace steps very lightly indeed.

It gets some use as a pseudo/low tech/complementary forensic skill as well.

The results of criticals on a tracking roll are good for providing additional information about the subject being tracked. Even almost useless information can add flavour and reward the player.

It is theoretically possible to tell the gender of the horses based on the sign left behind.

[Flyndaran]

That +3 when tracking people is odd. I don't have my book with me, but does it describe exactly what counts as a person? Anyone with IQ 6 and above?
It is weird that sapience makes you inherently clumsy.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That +3 when tracking people is odd. I don't have my book with me, but does it describe exactly what counts as a person? Anyone with IQ 6 and above?
It is weird that sapience makes you inherently clumsy.

I would define it as 'anyone the skill user recognises as people' and rationalise it as a bonus for being much more alert to and familiar with signs typical of fellow apex predators, i.e. other humans.

[Flyndaran]

That sounds even vaguer than the word "people" suggests.

[(E)]

I treated the break point for the bonus to be if the person being tracked wore shoes and clothes. i.e things that made them less cautious about touching their environment.

[VariousRen]

Perhaps it could be generalized to "The tracker has a +3 when they can specify the species they are attempting to track."

Or, perhaps it's a nod to the fact that humans carry artificial goods that are much more likely to leave signs behind. Torn bits of clothing, dropped packaging from food, camp fire remains, lamp soot, ect. are all something an animal doesn't leave behind. Animals well known for leaving obvious trails could receive a similar bonus. Bears, for example, tend to sharpen their claws on trees and may leave a distinctive trail that is easier to follow than a default roll.

[vicky_molokh]

One thing that always seemed non-obvious about Tracking to me is how fast are the trackers are assumed to be moving while Tracking.

Originally Posted by johndallman

One question I have about Tracking is "how much of urban tracking consists of asking people if they're seen your target?" That could also be done with an appropriate social skill, and it's not quite clear where the boundary lies.

I don't think there's any indication anywhere that Tracking should substitute for a Request for Information use of Influence skills.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

One thing that always seemed non-obvious about Tracking to me is how fast are the trackers are assumed to be moving while Tracking.

I have run things so successful tracking rolls are assumed to be done while moving (on foot) with no lose of speed. When the rolls fail then the tracker slows down as they have to cover more ground looking for the trail.