Skill Default Issues
 

One of my players is making his first GURPS character. The character concept: A man in his late 30s who's a math/physics teacher at a crappy high school in Florida. He's smart, very overqualified for his job (sort of a math-version of Walter White from Breaking Bad?), and has a bit of a bum shoulder.

I've been trying to help him out, but we've run into a bit of a disagreement when it comes to the rules for skills and their defaults. I thought my interpretation of the rules was correct, but I wanted to check to see who's right since I'm only familiar with the system. If I'm right, I hope he might understand it better if an expert can explain it, because we seem to have reached an impasse. He's upset that he can't get his character quite right, and I don't want him to lose interest in the game from the get-go because of this.

A bit of background on the setting: Zombie apocalypse campaign, 80-point PCs, 40 point disadvantage limit, no exotic/supernatural/cinematic, Pacifist and Sense of Duty don't count toward said disadvantage limit. And since there was concern about not having enough points for proficiency in their previous occupations, I gave five bonus points that could only be used toward their white-collar, pre-apocalypse careers. I thought this number of points was about right for a gritty/dangerous game that wasn't ridiculously lethal, and the players will have plenty of NPCs to help them out (at least in the beginning).

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ISSUE 1: BUYING SKILLS WITH A SUFFICIENTLY HIGH ATTRIBUTE

For all these issues I'll use guns and swimming as examples.

On the skill cost table on page 170, there are dashes at the top of each column (3 in easy, 2 in average, 1 in hard, 0 in very hard). My understanding was that the dashes are essentially just placeholders for empty values. So if you have HT9 and put 1 point in Swimming, you have Swimming-9. If you have 0 points in swimming, you automatically go to the default. Swimming doesn't default to any other skills, so it goes to HT-4, which gives you Swimming-5.

My player's interpretation was that the default listed for each skill is a minimum, and that the dashes exist as sort of a limbo between the default and the value with 1 point. With easy skills, you have a larger range of skill levels that your character can be, and with hard skills you can only be Attribute-3. So his logic is that if he has HT9 but no points in Swimming, because it's an easy skill and there are dashes next to those top three skill levels, his final skill level can be Swimming-5 (the default minimum), Swimming-6 (Attribute-3), Swimming-7 (Attribute-2), or Swimming-8 (Attribute-1). Whichever one he chooses depends on his character's background.

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ISSUE 2: THE GRANULARITY OF DEFAULTS

I think the core of the issue for him is that there's not enough granularity between the default and the skill level with 1 point invested, at least according to my interpretation of the rules. For example, with a DX of 10 you can either have Guns-6 (0 points invested) or Guns-10 (1 point invested). Or HT 9 gives you Swimming-5 or Swimming-9. There's no in between.

Where this becomes a problem is that he wants his character to be around an 8 in both of them, using the description of skill level 8 as a "mostly forgotten college class". His character shot a rifle occasionally as a kid fifteen years ago, so he thinks Guns-6 is too low. But Guns-10 is average competence which is too high.

I use a house rule that Perks and Quirks aren't worth any points, but instead you have 5 slots for each, and they can change slowly as your character develops. I suggested that he take a Perk like "Long-Past Rifle Experience" that would give him a temporary +2 in Rifles as long as they weren't fired in an intense combat situation, to reflect that he shot at cans or whatever and not moving targets. Once he invested a point, he could change the perk and have a flat Rifles-10.

He wants to know if there's an official, book-given way to fall somewhere between the default and the "1-point invested" skill level. His current solution is to put a point in Rifles but lower it to Rifles-8 for the hell of it because it fits his character. I mean, it works and I don't see any reason why he can't do it, but I think he's more cranky on principle because the mechanic for an in-between skill level isn't there.

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ISSUE 3: "ADVENTURING SITUATION" IN SKILL LEVEL EXAMPLES

When the book describes skill level 8 as a "barely remembered college course" and 12 or 13 as "someone who is competent at their job" (paraphrasing), my interpretation has always been that these examples apply to adventuring conditions as used throughout the rest of the chapter. The text supports this with the example of a pilot with Piloting-12 getting a +4 bonus for humdrum, day-to-day flights.

But my player's interpretation is that "If they meant that, then they would have written 'someone who is competent at their job in an adventuring situation." I can vaguely see his point on the other two issues, but this one is sheer stubborn insanity, so I need someone more experienced than me simply to inform him that he is 100% wrong.

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Sorry for the long-winded post. Any help, rulings, suggestions, whatever that you can offer are appreciated!

Re: Skill Default Issues
 

Issue 1: You're right, he's wrong.

Issue 2: See Power-Ups 2: Perks for the Dabbler perk, which lets you be better than default but not really skilled, and really suitable for this character concept.

Issue 3: You're right again.

Re: Skill Default Issues
 

I'll just +1 what mlangsdorf said. You're correct down the line, and check out the Dabbler Perk (which effectively allows buying intermediate skill levels between a full point and default level).

Re: Skill Default Issues
 

Thanks, guys, I didn't even think about looking through PU2. I'll definitely recommend him Dabbler.

Re: Skill Default Issues
 

If it was that he could simply invent a complex enough background to get everything at Attribute-1 to -4.

Re: Skill Default Issues
 

Sounds like me, though I'm in mid 20s and teach at a small private tutoring establishment/private school rather than an actual high school. Also, no bum shoulder. Definitely overqualified to hell for my job, though (though that should be ending soon enough if things go as planned).

Your interpretation is correct. If he wants to have one of those intermediate values, have him purchase the Dabbler perk (it's in PU2: Perks).

Really looks like he wants the Dabbler perk to me. It provides a +3 bonus to two skills over their base attribute-level default value (or +2 to 4 or +1 to 8 skills).

You are correct. Skill 12 is for 'professionally competent'. A professional pilot is likely to have Piloting-12 as his base skill level, but use skill 16 in day-to-day operations.

Re: Skill Default Issues
 

The beief summary of Dabbler is that it lets you split 1 CP into fractions of 1/2 CP, 1/4 CP and 1/8 CP, with the effect on skill level trivially extrapolatable from the existing rules.

Re: Skill Default Issues
 

You are correct on this one, and other people have said that perfectly well, but I wanted to expand on something, which might make it easier for your player to understand. A base skill of 12 or 13 is defined as professionally competent for most occupations. That does not mean that a professional is expected to have an effective skill of 12 or 13 when trying to accomplish something in the game. Instead, you should expect Task Difficulty Modifiers (B345-6) to raise or lower your chance of success quite frequently -- depending on how your GM, maybe most of the time. One of those TDMs is being in a situation where there is no time pressure and no great consequences -- in other words, in non-adventuring situations.

Did you point him at the section on base skill vs. effective skill on B171? It explicitly refers to "adventuring conditions" right there.

Re: Skill Default Issues
 

This is still a bit dodgy, because it depends on what kind of penalties the character can expect to see in their "profession". A typical civilian pilot can do fine with a level of 12 in most conditions, but a bush pilot who has to routinely operate in rough conditions and rough terrain might need a 14, and a military pilot could justify a 16 without too much difficulty.

Re: Skill Default Issues
 

However, an awful lot of pilots have gone into combat with skill in the region of 12. That's why newbie fighter pilots tend to get shot down by more experienced ones.