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Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills

First of all: this isn't the first time this book has been proposed in this forum. Same story with one for disadvantages.

Anyways, while this always sounds like a good idea, there are many, many issues here.

There has already been a supplement on wildcard skills.
Techniques would also best be served as a separate supplement in the Power-Ups line.
You know that Kromm has to be the one who writes this, right? The level of system mastery the book needs limits it to just one person, who has other tasks as well.
Those other tasks are more likely to bring in money. What's the exact market for this? This book idea doesn't really expand the system much, as GURPS Powers did. It's more of what we already use for tasks we already have in-game.
The various tasks could have their own supplements. Vehicle skills should be in a putative GURPS Vehicles, along with the catalog of vehicles. Animal and plant skills should be in a putative GURPS Bestiary, along with the catalog of animals. (This is a big reason I gainsay making these two supplements a series of PDFs. There can be supplemental series of PDFs for them, but there needs to be a main supplement for each one.)
GURPS isn't a skill-based system any more than it's an advantage-based system. It's a task-based system. Want that jumping example? It's best off in a book focused on characters that need to jump often, like GURPS Skullduggery.

Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills

Quote:

Originally Posted by kmunoz (Post 2051708)

There is already a formulation, in Basic, for how to determine difficulty, on pp. 345-346. That's for the GM to decide. I suppose you could draw up lists, but that would be drier than Arrakis and has more in common with Rolemaster than with GURPS, I think.

You're not wrong, neither in a factual sense, nor do I have a problem with your opinion. I'm not even trying to change your mind; mostly I'm debating to present my point of view to anyone else who might be unsure.

What I'm thinking is, when I look at an Advantage and I want to know more, I pull up Powers. In 50 pages (starting on p. 39) it doesn't say everything about every Advantage, but it says a lot about a lot of them. It tells me who takes them, what they can be used to represent, what could logically power them, and presents new modifiers when reasonable (as well as a generic modifiers section after that!). I use the Existing Advantages, Modifiers, and Evaluating Power Modifiers extensively, constantly, I've spent hours with those sections of the book, and they're all in the first 112 pages. We don't need GURPS Skills to introduce new skills, and Powers has a lot of material (all of Power Games and Empowered Genres, probably) that wouldn't need an equivalent. But giving skills the treatment that Advantages get between p. 39 and p. 90 would be a damn handy supplement in my eyes.

As for jumping, what's hard about jumping into a pit? Is arresting my momentum as I land to I don't bang into the wall (so a sufficiently large pit would be easier)? Is harder to land after a vertical jump that loses elevation than it would be jumping straight down? Is the problem that I'm assumed not to have line of sight to the bottom until I get right up close to the edge (so having Penetrating Vision would help)? Perhaps I'm hopelessly optimistic, but I suspect there's a level of guideline between the b. 345 / "pits are hard" level and the Arrakis approach.

Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills

Quote:

Originally Posted by kmunoz (Post 2051693)

(and not only the ones that are "storytelling" based, the mere thought of which makes my skin crawl)

That's quite a strong reaction. Care to elaborate?

Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills

Quote:

Originally Posted by whswhs (Post 2051684)

The thing is, Martial Arts already IS a book about skills.

Disagree, I think Martial Arts is more about techniques but has a lot of equipment, adventure seeds, and other things related to the skill.

The main thing I'd like to see is something on consolidating the skill list - for example, I fold Shadowing into Stealth (you just change which attribute you're basing the skill on depending on which use you're using, as an intuitive blending into crowds is more Shadowing while Stealth is more about footing control as you're going, but there's a huge amount of overlap). I also combine Area Knowledge and Geography, Jump and Acrobatics, Performance and Mimicry, Navigation with Cartography, Body Language and Detect Lies, Autohypnosis with Meditation and Mind Strength and Mind Block, Judo and Karate for games where fisticuffs aren't a focus, like an alien conspiracy investigation game. Many of those I think should be a single consolidated skill period instead of just in games where that (those) skill(s) aren't a primary focus. I also tend to fold Savoir Faire into whatever faction knowledge is appropriate, as somebody with Soldier would have to know expectations of lower ranks and etiquette when dealing with higher ranks.

I know there are some wildcard skills, but having investigated Dungeon Fantasy I think that oversimplifies a huge number of skills into what amounts to a single "class skill" when something more like the skill groups of Alternity were called for. Mechanic!, Medicine! and Science! are fine, especially for cinematic games, and you could probably simplify many melee fighting skills to Martial Arts! and peripheral social influence skills in an action game to Acting! However, "everything ever done by a forest ranger!" seems a bit much for me.

Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills

A complete book of skills would IMHO be a waste.
Characters handles most skills pretty well.
Some skills could use more fleshing out and this has been done with skills in books like Martial Arts, Technical Grappling, Social Engineering, Mysteries, Wild Card Skills, Underground Adventures, Wilderness Adventures and others.
I think any fleshing out or expansion would best be done in that vein.
I could see a Power Ups for Gadgeteering that included engineering and scientific skills as well as how various advantages and perks fit.
A book on skills and advantages by theme has the advantage of being focused which makes it smaller, easier to read and reference and buyers are paying for what they want rather than a bunch of other stuff they may not.

Combat skills are covered with the Martial Arts, Tactical Shooting and Gun Fu books. Social with Social Engineering and others in that series. Mysteries helps with investigation and criminal/legal skills.

I can see a Sciences book and more examples of modifiers and task difficulties to some skills but they could be addressed by theme.

Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills

Quote:

Originally Posted by McAllister (Post 2051636)

GURPS has a lot of skills. Different amounts of text are dedicated to each, which is fair: the Exorcism skill is the best place to describe an exorcism, probably, and Crossbow is pretty self-explanatory. But some of them would justify their own supplements: Boardrooms and Curia isn't precisely GURPS Politics, but it's close. What strikes me as more feasible than a supplement for every skill, though, is a book dedicated entirely to skills. For each skill, I'd love to see some combination of the following:

At-length description of the skill
Explanation of why other skills allow defaults to this one
Distinctions between the skill and related ones (what's the difference between Economics and Finance? Body Language and Detect Lies? Electronics Operation: Media and Photography?)
Common and uncommon uses for the skill
Common and uncommon modifiers that may apply to the skill
Techniques that are specific to the skill

EDIT: Now with contributions from other brains!

Applications of superhuman skill levels, if any
Familiarity and optional specialization examples
"If I wanted to cut down the skill list, what skill could do this skill's job?"
Skills through the ages; does use change much over TL?
What tools are required to avoid a penalty? Do any provide a bonus? Does this change over TL?
What genre(s) is this skill appropriate or inappropriate for?

SAME EDIT: That's a long list! I'm sure there are some skills that deserve to have every one of those points lavished with attention over the course of a full page or more, but I'm envisioning a book where, if there's nothing interesting to say for a given point, it's omitted. I don't think anyone needs to be told whether Sewing is appropriate for an Action game. If you take it, you know full well it's so you can say "before we turn in for the night, I'll stitch all the bullet holes in Burt's jacket shut so he doesn't draw attention at the office tomorrow."

There should also, like Talents and Wildcard Skills, be a second section that discusses skills in a general sense. Talk about solo complementary skills. Talk about helping other peoples' skill use. Talk about techniques that might be applicable to a variety of skills. Talk about learning skills in play, and give some realistic/cinematic levers to adjust that. Maybe there can be a list of Cinematic Defaults, defaults that wouldn't be allowed in a gritty campaign but might be reasonable for a campaign where breadth in competence is appropriate even without wildcard skills. Maybe there's a discussion of when and how it's appropriate to cap skills: when it's best to cap them at Attribute+5, when it's best to cap them at 20, when it's best to soft-cap them, when it's best not to cap them at all.

Would there be a market for a supplement like that among forumgoers? What length would be thinking about? I'm thinking it wouldn't be ~250 pages like Powers or Martial Arts. Could 150 get the job done? What do you think?

It sounds to me like you want a bound printout of the Skill of the Week threads.

I'm thinking it wouldn't be ~250 pages, either - that's far too small for everything you want to include.

Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills

Quote:

Originally Posted by McAllister (Post 2051636)

Talk about learning skills in play, and give some realistic/cinematic levers to adjust that.

Seems to me there's already a book that talks about that, in considerable detail. In fact I wrote it. . . .

Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills

Quote:

Originally Posted by whswhs (Post 2051879)

Seems to me there's already a book that talks about that, in considerable detail. In fact I wrote it. . . .

That's relevant to my interests! But, looking at your works on Goodreads, it's not obvious which one you're referring to. Is that list complete?

Also relevant to my interests: the Skill of the Week posts! I'm not sure I'd want to print out the whole threads, and I'm not sure "what templates has this appeared on" is the most useful information, but they're absolutely trying to do the thing I'm interested in, and I think they're heroic.

Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills

Quote:

Originally Posted by McAllister (Post 2051889)

That's relevant to my interests! But, looking at your works on Goodreads, it's not obvious which one you're referring to. Is that list complete?

I don't know; I almost never look at Goodreads. But the book in question is GURPS Social Engineering: Back to School. Take a look at the free sample to see the ToC, the index, and a couple of sample pages.

Re: Book Idea: GURPS Skills

Quote:

Originally Posted by McAllister (Post 2051889)

Also relevant to my interests: the Skill of the Week posts! I'm not sure I'd want to print out the whole threads, and I'm not sure "what templates has this appeared on" is the most useful information, but they're absolutely trying to do the thing I'm interested in, and I think they're heroic.

Thanks. I thought about concepts similar to your idea early on in doing those threads, and concluded that discussion of all the skills would make a book far too large for the Power-Ups series, and not focussed enough for a general expansion.