Optional Specialties other than IQ-based
 

I have a question about Optional Specialties.

The Basic Set rules explicitly restrict optional specialties to IQ-based skills.
I was wondering whether as a GM I should "handwave" this in my campaign and what impact it would / could have.

The particular case where this came up is the Per-based Urban Survival skill.

The character in question ‘grew up’ as a transient hitching rides (often as a blind passenger) between space stations and space ports. She has panhandling and related skills to ‘get by’ in such places, often having run-ins with "the law" etc.
For me a specialty of Urban Survival (Starport) would make perfect sense.

I'd like to ask the question a bit broader though. In which cases would you allow / house-rule the skill specialties rule? Where would you allow / disallow Optional Specialties and why?

Any thoughts?

Re: Optional Specialties other than IQ-based
 

I wouldn't. IQ skills are primarily about knowing stuff, and they have specialities to represent people with an extremely narrow focus on a subset of of a field. For skills that are about doing stuff, they have techniques instead. So for Urban Survival the techniques would be about the things your character is particularly good at spotting like:

Hiding places
Places likely have to have discarded but still pretty edible food
Surveillance system gaps

Or in this case the technique might be "Station movement". The ability to spot safe routes across and off space stations.

Re: Optional Specialties other than IQ-based
 

I'd definitely allow it here as different types of cities/city-sized-facilities while operate differently, have different hazards, different customs, different warning signs, different forgotten spaces, etc.

Urban Survival already feels a little... "stretched" to me that it applies to all cities. Of course one could always apply Culture and Familiarity penalties... but I also run Action and too many fiddly "gritty" details can jam up an action game so I usually tell the knee jerk verisimilitude portion of my brain to shut up and just let it ride.

Re: Optional Specialties other than IQ-based
 

Ah, I hadn't thought of culture in this context... So instead of knowing your way around Spaceports you know Minbari cities and spaceports well but not Terran not so much...

"Look here, you can always find scraps of food in places like this. The Minbari don't throw their leftovers into trash cans but into these bird feeders"...


(^_^) hahaha I like that

Re: Optional Specialties other than IQ-based
 

I had thought of techniques as "a way to offset modifiers" linked to certain tasks. Re-reading the sections B229 ff. this is clearly a misconception on my part...

So developing some techniques for Urban Survival (like the ones you suggested) would be a way to get more detail into the survival aspect of life in a city. I think I'll introduce that for my Shadowrun campaign where survival in the city seems an important enough aspect to warrant such detail ... For the space campaign I'm not sure... I think I like the culture / familiarity idea better ...

On a completely different note: We DO have Mandatory Specialties for DX based skills... (e.g. Guns). I wonder why the Optional Specialties have been limited the way they are...

Re: Optional Specialties other than IQ-based
 

I honestly never noticed (or perhaps did notice, but promptly forgot) that Optional Specialties are only for IQ-based skills. Personally, I'd be inclined to ignore that restriction - if you've got a fairly-broad DX-based (or Per-based, HT-based, etc) skill, I see no issues with having a more-narrow version available at lower difficulty. Only know how to use a spear one-handed (say, in a shield wall)? Take Spear (1H, DX/E). Can you protect yourself from incoming projectiles, but only with a Broadsword-class weapon in hand? Take Parry Missile Weapons (Broadsword, DX/A). Are you good at spotting things that are amiss, but not so much at using non-visual cues (like hearing twigs snap)? Take Observation (Vision, Per/E). Are you good at sprinting but awful at long-distance marathon runs? Take Running (Sprinting, HT/E).

But you'll need to be careful. I could see justifications for not allowing the above variants of Observation and Running, for example, if it's expected that such Optional Specializations will be the primary ways the skills are used. So, in a campaign where characters generally don't need to worry about someone sneaking up on them but do need to check things out from a distance, Observation (Vision) probably doesn't lose any functionality next to wildtype Observation. Similarly, in a campaign where characters may sometimes need to sprint short distances (to get away from pursuing monsters, escape a collapsing temple, catch a fleeing foe, etc) but won't need to jog for longer distances (for persistence hunting, to deliver a critical message to another city, to compete in a long-distance footrace, etc), Running (Sprinting) probably doesn't lose any functionality next to wildtype Running. But for most campaigns, getting a +1 to a subset of uses for a skill in exchange for a (net) -1 to all other uses works out alright (although I honestly thought the penalty was worse than that, like a net -3 or so).

As for Techniques, those are much more highly-specialized than an Optional Specialization. And I see no reason why an IQ-based skill wouldn't be able to take such.

Re: Optional Specialties other than IQ-based
 

I assume it was done this way to prevent players from taking Guns (Single Action Revolvers) or something to get a +1 for nothing, and to cut down on a lot of chaff in the academic knowledge skills list, shortening Botany, Zoology, Microbiology down to Biology (+Optional Specialization). This is the same logic as the Hyperspecialization perk being only allowed for academic knowledge skills.

Re: Optional Specialties other than IQ-based
 

I would allow Urban Survival(Starports) and judge others on a case- by -case basis.

Re: Optional Specialties other than IQ-based
 

I'd only allow Optional Defaults for skills based on traits other than IQ if there's a clear field of specialization that's broader than a Technique.

For example, Urban Survival/TL9+ (Starports) would only be a valid Optional Specialization if starports in your campaign are very different from other urban environments. Something like Urban Survival (Space Station) might be more reasonable. You're really good at scrounging air, avoiding areas with dangerously fluctuating gravity, and otherwise living on the fringes of a big space station, not so good at dumpster diving or finding warm places to sleep if the weather gets cold.

The Hyperspecialization perk might apply in extreme cases.

Re: Optional Specialties other than IQ-based
 

What breaks is the reasoning. Optional Specialties (p. B169) is a subsection of Specialties (p. B196) not a seperate independent section. As such, you need to read them in conjunction to get the intent and thereby "what breaks?"

IQ-based skills of Average or greater difficulty have optional specialties. IQ-based skills of Easy difficulty and skills that are not IQ-based, do not. The key difference between the two categories is not that you have a specialization of the skill but whether such a specialization is optional.

By definition, a skill with a particular specialization is a different skill. For example, Guns (Pistol) is not the same sikill as Guns (Rifle). We could write them as Pistol skill and Rifle skill and in almost any system other than GURPS, we would. However, GURPS allows defaults between skills and in a case like the specializations of Guns, the defaults become generous. So we write Guns (Pistol) and Guns (Rifle) as a mnemonic for those generous defaults applying. This is a key point in solving your problem, a skill (specialization) is a different skill by definition, not only from skill (other specialization) but from skill (no specialization) as well.

What makes Optional Specialties different is the existence of an overarching unspecialized skill that partially cover the skill (specialization). For example, you may specialize in Turkish literature by taking Literature (Turkish) but you do not have to, there is a skill Literature that will mostly do the same job. You are not required to specialize, that is why it is optional. In contrast, there is no overarching Guns skill, for example. If you want to use a pistol, you must take Guns (Pistol), there is no Guns skill that you can take that will cover you for any or all of the firearms covered by the various Guns (specialization) skills, you are required to specialize, it is not optional.

That is what breaks by handwaving it. There is nothing wrong with having for example Urban Survival (Starports) as a skill specialization in your game. The issue is that by the rules, it shouldn't be an optional specialization that someone could use Urban Survival (unspecialized) to "get by" with. Urban Survival (Starport) is a completely different skill from Urban Survival (unspecialized). Plunk a character with either skill down in the opposite environment and both are as equally helpless as if they didn't have their own skill. Specializations in non-IQ-based skills are meant to be required specializations because like Guns, Gunner, or Fast-Draw, there is not supposed to be an overarching skill that you can substitute for it.

Put another way, if you have Urban Survival (Starport) available in your game, and you reasonably think it is a thing that will come up for your character and you would like a reasonable chance at dealing with it:

"Buy Urban Survival (Starport), ladies and gentlemen, accept no substitutes, this and only this skill, the eighth miracle of our age, will allow you to effortlessly deal with the unique problems inherent to physical survival whether you are dealing with High Starport or Starport Down.

"Don't crowd, don't crowd, we have enough available to supply everyone, even at the absurdly low price we're offering today. I tell you what I'm going to do my friends. Today, yes today, just because we love your smiling faces, we are going to let you have this wondrous skill, not at the price of a Hard skill, no. Despite the effort we put into developing this skill just for you, we are going to let this valuable skill be acquired for the low, low price of just an Average skill. We're practically putting our families on Starvation Corner to bring this to you, but it's an absolutely vital skill and we wouldn't be able to sleep nights if we thought the price had put you off buying our fine product.

"Now, who'll be first to take advantage of this wonderful, amazing, beneficent, dare I even say, adequately mediocre skill? Step right up, don't be fooled by those hucksters who'll tell you 'Oh, Urban Survival is good enough. Save a few points.' I tell you, those rascals should be ashamed to show their faces in public. Don't be let charlatans with imitations fool you, good people. You need Urban Survival (Starports) and when you need Urban Survival (Starports), nothing, I say absolutely and positively nothing else will do. I thank you for your kind attention."