Re: old theme - What exactly is default?
 

Specific TDMs for various Driving tasks are found on B345, as Driving is used as the example skill for the TDM concept. According to these examples, there is a +10 TDM to one's Driving roll to start a car, while the TDM for commuting in a small town is listed as +4 or +5.

The TDM doesn't break down into anything; it represents the difficulty of the task itself, and is explicitly specified as applying equally to all challengers, in addition to whatever other modifiers may apply.

Re: old theme - What exactly is default?
 

I think Driving at default, with a mild unfamiliarity penalty (of the sort that goes away after a few hours) makes sense for someone like me, who has no license and only tried driving once, for about an hour on a parking lot at the age of 12 (supervised, of course).

Re: old theme - What exactly is default?
 

By RAW, it takes 50 hours to eliminate an unfamiliarity penalty.

Re: old theme - What exactly is default?
 

I demand a personal discount, then, since I've actually tried driving (while supervised and instructed), once, more than half a life ago. I figure my unfamiliarity penalty should go away after 1/10 that time, which is 5 hours. But for someone who has never driven a car and needs to figure out everything on an ad hoc basis, 50 hours might be realistic.

Also, are the RAW unfamiliarity rules the same for all activities? ISTR something about weapon unfamiliarity penalties going away after only a few hours, and that was what I was thinking about, when I wrote my previous post.

Re: old theme - What exactly is default?
 

C - Anyone with some sort of familiarity with cars, although that would be 'most people living at TL8 in the real world', I think.

For the overall discussion of the driving skill specifically, the way I see it:

Most people will have no more than about 2 points in driving, and having any points at all is going to need to have been driving for about 5 years. (If you want to do the working on the job calculations, that 2 hours of commuting every weekday 50 weeks a year... Is probably not where you're going to be spending your maximum of 8 (counting for 2) hours for learning on the job a day, so that means it's pretty much the driving you do when you're not working that will be counting towards it. A maximum of ~50 hours worth a year for an average person, maybe? Plus ~20 from the learning to drive based on how many one hour driving lessons it seems to take people to pass their test)

Most people who have been driving for less than 5 or so years will always be driving at default, and for most stuff they're doing would have the +4 for routine tasks after they become routine. (In addition to the +4 TDM... So that's +8 in modifiers)

People who haven't had driving lessons... Well, we're working from default, don't have the +4 for routine, and have a variety of penalties on top of that. The best we could hope on that commute is overall modifiers of +0 (-4 for the penalties that will always apply, as far as I can see takes out the TDM)

Re: old theme - What exactly is default?
 

...Where does it say that? Because on 169 of Basic it says 8.

Re: old theme - What exactly is default?
 

What people would, according to you, get a point in Driving?

Re: old theme - What exactly is default?
 

IDHMBWM, so maybe I just completely misremembered it. I'll look when I can.

Re: old theme - What exactly is default?
 

People who only drive on occasion, or who at most drive something like 30 minutes to work and home everyday and/or pick up the kids from school, take them to activities, go shopping, etc, often have no Driving skill, going off of TDM familiarities and defaults.


People who regularly drive more than just a routine will have some Driving skills, mostly in the 8-12 range.

People who drive professionally, taxi cab drivers, police officers, delivery drivers, chauffeurs, etc., will usually have professional Driving skills of 12-15.

Dangerous profession drivers like race car drivers, stunt car drivers, test car drivers, etc., tend to have Driving skills of 16+.

Re: old theme - What exactly is default?
 

That leaves no category left for the non-driver character who attempts to default driving in an emergency.