An idea from another game
 

I've played a Swedish game called Matiné a lot. I don't like the basic premise, but when tweaked it works pretty damn well... most of the time. However, one of the more central assumptions is that you only pay points for ways you actually solve problems. A character might be a great singer, but he need not put points in a Sing skill. He can still sing really well, but he cannot solve a problem by, for instance, performing. There is also a corresponding contract with the GM - if you pay points in the Sing skill, then there will be times when it will prove useful. Maybe you could find an artifact that would let you amplify your voice, and attack with that. Maybe your singing skills will allow you to gain access to the ducal palace. You might even get clues to realize that the answer to an age-old riddle is hidden in a well-known children's song.

Would this be transportable to GURPS? You can still know things, without needing to buy them as skills, and if you do buy them as skills, the GM has to create situations where they come up.

Re: An idea from another game
 

GURPS does not give stuff for free, usually. Now, maybe you can allow a Perk that will grant huge bonuses to a skill under absolutely useless circumstances. Think the Hyperspecialisation perk and whatever perk means 'the world recognises you as a great X' from the Pyramids.

Re: An idea from another game
 

The problem is that any skill on a character's sheet is potentially useful, even if only once in a campaign.

Re: An idea from another game
 

Oh, of course, but is that just how GURPS is played, or an integral part of the system? Would it be a different system if your character would actually have the skills Housekeeping, Connoisseur: Flatulists and Dreaming without paying points for them? I know I don't mind if my players' characters are assumed to have the background skills they want, as long as having those skills don't come into play.

Re: An idea from another game
 

Hence the social contract between a GM and a player. If one of my characters wanted to play a Casanova he could, but he wouldn't be able to seduce the information out of an important NPC. She (or he) might react to him with desire, but never act on it, and the player would not be allowed to argue about it, because he didn't pay points for it.

Re: An idea from another game
 

Just a thought ... why would a player want a skill they can't actually use to influence events in the game world?

Re: An idea from another game
 

Pure flavor, I'd assume.

Imagine this situation: The characters are sitting around a tavern in a fantasy game. One of them decides to stand up on the table and sing a song, for no mechanical benefit (no one is going to get a reaction bonus, no one is getting paid, etc.). Oh wait, he doesn't have the Singing skill, but the player wants the character to be good at singing. You could say, "you should have paid poitns for that, then," but if it would be an utter waste of points and take away from useful abilities, why would the player want to do that? You could then say, "then don't be good at useless stuff if you don't want to spend points," but that could make characters boring.

I like this idea. Obviously, a skill like Singing could come up and be useful, but the idea of the contract with the GM takes away any problem with that. If you don't pay points, you don't get benefits for it, but you can still claim your character is good at something to preserve realism.

Re: An idea from another game
 

Because it may not be an "utter waste of points." The wording above comments that you don't consider social abilities terribly useful.

Sure, if all you're doing is dungeon crawls, and a character wants to sing in a one-off bar scene, then it's probably cool. But, why should your unskilled, untrained fighter be able to perform with the same ability as the bard--who is trained and skilled at singing?

This idea fits pure-cinematic games much better than a game going for any semblance for realism. It's easy to believe that John McClaine is an acomplished ballroom dancer or that John Matrix is an exquisite painter when all we're doing is seeing the characters in a single, specific light. Because, well, let's be honest, those characters are pretty one-dimensional.

The idea would work fine in a campaign like Action, Dungeon Fantasy or possibly even Monster Hunters where the focus is on the action happening and not on the lives surrounding the characters. But, in any game built, with even a little focus, around social interaction the idea jumps out the window, taking a massive chunk of plot with it.

So, for some games, it could be used for one-off, interesting scenes, but for a game that focuses on the characters, it's pretty useless.

Re: An idea from another game
 

You either have Singing skill to be good or don't have it and you aren't good in circumstances where this might matter. But when circumstances doesn't so do you.

You don't need skills for routine tasks. You don't need more than one point in background skills (or even one point for several skills with Dabbler) because they would become primary otherwise.

Re: An idea from another game
 

But even in such a game, would it be useful? I mean, how often do you have to make a roll to be good at your profession, and would a character who had a profession that required one major skill, like Driving, really be that much more limited than one who needed several (a mechanic, for instance, comes to mind).