Skills and skill levels for building an army, intelligence service, bureaucracy

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Having a couple of Contacts within the craftsmans' "mafia" could be very useful, in particular, I think. Even if that "mafia" is largely loyal to the PC party, it's not perfect, and one of the Contact may be able to warn the PCs about internal grumblings long before real problems arise.

The Hegemony of Artisans isn't actually all that mafia-like. A better analogy would be a miner's council, district soviet or the Paris Commune, with the caveat that their writ extends only over the artisan's quarter of the city. They are allied with the Wizards who control the city center, governor's palace and most official buildings. What primarily distinguishes them from a mafia is that they lack any secrecy and their citizen's militia is usually fighting to enforce recognisable (if unofficial) law and order.

Lord Dama's Non-Slaves, however, which started as a movement against slavery and social injustice, now exerts mafia-like control over most of the docks. They are allied with the thugs of the White faction of charioteers and fans and count many former gladiators and charioteers among their leadership. It's that organisation which will supply street fighters that the PCs aim to turn into soldiers.

The Reds, Greens and Blues have their own territories, with the Greens having by far the most power due to their recent allegiance with the foreign mercenaries/mafioso/religious thugs of the Zhentarim, who are importing valuable food and using the Greens to extort protection money from independent importers.

The Blues traditionally support the clergy of Tiamat, the Nemesis of the Gods, which used to be a dangerous accusation against them, but now accords them a fair bit of underworld respect. They lack any territory on the docks, though, and instead have to try to make money through extortion of poor refugees in the camps. They also clash with Hegemony militias, over issues of craftsmen refusing to pay protection money.

The Reds are the least political and least business-like of the bunch, but have a lot of traditional supporters. They currently seethe and even occasionally riot over the fact that a year has gone by without even a single chariot race. Now that shipping is restored, they think that the city 'government', such as it is, ought to buy some good horses and donate to the teams, as a reward for the loyalty and persistence of the people. The shibutuu (council) has other priorities for their limited resources, seeing as they are still at war with an overwhelming invader.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Of course, one could make a Technique for Psychology (Applied) to perform such character evaluations or "vettings". It could start at Psychology (Applied)-3 and be improvably to no more than Psychology (Applied)+2. Since it's not dangerous to try, it is my understanding that it should be an Average Technique.

Sounds good. Is there any specific reason why this starts at a penalty?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Icelander

For example, the skill of choosing good subordinates on short acquintanceship is obviously vital to anyone looking to do this. Would that use Administration? Leadership? Psychology (Applied)? Intelligence Analysis? Politics?

Sagatafl often has similar Skills and mechanics to GURPS.

There, I'd use Psychology: Practical as the main roll, quite possibly with a Complenetary Skill roll for some other skill. They have a more powerful effect than in GURPS, if successful, so I'd only allow one skill used, with a penalty (a modified RD) if the skill isn't very appropriate, if it's a bit far-fetched for the actual current usage. In some cases, with some characters, Theology: Socialism might make a good CSR, for instance.

The one exception is if the character being evaluated is psychologically unusual, including but not limited to psychological disorders.

In such cases, the evaluator shouldn't be able to get good results with merely layman's rule-of-thumb psychology, but ought to have a formal and comprehensive "theory of the mind", as represented by Psychology: Theoretical (which shouldn't exist in most past societies, or at best in a very primitive and gimped form, represented in GURPS by slapping a TLx onto it, e.g the TL3 societies didn't know beep about the Human mind).

Psychology: Practical can still be used, but ought to be massively penalized.

One way of being psychologically unusual is to be starkly more intelligent than the norm, which presumably many of the PCs and NPCs in your campaign are. You'd think that exceptionally intelligent individuals always have an easy time understanding each other's reactions, but that's not always so, e.g. due to very different life experiences, especially in the formative years. That's why Psychology: Theoretical, or whatever GURPS' analogous mandatory specialization is called, can be of use.

Some serious psychological disads may also be dangerously easy to overlook if you use Psychology: Practical instead of Psychology: Theoretical. That's another pitfall. The Practical version is safer to use if you can be abslutely sure that everybody is at least reasonably sane, and many people with serious psychological disorders spend a lot of time trying to "pass" as healthy. It's a common misunderstanding that everybody with a mental disease is parading it cheerfully in front of everybody, "look at me, there's something wrong with me!"

That can be due to the desire to fit in and be accepted, or simply needing to find a job, to find gainful employ in the social structure to avoid starvation or at least avoid missing out on basic niceties.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

There, I'd use Psychology: Practical as the main roll, quite possibly with a Complenetary Skill roll for some other skill. They have a more powerful effect than in GURPS, if successful, so I'd only allow one skill used, with a penalty (a modified RD) if the skill isn't very appropriate, if it's a bit far-fetched for the actual current usage. In some cases, with some characters, Theology: Socialism might make a good CSR, for instance.

This is for evaluating psychological suitability and trustworthiness, not for professional competence?

I think I'd prefer to roll seperately for those two, as they'd have a tendency of being very different. For one thing, considerably more than half of potential recruits will have an inconvenient loyalty to one faction or another. Many of them may even have differing public and private loyalties, in the intrigue-filled atmosphere of a fallen empire which spent three centuries in decadence and noble rivalry before being torn apart by religious- and class-based civil warfare.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

One way of being psychologically unusual is to be starkly more intelligent than the norm, which presumably many of the PCs and NPCs in your campaign are.

Well, the majority of people in the campaign world are fairly normal, with the distribution of exceptional people staying mostly close to realism. It's only that the upper bounds of exceptionalism are sharply increased, so that people with drive and ambition can rise much faster and further in this world than in ours.

All in all, I'd guess that maybe half of the people who in our world would be talented experts are instead varying degrees of extraordinarily talented and the more talent they have, the greater their chances of divine blessings or other supernatural gifts of varying sources.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

That can be due to the desire to fit in and be accepted, or simply needing to find a job, to find gainful employ in the social structure to avoid starvation or at least avoid missing out on basic niceties.

There has been massive famine and umemployment, but the famine started being alleviated four months ago* and for the past month, hoarded treasure has been spent on a huge economic boom, as the various factions are competing for influence by distributing food, the soldiers are being re-equipped and the PC-advised local government** has started huge public work projects to improve sanitation for the refugees and increase the acricultural yield of the newly settled land.

The people are, in many cases, brutalised, famished, sick and emotionally devastated. They are also, however, mostly those of the population who refused to accept life under the invaders and who have managed to survive the past decades. And they are emerging out of a siege situation into a gold-rush style economic boom, as their foreign trade almost instantly jumped back to where it was three centuries ago, which is four times what it was a generation ago and twenty times what it was during the last two years.

There is now enough food in the markets, but that doesn't mean that everyone can afford it. So getting a job is very important. Getting good jobs, with high pay and benefits, is even more important. For people with special skills that are primarily useful to large organisations with particular requirements, it's crucial to convince potential employers that you are both competent and trustworthy. In the case of the experienced spies and assassins who served the fallen nobles of the former regime, this is extremely difficult, but extremely lucrative if you succeed.

The PCs are currently throwing money around at a rate no other faction is matching, partiallly because PCs are always in a hurry, partially because they've determined that as long as they can maintain naval superiority, they'll make up all they spend by winning the war and partially because they have several dragons' hoards and one treasury of a defeated court to burn.

*Through the heroic actions of the PCs and their fleet, actually, which doesn't harm their popularity.
**Which has only been a proper government for around two months and still has large internal divisions in addition to external threats, but is managing so far.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Icelander

This is for evaluating psychological suitability and trustworthiness, not for professional competence?

Normally, yes, but I think it can also be used to ask the person, openly or subtly, about professional competence, to get an impression of whether he knows what he's talking about. Although simulatively, that may rely on the interviewing character being hard to fool, being hard to impress with big words, with any kind of aptitude for logic being particularly helpful (in GURPS IQ+Mathematical Talent, although that's not a perfect fit). And a sceptical attitude, although presumably any such seriously conducted interview will involve a sceptical attitude.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Normally, yes, but I think it can also be used to ask the person, openly or subtly, about professional competence, to get an impression of whether he knows what he's talking about. Although simulatively, that may rely on the interviewing character being hard to fool, being hard to impress with big words, with any kind of aptitude for logic being particularly helpful (in GURPS IQ+Mathematical Talent, although that's not a perfect fit). And a sceptical attitude, although presumably any such seriously conducted interview will involve a sceptical attitude.

As amatter of fact, Kehlynn Darkwater, the herald*, almost never reveals skepticism and if he is forced to turn anyone away, does so with an appearance of sincere regret. Part of it is public relations, part of it is his nature.

Even Kyros Nikandros, the military chief of staff, has been encouraged to carry out all recruiting interviews with sensitivity and respect for the locals, their cultural sensibilities and their self-respect. Of course, as a lifelong mercenary with long and negative experience of the convoluted intrigues of local factional politics, this means that he has been prevailed upon to minimise growling, cursing and accusations of treachery.

Meanwhile, the chief of counterintelligence and allied wizards use their magic (and experience) to determine if a recruit is a potential security risk from (magical) hiding.

In general, seeming competent and valuable when he comes to the attention of Kehlynn through his Current Affairs skill and the recommendations of local allies are what get people such interviews. Impressing** the guard commanders or the shift bosses of the public works projects is another way.

Increasingly, though, the PCs are seeking local employees of sufficient competence and trustworthiness so that rank-and-file people can be hired without having to involve the top-level people at all. While secure, that's also a tremendous bottleneck for recruiting. They've got one popular, brilliant and sensible political and religious leader already who is hiring for their public works, but need many more.

*And spymaster, though the latter is not shouted about.
**Or bribing. No system is perfect.