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

[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.