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

~~Peter Knutsen~~ · 07-23-2013, 05:22 AM

One important question, in terms of "choosing good suborbinates", is what tier of metal it is you're digging for?

Are you merely digging for something rare, like silver, or for something very rare and very precious, such as gold?

If it is the later, then you're going to have to look harder, and realistically, the gifteds you find will often be impure (rather messing up my analogy here...), with the qualities you seek being accompanied by deficiencies, so that you end up forced to make compromises, and having to assign workload0 carefully so as to avoid the specific ability or personality problems causing difficulties.

Your process might dig up Albert and Bob, both suitable for top posts in military engineering, but Bob has two issues:

He has a high natural aptitude (simulated with the most appropriate GURPS advantage, probably some kind of Talent, plus of course a good basis in IQ), even higher than Albert's, but he's barely trained, so you'll need to somehow educate him before you can make full use of him (he probably has 1 CP in the skill already, but you want to add 3 or preferably 7 more, plus 1 CP in at least a couple of secondary support skills).

And, rather more importantly, Albert and Bob can't stand each other, because 350 years ago, Albert's ancestors hesitated before sacrificing to the Goddess Hoola. So you're going to have to assign each of them to different projects, in different physical areas, all the freakin' time, or else the GM will make random weekly rolls to see if one of them shivs the other, and the most obvious solution to Bob's other problem, apprenticing him to Albert, is not going to work.

Albert is a gem. Bob is a piece of carbon that will turn into a gem if you spend the ressources (including management time) on a real hard squeeze.

1. Hire both.
2. Hire Albert, ignore Bob.
3. Hire Bob, ignore Albert.

?

07-23-2013, 05:22 AM	#7
~~Peter Knutsen~~ Banned Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Europe	Re: Skills and skill levels for building an army, intelligence service, bureaucracy One important question, in terms of "choosing good suborbinates", is what tier of metal it is you're digging for? Are you merely digging for something rare, like silver, or for something very rare and very precious, such as gold? If it is the later, then you're going to have to look harder, and realistically, the gifteds you find will often be impure (rather messing up my analogy here...), with the qualities you seek being accompanied by deficiencies, so that you end up forced to make compromises, and having to assign workload0 carefully so as to avoid the specific ability or personality problems causing difficulties. Your process might dig up Albert and Bob, both suitable for top posts in military engineering, but Bob has two issues: He has a high natural aptitude (simulated with the most appropriate GURPS advantage, probably some kind of Talent, plus of course a good basis in IQ), even higher than Albert's, but he's barely trained, so you'll need to somehow educate him before you can make full use of him (he probably has 1 CP in the skill already, but you want to add 3 or preferably 7 more, plus 1 CP in at least a couple of secondary support skills). And, rather more importantly, Albert and Bob can't stand each other, because 350 years ago, Albert's ancestors hesitated before sacrificing to the Goddess Hoola. So you're going to have to assign each of them to different projects, in different physical areas, all the freakin' time, or else the GM will make random weekly rolls to see if one of them shivs the other, and the most obvious solution to Bob's other problem, apprenticing him to Albert, is not going to work. Albert is a gem. Bob is a piece of carbon that will turn into a gem if you spend the ressources (including management time) on a real hard squeeze. 1. Hire both. 2. Hire Albert, ignore Bob. 3. Hire Bob, ignore Albert. ?