Survival Skill Question

[GodBeastX]

Probably unrealistically? :) The chances two planets followed same evolution are probably astronomical if they produced life at all.

I think -4 is generous between planets, unless you are following that logic that planets have similar features to be classified easily.

[Kromm]

The issue seems to be with cinematic/space-operatic settings, not with the rules as written. Allowing any default at all between the specialties for different worlds is probably generous. The situation was changed between editions because some fairly informed playtesters – including a couple of space scientists – asked for the change. They wanted specialties with no default, so the rules are already "soft realism" at best.

In low-realism campaigns inspired by the likes of Star Trek ("Oh, look, more carbon-based humanoids with languages similar to ours, living on an Earth-like world!"), it would be an excellent campaign assumption to reduce worlds to mere familiarities. It would result in a better campaign. And no, the GURPS Police won't hunt you down for doing that! ;)

[Sin'Aria]

Thanks for the help all.

Our campaign is a multi-genre mix starting from Transhuman Space/Ghost in the Shell meets Telzey & Trigger/Starfleet/Stargate Command mixed with Starcraft/Star Risk, Ltd - thrown into our version of Infinite Worlds with elements taken from BESM's World Web, Marvel and DC Comics, and D&D's Myriad Planes Cosmology.

Or as our GM put it....

"Its sorta like Star Trek:Voyager but with DS9's Defiant, crewed by the science fiction equivalent of Ed Greenwood's Knights of Myth Drannor [a.k.a. IOU Undergrads], set loose on the Multiverse."

And that's just starting out.

So I'm pretty sure that I can definitely say it's a Low Realism campaign. :p

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

Probably unrealistically? :) The chances two planets followed same evolution are probably astronomical if they produced life at all.

But don't at least half of all alien planets have at least vegetation that looks remarkably like the post-Columbian North American west? TV wouldn't lie to me.

In all honesty, we don't really know how similar the biospheres of alien planets are, or even if there *are* any alien biospheres in the first place. With no reality checks, whatever you do for defaults is basically a guess. Current guesses lean more toward they are so different your Earthly knowledge is useless being more likely than they are all exactly like Earth, but there's no actual evidence either way. If the theoretical xenobiologists whine too much, tell them OK *their* characters can buy the forms of the skills that have no cross-biosphere defaults.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by malloyd

In all honesty, we don't really know how similar the biospheres of alien planets are, or even if there *are* any alien biospheres in the first place. With no reality checks, whatever you do for defaults is basically a guess.

We can put a lower limit by just looking at the degree of variation in biospheres for Earth over the past billion years. However, the other problem is that some functions of survival will be fairly universal (the basics of handling heat, cold, weather, hunting and trapping, and avoiding things that want to eat you are all likely to have pretty generous defaults), some of them are totally local with no meaningful defaults (any specific biota to seek out or avoid), and some may be completely nonexistent (there is no guarantee that anything in an alien biosphere will be practically edible).

[Gedrin]

So, the spectrum is:

Because I Say So: Swamp is Swamp because "The Elders"

Loose: Perk: Planetary Familiarity

Mid: Default at -4 to appropriate Survival from other planet, Technique: Planetary Familiarity(Planet) allows buying off that penalty

Strict: Default at -4, new skill for each Survival

WTF: "I don't know, Captain. Does periodic evaporating lead count as weather?"