Bang Skills

[Phil Masters]

Going to just bang skills is probably too much of a blunt instrument, because there’ll always be things that a player wants a character to do that can’t really be covered by any bang skill that otherwise fits the character. Your party’s gunslinger may well have Guns!, but the scientist may just want a couple of points in Guns (Pistol) to allow them to be non-useless support when things get shooty. Conversely, Science! is great for a cinematic scientist, but perhaps your hands-on techie just wants to know a little bit of Physics, yet also knowing Biology and Astronomy would be too much.

(Actually, I rather feel that Science! is defined a bit too widely compared to other bang skills. It’s described as covering a lot. But maybe that’s just me.)

I do like the model of a character with one or two bang skills plus a small bunch of more-specific skills in some games — perhaps many vaguely cinematic games — but I’m not sure how much it reduces complexity.

One other thing I do feel is that mildly detail-obsessed GURPS fans may get a bit too obsessive about which normal skills any given bang skill should encompass. (I’ve been as guilty as anyone of this.) The question shouldn’t be “What nit-picky list of skills does Ranger! encompass?”, it should be “Is [this thing that my character needs to do right now] the kind of thing that a superlative ranger would be superlative at?” But that runs the risk of player manipulation or coercion of the GM to make their bang skill cover anything and everything, I fear.

[Michael Cule]

I'm with Phil on this and I've been slightly more restrictive than he has. In my Victorian STARGATE game, I gave each player character one Bang skill (Archaelogist!, Gun!, Scientist!, Soldier!) to define their central profession and role in the campaign and had them model the rest of their character's competencies with normal GURPS skills. It balanced out very nicely. There was even one character (the psionically gifted Romany con-artist) who didn't go that way, choosing to put her big block of points into Powers and their associated skills.

This is the way that GURPS can emulate the broader traits of games like UNKNOWN ARMIES or QUESTWORLDS.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

One other thing I do feel is that mildly detail-obsessed GURPS fans may get a bit too obsessive about which normal skills any given bang skill should encompass. (I’ve been as guilty as anyone of this.) The question shouldn’t be “What nit-picky list of skills does Ranger! encompass?”, it should be “Is [this thing that my character needs to do right now] the kind of thing that a superlative ranger would be superlative at?” But that runs the risk of player manipulation or coercion of the GM to make their bang skill cover anything and everything, I fear.

When I ran The Foam of Perilous Seas some years ago, one of the player characters was the apotheosized Errol Flynn, as a god of swashbuckling, more or less. So naturally he had Sword! And there was one scene where he was sparring with another PC, a female rakshasa, and the player asked if Flynn could use Sword! to flirt with her, as a substitute for Sex Appeal. And thinking of a scene in The Mask of Zorro, I said, "Sure!"

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by stilleon

How does bang skills balance in y'all's opinion?

In terms of what they give for the points, they need a little extra to balance them against not just standard skills, but also attributes and advantages. I disliking shilling my own stuff, but as others have said, "a little extra" is what GURPS Power-Ups 7: Wildcard Skills provides. Wildcards that encompass many techniques at full skill, waive familiarity and TL effects, bestow plot-changing Wildcard Points, and grant many bonuses for high skill – and that perhaps even get an enhanced critical-success range, and work at a higher level when standing in for less-than-Average, -Hard, or even -Very Hard skills – are very much worth the points. The important thing here is not to replace the complexity of excessively long skill lists with the complexity of excessively numerous optional rules!

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

This can stil be a problem. For example: Gardening! may not look like a good deal compared to Melee! even if does make a character a truly epic gardener.

GURPS Power-Ups 7 helps there, too. It has a lot of rules for easing that problem. In particular, it encourages what it calls "off-label use." For instance, the gardener can use Gardening! with DX to wield any bladed weapon that resembles a gardening implement (axes, knives, sickles, many polearms, etc.), shoot small-caliber rifles (for varmint control), and even use flamethrowers (which are used to clear brush), and with IQ to cook up plant-based poisons or just repurpose insecticides. So Melee! person might be the better fighter (because they get all kinds of combat perks and techniques built in), but Gardening! person could still pull their weight in a fight and be awesome in their niche.

There's also an optional rule (Law of the Instrument, a.k.a. "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.") that lets Wildcard Points from any wildcard convert any situation into one where that wildcard applies. That can help a lot. The A Matter of Degree and Not Quite What You Wanted rules also let any wildcard step up in any situation. The recurring theme is that there's a penalty or cost to operate far from home base, but the answer is never a firm "No."

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Going to just bang skills is probably too much of a blunt instrument, because there’ll always be things that a player wants a character to do that can’t really be covered by any bang skill that otherwise fits the character. Your party’s gunslinger may well have Guns!, but the scientist may just want a couple of points in Guns (Pistol) to allow them to be non-useless support when things get shooty. Conversely, Science! is great for a cinematic scientist, but perhaps your hands-on techie just wants to know a little bit of Physics, yet also knowing Biology and Astronomy would be too much.

The above optional rules help with that. Moreover, there's always the GM's prerogative not just to use general wildcards but also to assign personal ones to specific characters, in keeping with their role or occupation. This can be as simple as using a standardized list but letting each player name a small number of "incidental skills" that their version includes . . . or as radical as letting people have wildcards like Joe! and Jane!.

There are also hybrid solutions like having a small list of standard wildcards plus asking everybody to take their personal one (e.g., Jane!) as well, and then invoking suitable GURPS Power-Ups 7 options. For one thing, the personal wildcard will generate Wildcard Points and bonuses applicable to anything that fits the character concept, irrespective of other specifics. For another, there are rules there that let two wildcards work together, which means the personal wildcard could enhance a situation-specific one.

The extreme case is the Ultimate Template Wildcards rule, which replaces specific skills with role-suitable tasks: "When a character is playing their part in the campaign, every skilled activity involves a roll against the most suitable attribute modified by their relative skill level with their template wildcard."

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Or perhaps, give a large point break for hobby skills. Just make sure that they are just for color, rather than anything truly useful.

There's that. There's letting people include a few hobbies in their version of the wildcard or their personal wildcard, as mentioned above. In between is allowing skills to default to wildcards as in GURPS Power-Ups 7, but declaring that any innocuous hobby or interest always defaults to any wildcard, the logic being that in the course of becoming broadly competent, you of course had downtime in which to pursue personal pastimes.

[Kromm]

One possible approach:

Consider a GURPS Action-style campaign. The GM requires that everybody have three wildcards:

1. A personal wildcard, named for them. This covers their backstory, and their personality, pastimes, and predilections. It mainly serves to stop gaps in incidental, rarely plot-relevant skills and to generate Wildcard Points.
   
2. The ultimate template wildcard for their role. This grants wildcard familiarity and tech level, extra-broad perks and techniques, bonuses, and open-ended criticals with all facets of their trade. It also generates Wildcard Points.
   
3. A wildcard for general action-adventure tasks, named BAT! in homage to GURPS Action 4: Specialists. It stops gaps in plot-relevant skills so that the hero can survive in all action situations, and generates Wildcard Points.

And that's it for skills! There are three characters: Alexis, the "face"; Morgan, the gun nut; and Sam, the techno-nerd.

• Alexis takes their personal wildcard, Alexis!; their template wildcard, Face Man!; and BAT!.
  
• Morgan takes their personal wildcard, Morgan!; their template wildcard, Shooter!; and BAT!.
  
• Sam takes their personal wildcard, Sam!; their template wildcard, Wire Rat!; and BAT!.

The GM lets them roll against their template wildcard whenever their role would be front and center to the situation, which typically means whenever the standard template's core skills would matter.

However, they can always use BAT! for ordinary action-story stuff that suits the campaign even if it's outside their role: driving cars, punching people, shooting handguns, sneaking around, using standard tech (like computers, flashlights, and phones) creatively, and so on.

And they can use their personal wildcard whenever the player can make a good case for the hero having done something similar in their backstory . . . and for hobbies. So if Alexis is a globetrotting wine snob and ballroom dancer who spends their spare time on yachts, they can whip out Boating, Connoisseur (Wine), Dancing, and a boatload of Area Knowledge and Current Affairs specialties, among other things.

But the best part is that BAT! can be used to enhance the template wildcard (so someone with high BAT! is good at shooting but someone with Shooter! and BAT! is better), and that personal wildcards can be used to enhance either with one of the more modest bonuses suggested in GURPS Power-Ups 7 (so it always helps but never as dramatically). Moreover, WP from all three go into a common pool, which can power up any of the wildcards in a suitable situation. Notably, this pool can be used to invoke Law of the Instrument; e.g., Sam could burn 2 WP from their pool to let Sam! work as Wheel Man! to do cool car stuff in a chase, the argument being something like "Well, Sam loves tech and plays a ton of Need for Speed, so duh!"

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Kromm

One possible approach:

Consider a GURPS Action-style campaign. The GM requires that everybody have three wildcards:

1. A personal wildcard, named for them. This covers their backstory, and their personality, pastimes, and predilections. It mainly serves to stop gaps in incidental, rarely plot-relevant skills and to generate Wildcard Points.
   
2. The ultimate template wildcard for their role. This grants wildcard familiarity and tech level, extra-broad perks and techniques, bonuses, and open-ended criticals with all facets of their trade. It also generates Wildcard Points.
   
3. A wildcard for general action-adventure tasks, named BAT! in homage to GURPS Action 4: Specialists. It stops gaps in plot-relevant skills so that the hero can survive in all action situations, and generates Wildcard Points.

And that's it for skills! There are three characters: Alexis, the "face"; Morgan, the gun nut; and Sam, the techno-nerd.

• Alexis takes their personal wildcard, Alexis!; their template wildcard, Face Man!; and BAT!.
  
• Morgan takes their personal wildcard, Morgan!; their template wildcard, Shooter!; and BAT!.
  
• Sam takes their personal wildcard, Sam!; their template wildcard, Wire Rat!; and BAT!.

The GM lets them roll against their template wildcard whenever their role would be front and center to the situation, which typically means whenever the standard template's core skills would matter.

However, they can always use BAT! for ordinary action-story stuff that suits the campaign even if it's outside their role: driving cars, punching people, shooting handguns, sneaking around, using standard tech (like computers, flashlights, and phones) creatively, and so on.

And they can use their personal wildcard whenever the player can make a good case for the hero having done something similar in their backstory . . . and for hobbies. So if Alexis is a globetrotting wine snob and ballroom dancer who spends their spare time on yachts, they can whip out Boating, Connoisseur (Wine), Dancing, and a boatload of Area Knowledge and Current Affairs specialties, among other things.

But the best part is that BAT! can be used to enhance the template wildcard (so someone with high BAT! is good at shooting but someone with Shooter! and BAT! is better), and that personal wildcards can be used to enhance either with one of the more modest bonuses suggested in GURPS Power-Ups 7 (so it always helps but never as dramatically). Moreover, WP from all three go into a common pool, which can power up any of the wildcards in a suitable situation. Notably, this pool can be used to invoke Law of the Instrument; e.g., Sam could burn 2 WP from their pool to let Sam! work as Wheel Man! to do cool car stuff in a chase, the argument being something like "Well, Sam loves tech and plays a ton of Need for Speed, so duh!"

Personal wildcards? That is *very* interesting. Hmmm.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Personal wildcards? That is *very* interesting. Hmmm.

It's also asking for PCs to be given personal biographies that make Harry Flashman or Leonardo da Vinci look like hermits. "Has done a bit of everything, and can therefore roll for anything."

I mean, I've known someone whose personal wildcard would have covered photographic lab work, advanced motorcycling, police skills, and RPGs, but still...

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

It's also asking for PCs to be given personal biographies that make Harry Flashman or Leonardo da Vinci look like hermits. "Has done a bit of everything, and can therefore roll for anything."

I mean, I've known someone whose personal wildcard would have covered photographic lab work, advanced motorcycling, police skills, and RPGs, but still...

Given I view character history as a negotiation on the part of the player and GM I don't see an issue. If you want an omni-competent character take more wildcards for what you want to do. A personal wildcard would let you fill in the blanks on stuff like, "Yeah, as a kid I was obsessed with the Arthurian mythos so I know everything about Camelot" or "I did coin tricks and minor stage magic." It's a great idea.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

It's also asking for PCs to be given personal biographies that make Harry Flashman or Leonardo da Vinci look like hermits. "Has done a bit of everything, and can therefore roll for anything."

Nothing says the GM can't rule that broadly and clearly useful bits of a biography must be no broader than and compatible with the ultimate template wildcard, and restrict personal wildcards to the scope of what can be deduced from quirks. Obviously, it needs negotiation. On the other hand, if a player actually writes an entertaining novella for me, I might be more liberal. Indeed, that's one possible control: "Pertains to what's in a biography that fits onto a standard 500-word page, written in complete sentences with good grammar and paragraph breaks."

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Personal wildcards? That is *very* interesting. Hmmm.

It's really just swiping Ultimate NPC Wildcards and applying it to PCs in a campaign where the GM trusts the players not to be silly about abusing the privilege.

Which said, I often think GURPS fans go overboard dissecting skills. There are far, far more skills in the system than there were in 1986, and that's largely due to writers who were also fans going a little crazy. Often, the better approach is to take the view, "If you're a hero in this story, then you belong here and your shtick is useful to advancing the plot." I rather think that RISUS is clever this way.