Optional Specialties other than IQ-based

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Nedorus

I have a question about Optional Specialties.

The Basic Set rules explicitly restrict optional specialties to IQ-based skills.


I was wondering whether as a GM I should "handwave" this in my campaign and what impact it would / could have.

The particular case where this came up is the Per-based Urban Survival skill.

The character in question ‘grew up’ as a transient hitching rides (often as a blind passenger) between space stations and space ports. She has panhandling and related skills to ‘get by’ in such places, often having run-ins with "the law" etc.
For me a specialty of Urban Survival (Starport) would make perfect sense.

I'd like to ask the question a bit broader though. In which cases would you allow / house-rule the skill specialties rule? Where would you allow / disallow Optional Specialties and why?

Any thoughts?

What breaks is the reasoning. Optional Specialties (p. B169) is a subsection of Specialties (p. B196) not a seperate independent section. As such, you need to read them in conjunction to get the intent and thereby "what breaks?"

IQ-based skills of Average or greater difficulty have optional specialties. IQ-based skills of Easy difficulty and skills that are not IQ-based, do not. The key difference between the two categories is not that you have a specialization of the skill but whether such a specialization is optional.

By definition, a skill with a particular specialization is a different skill. For example, Guns (Pistol) is not the same sikill as Guns (Rifle). We could write them as Pistol skill and Rifle skill and in almost any system other than GURPS, we would. However, GURPS allows defaults between skills and in a case like the specializations of Guns, the defaults become generous. So we write Guns (Pistol) and Guns (Rifle) as a mnemonic for those generous defaults applying. This is a key point in solving your problem, a skill (specialization) is a different skill by definition, not only from skill (other specialization) but from skill (no specialization) as well.

What makes Optional Specialties different is the existence of an overarching unspecialized skill that partially cover the skill (specialization). For example, you may specialize in Turkish literature by taking Literature (Turkish) but you do not have to, there is a skill Literature that will mostly do the same job. You are not required to specialize, that is why it is optional. In contrast, there is no overarching Guns skill, for example. If you want to use a pistol, you must take Guns (Pistol), there is no Guns skill that you can take that will cover you for any or all of the firearms covered by the various Guns (specialization) skills, you are required to specialize, it is not optional.

That is what breaks by handwaving it. There is nothing wrong with having for example Urban Survival (Starports) as a skill specialization in your game. The issue is that by the rules, it shouldn't be an optional specialization that someone could use Urban Survival (unspecialized) to "get by" with. Urban Survival (Starport) is a completely different skill from Urban Survival (unspecialized). Plunk a character with either skill down in the opposite environment and both are as equally helpless as if they didn't have their own skill. Specializations in non-IQ-based skills are meant to be required specializations because like Guns, Gunner, or Fast-Draw, there is not supposed to be an overarching skill that you can substitute for it.

Put another way, if you have Urban Survival (Starport) available in your game, and you reasonably think it is a thing that will come up for your character and you would like a reasonable chance at dealing with it:

"Buy Urban Survival (Starport), ladies and gentlemen, accept no substitutes, this and only this skill, the eighth miracle of our age, will allow you to effortlessly deal with the unique problems inherent to physical survival whether you are dealing with High Starport or Starport Down.

"Don't crowd, don't crowd, we have enough available to supply everyone, even at the absurdly low price we're offering today. I tell you what I'm going to do my friends. Today, yes today, just because we love your smiling faces, we are going to let you have this wondrous skill, not at the price of a Hard skill, no. Despite the effort we put into developing this skill just for you, we are going to let this valuable skill be acquired for the low, low price of just an Average skill. We're practically putting our families on Starvation Corner to bring this to you, but it's an absolutely vital skill and we wouldn't be able to sleep nights if we thought the price had put you off buying our fine product.

"Now, who'll be first to take advantage of this wonderful, amazing, beneficent, dare I even say, adequately mediocre skill? Step right up, don't be fooled by those hucksters who'll tell you 'Oh, Urban Survival is good enough. Save a few points.' I tell you, those rascals should be ashamed to show their faces in public. Don't be let charlatans with imitations fool you, good people. You need Urban Survival (Starports) and when you need Urban Survival (Starports), nothing, I say absolutely and positively nothing else will do. I thank you for your kind attention."