Expert Skills

[nerdvana]

I've tried searching the forums and cannot find any threads about Expert Skills. Do any exist? If not, would anyone care sharing their favoirte custom Expert Skills?

[Black Rose]

I'm fond of using it for -ologies similar to Egyptology; that is, covering a fairly specific region and its culture, history, and any tangible contributions it may (or have been perceived to) have made.

Also, I have a variant Expert: Thaumatology that is more of an "armchair sage" version: "Ah yes, Apportation. You know, it was Phillipe Poirvassie de Ste. Gerarde who first demonstrated a version which could affect multiple items at once. Of course, it was thrice as draining and had a nasty habit of hurling the subject items at whatever the caster was looking at.... But it was a foundation to build on!" Basically, it's what I would see someone like Hermione Granger having a high skill in; rather than actual Thaumatology, which would be somewhat more scary.

[Sense of Duty (Kittens)]

Symbology: Couns as Sociology, Heraldry, art, history, psychology or literature for the explanation of symbols.

[nerdvana]

Originally Posted by Sense of Duty (Kittens)

Symbology: Couns as Sociology, Heraldry, art, history, psychology or literature for the explanation of symbols.

I like that one. I think I'm going to make it require further specialization for my game (semi-Space Opera, Science Fiction)

Originally Posted by Black Rose

I'm fond of using it for -ologies similar to Egyptology; that is, covering a fairly specific region and its culture, history, and any tangible contributions it may (or have been perceived to) have made.

Expert Skill seems tailor made for that, especially with Egyptology given as an example.

Originally Posted by Black Rose

Also, I have a variant Expert: Thaumatology that is more of an "armchair sage" version: "Ah yes, Apportation. You know, it was Phillipe Poirvassie de Ste. Gerarde who first demonstrated a version which could affect multiple items at once. Of course, it was thrice as draining and had a nasty habit of hurling the subject items at whatever the caster was looking at.... But it was a foundation to build on!" Basically, it's what I would see someone like Hermione Granger having a high skill in; rather than actual Thaumatology, which would be somewhat more scary.

That seems to be a great addition to the suite of magic skills IMO. In my game ES: Psionics covers that though, but thanks for the contribution to the thread.

[Mgellis]

While we're on the subject, is this a reasonable use of the Expert skill...

Expert (France). Substitutes for specialties of Area Knowledge, Current Affairs, Geography, History, etc. relevant to France (which would include other countries when they were trading with or at war with France, French colonies, great French scientists and inventions, etc.) Appropriate penalties apply for questions about specific regions (e.g., Geography of a particular village fifty miles south of Paris, History of Avignon, etc.)

This seems like a good way to handle the kind of multidisciplinary knowledge that some people have on certain topics, and certainly avoids the problem of which of dozens of possible specialty skills one might get, and it seems like a good match for things like Egyptology. Does it seem fair?

Mark

[jacobmuller]

Expert Skill: Martial Arts; Medievil Warfare; Roman Empire; Socialism; Psycho Analysis; Soccer.
Expert Skill, as in, "know all about it" but doesn't actually do "it". Maybe that's a prereq for sports commentating (excluding those who've actually played).

[nanoboy]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

Expert Skill: Martial Arts; Medievil Warfare; Roman Empire; Socialism; Psycho Analysis; Soccer.
Expert Skill, as in, "know all about it" but doesn't actually do "it". Maybe that's a prereq for sports commentating (excluding those who've actually played).

In Martial Arts, Expert Skill (Hoplology) covers the study of how people fight. Socialism might be considered a Philosophy skill, though I've never liked the way GURPS handles Philosophy. (The actual academic study of philosophy involves learning about reason, logic, ethics, etc. GURPS treats it as a specialization in something like Marxism or Epicureanism.) Psychoanalysis is probably just a treatment of Psychology. Understanding the rules of games like soccer and other sports are Hobby Skills, technically, so they're easy instead of hard.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Mgellis

While we're on the subject, is this a reasonable use of the Expert skill...

Expert (France). Substitutes for specialties of Area Knowledge, Current Affairs, Geography, History, etc. relevant to France (which would include other countries when they were trading with or at war with France, French colonies, great French scientists and inventions, etc.) Appropriate penalties apply for questions about specific regions (e.g., Geography of a particular village fifty miles south of Paris, History of Avignon, etc.)

This seems like a good way to handle the kind of multidisciplinary knowledge that some people have on certain topics, and certainly avoids the problem of which of dozens of possible specialty skills one might get, and it seems like a good match for things like Egyptology. Does it seem fair?

Sure, I've used something similar. One of my players took Expert Skill (Celtic Knowledge). Covered pretty much what you were just talking about, but for Ireland.

A different player thought that was unfair, at first. He pointed out that History (Ireland) was IQ/H, so why should the Expert Skill cover that and more for the same cost? That worried me at first, until I realized that a very important part of buying the History skill is all of the default history you pick up with it -- if you buy History (Colonial America), you might never get a chance to roll against that, but you might use the generous default to History (Colonial France) or History (Tribal America). The Expert Skill person doesn't get those -- he's very knowledgeable, but only in his one limited area.

[Maz]

I might have powered Expert skill up a bit. So in our games it's the "knowledge X" skill, where X can be any specific group, race, items or subject. I don't really define them as "can cover this or that skill" but just allow it in any situation where it makes sense, often with modifiers depending on how broad the skill compared to the specific situations.


Some we use are:

Expert (company). For a cyberpunk setting. This lets the user know about a companies working operations, their products, the whos who and so on.


Expert (Elves). For our DF campaign, there is also expert (dwarves, haflings, orcs and so on). Can be used to cover everything from history of the race to basic biology, such as distinguishing between subraces (wild elves and high elves), normal racial traits (orcs are sensitive to light) to a bit of cultural knowledge and politics.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by nanoboy

In Martial Arts, Expert Skill (Hoplology) covers the study of how people fight. Socialism might be considered a Philosophy skill, though I've never liked the way GURPS handles Philosophy. (The actual academic study of philosophy involves learning about reason, logic, ethics, etc. GURPS treats it as a specialization in something like Marxism or Epicureanism.) Psychoanalysis is probably just a treatment of Psychology. Understanding the rules of games like soccer and other sports are Hobby Skills, technically, so they're easy instead of hard.

Hoplology - TQ.
What I was thinking with Expert Skill (Soccer or whatever) is not just the rules. I was a football referee - I know nothing compared to a fan of football. I barely understand soccer rules and know only enough background to know why it is Soccer while "Gridiron" is football, eg Rugby football school rules still use a tactic that causes horrific injury, paralysis, even death, which tactic, I am led to believe, was banned from American football by presidential decree before WWI. That's the kind of thing I mean by ES-Sport, that and team backgrounds, annual events, history, league standings... You sports fans just don't realise how much you put into it all. To me "Fan", as in Fanatic, equates to ES(idolised subject).

Psychoanalysis and psychology are like Surgery and biology but you're right - ES(Pa) feels wrong. It's a medical profession - perhaps Psychology and the skills of a doctor make a psychoanalyst but ES(Pa) is a knowledge of the history and methods as opposed to the ability to practice.