[Disasters: Hurricane] Skill of the Week: Search and Rescue

[Alden Loveshade]

[QUOTE=evileeyore;2301277]What part of Fiber Crafts (Underwater) is a joke to you sir!

One of my friends and a regular player in my GURPS convention games has a master's degree in fiber arts (I think that's what it's called), but she said she's never done it underwater. (She got asked that a lot.)

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by tbone

...For now, I'm imagining Search and Rescue as the overarching skill that assesses the disaster, defines the mission, determines what skills and what resources are needed for the mission, and ties it all together into a plan. The Strategy and/or Tactics of searching and rescuing, as it were. How to use that top-level skill in conjunction with the actual on-the-ground skills (Observation, Tracking, Swimming, etc.) remains vague, just as the uses of (battlefield) Strategy and Tactics in actual play are far less clear than, say, the use of the Guns and Broadsword skills that perform the job. But I think there's room to view Search and Rescue in this way....

That's largely how I see it. Frankly, it can help keep a game moving. "OK, which one of these 20 skills should I have you roll on? Give me half an hour.... Oh, wait, Search and Rescue covers them all. Roll."

[Refplace]

I bet the most of the debate could have been countered by just calling it Professional skill. But then some might complain it had too much utility and stepped on other skills, so who knows.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

Basically my thoughts as well.

Also, S&R being a Hard skill when Professional skills are Average feels off to me.

Makes perfect sense to me. Search and Rescue is doing precisely what Professional Skill is restricted from doing — acting as a compilation of other skills (albeit with a built-in mandatory specialization) — so putting its difficulty one step above Professional Skill fits.

In fact: not only do I not have a problem with this; I'd like to see it generalized and formalized. Professional Skills that are Average would continue to work as written; but these new rules for Professional Skills that are Hard would operate like a poor man's Wildcard Skill: bundle several suitable skills in a manner similar to how you pick the skills for a Wildcard; but you don't get to pick as many (say, four or five), you must make all of them conditional (PU7: Wildcards, p.8) in a way that fits the theme of the new skill, and there are no Additional Benefits: unlike true Wildcard Skills, these skills would not carry an implied cinematic nature. Oh, and no Very Hard skills without bumping the difficulty up to Very Hard.

Frankly, I wonder how many of the existing skills could be reclassified as this new kind of “Professional Skill”.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Makes perfect sense to me. Search and Rescue is doing precisely what Professional Skill is restricted from doing — acting as a compilation of other skills (albeit with a built-in mandatory specialization) — so putting its difficulty one step above Professional Skill fits.

Unless S&R gives full competency in the skills it borrows aspects from, it doesn't differ much in gameplay functionality from other skills which default from each other. And given that the suggested skills (Observation, Tracking and First Aid) are Average and Easy, having Professional (Search and Rescue) be anything but Average makes no sense to me. A S&R crew doing operations in a situation that requires full use of specialized skills like Climbing or Swimming should have those skills as actual skills, not just as part of a Wild Card skill.

There's actually nothing RAW that prohibits a specific Professional Skill from being an amalgamation of facets of multiple skills, as long as it also offers something none of those skills offer. It might not have been the intention, but it's not against the skill description for a Professional Skill to use aspects of other skills. But if it's only facets of other skills, then IMO it should not be a single unified skill but anyone with that profession should have those skills as actual skills (unless incompetent).

[Phil Masters]

I'd have called it a Professional Skill, and allowed it if only to operate standard S&R gear and operational protocols (just as Soldier and Crewman cover protocols and operation of standard gear in their specific contexts). But yes, I think a Hard skill with broad applicability is a bit bloat-y.

Looking at the Wings of the Rising Sun templates -- I don't think that they need this because they have long skill lists that together cover just about everything that this can cover. (Mind you, there might have been a case for also giving them PS: Firefighter as an option.) The fact that few characters will have every skill that is required to render this one superfluous is justifiable at least at the gamist level; it preserves niche protection and character variation. If everyone is a trained rescue operator, but Fred knows Architecture and Jane can fly the team aircraft and Kim knows Hazmat protocols, the PC group is a lot more interesting than if everyone has exactly the same single broad skill.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

That's largely how I see it. Frankly, it can help keep a game moving. "OK, which one of these 20 skills should I have you roll on? Give me half an hour.... Oh, wait, Search and Rescue covers them all. Roll."

If you mean using Search and Rescue as a blanket replacement for Observation, Tracking, Navigation, whatever comes up . . . that's not quite how I see it. That is, my interest is in what is does that isn't addressed by existing skills. That's what I'd want to use it for.

[Arcanjo7Sagi]

Originally Posted by tbone

If you mean using Search and Rescue as a blanket replacement for Observation, Tracking, Navigation, whatever comes up . . . that's not quite how I see it. That is, my interest is in what is does that isn't addressed by existing skills. That's what I'd want to use it for.

But I think that raises a question: Is everyone with these "twenty-something" skills enabled or trained to rescue people, etc.? If not, what distinguishes someone trained in rescues and someone without training? I mean, a PC can have Observation, Search, Tracking, etc. and yet not know how to rescue people properly.

I'm with Alden on this one: maybe a single skill that encompasses everything you need for this profession is a simple and quick solution. Skills with similar concepts already exist, such as Professional Skill, Soldier, etc.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Search Observation and First Aid.



[EDIT]
Sorry, I keep forgetting I threw Observation away and merged its uses with Search in my DF games.
[/EDIT]

Observation is not actually a strong choice. Not only is there the part where Observation lets you look for stuff without obviously doing so it also turns up items that are "concealed or tacticaly significant". People who need rescuing are not concealed. They may just be hard to spot and Tactics is an even worse fit that Observation.

Search is even less relevant. That's for finding conceled objects at very close ranges, usually touch.

So you're looking for Gurps' Skill for trained visual Perception at medium and longer ranges and I can't think of another applicable one. It might be there's nothing but Per and Acute Vision.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Arcanjo7Sagi

But I think that raises a question: Is everyone with these "twenty-something" skills enabled or trained to rescue people, etc.? If not, what distinguishes someone trained in rescues and someone without training? I mean, a PC can have Observation, Search, Tracking, etc. and yet not know how to rescue people properly.

That's what I'm saying. You can have Observation, Navigation, Tracking, Survival, etc., and you'll probably be a good asset as a volunteer on a rescue team, and certainly better qualified than an office worker to carry out a mission on your own . . . but are you specifically trained in search and rescue? No. Are there factors in a mission – possibly critical ones – that you're not ready for? I would think so!

That's what Search and Rescue would cover (if I were designing it): whatever relevant knowledge and experience aren't covered by existing skills. As long as some reasonably specific examples of these exist, then I'm on board with the skill as valid.

As far as I know, we're on the same page there. But there's the question of whether a skill like Search and Rescue should replace existing relevant skills. To each his own, but my thought is "well, sure, replacement sounds fine when the GM wants something quick and easy to roll against". In the same way the game suggests making daily outdoor survival rolls against Survival skill - really, Naturalist and Fishing and Weather Sense and all sorts of skills should be coming into play, but as a quickie test of survival (the wide-ranging task), a roll against Survival (the game skill) is nice and easy.

But for any detailed usage, like a search and rescue campaign, I'd want individual skills to matter. Otherwise, how would you build a rescue team? Every member takes Search and Rescue skill. Done. Not much fun.

For a game that dives into the topic, I'd like to see that team composed of the expert tracker (Tracking), the master survivalist (Survival, Naturalist, etc.), the crack doctor (a bunch of med skills), and so on. All with at least a little Search and Rescue added, sure, but also one PC with very high Search and Rescue skill. That character would take the lead in key tasks not covered by the other skills.