Crafting Masterwork, Fine and Balanced Weapons

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Basically, you're looking to turn it into a long task or extended skill check. Not a bad idea, but note that splitting a task up into multiple rolls tends to push results towards the average - it's going to make it a lot harder to make a good sword with the bog iron, and a lot harder to make a bad sword with crucible steel.
My impression is that you can make a good sword out of bad iron, it's in fact what Japanese sword smithing specializes in. It's just a rather fiddly business.

One of my longstanding issues with RPGs in general has been very often they take tasks that should be much more involved and boil them down to a single die roll. This is sometimes appropriate, but oftentimes not.

Imagine if GURPS combat consisted of a single roll against your Combat (specialization) skill, crit fail and you die.

I occasionally tinker with different ways of changing this, but I've yet to make anything that really feels right.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

The problem might be that it's being boiled down to a single roll, and thus the crafting design being distorted by players naturally stacking everything possible into that one roll.

What if we split up the crafting roll?

Originally Posted by Bruno

Basically, you're looking to turn it into a long task or extended skill check. Not a bad idea, but note that splitting a task up into multiple rolls tends to push results towards the average - it's going to make it a lot harder to make a good sword with the bog iron, and a lot harder to make a bad sword with crucible steel.

Originally Posted by Tyneras

One of my longstanding issues with RPGs in general has been very often they take tasks that should be much more involved and boil them down to a single die roll. This is sometimes appropriate, but oftentimes not.

Imagine if GURPS combat consisted of a single roll against your Combat (specialization) skill, crit fail and you die.

If crafting a masterwork sword is not a Long Task (p. B345), then what is?

I don't mind the master who oversees the work having to make a final skill check with modifiers in the end, to ensure that the end product turns out as he planned, but I find it extremely odd that the crafting rules did not build on the rules GURPS has in place for extended processes where more than one person can contribute man-hours to the completion of the task at hand.

And I find it outrageous that skill levels and margins of success are essentially irrelevant at the skill levels that realistic humans are likely to have.

Originally Posted by Bruno

My impression is that you can make a good sword out of bad iron, it's in fact what Japanese sword smithing specializes in. It's just a rather fiddly business.

It's fairly reasonable that it should take a lot of training and talent to be able to make legendary swords, especially if you are trying to make them from inferior materials. What bothers me is that Fine (Balanced and Materials) weapons that GURPS prices at less than Good-quality swords also require skill levels somewhere between legendary and mythic.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Icelander

If crafting a masterwork sword is not a Long Task (p. B345), then what is?

Lockpickng.

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by Icelander

If crafting a masterwork sword is not a Long Task (p. B345), then what is?

Oh, it's a long task, definitely.

Like you, I'm often annoyed that the skill level of 12-13 for primary job skills (from How To Be A GURPS GM)is insufficient for what people can and do actually accomplish.

As you point out, smithing a good blade seems to be an area where, for some reason, "best of a generation" (skill 18-19) seems to be the norm. This leads me down the path of tinkering and/or discarding the current RAW rules on the matter.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

There was a very long, very neat article about this - I'll see if I can find it.

Found it.

Still reading it, very interesting (have it bookmarked, now). Personally, my first thought if I had time would be to look for a professional jeweler or silversmith, rather than, say, someone who is taking a jewelry class in night school. That, or the shotgun idea from part four, which I considered for a game, once.

If I wanted a solid silver staff, again, I'd go for a silversmith - if I even had the money for that.

Re: the website, is there a thread for Horror/Monster Hunter online resources like that? Not just programs, but online articles? Good place to post it, if there is.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Lockpickng.

Well, I certainly handle lockpicking as a multi-roll "Task" in Sagatafl. That way, a more skilled locksmith can pick the same lock faster than a less skilled one.

The thought, behind my choice of inventing and using the Task mechanic, was that som activities take a variable amount of time, tending to be done more quickly by those with higher skill or better equipment (imagine trying to pick a lock with improvised equipment). Spellcasting is another example (note the similarity to GURPS' "Ritual Path Magic" system).

Or repair jobs.
"How long will it take you to fix the broken carburator in my car?"
"Four hours. Probably."

Some other activities shouldn't be variable duration. Cooking is one such example, a very clear one.

Likewise, I don't think that crafting, in general (making something, as opposed to repairing something), should be activities lacking a pre-knowable time frame. I do think it should be variable time, but not in a random sense. Rather in a determined-by-the-craftsman -sense, where the smith decides in advance how thorough a job he'll do, depending on whether he's making a sword for a random mercenary that he'll never see again, or making a sword for a King.

One could, if desired, put a chance for minor time variation, on top of that. So that, e.g., there's a 10% chance it'll take 10% longer and a 10% chance it'll take 10% less time. But I don't actually think that's going to come out victorious, in any cost-benefit analysis. Lots of trouble for no actual gain. I mean, with lockpicking you often do it under time-critical adventuring circumstances. Or casting a spell (RPM or Sagatafl). But situations in which it matters exactly how long it takes you to cook a meal... Those are rare. And existing Fumble mechanics already attempt to simulate the possibility of a total screw-up that means you'll have to start over so that you effectively need twice as long (and twice the raw materials) to cook the meal you want to cook, in that you're forced to start over.

Diagnostic activities, whether pertaining to medicine, or to figuring out what's wrong with a complex device in order to become able to repair it, might be variable unkwown duration (with the post-diagnostic repair process itself then not being variable duration).

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

That, or the shotgun idea from part four, which I considered for a game, once.

There's videos on youtube of people firing shotgun shells full of dimes. Modern dimes, so steel, but it's still educational for the potential werewolf hunter, and the alloy used in silver dimes is usually much closer to steel than either pure lead or the lead alloys used in lead shot and/or bullets.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Basically, you're looking to turn it into a long task or extended skill check. Not a bad idea, but note that splitting a task up into multiple rolls tends to push results towards the average - it's going to make it a lot harder to make a good sword with the bog iron, and a lot harder to make a bad sword with crucible steel.
My impression is that you can make a good sword out of bad iron, it's in fact what Japanese sword smithing specializes in. It's just a rather fiddly business.

Most Japanese swords weren't all that good compared to European examples. The whole reason why they had to focus so much on proper technique is because of how easy it is to damage their blades. This is largely because of the poor quality iron they had to work with.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

Oh, it's a long task, definitely.

Like you, I'm often annoyed that the skill level of 12-13 for primary job skills (from How To Be A GURPS GM)is insufficient for what people can and do actually accomplish.

As you point out, smithing a good blade seems to be an area where, for some reason, "best of a generation" (skill 18-19) seems to be the norm. This leads me down the path of tinkering and/or discarding the current RAW rules on the matter.

Remember that basic skill level is for adventuring. If you have skill 12, you have skill 12 while dodging bullets. If you are peacefully at your mundane work, you can and should add various modifier, starting with the +4 from 'not under stress'. So yes, skill 12-13 is enough to get by in a mundane job. This does not solve the economic problem pointed by Icelander, of course.
Celjabba

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Remember that basic skill level is for adventuring. If you have skill 12, you have skill 12 while dodging bullets. If you are peacefully at your mundane work, you can and should add various modifier, starting with the +4 from 'not under stress'. So yes, skill 12-13 is enough to get by in a mundane job. This does not solve the economic problem pointed by Icelander, of course.
Celjabba

That doesn't apply to skills whose 'default' use condition isn't 'in an adventuring situation' - it specifically does not include crafting or inventing skills.