03-06-2018, 01:04 PM | #31 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
The big problem with effective esoteric medicine is that you have to define why it's not just Physician. In GURPS, that's usually because it can treat supernatural ailments, which is why I like specializations by power source.
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03-06-2018, 02:22 PM | #32 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
It's like the old joke: What do you call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.
If it works and is even somewhat predictable, then it can be studied like any "mundane" skill. The only way to separate them other than by specializations is if their use require advantages or traits that not everyone has like magery.
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03-06-2018, 03:50 PM | #33 |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
That's an odd phrasing of a question. Same reason why massage is not Surgery, so to speak: both have some uses, and one is certainly more 'flashy' in its usefulness than the other, but one does not substitute for another.
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03-06-2018, 04:02 PM | #34 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
No, it really isn't. Two skills that do the same thing are the same skill, and most claimed benefits of esoteric medicine are firmly in scope for conventional medicine (though conventional medicine may not claim to have effective treatments); if it actually works, it's just Physician (or a related skill) via an alternate tech path.
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03-06-2018, 04:43 PM | #35 |
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
Massage is a comfort skill. A better comparison would be rehabilitation physical therapists which are medically trained professionals.
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03-06-2018, 05:00 PM | #36 |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
Massage therapy seems to fit under Esoteric Medicine and would have some minor benefits in treating certain types of injury or muscle pains.
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03-06-2018, 05:18 PM | #37 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
Quote:
But in a lot of ways I think the issue is that we've got a special label - Physican - for Esoteric Medicine (Modern Western), or at least confuse the two a lot.
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03-06-2018, 05:22 PM | #38 | ||
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
Quote:
Quote:
For certain skills there's an argument for 'technical language' advantages, specializations, or perks, where two people are actually doing the same thing but have different ways of describing what they're doing. Last edited by Anthony; 03-06-2018 at 05:29 PM. |
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03-06-2018, 05:53 PM | #39 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
So if your campaign is set in 19th century China...?
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03-06-2018, 05:54 PM | #40 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
Quote:
I think I can remember vaguely reading stuff about the Appalachians that is a mixture of scientifically unquestionable methods with stuff that was chanting jingles or whatever. Herb lore is sometimes like that. Some herbs are genuinely helpful, some are at best a placebo and the way they are administered often adds nothing special to their effectiveness. A good way to separate it, is if a wise woman picks a piece of Goodlywort in the forest and boils a soup out of it, it is esoteric medicine. If it is distilled in some chemistry shop until the stuff that causes the effect desired it is conventional medicine.
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basic, esoteric medicine, skill of the week |
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