Dungeon Fantasy Wildcard Skills for Non-Adventures Professions

[JulianLW]

I just came up with this, because I couldn't find a good Farming! wildcard skill anywhere. It's not exactly what you're looking for in this thread, but I thought it might be a useful addition to a DF-style game, especially if you use the conditional defaults rule. So... is this wildcard too much? or just right?

Farmer! IQ: Animal Handling, Farming, Gardening, Naturalist, and Meteorology. Conditionally covers any skill for running a farm of any size or kind: Accounting, Administration, Current Affairs (Business), Freight Handling, Merchant, and Packing for sales and management; Riding and Teamster for training and using farm animals; Area Knowledge (Local); Biology, Pharmacy (Herbal) and Veterinary; Carpentry, Housekeeping, Machinist, and Mechanics for farm maintenance; Diplomacy, Leadership, and Savoir-Faire (Servant) for dealing with customers, supervisors, and laborers; Cooking; First-Aid, Hiking; Knot-Tying and Lasso.

Edit: There are a lot of skills listed here, but since they're almost ALL IQ-based, I thought it would be legit for a Wildcard. Also, this Wildcard would definitely be appropriate for the 7th Son (unofficial, I think) template.

[Ejidoth]

Originally Posted by Shadlith

Added a couple more to the original post, and also split up the list into 3 categories:

Professions that have the Wildcard skill tucked away somewhere else.

Professions that have the Wildcard skill in the same article.

Professions that I'm positive do not have the wildcard skill at all, so don't bother looking. I'm mostly going to stick to things like the Elf Profession for this list, where I'm reasonably sure that the only place it ever came up, ever, is in the article it was designed, and it didn't have the Wildcard skill in that article. On the other hand, I haven't found any published Wildcard skills for the Assassin, but it's gotten a bit of love even outside of where it was published, so I'm much less confident in the nonexistence of its Wildcard skill.

They didn't really do the template wildcards thing for Dungeon Fantasy after book 1, aside from the mystic knight note you found.

There are a bunch of wildcard skills in Pointless Slaying & Looting, in Pyramid 3/72, but they're not template-specific, they're just designed as a shortened Dungeon Fantasy skill list.
Still, it does list stuff like Artificing! and Assassination!

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

They didn't really do the template wildcards thing for Dungeon Fantasy after book 1, aside from the mystic knight note you found.

There are a bunch of wildcard skills in Pointless Slaying & Looting, in Pyramid 3/72, but they're not template-specific, they're just designed as a shortened Dungeon Fantasy skill list.
Still, it does list stuff like Artificing! and Assassination!

There are some more wildcards in Pyramid 3/83 Alternate GURPS IV which I have added to the List on the GURPSwiki.

[Ejidoth]

Originally Posted by maximara

There are some more wildcards in Pyramid 3/83 Alternate GURPS IV which I have added to the List on the GURPSwiki.

For Dungeon Fantasy templates? The only wildcard stuff I can find in that issue is in Pointless Monster Hunting, for building modern day urban fantasy characters.

[GnomesofZurich]

Originally Posted by Shadlith

Different Location:
Mystic Knight!: Pyramid 3-60: Dungeon Fantasy III, on page 39. Covers all the skills that a Mystic Knight would reasonably be expected to imbue + a bit of Mystic Knight-esque knowledge.

I hadn't really taken a look at that wildcard skill before - it looks a tad broad. It includes most of the skills from both Blade! and Bow! (both p.28, PU7) plus some unarmed striking skills and Throwing, and is certainly broader than Knight! (p.32 PU7/p.18 DF1). And, although it's not necessarily meant to co-exist with the Wildcard Skills from "Pointless Slaying and Looting" (Pyramid #3/72), it includes the key skills of Archery! (p.14), and a good chunk of both Basic Combat (p.15) and Battlefield Weapons (p.15).

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

For Dungeon Fantasy templates? The only wildcard stuff I can find in that issue is in Pointless Monster Hunting, for building modern day urban fantasy characters.

Here are the relevant ones:
Archery!
Blade! - additional information
Blunt! - crushing weapon version of Blade!
Burglar!
Crook!
Grifter!
Lore! - knowing some information about the dungeon, critters in it, etc
Mechanism! if below ETL5; Inventor! if ETL5+;
Medic! - The Cleric is out cold. No problem.
Monster-Hunter! - think Dungeon Delver!
Mysticism!
Path! (Ritualist)
Ritual Magic!
Scrapping! - improvised weapons
Teamwork! - not working as a group tends to result in adventurers getting a serious case of dead
Throwing! - an even broader version of Throw!
Transporter! - an even broader version of Driver!

[Shadlith]

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

They didn't really do the template wildcards thing for Dungeon Fantasy after book 1, aside from the mystic knight note you found.

They did, actually, they were just really sporadic about it. Both the Dungeon Fantasy Denizen books discuss it for their alternates, for example, and I've listed the Justicar and Mystic Knight. Which is why I'm making this thread - to gather the few that exist and provide a definitive "no, this one doesn't exist" for the rest.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Shadlith

They did, actually, they were just really sporadic about it. Both the Dungeon Fantasy Denizen books discuss it for their alternates, for example, and I've listed the Justicar and Mystic Knight. Which is why I'm making this thread - to gather the few that exist and provide a definitive "no, this one doesn't exist" for the rest.

And as we gather them I will be putting them in the GURPSwiki so everyone can have an easy reference to where each wildcard skills that is both in and not in Power-ups 7 is

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by maximara

There are some more wildcards in Pyramid 3/83 Alternate GURPS IV which I have added to the List on the GURPSwiki.

The limitation with those is that they're intended for use in a campaign with Destiny points so they're a little light on skills.

If you have to make your own Wildcard skill for the template, just make sure it's useful enough that if you put in the same points as for the template's regular Talents and skills, the character is as effective. The Knight! and Thief! skills are pretty competitive, some of the others less so.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Infornific

The limitation with those is that they're intended for use in a campaign with Destiny points so they're a little light on skills.

Light on skills?!

"The wildcard skills from Champions (pp. 28-31) have not been repeated here, though additional notes on using them with these guidelines have been added. Such skills are marked with a (*)." The Champions wildcard appear in Power-Ups 7

Pyramid 3/83 Alternate GURPS IV version of Computers:

Computer Hacking, Computer Operation, Computer Programming, Cryptography, Electronics Operation (Communications and Media), Electronics Repair (Computers), Expert Skill (Computer Security), and Mathematics (Computer Science and Cryptology). This can also stand in for any skill when creating, retrieving, reading, or changing digital files – but not when working with printed or handwritten documents.

Contrast with the Power-Ups 7 version:

Computer Hacking, Computer Operation, Computer Programming, Cryptography, Electronics Repair (Computers), Expert Skill (Computer Security), and Mathematics (Computer Science and Cryptology). Gives familiarity with all programming languages that don’t require an Unusual Background. Can also be used to make Influence rolls against alien space probes, giant robots with logical puzzles, and similar entities.

If anything the Pyramid 3/83 version give more skills then the Power-Ups 7 version.