Bang Skills

[stilleon]

I have not used Bang skills before. My players are not hip to the numbers of skills. I was thinking of going all bang skills and making a list based on other games. How does bang skills balance in y'all's opinion?

[awesomenessofme1]

I don't have much experience with it, so I can't be directly helpful there. But I would suggest checking out Power-Ups 7 - Wildcard Skills. It has a lot of ready-made wildcards, as well as both advice on how to use them in play and a good number of possible alternate rules.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by stilleon

I have not used Bang skills before. My players are not hip to the numbers of skills. I was thinking of going all bang skills and making a list based on other games. How does bang skills balance in y'all's opinion?

If you are using the Basic Set's version where you just get skills it can be uneven. I've done my personal best to make sure wildcard skills are presented as a valid option in even low point games because I think they cover a vital niche in GURPS: characters who have a lot of knowledge of various things. It's hard to do otherwise and you get really bloated skill trees. I hate suggesting books for people who post questions but Power-Ups 7 is REALLY worth it if you are diving into wildcards. Gives a lot more options and makes most of them worth the point cost.

There is a tradeoff to keep in mind in some cases. For example, the same points you put in a single combat skill go further for things like feints, Deceptive Attack, etc. than a wildcard skill does. Some folks don't like that.

[Fred Brackin]

If you're only going to offer Bang! Skills how they compare to regular Skills doesn't matter in your game. It'll all be about how oen Bang! skill balances against another.

This can stil be a problem. For example: Gardening! may not look like a good deal compared to Melee! even if does make a character a truly epic gardener.

You might end up having to say that things like Hobby Skills don't even exist and what they cover is just be skipped over.

[Farmer]

We use them quite a bit in our games. 100% echo the comments above and specifically about Power-Ups 7.

The right ! skills in the right settings and game, make so much sense and improve game play and role playing a lot, without being annoying or destructive min/max tools (assuming you don't go overboard!).

[Phil Masters]

Going to just bang skills is probably too much of a blunt instrument, because there’ll always be things that a player wants a character to do that can’t really be covered by any bang skill that otherwise fits the character. Your party’s gunslinger may well have Guns!, but the scientist may just want a couple of points in Guns (Pistol) to allow them to be non-useless support when things get shooty. Conversely, Science! is great for a cinematic scientist, but perhaps your hands-on techie just wants to know a little bit of Physics, yet also knowing Biology and Astronomy would be too much.

(Actually, I rather feel that Science! is defined a bit too widely compared to other bang skills. It’s described as covering a lot. But maybe that’s just me.)

I do like the model of a character with one or two bang skills plus a small bunch of more-specific skills in some games — perhaps many vaguely cinematic games — but I’m not sure how much it reduces complexity.

One other thing I do feel is that mildly detail-obsessed GURPS fans may get a bit too obsessive about which normal skills any given bang skill should encompass. (I’ve been as guilty as anyone of this.) The question shouldn’t be “What nit-picky list of skills does Ranger! encompass?”, it should be “Is [this thing that my character needs to do right now] the kind of thing that a superlative ranger would be superlative at?” But that runs the risk of player manipulation or coercion of the GM to make their bang skill cover anything and everything, I fear.

[Michael Cule]

I'm with Phil on this and I've been slightly more restrictive than he has. In my Victorian STARGATE game, I gave each player character one Bang skill (Archaelogist!, Gun!, Scientist!, Soldier!) to define their central profession and role in the campaign and had them model the rest of their character's competencies with normal GURPS skills. It balanced out very nicely. There was even one character (the psionically gifted Romany con-artist) who didn't go that way, choosing to put her big block of points into Powers and their associated skills.

This is the way that GURPS can emulate the broader traits of games like UNKNOWN ARMIES or QUESTWORLDS.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You might end up having to say that things like Hobby Skills don't even exist and what they cover is just be skipped over.

Or perhaps, give a large point break for hobby skills. Just make sure that they are just for color, rather than anything truly useful.

[ericthered]

I think the OP is looking at using someone else's list of skills, and making them bang skills in Gurps. For example, using the FATE skill list.



Its really broad, and its a big change from standard Gurps... but I suspect it will work just fine, and its pretty close to RAW.



I've seen character sheets for convention one-shots built this way, though I'm trying to remember who made them.


The Mook, who is really into making gurps simple for beginners, advises one wildcard skill and three non-wildcards in quick start characters. I don't know if that matches your use case, but its probably worth looking at.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

One other thing I do feel is that mildly detail-obsessed GURPS fans may get a bit too obsessive about which normal skills any given bang skill should encompass. (I’ve been as guilty as anyone of this.) The question shouldn’t be “What nit-picky list of skills does Ranger! encompass?”, it should be “Is [this thing that my character needs to do right now] the kind of thing that a superlative ranger would be superlative at?” But that runs the risk of player manipulation or coercion of the GM to make their bang skill cover anything and everything, I fear.

When I ran The Foam of Perilous Seas some years ago, one of the player characters was the apotheosized Errol Flynn, as a god of swashbuckling, more or less. So naturally he had Sword! And there was one scene where he was sparring with another PC, a female rakshasa, and the player asked if Flynn could use Sword! to flirt with her, as a substitute for Sex Appeal. And thinking of a scene in The Mask of Zorro, I said, "Sure!"