[Basic] Skill of the week: Geography, Geology and Prospecting

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Seems worth a shot. "The characteristic pattern of erosion, the colour of the sands in that stream - come on, guys, it's practically shouting 'come and mine me.'"

The human brain is remarkably good at pattern recognition, especially given enough experience of patterns to generalise from. I think that skill 20 tends to be taken as representing a certain breakpoint in experience with a skill in GURPS - the point where it's integrated into your perceptual centres, and you literally don't have to think about it any more, most of the time. You always talk Diplomatically, because that's how you are; the sword isn't so much an extension of your arm as a long and deadly fingertip...

So Geology-20 might justify a lot of PER-based skill rolls. You just look at a landscape and get it.

Thinking back, I should probably have thrown more uses for Geology, Geography, and Areology into the "Europe on Mars" game, but I didn't actually run many wilderness scenarios. On a planet in the middle of fast terraforming, geology is a dangerously dynamic science.

[Þorkell]

I bought Geography for a character of mine, I'm not entirely sure why.

[Donny Brook]

I don't understand (or perhaps simply disagree with) the concern that each and every skill on the list has to have sizzle or be the subject of some expectation of thrilling use. Geology is not Acrobatics and it doesn't have to be.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I don't understand (or perhaps simply disagree with) the concern that each and every skill on the list has to have sizzle or be the subject of some expectation of thrilling use.

There seems to be a viewpoint on RPGs that having characters do Cool Stuff is the primary object of the game. If you work it that way, there's a strong temptation to skip over the mundane parts of the characters' lives even more than usual.

For me, the appeal of "I backflip through the burning hoop and stab the boss in the eye" is pretty limited. I don't think in terms of creating imaginary visual images very much. I'm much more interested in the players' or GM's reaction as they realise what's actually going on. It's a social game for me, not "let's write an action movie."

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I don't understand (or perhaps simply disagree with) the concern that each and every skill on the list has to have sizzle or be the subject of some expectation of thrilling use. Geology is not Acrobatics and it doesn't have to be.

In a points-based game, it seems a shame if one player has spent 20% of their points on "do my official job when I'm not adventuring" skills and abilities that don't come into play in the game, while another player has said "eh, a point in Administration is good enough" and spent the rest on violence. While obviously skill costs have some correlation with difficulty of learning, I think quite a few of us would like to see more practical uses for the traditionally non-adventuring skills, to justify building those more interesting characters.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I don't understand (or perhaps simply disagree with) the concern that each and every skill on the list has to have sizzle or be the subject of some expectation of thrilling use. Geology is not Acrobatics and it doesn't have to be.

I don't necessarily mind background skills. Sometimes a skill is just a skill. Connoisseur, for example, can be a nice bit of background fluff, and that's fine. But in some games, it can be much more. In a game inspired by White Collar, for example, Connoisseur would be front and center, because a Connoisseur might be able to spot a forgery from an original, or to better make a forgery, or to know neat things about something that other people don't, or to impress other people with. In such a game, a character with a bunch of Connoisseur skills at 20 might actually be really cool. It is mechanically interesting.

Lots of skills are mechanically interesting, and they venture far outside of the combat skills. Archaeology and Linguistics skills are must have in many tomb-raiding Cabal games. Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry and Biology are profoundly useful and profoundly interesting in a "Swirly Energy Thingy of the Week" Space Opera Game. Strategy, Intelligence Analysis, Leadership and Administration are positively OP in a Mass Combat military game, and so on.

So why can't Geology be like that?

And isn't that the point of these threads?

If we were going to say "Well, Geology, it lets you look at rocks. Great for a background skill," then there would be no reason to further discuss it. It's a thing some guy takes and puts a point in to reflect that his earth mage is actually interested in rocks, or whatever, but what's really interesting about the character is his earth magic, not his geology. But can't a geologist be interesting? I mean... why not?

For example, we might allow Geology to... what's that optional rule called? Where you get reroll a crit using that skill? Geology could do that for Earth Magic. Heck, it might allow you interact with Earth Elementals in a different way (Geology is to the many strange Earth Elemental creatures what Biology is to the squishier creatures that inhabit the surface). Perhaps precious gems can empower magic, and Geology can help you find them, or even understand how to shape them, giving you an "Engineering" skill for magically reshaping gems to have unique magical properties.

Then, suddenly, you have a skill that the Earth mage would be willing to dump a lot of points into. The Earth Mage become fascinating, and he has a choice in where to spend his points: Does he want to expand his mastery of Earth magic itself, or his understanding of what his magic actually shapes? Some earth mages might be more theoretical, some might be more practical, and so on.

It doesn't have to be that way, of course. In most games, it shouldn't be (Let's not worry about making Geology interesting in GURPS Action... unless Action Geology is the focus of our particular campaign), but if we want Geology to be front and center, we should think about ways to do that.

And, I must imagine, that sort of thinking is why these threads exist.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

... It doesn't have to be that way, of course. In most games, it shouldn't be (Let's not worry about making Geology interesting in GURPS Action... unless Action Geology is the focus of our particular campaign), but if we want Geology to be front and center, we should think about ways to do that.

And, I must imagine, that sort of thinking is why these threads exist.

Not specifically, no. My reason for starting them was more about finding out what skills are used for in practice, how they've been amplified in post-Basic books, and what ideas are sensible to add to them.

Which isn't very different in terms of content, but I don't think in terms of "I want X to be an important skill" as much as "Given this situation, which skills would be important?"

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

I bought Geography for a character of mine, I'm not entirely sure why.

The rocks called to you.


Almost had Geology (and Metallurgy) come up in the previous game. A few 'dungeons' (ex-mines) the PCs were going to have to spelunk (completely optionally) would have allowed the Dwarf (who had those skills from his pre-adventuring days as a Miner, he also had Professional Skill (Miner) and Expert Skill (Mine Operations)) to note that in a few new dig shafts the potential for fresh veins of metals and crystal existed (also using his Mining skills to detect dangerous passages, new versus old shafts, etc).

So in my fantasy games they come up. I also once played a Mage that had Geology to help him hunt areas that could contain "Mana Crystals" (the campaign had mana stones occurring naturally due to several factors).