Skills - maybe this game isn't what I'm looking for

[adaman14]

I have just started playing GURPS and really thought it would be the RPG for me but now I am not sure. I have DX 11 and Riding Horses as a skill. Every time I mount a horse I need to check my skill? 1 in 3 chance to fail and then what happens if I fail? Dang, a normal person without the specific skill fails to even mount the horse 95% of the time? I am starting to be afraid to do anything in the game.

[Refplace]

Routine use generally gets a +4 bonus. Also look at the Riding skill.
Modifiers: +5 if the animal knows and likes you; +1 or more for a mount
with the Mount skill (p. 210);

So its pretty easy to ride any trained horse and trivial one you know well and your used to each other.

[adaman14]

Where is the +4 if it is a routine situation rule? Thanks - edit: found it.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by adaman14

I have just started playing GURPS and really thought it would be the RPG for me but now I am not sure. I have DX 11 and Riding Horses as a skill. Every time I mount a horse I need to check my skill? 1 in 3 chance to fail and then what happens if I fail? Dang, a normal person without the specific skill fails to even mount the horse 95% of the time? I am starting to be afraid to do anything in the game.

Firstly, if there's no meaningful result from the roll, you shouldn't be rolling - just assume success (Campaigns, p.242). Secondly, routine day-to-day skill use will generally have large positive modifiers (Campaigns, p.325).

[adaman14]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Firstly, if there's no meaningful result from the roll, you shouldn't be rolling - just assume success (Campaigns, p.242). Secondly, routine day-to-day skill use will generally have large positive modifiers (Campaigns, p.325).

Hmm, seems we have different rule books.
P242 is something about spells so I will take your word for it. P325 is the second page of the quick combat rules, so again I will take your word for it.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by adaman14

Hmm, seems we have different rule books.
P242 is something about spells so I will take your word for it. P325 is the second page of the quick combat rules, so again I will take your word for it.

Yeah different editions can push stuff to a different spot.
The Table of Context is useful but GURPS supplements have awesome indexes and you can find most things that way too. As long as you recall enough about the thing your looking for to use the right keyword.
I have a blog and much of it is aimed towards GURPS newcomers.
https://refplace.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_28.html
Just ignore the personal or political stuff if its not to your taste. I divy things up pretty well I think and the political stuff pulls a few new people into GURPS, plus I dont want to manage two separate blogs.

[mr beer]

Chapter 10 Success Rolls starting p 343 talks about skill rolls. It refers to bonuses for mundane actions and as mentioned above, riding a trained horse for an hour or so should likely be a +4, equivalent to the book example of a "commute to work in a small town".

Time Spent discusses bonuses for spending extra (or less) time, not usually applicable to Riding but say you are trying to open a lock or tidy up a crime scene, you can swing things in your favour that way.

A non-mundane example of checking vs. Riding to mount a horse would be if you are being hotly pursued by armed bandits at the time. That's a +0 roll.

[Black Leviathan]

I feel like in all these responses someone had to bring it up but I see most folks talking about routine use skill modifier and pointing out that 11 is a pretty low skill.

Skill checks aren't for every use, It's only when you're struggling or need to make it look easy and only when there's a real consequence to failure. So you'd make a riding check if your horse got bit by a snake or if you're trying to break-in a horse you've never ridden with, or performing on the Dressage Square. 11 is a pretty ordinary skill, what most teenage girls who've been out to the farm a few times have. Those tests are tough for that level of experience and you could fail them very easily. Failure depends a lot on the severity of the circumstances and the margin of the roll. You might fail your riding roll to control your snake-bit horse by one and the horse just wheels around in place in a panic letting the snake strike again. You might fail your roll to break in Mean Butch with a critical failure and he throws you into a ravine. You might fail your roll to perform your dressage routine by 2, but other competitors fail by even wider margins so you win the chance to be rewarded by the Duchess and have a few seconds to speak to her without her handlers.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

I feel like in all these responses someone had to bring it up but I see most folks talking about routine use skill modifier and pointing out that 11 is a pretty low skill.

Which is ironic as in several places GURPS expressly states that this is not a low skill.

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

Skill checks aren't for every use, It's only when you're struggling or need to make it look easy and only when there's a real consequence to failure.

""Your unmodified skill level is called your base skill. It measures your odds of success at an “average” task under adventuring conditions – in other words, in a stressful situation where the consequences of failure are significant." B171

Thaumatology: Urban Magics pg 30 goes at this from the other end:

"The standard rules are designed for adventurers, not for ordinary working professionals. Professionals make one job roll a month. On a critical failure, something bad happens, with harmful consequences – but not usually as bad as a critical failure during an adventure. (...) With one roll a month, a mage with effective skill 15 or less goes 54 months between mishaps, on the average; one with effective skill 16 or better could go 216 months (or 18 years)."

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

I feel like in all these responses someone had to bring it up but I see most folks talking about routine use skill modifier and pointing out that 11 is a pretty low skill.

Keeping in mind the +4 for routine situations, a skill 9 would roll on a 13 or less under uneventful circumstances, so as a GM I wouldn't make anyone roll if they had a skill over 9 for really routine circumstances as they will probably succeed if they play it safe.