[GUL] Adventurer! skill

[thrash]

In my ongoing project to revise GURPS Ultra-Lite to be explicitly upward-compatible with full-spectrum GURPS, I found the need to account for the fundamental skills that every adventurer character in GURPS should have to avoid surprising incompetence in key tasks. Dr. Kromm has helpfully provided us with his list, both in a post and in GURPS Template Toolkits 1: Characters, as well as discussing something similar (which he called BAT! for Basic Action Template) in another post.

The wildcard format requires making specific skill choices. In most cases, there were clear winners among the options given: easy or more common skills, or those available at all TLs. I chose Shortsword over the other options due to the wider range of skills that default to it; the obvious alternative would be Knife. Even so, I was not able to choose among the many equally good options for Influence and Detection skills -- so I cheated and left it up to the character concept. Also, rather than give a list of near-identical write-ups at different TLs, I provided notes for updating the wildcard as needed. The result is less a single wildcard skill than a family of closely related wildcards that serve the same purpose.


Adventurer!

DX

Skills: Bow, Brawling, Climbing, Forced Entry, Riding, Shortsword, Stealth, Throwing, Wrestling. Make an IQ-based roll for Area Knowledge (home village, town, or neighborhood), First Aid, Gesture, Holdout, Housekeeping, or Savoir-Faire (native subculture), or a HT-based roll for Hiking. Choose one Influence skill (B359; make an IQ- or HT-based roll as appropriate) and one PER-based Detection skill, compatible with the character concept. At TL4+, substitute Guns for Bow; at TL9+ optionally substitute Beam Weapons instead. At TL6+, substitute Driving for Riding. At TL8+, additionally make an IQ-based roll for Computer Operation.
Sources: This post by Dr. Kromm, as well as GURPS Template Toolkit 1: Characters (p. 17).
Notes: The intent of this wildcard is to ensure that a character is not incompetent at vital adventurer tasks.


Please let me know what you think.

[JulianLW]

Action Hero! DX: Axe/Mace (DX/A), Beam Weapons (DX/E), Bow (DX/A), Boxing (DX/A), Brawling (DX/E), Broadsword (DX/A), Crossbow (DX/E), Forced Entry (DX/E), Guns (Any) (DX/E), Holdout (IQ/A), Judo (DX/H), Karate (DX/H), Knife (DX/E), Shortsword (DX/A), Staff (DX/A), Sumo Wrestling (DX/A), Throwing (DX/A), Wrestling (DX/A).

Adventurer! IQ: Carousing (HT/E), Climbing (DX/A), Diplomacy (IQ/H), Driving (Any) (DX/A), Fast-Talk (IQ/A), First Aid (IQ/E), Gesture (IQ/E), Hiking (HT/A), Interrogation (IQ/A), Observation (Per/A), Riding (Any) (DX/A), Savoir-Faire (Any) (IQ/E), Scrounging (Per/E), Search (Per/A), Stealth (DX/A), Streetwise (IQ/A).

I wrote up with these two WC skills based on the same Kromm post. Both of them end up making about a standard WC skill as described in Power-Ups 7.

[whswhs]

I wouldn't include Bow. Learning to shoot arrows is a long, slow process; an old saying is that to make a skilled archer, train his grandfather and his father. It's not comparable to Guns (Pistol), which is a relatively simple skill to learn the basics of. I would look for another Easy skill—perhaps Knife. Or maybe Throwing, which is Average but which seems a commonplace adventurer sort of thing.

[Donny Brook]

Why would an adventurer be equally good at Brawling and Savoir Faire? Why would a player want to invest points in weapons they won't likely use?

[thrash]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

I wrote up with these two WC skills based on the same Kromm post. Both of them end up making about a standard WC skill as described in Power-Ups 7.

You seem to have taken a "more is better" approach. The entries on Kromm's list are (e.g.) "Boxing, Brawling, or Karate" (emphasis in the original). Having all three might be nice, but it's ultimately redundant -- they are all "skill at striking with fists," in this case. The exception is "Climbing, Hiking, and Stealth," since the party is limited by the worst skill among its members for these.

Originally Posted by whswhs

I wouldn't include Bow. Learning to shoot arrows is a long, slow process; an old saying is that to make a skilled archer, train his grandfather and his father. It's not comparable to Guns (Pistol), which is a relatively simple skill to learn the basics of. I would look for another Easy skill—perhaps Knife. Or maybe Throwing, which is Average but which seems a commonplace adventurer sort of thing.

Throwing is already on the list, you'll note. I mentioned my rationale for preferring Shortsword over Knife in the original post.

Bow is the only ranged weapon skill (out of "Beam Weapons, Bow, Crossbow, or Guns") from the list that is available at TL0-1. We are not concerned here with producing a "skilled archer," only a character that is not incompetent to pick up a bow.

My sense is that bows continued to be the ubiquitous choice for hunting and ranged combat (outside of specialized military applications) until Guns took over. If nothing else, it is possible to improvise bows* in a way that is not so simple for crossbows. I suppose I could add "Optionally substitute Crossbow for Bow at TL2-3," though. It's just more complexity.

*In the real world, anyway -- see, e.g., Olsen, Outdoor Survival Skills, pp. 112-132. I don't remember how GURPS handles this.

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Why would an adventurer be equally good at Brawling and Savoir Faire?

Because not all Savior-Faire is Savoir-Faire (High Society). If your background is Savoir-Faire (Mafia) or (Police) or (Military), you might have picked up some skill at fisticuffs.

Besides, "equally good" in this context means "not completely unskilled" -- nothing more. Note, for example, that none of the hand-to-hand skills (Boxing, Brawling, Judo, Karate, Sumo Wrestling, Wrestling) have defaults at all. Punching and kicking is possible in GURPS without a relevant skill, but it's not very effective.

Why would a player want to invest points in weapons they won't likely use?

Did you actually read either of the references I provided? Kromm gives the rationale:

Originally Posted by Kromm

In GURPS, I hint that certain skills are necessary for adventurers, true action heroes or not, to keep the story flowing without annoying breaks caused by PCs being incompetent at tasks that adventure fiction commonly treats as "everyman" skills.

This isn't about what a character is good at, or what their focus is. This is about making sure that the mechanical aspects of GURPS skills and defaults don't trip up players who aren't familiar with them.

[whswhs]

I suggest Thrown Spear as the generic skill for low-tech hunters and such. It was invented long before Bow.

[JulianLW]

Originally Posted by thrash

You seem to have taken a "more is better" approach. The entries on Kromm's list are (e.g.) "Boxing, Brawling, or Karate" (emphasis in the original). Having all three might be nice, but it's ultimately redundant -- they are all "skill at striking with fists," in this case. The exception is "Climbing, Hiking, and Stealth," since the party is limited by the worst skill among its members for these.

...

This isn't about what a character is good at, or what their focus is. This is about making sure that the mechanical aspects of GURPS skills and defaults don't trip up players who aren't familiar with them.

Yes. I just copied the lists Kromm provided and made them into two Wildcards: one for dealing with adventure-type situations, and the other for dealing with almost any combat situation. The lists add up to a single standard Wildcard skill in both cases.

Incidentally, there are lots of techniques that apply to one or the other of these combat skills.

The idea is to simplify, as you suggest in the OP. A character with 24 CP in each of these skills should be able to appear in just about any action movie and hold her own.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

Yes. I just copied the lists Kromm provided and made them into two Wildcards: one for dealing with adventure-type situations, and the other for dealing with almost any combat situation. The lists add up to a single standard Wildcard skill in both cases.

Incidentally, there are lots of techniques that apply to one or the other of these combat skills.

The idea is to simplify, as you suggest in the OP. A character with 24 CP in each of these skills should be able to appear in just about any action movie and hold her own.

It's an interesting concept but it seems like it might make action heroes a bit bland. All the important stuff is covered by two skills. This is more aesthetics but I think I'd prefer Everyman! to Adventurer!. Part of his point is that fictional heroes are often competent at a wide range of skills that not everyone has and players are likely to assume this competence even if it doesn't obviously result from the character's profession. Part of it is that I see this as a supplemental skill - the player's focus is likely to be something else (Hacker!, Investigator!, Fist!, Shooter!, etc.)

Possible genre versions:

Everyman! (modern): DX based roll for Biking, Brawling, Climbing, Driving (cars & motorcycles) Guns, Stealth, Throwing, and Wrestling. IQ based roll for Computer Operation, Fast Talk, First Aid and Gesture. HT based roll for Hiking or Swimming. Per based roll for Search.

Did not go with options on sub-skills since I'm trying to keep things simple.)



Everyman! (low tech): DX based roll for Axe/Mace, Brawling, Climbing, Crossbow, Riding, Shortsword, Spear, Spear Throwing, Stealth, Throwing, and Wrestling. IQ based roll for Fast Talk, First Aid and Gesture. HT based roll for Hiking or Swimming. Per based roll for Search.

The idea is that you could take this plus a specialist skill and not be deadweight in action scenes.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Infornific

This is more aesthetics but I think I'd prefer Everyman! to Adventurer!. Part of his point is that fictional heroes are often competent at a wide range of skills that not everyone has and players are likely to assume this competence even if it doesn't obviously result from the character's profession.

There's a confusion in terminology that I'm trying to avoid.

Kromm frequently talks about "everyman" skills when it's clear from context he really means "every player-character." There are other places in the GURPS canon that talk about the ubiquitous skills that even non-adventuring characters would normally have; these are also referred to as "everyman" skills. Since I'm explicitly addressing the former, in my mind "Adventurer!" more clearly conveys the intent.

(It doesn't hurt that it is also an inherently more inclusive term.)