Ideas: familiarity and skill default

[Leon The Lion]

Hello there.
Been a long time since I was last here. Life. And stuff. Nobody cares anyway Let's get down to business.

I'm an armchair GURPS fan. I never got to play or run anything using the system, and, the way things are going, I probably never will. Still, I think GURPS has some neat ideas, mechanics wise, and some of them are quite easy to borrow and adapt for other systems. Here are two I will be giving a try to in my SW D6 game.

First up, "(un)familiarity penalties". Let's say you're a Space Transports pilot. Your skill is good. You've flown the CEC YT series, Nellas, Gymsnors, Kazellis, whatever. But now you've got to fly a Ghtroc 720. But you never have before. The controls are laid out somewhat different, it reacts to the stick a little different, it accelerates and brakes at slightly different rates, etc. All in all, it flies a little different from all those others ships than you're used to. Nothing too dramatic, but different enough that, at first, you won't be quite as good flying it than you are with all those other ships you known before. So on your first time flying it you take a penalty – nothing too outrageous, I'm thinking in the vicinity of 1D - to your skill, until you familiarize yourself with it, learn it's quirks. I'm thinking a few hours of non-stressful shakedown flying, or one good dogfight, to offset the familiarity penalty. The penalty can be scaled up or down depending on just how different the new ship is from your old field of familiarity – I imagine the difference would be smaller when switching from one YT model to another, than when switching from a YT to the Mobquet Custom.
The same applies to any skill it could reasonably apply to. Your know your way around first aid, but you never treated an Ithorian before? Take a familiarity penalty (and how DO you administer mouth-to-mouth to those guys anyway?). Know your droids repair, but never "operated" on a R5? Familiarity penalty. Master blaster-slinger, but never before fired a Merr-Sonn LD-1? Familiarity penalty. You can see how it goes.

Second, "skill defaults". Some skills, or at least some applications of some skills, are similar enough to other skills, that I think it would not be unreasonable to allow defaults – using one skill, with a reasonable penalty, to perform a task normally assigned to a different skill. Let's say you're very good at Repulsorlift Repair but don't know any Space Transports Repair. Your starship is damaged. Surprise, it's the repulsors that are down! Normally, according to RAW you're screwed. Well, you can use your "naked" Technical attribute to try to repair your ship. But aren't all repulsors much the same? If you can fix the repulsors on a landspeeder, why shouldn't you be able to fix ones on a starship? Yes, I imagine there are some differences, like power feeds, structural mounting, configuration, but (keeping in mind that Star Wars is Space Opera and not Hard SF) on a basic level all repulsors in the galaxy work the same way, be they used in a speeder, a spaceship, a flight pack or a droid. So, knowing Repulsorlift Repair, you would probably have a decent idea how to at least start dealing with damaged repulsors on a space transport. So you should get a good default from Repulsorlift Repair to Space Transports Repair, or Starfighter Repair, or Capital Ship Repair, or Droid Repair, if the repair in question deals with repulsors.
Let's have another example. You're a master in Space Transports Repair. Your Rebel friends come to you with a starfighter with a badly damaged hyperdrive. According to RAW, you shake your head sadly. You can try on the Tech attribute alone, but the chances aren't good. But are starfighter hyperdrives really that different from space transport ones? How about the ion engines? The life support? Controls? Shields? And while we're at it, what about those same thing in capital ships? Sure, there will be some differences. Scale and size, design and make, configuration, power levels. But in all cases I'll be inclined to say that on a basic level the technology is very much the same (unless we're talking about archaic starships of course). So I would give a generous default between all three starship repair skills (Starfighter, Space Transports, Capital).
I'm sure you could find other such examples.
So how to calculate the default? I'm toying with this idea: If the default is "strong", like for the starship repair skills, take the dice plus any pips you have above the basic attribute in the skill from which you're defaulting. Convert those to pips (one full die = 3 pips, as we all know), than multiply by 2/3, round down, and convert the result back into dice plus leftover pips. This is what you get over the attribute in the skill defaulted. If the default looks "weak", like for defaulting from Security to Computer Programming/Repair when dealing with a computerized lock, do everything the same except multiply by 1/3 instead of 2/3.
And of course skills used at default are subject to the familiarity penalties described above just like any other.

Those are my ideas. Make of them what you will.
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- Tom Lehrer

[garhkal]

I like these ideas, more the familiarity penalty than the defaulting.
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[ZzaphodD]

[garhkal]

I have never liked the 'combining of ship pilotings. YES they are similar, but have you ever flown a cessna? What about a jet? Being good at one is NOT going to make you the same (or close) in the other. THAT is how i see it with space transport versus starfighter piloting.
As to hide/sneak, i have many friends i can rotinely sneak up on very well (and many not so much friends but co-workers), but i can't hide stuff from them worth a s***. SO therefore to me, those skills SHOULD remain seperate.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Leon The Lion]

Well, have you ever fought in melee with a dagger? What about an axe? A spear? A whip? Anyone with some melee experience will tell you fighting with those is very different from one another. Yet all of those are handled by the single Melee Weapons skill.

I'm not trying, and would never try, to tell you that "You're doing it wrong!" with your approach to skills. Just that citing realism may not be the best argument for splitting or combining skills in the "varied skill environment" of the D6 system

The best argument, of course, is and always will be: "Because that's how I feel it should be". That's what house rules are for, to get the game running the way you think feels right (hurray for me, Captain Obvious ). The above ideas feel right to me. If they do to you, great, I'm happy to help. If they don't? It's your game and I'm happy you're having fun.
_________________
Plagiarize! Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes! So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure to call it, please, "research".
- Tom Lehrer

[ZzaphodD]

[Whill]

I got an idea from D&D 3e (or perhaps 3.5) called "skill synergy" or something like that. Sometimes a skill level in one skill can "help" a skill check of another lower-level skill. If relevent (always determined by GM case-by-case), then the character compares the two skills removing the pips. The number of dice that the supporting skill is above the primary dice (the difference in the two die values) is converted to pips and added to the primary skill roll.

Let's say in the above example, you have 2D+2 in Space Transports Repair and 4D+1 in Repulsorlift Repair. The GM could rule that the character could go ahead and use his strait Repulsorlift Repair skill to repair the starship's repulsorlift system. But perhaps what needs repaired is the how the ship's repulsorlift system is integrated into the ship's from the main power drive system, so the GM rules that the starship repair skill is most appropriate. But 4D-2D=2D, so the GM rules that the player can add 2 more pips to Space Transports Repair roll due to his superior expertise in a related field.

Just thowing out other ideas.
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[jmanski]

My thinking is that if you can fly a plane, you can fly any plane. Sure, it would take a few rounds or so to familiarize- but all airplanes are the same to those who are trained to fly them.

If you equate space vessels to modern water craft then I understand splitting the skills into starfighter, space tranpsports, and capital piloting. Piloting a speedboat, a large yacht, and a cruise ship are different things.

But an individual who pilots yachts would be able to pilot any yacht.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[Leon The Lion]

Sure, if you can fly a plane (space transport, whatever), you can fly any plane you get into - with a -1D familiarity penalty if you never flown this particular type before. Familiarizing yourself with a new machine should take time - it has its quirks, handling peculiarities and "moods" that a few round is just not enough to fully master, especially if you're very used to the way a different machine handles. Think of the last time you switched Windows versions, like from NT to Vista. How long did it take you to adjust to the new way of doing many things? And don't try to tell me they're identical The penalty is not huge, if you're a good pilot it won't much bother you, but it's there. If all craft are so similiar, how is it that the skill allows for specializations? My thinking is that if all were so very much the same any specialization should not be possible - how can you be any better at using one of several complately identical tools?

As to the starfighter/transport/capital difference. Sure, piloting them is quite different. But regardless if you compare Star Wars spaceships to real world airplanes or water craft, in both cases - flying and sailing - I imagine there will be many, although probably mainly theoretical, things, that you learn that are just as true for any size of craft - navigation, weather influence, control scheme (pull stick - up, push stick - down), things like that.
At least that's how I'd like to see and handle it in a somewhat movie-esque world of an RPG game. If you prefer a higher level of versimilitude, I can't stop you That's just the way I like it done.
_________________
Plagiarize! Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes! So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure to call it, please, "research".
- Tom Lehrer

[jmanski]

Using your windows analogy there is no real change in how things are accomplished as far as getting work done. It looks different. It has some stuff in different places- but you still perform all essential tasks just like before.

I don't believe there's a -1d penalty to computer operation because of a different version of windows.

We see it differently. To each his own.
_________________
Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[Praxian]

[Lancil]

[garhkal]

Yup. That is more of an Apt analogy. Or go from a Harley Davidson motorcycle to a school bus.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Esoomian]

[Praxian]