Sunday, June 4, 2017

Skill list for GURPS

Here is the skill list for a short campaign set in the belt and featuring a small group of operator of a STEPTOE-class debris recovery vehicle.


Level competency guidelines

  • 10: basic training
  • 11: Casual but regular usage
  • 12: Professionals
  • 13-15: Experts
  • 16+: Likely to come with a +1 reputation.

Free-fall in Microgravity

  • Level 12: Baseline level for visitors for more than 6 months. 
  • Level 13: Baseline assumed for belt dweller
  • Level 14: Baseline assumed for microgravity adapted parahumans, etc.
  • Level 15: Professional working in microgravity, soldiers. 
  • Level 16+: Athletes and freaks.

Knowledge and languages

Knowledge listed here would refer to knowledge in someone's head without assuming a connection to an Internet. The Internet is cached on most ships/asteroid and is worth 12 cps for all characters.

  • Languages and cultures 
    • English ( 5th wave western culture 5W)
    • Chinese ( 5th wave china 5C )
    • Japanese ( 5th wave Japanese culture 5J )
  • Area Knowledge ( independent from the Internet )
    • Area Knowledge (Solar System) [1 free]
      • Techniques: Inner, Jovian, Saturn, Outter
    • Area Knowledge (Belt) [1 free] -- Pertains to the belt as an entity
    • Area Knowledge (particular world) -- Pertains to AK within the world. 
      • 1 pt: Watch a in-Vid about it
      • 2 pts: visited once or twice
      • 4 pts: Frequent visits
      • 8+ pts: Call it home.
  • Current-Affairs ( TL/8: in person, TL9: 3rd wave world, TL10: 5th wave world)
    • Specialization: sol, belt, location with population >1000
  • Politics (solar)
  • History (solar)

Spacer skills

Cultural familiarity applies. Language penalties apply for ship's interface unless the ship can translate automatically.
  • Spacers: base skills as a ship crewperson (Can replace piloting for non-manual ops). All other skills default to Spacer -2
  • Navigation: Plotting courses
  • Engineering: Wildcard skill for operating/tweaking all systems
  • Gunnery: Wildcard skill for weapon system interface
  • Leadership: No shit.
  • Piloting: Pick one ship class, -2 in same category, -4 otherwise
  • Electronic Ops (sensors): Pick one of Navigation/Science/Tactical/Communications. -2 on other systems.
  • Mechanics: Wildcard for physical work on systems. Includes salvage and electronic work. 

Likely professional skillsets (Treat as 5cp talents as well, max one level)

  • Prospector: Geology/TL9, Electronic Ops (sensor, Scientific), Professional Skill (mining)/TL10, Merchant
  • Life Support Tech: Biology/TL10, Mechanics, Naturalist
  • Salvager: Mechanics, Electronic Ops (sensor, Nav), free-fall
  • Contractor: Mechanics, Engineering, Architecture/TL10
  • Physician: Physician/TL10, First-Aid, Bioengineering/TL10
  • Counsellor/Mediator:  Diplomacy, Psychology, Current Affairs, Area-Knowledge, Detect lies
  • Commander: Leadership, Navigation, Tactics ( space ), Gunnery, Electronic Ops (sensor, Nav)
  • Military: soldier, Tactics ( firefights), free-fall, Armoury ( guns )
  • Broker: Merchant, Diplomacy, Electronic Ops (comms)
  • Hacker: Computer Programming, Computer Intrusion, Electronics Ops (comms)

4 comments:

  1. Hello !

    Thanks for this piece of data.

    Is that the whole of the "available" skills for the short campaign ?

    Giving a restricted list of skills and their use, custom-made for the campaign, seems like a great idea to focus characters and players. I'll have to remember that for my next GURPS game ^^

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    Replies
    1. Nope. Influence skills are the most important in my games and they are not listed. I just wanted to give a sense of direction to the players without binding my hands to a comprehensive list of skills. It is a good idea to do that, though. In the end, we fudged a bit, but the post was a good starting point. I like to aggregate skills too so that we don't end up spreading points too thin.

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    2. How do you decide the cost of your "aggregated skills" ? I guess they are the Wildcard ones.

      I find the Level Competency Guideline a very interesting addition to such a list, giving players a clear idea of where they'll stand with their level of skill.

      Concerning the rest of the skills, do you give the full GURPS 4e list to the players, do you have a pre-restricted list, or do you use the list in GURPS Transhuman Space ?

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    3. Wildcard, yes. I decided that Electronic Ops(sensor) and Electronic Ops(comm) were really just Electronic Ops(sensors), with communication being sensor at -2. So it could be bought as a technique, but really the skills required comes down to using a UI and understanding long range signal. Interestingly, I decided that computer interface have a culture: someone without cultural familiarity to the Chinese culture is penalized even if the interface is translated just because of cultural assumptions. People around the table agreed that there is are cultural assumption in UI.

      I gave the the full list because I didn't get around making a tight list. I asked to vet by me each skill so that we could discuss how they'd be used in this campaign. It was a useful discussion to have.

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