Author Topic: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily  (Read 8920 times)

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Offline David Johansen

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Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« on: June 12, 2007, 09:13:42 PM »
So, for a while now, I've been aware that the number one issue RM2 fans have with RMSS is the skill system.  I've put a lot of time into inventing patches like the Spacemaster Accelerator attempting to fix it, but recently I've realize there's an easier way.

What's needed is a specialization method whereby a skill category is normally purchased but a specific skill can be purchased at a reduced rate.

I suggest that by having all skill categories (excepting special progressions like Alertness and Body Dev) progress at the combined rate and allowing the second rank in a level to be purchased at the first price if it is in a specific skill, just about all of the problems could be resolved.

For instance, if you had a progression of 1/3 in 1-h edged and you purchased 1 rank in 1-h edged and 1 rank in short sword, it would only cost 2 DP and your short sword would go up two ranks.

Yes this assumes that the first rank will always be bought in the category, but I'm good with that.

Any thoughts?

edit* just to clarify you still max out at two ranks per level.  Alternately specializations could be handed out at a 2:1 rate but that creates balance issues pretty quickly.
« Last Edit: June 12, 2007, 09:26:26 PM by David Johansen »

Offline sunwolf

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2007, 11:15:03 AM »
I think I suggested something similar during the RMX discussions.  I don't remember the exact objections raised at the time but I believe some of them were valid.
Anything that makes the GMs life easier without messing the game up will always get a vote from me.

Offline DavidKlecker

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2007, 07:04:22 AM »
The biggest issue I tend to have with the Skills and Categories in RM is the number, not the progression. That is, you have a LOT of skills and even categories to dump ranks into and usually at level 5 you have only a few skills that make reaching 111 on a roll a little easier.

In trying to come with something a little easier I have tried the following

1) it was presented here to remove category ranks all together. I have done that with our  system.
2) I have also changed the Static Maneuver table to make it easier to remember. anything 100 and over is a pass. Anything 0 or under is a fumble. Anything 75 to 100 is a partial, etc. I call it the metric static maneuver table. ;)
3) In light of 1 and 2 I came up with a new progression for 99% of the skills: -30*4*3*2*1. Again it's easy to remember and the numbers allow players at level 5 to be able to pass at least their main skills with greater ease than the other system even with a lot of skills.

We are going to use this system with our next campaign in a Star Wars settings. I believe it should work very well.

Another thing I have done was make sure that skills are moved to their proper categories. I still don't see why most medical skills are in Technical/Trade when I believe a category called Medical should hold these skills. Also other skills seem to be placed in odd places making it hard for characters to build and even find the proper skills for their profession.

Offline Cerebus

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2007, 08:35:48 AM »
I remember thinking about this issue a lot during the RM/X days and I could never come up with any solutions that weren't radically different from RM that also fit in with Dugger's 'No rules by exception' rule.  Unfortunately, I think this is where RM's approach is fundamentally flawed:  it often attempts to treat non-skills as skills which generates rules-by-exception.  For instance, Body Development and Power Point Development.  These aren't skills.  At the very least, they're not skills in the same way that Swimming or Woodworking are skills.  Instead of forcing everything into the skill system, RM should break out those things into their own subsystems.

Furthermore, I think the RMSS's hierarchical approach toward skills is also flawed.  I understand the categorical logic which is fine for grouping things in manuals for ease-of-reference but it begins to fail when applied as live quantifications for a game.  This leads to credibility-straining groupings of skills which are supposed to derive equally from one another because of some theoretical common foundation.  Yes, Climbing and Swimming are both Athletic skills but really, how does one train in such a way that both Climbing and Swimming get equal amounts of progress as far as skill goes?  This could be addressed by forcing players to always buy category ranks as well as skill ranks but that doesn't make much sense either.

Another thing that aggravates this problem is the fact that RM insists on a static list of skills and, worse, essentially forces players to track their skill ranks in every one of them.  Sure, you can skip it but when it comes time to try to use a skill that you don't have ranks in, you have to pause the game to determine what your bonus is.  Thus, a lot of players, myself included, tend to use a spreadsheet to track every skill in the game.  Even, say, Stilt-Walking.

However, there must be some kind of abstraction that minimizes bookkeeping as much as possible.  I think back to how one of the RM2 companions suggested that similar skills be handled and I shudder.  Sure, it's more realistic for each skill to have unique connections to a handful of other skills but what a nightmare to track.  Personally, I think games like GURPS have it right:  individual skills with lazy links to others (e.g., defaults).  Don't have any Climbing ranks?  Find what out Climbing defaults to.  If it defaults to an attribute rather than a skill, then you just get that attribute's bonus.  Simple, reasonably realistic, and effective.

An alternate idea that I've never had a chance to playtest was to maintain skill categories but make skills into specializations that have n number of levels.  Each level purchase provides a +10 skill rank bonus when using that specialization.  So, anyone might just throw DPs into a Melee Weapons category but a specialist would also buy levels of a particular weapon specialization.  You can only buy one specialization level per n levels, some weapons in the game would require n levels of specialization, and so forth.

Of course, I also support other radical changes to the game such as divorcing the difficulty of learning a skill from the difficulty of applying a skill, not penalizing high level characters twice for skill rank purchases, and so forth.  I believe that fixing the problems with RM's skill system will require a near-complete retooling of how RM approaches skills both in their application and in their learning which is something a lot of people aren't interested in.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to work on RM anymore as we've pretty much abandoned RPGs for board games like 7 Ages, Advanced Squad Leader, Twilight Struggle, World in Flames, Tide of Iron, etc... (notice a theme?)
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Offline Kabis

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2007, 02:21:31 AM »
Back in the days of yore, when we gamed our gamey games...

Character Law, Rolemaster Companion 2 and Rolemaster Companion 3 were the books of rules we used, yet simplified. If a player was skilled with a broadsword, I would let him/her/it use half the skill amount for all other blade weapons. Similarily, an acrobat could use half for contortions. That was when we called it "RuleMaster".

With the arrival of Rolemaster Standard System (RMSS) we called it "DroolMaster". We found ourselves with entire backpacks and wheelbarrows filled with paperwork just to cover one character. The process of creating a character became like shopping for a new car: adolescent training packages and number crunching ad nauseum...

Curse of Kabis was bad? RMSS destroyed ICE.  :'(
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Offline Moriarty

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2007, 04:58:24 AM »
The similar skills problem is an interesting challenge that I would personally like to take a shot at, but this probably isn't the right place.
There are many considerations that need to be taken.

I like your idea David, it is simple and could probably be developed into something better than RMSS standard (but then, RMSS similar skills system is flawed in more than one way), although you need to adress the fact that not all skills in RMSS have simple costs like 1/3, some are 20 and 2/2/2, etc. Also your suggestion doesn't eliminate the bookkeeping involved in keeping seperate track of category/skill ranks - one of my main concerns with RMSS.

Monk, you make a good point about making things more streamlined and easier to remember. You seem to have eliminated similar skills - a solution that definately has its merits. But then you need to either cut down dramatically on the number of skills, or adress the similarity problem, i.e. why doesn't training in one skill help you improve other, similar skills?
...the way average posters like Moriarty read it.

Offline GoblynByte

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2007, 07:07:50 AM »
IMO the core concern is one that plagues many skill-based RPGs: How can you NOT gain some colateral knowledge by learning a specific trade?  How, in the process of learning how to be a blacksmith can you avoid learning about metalurgy?  The problem I see is that once you delve down the path of trying to develop skill synergies you quickly get yourself into a quicksand that sucks you further and further into "fuzzy" logic until you eventually can't breath for all the nuances to the skill similarity system.  RMSS was a valiant attempt at some sort of fix, but many people have pointed out the flaws of that logic.

But I think there is an important distinction to be made here.  There's the skill synergy that applies to practical situations (i.e. you know information about something that might related to your practical skill) which is handled by getting a bonus by rolling another skill (or is that just HARP?).  The other synergy is the inevitable body of knowledge that will be gained when developing a specific skill or trade.

To me it is far better to drop any attempt at handling skill development synergy in the rules and simply develop such skill synergies as part of your standard character creation (I think someone else suggested this in this thread or another, but I think it rings true).  I've always enjoyed spending skill points (in whatever game I play) in this manner.  I tend to think in the manner of "my character is a blacksmith, so he'd also know metalurgy as well as merchant skills and animal handling (to work with the horses he brings into the shop).  Some of these skills may not be required to do his job.  But learning such skills would be inevitable since he simply does in the course of performing his job.  But that's all a part of what Develpment Points (character points, experience points, etc) are.  I never saw them as a representation of what you study to learn, but also your ability to retain skills learned passively simply by doing.  So I simply spend them to match what he studies and what I think he would have learned in the due course of living.  I especially pay attention to this during adolescent development (and something I appreciate about RMSS, HARP, and MERP is that this consideration is taken for you) figuring that early development is more out of the character's control.  It develops as a result of the leassons of life rather than out of deliberate study.  Incidentally, after leveling up I also tend to spend points to reflect skills I felt he used and would have learned something as a result of that use (successful or not).  I don't slave myself to this because I assume that he would also spend some free time practicing/studying what he wants to learn, but I make sure to apply some development to what he inevitabely learned.

Sure this method can take focus away from his "pet" skills that the player may want to max out, but, IMO, it makes for a far more interesting character with skills matching his past rather than matching his future (what he has encountered rather than what he plans to encounter).

So my personal solution to the problem would be to ignore skill development synergy alltogether.  Keep it for practical applications (when your body of knowledge can actually present a practical bonus to a supported skill), but for development leave it up to responsible expenditure on the part of the player.
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Offline Marc R

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2007, 08:51:05 AM »
Often a modifier can make skills work more broadly. . .

So your character has no ranks in Technical Lore: Metalurgy, but has a +80 bonus in blacksmithing.

Player comes to a bluish metal door.

player "What metal is the door?"

GM "Medium metalurgy maneuver."

P "Don't have metallurgy, I've got blacksmithing though."

GM "OK, Very Hard Blacksmithing maneuver."

Keeping that in mind essentially eliminates the need to deal with similarity under most circumstances. . .having ranks in the lore skill would have made the task easier, but it's possible to get the result needed with another skill at a more difficult mod.
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Offline GoblynByte

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #8 on: July 26, 2007, 12:05:05 PM »
Often a modifier can make skills work more broadly. . .

So your character has no ranks in Technical Lore: Metalurgy, but has a +80 bonus in blacksmithing.

Player comes to a bluish metal door.

player "What metal is the door?"

GM "Medium metalurgy maneuver."

P "Don't have metallurgy, I've got blacksmithing though."

GM "OK, Very Hard Blacksmithing maneuver."

Keeping that in mind essentially eliminates the need to deal with similarity under most circumstances. . .having ranks in the lore skill would have made the task easier, but it's possible to get the result needed with another skill at a more difficult mod.


True.  I was referring more to general concepts than RM's specific division of skills, but that is a good point nonetheless.
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Offline Moriarty

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #9 on: July 27, 2007, 09:46:11 AM »
Often a modifier can make skills work more broadly. . .

So your character has no ranks in Technical Lore: Metalurgy, but has a +80 bonus in blacksmithing.

Player comes to a bluish metal door.

player "What metal is the door?"

GM "Medium metalurgy maneuver."

P "Don't have metallurgy, I've got blacksmithing though."

GM "OK, Very Hard Blacksmithing maneuver."

Keeping that in mind essentially eliminates the need to deal with similarity under most circumstances. . .having ranks in the lore skill would have made the task easier, but it's possible to get the result needed with another skill at a more difficult mod.


That's very interesting, the question is this:
Do you also allow the same player to fight with a scimitar, using broadsword skill and a modifier?

So we see that it is possible, in theory, to seperare the skill from the task, and that some tasks, can be accomplished with more than one skill.
Could that be the key?
...the way average posters like Moriarty read it.

Offline GoblynByte

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #10 on: July 27, 2007, 12:00:42 PM »
Often a modifier can make skills work more broadly. . .

So your character has no ranks in Technical Lore: Metalurgy, but has a +80 bonus in blacksmithing.

Player comes to a bluish metal door.

player "What metal is the door?"

GM "Medium metalurgy maneuver."

P "Don't have metallurgy, I've got blacksmithing though."

GM "OK, Very Hard Blacksmithing maneuver."

Keeping that in mind essentially eliminates the need to deal with similarity under most circumstances. . .having ranks in the lore skill would have made the task easier, but it's possible to get the result needed with another skill at a more difficult mod.


That's very interesting, the question is this:
Do you also allow the same player to fight with a scimitar, using broadsword skill and a modifier?

So we see that it is possible, in theory, to seperare the skill from the task, and that some tasks, can be accomplished with more than one skill.
Could that be the key?

It would probably be a reasonable assumption, I would think.  A few other games work on this idea anyway, and, while I don't know if it is explicitly stated for RM, it would certainly work.  For instance, GURPS assumes that a weapon skill speaks more of the "technique" of using that weapon than the weapon itself.  For example, you use the Spear skill to use a spear like a spear (stabbing and thrusting), but if you were to grip the spear in two hands and use its shaft like a staff you would use the Staff skill.

Now, the question would still remain, would a person trained in the use of the spear also get automatic or "free" ranks in the Staff skill?  My take on it would be no.  Getting such colateral training would still be part of pre-level training and thus development/character points should be spent appropriately with the player taking the initiative in developing skills with such synergies.  That's just my opinion, though.  I know some people like the synergies to be built in and automatic and I find nothing wrong with that other than an rather inevitable slide towards fuzzy logic linking some skills together, sometimes arbitrarily.
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Offline Marc R

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #11 on: July 27, 2007, 07:36:52 PM »
hmm, going that way would eliminate 100% of the need to deal with similarity altogether.
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Offline Balhirath

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #12 on: July 28, 2007, 01:36:28 PM »
Often a modifier can make skills work more broadly. . .

So your character has no ranks in Technical Lore: Metalurgy, but has a +80 bonus in blacksmithing.

Player comes to a bluish metal door.

player "What metal is the door?"

GM "Medium metalurgy maneuver."

P "Don't have metallurgy, I've got blacksmithing though."

GM "OK, Very Hard Blacksmithing maneuver."

Keeping that in mind essentially eliminates the need to deal with similarity under most circumstances. . .having ranks in the lore skill would have made the task easier, but it's possible to get the result needed with another skill at a more difficult mod.


That's very interesting, the question is this:
Do you also allow the same player to fight with a scimitar, using broadsword skill and a modifier?

So we see that it is possible, in theory, to seperare the skill from the task, and that some tasks, can be accomplished with more than one skill.
Could that be the key?

It would probably be a reasonable assumption, I would think.  A few other games work on this idea anyway, and, while I don't know if it is explicitly stated for RM, it would certainly work.  For instance, GURPS assumes that a weapon skill speaks more of the "technique" of using that weapon than the weapon itself.  For example, you use the Spear skill to use a spear like a spear (stabbing and thrusting), but if you were to grip the spear in two hands and use its shaft like a staff you would use the Staff skill.

Now, the question would still remain, would a person trained in the use of the spear also get automatic or "free" ranks in the Staff skill?  My take on it would be no.  Getting such colateral training would still be part of pre-level training and thus development/character points should be spent appropriately with the player taking the initiative in developing skills with such synergies.  That's just my opinion, though.  I know some people like the synergies to be built in and automatic and I find nothing wrong with that other than an rather inevitable slide towards fuzzy logic linking some skills together, sometimes arbitrarily.

That system is already there  ;D
The Weapon Skills for Similar weapons (Found on p. 79 of Character & Campaign Law) have already listed weapons that are used in the same way.
(There're some errors there, but they can easily be fixed.)
I'm new here, but have played RM2 on and off for 20 years. :)

Offline GoblynByte

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #13 on: July 28, 2007, 03:26:40 PM »
That system is already there  ;D
The Weapon Skills for Similar weapons (Found on p. 79 of Character & Campaign Law) have already listed weapons that are used in the same way.
(There're some errors there, but they can easily be fixed.)

Well, this is a little bit different, though.  This is more applying the techniques of an entirely different skill to an alternate use of a certain item or action.  You're not getting a bonus to the Spear skill because you know how to use a quarter staff.  Instead you're using the spear LIKE a quarter staff and therefore use the Staff skill instead of Spear.  Does that makes sense?

The idea would be that it would bleed out to non-combat skills as well.  I think one prime example of a non-combat skill that falls into this catagory is the often mishandled aspects of computer use in skill systems.  A lot of RPGs assume that all computer use is the same.  You use your computer skill weather you're surfing the internet or playing a computer game or hacking into a federal building.  Sometimes they even have you use your computer skill to work medical equipment or run an air traffic control system because, as the logic goes, they all use computers.  Well, I'm pretty darn good at using a computer, but I would hardly consider myself qualified to land a 747.

Now, obviously you can't list absolutely every activity you might do with a computer as a separate skill, so you have to assume some abstract coverage.   Where does the balance lie?  I'm not really offering any solutions here.  Simply discussing the topic and pointing out ideas. ;)  I'm also not speaking directly of Rolemaster skills.  Just RPG skill systems in general.
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Offline Marc R

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #14 on: July 28, 2007, 08:43:54 PM »
hmm, I dunno, I suspect that a more on target use would be akin to:

Scimitar is a Hard Broadsword maneuver.
Dagger is a very hard broadsword maneuver.
battleaxe is an absurd broadsword maneuver.

(Rather than 1/2 skill or 1/2 rank, more a rising scale of minuses)
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Offline Dax

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #15 on: July 30, 2007, 09:16:11 PM »
...
 For instance, GURPS assumes that a weapon skill speaks more of the "technique" of using that weapon than the weapon itself.  For example, you use the Spear skill to use a spear like a spear (stabbing and thrusting), but if you were to grip the spear in two hands and use its shaft like a staff you would use the Staff skill.
...

This reminds me of the MAC-Combat Styles.
IMHO (without knowledge how the Combat Styles really work) a spear is used 2-handed
the same way as a quaterstaff. In the attack tables there are also Krush-crits,
these crits might be interpretated as a stab with the blunt end or a swing with the shaft.
This might also be true with other pole-arms.
(In a martial-artist-movie a smith was in a fight with some agile guys and didn't hit until a
monk gave him the hint to strike with the shaft of his heavy 2handed-hammer.)
If you are fighting you use the possibilities you have.
The GM might interpret a low damage as an attack with the pommel, the off-weapon-
hand, a kick or even as a shild bash - without the need of another attack table.
(The goal is story telling not page flipping.)

...
The idea would be that it would bleed out to non-combat skills as well.  I think one prime example of a non-combat skill that falls into this catagory is the often mishandled aspects of computer use in skill systems.  A lot of RPGs assume that all computer use is the same.  You use your computer skill weather you're surfing the internet or playing a computer game or hacking into a federal building.  Sometimes they even have you use your computer skill to work medical equipment or run an air traffic control system because, as the logic goes, they all use computers.  Well, I'm pretty darn good at using a computer, but I would hardly consider myself qualified to land a 747.

Now, obviously you can't list absolutely every activity you might do with a computer as a separate skill, so you have to assume some abstract coverage.   Where does the balance lie?  I'm not really offering any solutions here.  Simply discussing the topic and pointing out ideas. ;)  I'm also not speaking directly of Rolemaster skills.  Just RPG skill systems in general.

Here my opinion:
In our today world the use of computer is wide ranged.
Imagine a modern bard: An author. She uses a computer for word-processing.
This use is part of the modern writing skill (aka "Tale Telling"). With it she learned
perhaps one rank in "Computer" because of system crash and program installing etc.
As a real life example I can tell about my mother: She is a retired tax counselor.
As such she used a computer network via a modem to calculate taxes for her mandates.
Nowadays she always tells me she can't understand how the internet functions. But she
used her computer that way long before anyone of us.
Her book-keeping-skill includes the appropriate use of a computer.
And this should be true for any modern skill.
It allowes the right use of the computer assisted system (747 or BattleMech MIRC).
But the GM could demand a minimum rank number in "Computer" for proper understanding.

The "Computer" skill is for programmers, sysadmin and of course moderators ;)

R.I.P.    rpgrm.com

Offline Rivstyx

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #16 on: July 31, 2007, 08:10:12 AM »
...
 For instance, GURPS assumes that a weapon skill speaks more of the "technique" of using that weapon than the weapon itself.  For example, you use the Spear skill to use a spear like a spear (stabbing and thrusting), but if you were to grip the spear in two hands and use its shaft like a staff you would use the Staff skill.
...

This reminds me of the MAC-Combat Styles.
IMHO (without knowledge how the Combat Styles really work) a spear is used 2-handed
the same way as a quaterstaff. In the attack tables there are also Krush-crits,
these crits might be interpretated as a stab with the blunt end or a swing with the shaft.
This might also be true with other pole-arms.
(In a martial-artist-movie a smith was in a fight with some agile guys and didn't hit until a
monk gave him the hint to strike with the shaft of his heavy 2handed-hammer.)
If you are fighting you use the possibilities you have.
The GM might interpret a low damage as an attack with the pommel, the off-weapon-
hand, a kick or even as a shild bash - without the need of another attack table.
(The goal is story telling not page flipping.)

...
The idea would be that it would bleed out to non-combat skills as well.  I think one prime example of a non-combat skill that falls into this catagory is the often mishandled aspects of computer use in skill systems.  A lot of RPGs assume that all computer use is the same.  You use your computer skill weather you're surfing the internet or playing a computer game or hacking into a federal building.  Sometimes they even have you use your computer skill to work medical equipment or run an air traffic control system because, as the logic goes, they all use computers.  Well, I'm pretty darn good at using a computer, but I would hardly consider myself qualified to land a 747.

Now, obviously you can't list absolutely every activity you might do with a computer as a separate skill, so you have to assume some abstract coverage.   Where does the balance lie?  I'm not really offering any solutions here.  Simply discussing the topic and pointing out ideas. ;)  I'm also not speaking directly of Rolemaster skills.  Just RPG skill systems in general.

Here my opinion:
In our today world the use of computer is wide ranged.
Imagine a modern bard: An author. She uses a computer for word-processing.
This use is part of the modern writing skill (aka "Tale Telling"). With it she learned
perhaps one rank in "Computer" because of system crash and program installing etc.
As a real life example I can tell about my mother: She is a retired tax counselor.
As such she used a computer network via a modem to calculate taxes for her mandates.
Nowadays she always tells me she can't understand how the internet functions. But she
used her computer that way long before anyone of us.
Her book-keeping-skill includes the appropriate use of a computer.
And this should be true for any modern skill.
It allowes the right use of the computer assisted system (747 or BattleMech MIRC).
But the GM could demand a minimum rank number in "Computer" for proper understanding.

The "Computer" skill is for programmers, sysadmin and of course moderators ;)



As a tech lead/project manager I know C, C++, C#, Pascal, VB, VB.NET, Java, Javascript, vbscript, VBA, HTML, XML, XSLT, SQL, T-SQL, PL/SQL etc. etc.  All told I know roughly 35 computer languages but I did not learn them one at a time or in a vacuum.  All computer languages have commonalities.  There are things they all need to do like construct loops, calculations, conditionals, ways to access data, comments etc.  They all share a common ground.  So you are not relearning everything when you learn a language.  In most cases you are simply changing syntax.  If you understand that it is relatively easy to write a UNIX shell script one day and a windows service in C# the next.

I would think weapons would be the same.  A sword is a sword.  The only differences are symantics. 


Offline GoblynByte

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #17 on: July 31, 2007, 05:05:36 PM »
As a tech lead/project manager I know C, C++, C#, Pascal, VB, VB.NET, Java, Javascript, vbscript, VBA, HTML, XML, XSLT, SQL, T-SQL, PL/SQL etc. etc.  All told I know roughly 35 computer languages but I did not learn them one at a time or in a vacuum.  All computer languages have commonalities.  There are things they all need to do like construct loops, calculations, conditionals, ways to access data, comments etc.  They all share a common ground.  So you are not relearning everything when you learn a language.  In most cases you are simply changing syntax.  If you understand that it is relatively easy to write a UNIX shell script one day and a windows service in C# the next.

I would think weapons would be the same.  A sword is a sword.  The only differences are symantics. 



I would agree with that in regards to many weapon applications (some principles of combat simpy breed true no matter what's in your hand), but in regards to computers I was referring more to the application of the use of computers rather than the use of the computer itself.  What I mean is that RPGs often consider the skill of operating a computer to land a plane the same as the skill of operating a computer to hack into other computers simply to keep the skill list more streamlined.  Sure, the environment or language commonalities may help you navigate the computer environment more efficiently, but that neglects the large body of support knowledge you would need to perform certain tasks with that computer.

Will a general skill in computers allow you to install/alter software, operate MS Word, and surf the internet with equal efficiency?  Yes.  Will a general skill in computers allow you to operate medical, navigational, or highly complex database programs?  Probably not. ;)
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
--Stephen Crain

Offline shnar

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #18 on: August 01, 2007, 04:07:11 PM »
IMHO, I say drop skill similarities completely. If a character is going to use a skill, then he/she should pay DP for it.

Having said that though, if you *really* want a similar system, then do something simple like say every 5 ranks in a skill gives 1 rank to all skills in that category. So, if someone is training in Broadsword, every 5 ranks, they get 1 rank in all other 1H Edged weapons. I'd probably add a caveat, as long as ranks in that skill are less than the Broadsword/5. Meaning once you get to rank 5 in Broadsword, if you have rank 2 in Dagger, you don't get the "free" general development.

I suppose this is similar to the other-skill-greater-difficulty rule proposed by LordMiller though, and his proposal is a lot less bookkeeping...

-shnar

Offline Rivstyx

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Re: Skills and Categories Fixed Easily
« Reply #19 on: August 01, 2007, 04:11:52 PM »
As a tech lead/project manager I know C, C++, C#, Pascal, VB, VB.NET, Java, Javascript, vbscript, VBA, HTML, XML, XSLT, SQL, T-SQL, PL/SQL etc. etc.  All told I know roughly 35 computer languages but I did not learn them one at a time or in a vacuum.  All computer languages have commonalities.  There are things they all need to do like construct loops, calculations, conditionals, ways to access data, comments etc.  They all share a common ground.  So you are not relearning everything when you learn a language.  In most cases you are simply changing syntax.  If you understand that it is relatively easy to write a UNIX shell script one day and a windows service in C# the next.

I would think weapons would be the same.  A sword is a sword.  The only differences are symantics. 



I would agree with that in regards to many weapon applications (some principles of combat simpy breed true no matter what's in your hand), but in regards to computers I was referring more to the application of the use of computers rather than the use of the computer itself.  What I mean is that RPGs often consider the skill of operating a computer to land a plane the same as the skill of operating a computer to hack into other computers simply to keep the skill list more streamlined.  Sure, the environment or language commonalities may help you navigate the computer environment more efficiently, but that neglects the large body of support knowledge you would need to perform certain tasks with that computer.

Will a general skill in computers allow you to install/alter software, operate MS Word, and surf the internet with equal efficiency?  Yes.  Will a general skill in computers allow you to operate medical, navigational, or highly complex database programs?  Probably not. ;)

None of those tasks you list need a computer skill.  You do not have to understand how your ATM works to use it or know how your car works in order to drive it.  You do not need to know how the medical, navigational or even RDBMS (Relational Database) software works inside. There is a front-end that hides the complexity and instead gives you a much easier interface to use.  A steering wheel, two pedals and maybe a stick are a lot less complicated then what is actually powering the car.
  
In a perfect world the complexity of flying the plane would be handled by the computer program that was written to perform the task and not the operator using the software.  So even a person with novice computer experience should be able to operate the software needed to land the plane.  If the software was not written yet you could never design, build and implement a program from scratch able to land a plane in time so as to avert a crisis situation :)  It just takes much more time than that.  You would be better off relying on your piloting skills.