Drive and Ride Skills and their Specialties

[Dead_DDP]

Coming to the 2023 version of Basic Roleplaying from Call of Cthulhu 7th edition, so almost a brand new player here, and I'm a little confused by the Drive and Ride skills and their various specialties. When looking at the Professions, every skill that has specialties has it listed next to the skill (i.e., Repair (Mechanical), Firearm (Pistol, Revolver, or Rifle) or Craft (any)), but Drive and Ride don't. Both skills have specialties, either vehicle type or animal type, but you don't actually get told what specialties you can get, if any, from the Profession skills. If you get the skills from your Profession, do you just not get a specialty? I'm just confused and can't seem to find an answer in the book itself.

[Questbird]

I always thought Drive and Ride were general: if you can ride one beast, you can ride 'em all, at least as far as BRP and game balance is concerned. Similarly with Drive. The cost is some realism but the benefit is less fiddliness and wasted skill points: "Oh you've got Drive Toyota Corolla, you can't possibly know how to drive this Honda!"

[sladethesniper]

I always think of what I know and use that to make decisions. I can drive a car pretty well (more than one specialized course) but big rigs are a no. I can drive an American AFV, but probably not a Russian one. I can fly a single engine prop aircraft, but not a helicopter. Bicycle yes, motorcycle is a hard no. I can ride a horse, but not a bull. So, yeah, there is some degree of specialization, but I would generally say it goes by vehicle class as opposed to specific models.

 

[Susimetsa]

I always find it interesting to see which skills certain RPGs generalise and which skills get special nitpicky treatment. Very often, the focus is on weapon skills, sometimes on social skills etc. depending on the focus of the game. I think BRP leaves a lot of it to the GM to decide: if you plan a medieval setting, you can choose to subdivide Ride and Drive skills as you deem necessary (e.g. horse-like animals in one category, camels and elephants in theirs). But if you play in a futuristic setting where vehicles may be AI assisted, one skill might cover them all.

[sladethesniper]

I'll agree on combat skills being a bit wonky in games. Some are like guns are guns so you can use guns. Others are more specific. I would say that black powder/cap and ball weapons are their own family of weapons, as are modern firearms, as are "energy weapons."  The differences in using a weapon are all fairly similar (trigger, sights, firing stance) but there is a world of difference between combat handguns and extreme long range shooting. Using one or the other is possible, but using them well is something very different.

Same thing for melee weapons... sure if you can swing a stick you can swing a sword, but doing it well enough against someone else and not getting hurt is something else.

That is one of the arguements for specializations. Melee (dagger) or Black Powder (pistol) is more appropos than long sword, short sword, etc or rifle, carbine, shotgun, etc. This is the way that BRP BGB does it, but I think that the cascade skills in the old Traveler were a better solution.  

[Mugen]

IMHO, in most cases specialties should be treated as bonus to a broader base skill.

That is, if I'm a sword fighter I'll have a generic Melee Weapon skill at a given percentage, and a Sword specialty which I'll add to my Melee Weapon skill when I use a sword.

Same for drive, or ride.

Other solutions exist, such as using similar weapons skills with a malus, but I think they're less elegant -even though this option doesn't require to re-write experience rules to take specialties into account.