Learning time for a new skill ?

[rust]

In the science fiction setting I am currently working on the characters will often

have to learn a new skill, one where their base chance is only 0 % or 1 %.

According to the BGB, page 184, "To learn ... your character must train for hours

equal to his current percentage ability with the skill." This makes little sense in

the cases mentioned above, because learning 1D6-2 % of, for example, a science

skill in 0 - 1 hours would be highly implausible.

Since I did not find any other rule for learning a new skill, I tried to come up with

a house rule. The learning time in such cases would be 40 (maximum hours of

learning possible in one week in my setting, instead of the 50 hours used in the

BGB) minus the Intelligence characteristic of the character: (40 - INT) hours.

This way an average character would need 27 hours of learning to understand

the basics of the new skill, which seems plausible to me.

If you see any problem with this house rule, please let me know.

[Skunkape]

Well, if you consider the various methods of skill learning put forth by different Science Fiction authors, you can have skill learning very fast or slow. One method that comes to mind is RNA Learning (if I'm remembering my story correctly), the knowledge is in the form of a retro virus that is injected into the person, who learns the skill rather quickly. Also, Star Trek had a show where McCoy learned how to perform brain surgery, granted that skill didn't last very long, but both of those instances show two methods of skill learning.

Personally, I'd go with what you feel comfortable with for your game.

[Smoking Frog]

A big part of the issue seems to be what you consider 4 or 5% in a science skill to represent. The BGB's description of this level is that the character would have a difficult time even with Easy tasks. And 6-25% "knows enough to be dangerous." For some reason, I am interested physics, especially cosmology, but I'm strictly a dabbler and I can't do any difficult math. So I can talk to someone about how a black hole is formed, for example, or what dark matter is, but as far as solving any problems or advancing the state of knowledge, I would be hopelessly lost. My brother, on the other hand has taught university-level physics, and he did his graduate thesis on dark matter, so he could have a good chance of actually solving a problem that you gave him.

If a knowledge skill were measuring just "knows about it," I might have a 20% in physics, in that I have a good chance of knowing what something is, and at least having some idea what it's about, so, for example, I could read a book for non-specialists and get something out of it. If a knowledge skill measures "knows how to work with the underlying principles," my physics skill would be about 1%.

If the characters grew up in a highly technical society and were immersed in general technology studies during their schooling, getting a tiny smattering of the skill (0 to 4%) might only be an hour or two. Sort of what you could pick up in the first day of class. And since that tiny smattering of knowledge will do them almost no good in game terms, letting them have that much skill after a brief study period might not be too outrageous.

But the super-specialization in modern science makes it difficult to use "general" categories like "physics." A professional physicist will have an enormous amount of knowledge about his or her own particular field, but be only generally competent in the minutia of some other field, although both are within the realm of "physics." So what would "physics" 85%, for example, represent? Presumably in the future this problem will get worse, not better.

[rust]

If a knowledge skill were measuring just "knows about it," I might have a 20% in physics, in that I have a good chance of knowing what something is, and at least having some idea what it's about, so, for example, I could read a book for non-specialists and get something out of it. If a knowledge skill measures "knows how to work with the underlying principles," my physics skill would be about 1%.

The way I usually handle this, the "general knowledge" is represented by the

Knowledge roll based on the Education characteristic, while the relevant skill

represents the "ability to do something" with that knowledge.

But the super-specialization in modern science makes it difficult to use "general" categories like "physics." A professional physicist will have an enormous amount of knowledge about his or her own particular field, but be only generally competent in the minutia of some other field, although both are within the realm of "physics." So what would "physics" 85%, for example, represent? Presumably in the future this problem will get worse, not better.

Right, and in my campaigns I usually break down the "general" sciences into a

number of more narrow fields. For example a biologist character can have a skill

in "Ecology" or "Genetics" or "Marine Biology", which includes the basic knowledge

of all the biology fields, but he cannot have "Biology" as a skill which covers all

the fields equally well.

[Smoking Frog]

I always forget about the Knowledge roll, but it really does solve a lot of issues in a society in which education is common.

[vagabond]

In the science fiction setting I am currently working on the characters will often

have to learn a new skill, one where their base chance is only 0 % or 1 %.

According to the BGB, page 184, "To learn ... your character must train for hours

equal to his current percentage ability with the skill." This makes little sense in

the cases mentioned above, because learning 1D6-2 % of, for example, a science

skill in 0 - 1 hours would be highly implausible.

Since I did not find any other rule for learning a new skill, I tried to come up with

a house rule. The learning time in such cases would be 40 (maximum hours of

learning possible in one week in my setting, instead of the 50 hours used in the

BGB) minus the Intelligence characteristic of the character: (40 - INT) hours.

This way an average character would need 27 hours of learning to understand

the basics of the new skill, which seems plausible to me.

If you see any problem with this house rule, please let me know.

I guess it depends on how much the skill will improve after the period of learning. For example, if the skill starts at 01, and will only increase by 3% to 04, it kind of makes sense that the character is studying for an hour, but really isn't learning much. But, as the skill improves, and the character is at 25%, to gain a deeper understanding, 25 hours o f study makes sense. And, when the character hits 80% and is an "expert" in the related field of study, finding out something new could take some time.

Ian

[rust]

Thank you all very much for your answers.

If I did not miss anything, we may have different opinions whether the rule

reflects learning in a high technology society well, but there is no problem

with the game mechanics, so I will use it for my setting.