Organic Skill Trees

[Atgxtg]

12 hours ago, g33k said:

Separate skills, in a dependency tree.  For example, algebra is a pre-requisite for both Discrete Math and Calculus, but they are different branches of the tree -- one can become quite advanced in one without any ability in the other (obviously, this is unlikely in most modern university settings where "calculus" is usually taken as the first "serious math" class; and both calc & discrete are required for any major or minor ... ).

I'm not so sure. If they are on the same tree they might be aspects of the same skill. Most people who are decent with basic arithmetic can solve some basic algebra without knowing any. For example, X+3=5. 

Of coruse one of things here is that mathematics is, to some extent, a prerequisite for just about anything with some technical or scientific aspect to it. 

[dracopticon]

Hello all (and especially greetings to the author of this thread)! This is definately a very interesting thread and a subject. I myself could spend days debating its pros and cons.

I just wanted to point out that something close to this kind of skill system (if I am correct in assuming it's in tune what I am implying) is already used in the old Ringworld RPG from the eighties. If this has been already pointed out, I am sorry as I haven't read through all the replies here. Thanks for an interesting subject. //Erik. 

[smiorgan]

On 4/6/2017 at 8:17 PM, soltakss said:

Revolution D100 has an elegant way of doing this.

You have core skills and than gain traits. So

Revolution. That is the way to go if you want skill trees. More complex / variable trees really become an headache, at least for me. 

[Tim Ellis]

My preferred implementation of a "Skill Tree"  would be to cap each level, and not allow specialisation until you reach that level - so if  Firearms has a cap of 50% you can't take Firearms/Pistol or Firearms/Shotgun until you reach a skill of 50% (thus avoiding the problem of starting a specialisation then improving the base skill) . This would extend to all levels - Firearms(0-50)/Pistol(51-70)/Automatic Pistol(71-90)/Walther PPK (91-100+).

This would also lead (where necessary) to some skills becoming  specialisations - so if you "need" maths at 50% to learn Physics then you have Maths (0-50)/Physics(51-75)/Quantum Physics(76+) (other specialisations of Maths and/or Physics available as required)

Which means your only "problem" is where a skill has multiple pre-requisites - which I think you can only handle by requiring the character to have those skills at some defined?) level in order to take the specialisation.


But I'm not sure that that's the best way to approach things for a BRP game....

1) Define the skills that matter for the game.  Maths, trigonometry, algebra, calculus, set theory and probability might all be valid skills for a mathematician,  but unless you really need that level of granularity for your game, a "maths" skill will be fine.

2) apply a penalty (or adjust the difficulty) for use of a related skill if the main skill is not available. (Solving the problem is an easy Maths roll. If you don't have Maths you could use a related skill (eg Physics) as a Hard roll.  If you have no related skills you are defaulting to what you learned at high school - a Very Hard Knowledge roll)

3a) allow a personal, preferred weapon a +10% bonus (maybe limited to 1 weapon, or one per skill type) - using any other weapon will obviously not gain this bonus 

or 

3b) apply a situational penalty when first picking up an unfamiliar weapon, until the character has time to "acclimatise" - so when your Sword breaks and you have to pick up an unfamiliar weapon from a fallen foe, or you steal a weapon from the unconscious guard while escaping from captivity, you will not be as proficient as you are with the weapon you normally use day in and day out. However once you have had chance to find it's balance, or allow for it's recoil, you can mitigate the problems.
 

 

[Algesan]

On 6/25/2017 at 12:04 PM, Atgxtg said:

The look more closely. According to the BGB (pages 47-48) you have to select a specialty when picking a broad skill such as firearms, and that skill doesn't necessarily carry over to other, related skills (GM call). And even when it does, it's usually at half rating. So someone who mastered a PPK - that is have Firearms (Pistol) at 90%+, would't necessarily be above the base percentage with a shotgun. Now the "not being able to fire a shotgun" bit is an exaggeration. The character could certainly fire one, just might not have much chance to hit what he was shooting at. 

 

It's the same reason why Melee Weapon (Sword) and Melee Weapon (Spear) are separate skills and don't carry over to each other. 

Heh, don't carry that one too far.  I'm ducking out on most of this because Weapons & Combat are one thing, but non-combat skills are where any real need for specialization comes in and the best way I've seen it dealt with was in HERO 5th Ed in their book The Ultimate Skill (IIRC), especially all the polyglot of related sciences in higher tech games.  They laid out levels of sciences that you could take and pretty much get automatic skill in and how much.  The actual mechanism wasn't so important to me as the relationships.

As for the Combat side of the house...well Chaosium is fairly ate the heck up from a certain point of view (along with every other game designer out there).  The armor penalties are totally out of line with the reality...except that they kinda do simulate someone having to train up skills to compensate, although the real top end plate was far less cumbersome than several earlier iterations of protection.  The weapons though...to use your example, longer swords are perfectly usable as short spears (sometimes very short) because no sword is ever "razor sharp" (it makes the edge easier to nick, weakening the blade and causing it to break faster) and people fighting with swords tend to wear some sort of glove that will protect them totally from getting sliced (all it takes is light leather and you can even do it bare handed somewhat).  Of course, the infamous Halberd, which can be considered in many ways a long spear, a 2H axe and a 2H hammer/pick (depending on the back of the axe head).

I think I'll skip over shields, which are far, far more deadly weapons than a d3 or d4 portrays.  That myth has been going on forever and perpetuated by people who dabble or watch reenactors who pretty much only use their shields defensively.  Why?  Because a punch to a steel helm with the edge of a shield is way more likely to concuss you than most people realize.  Offensive shield use simply remains too unsafe to perform outside of very restricted limits.  Look at a dinner plate sized buckler...it isn't a shield, it is a hand held parrying device that can land hard punches, it doesn't belong in shields, it belongs in brawling weapons and should use the same skill.

Heh, being able to do house rules is fun.

[Joerg]

On 5.12.2017 at 5:45 PM, Tim Ellis said:

My preferred implementation of a "Skill Tree"  would be to cap each level, and not allow specialisation until you reach that level - so if  Firearms has a cap of 50% you can't take Firearms/Pistol or Firearms/Shotgun until you reach a skill of 50% (thus avoiding the problem of starting a specialisation then improving the base skill) . This would extend to all levels - Firearms(0-50)/Pistol(51-70)/Automatic Pistol(71-90)/Walther PPK (91-100+).

This would also lead (where necessary) to some skills becoming  specialisations - so if you "need" maths at 50% to learn Physics then you have Maths (0-50)/Physics(51-75)/Quantum Physics(76+) (other specialisations of Maths and/or Physics available as required)

So, you can take "drive" up to 50% and have the same chance at driving a Sherman Tank, a Road Train, or a Tesla sports car, but when I get up to 51%, it makes a difference? Somehow my own driving experience (with none of the aforementioned models, but e.g. switching from gear box to automatic) were different. It felt more like being penalized for driving with an unfamiliar mode, a penalty that could be bought down.

On the other hand, material matters. It makes a difference whether I shoot an ACE arrow or an aluminium tube arrow from my sports bow,  both of which require choice of material tuned to the bow and my draw length.

Mathematics skill is an interesting topic, too. While I made it through high school usually at the top of my class, I have an aptitude towards arithmetics and algebra but not really for non-numeric geometric construction or set theory. My university exposure to math was intense, but focussed on the math I would need in physics and chemistry., including calculus and statistics. So one could argue that I have a math skill appropriate to good high school knowledge, refined by specialization in university, but with known disadvantages in certain fields, and unknown disadvantages in other fields I haven't had deep encounters with yet. And how I perform in a certain situation may depend on which research tools are available to me, and how much I am left alone with what I recall from having learned explicitely, what I can cobble together from similar things I have done, and what I can deduct from given basics and applying to the problem before me. Not to mention general fitness, urgency, stress and other influences on my performance.

Sometimes these factors may just be summed up in the randomization of a die roll. Sometimes the obvious eludes even the expert, at other times a first impression may be more spot on than any intense cogitation.

If I roll up a modern character with the background "university diploma in chemistry", this will represent a skill set. Different people with this grade will have vasty different skil sets, through specialization, subjects dropped from the local curriculum, or extracurricular activity resulting in side knowledge. Do I get "Craft Glassblower" at entry levels because I learnt to bend glass tubes or blowing glass bulbs out of them using a Bunsen burner? Does knowledge about the structure and synthesis of certain pharmaceutical substances warrant any level in pharmacist, or does it call for the "Lore/Craft Chemist" skill at some situational penalty instead?

 

[Mugen]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

So, you can take "drive" up to 50% and have the same chance at driving a Sherman Tank, a Road Train, or a Tesla sports car, but when I get up to 51%, it makes a difference? Somehow my own driving experience (with none of the aforementioned models, but e.g. switching from gear box to automatic) were different. It felt more like being penalized for driving with an unfamiliar mode, a penalty that could be bought down.

On the other hand, material matters. It makes a difference whether I shoot an ACE arrow or an aluminium tube arrow from my sports bow,  both of which require choice of material tuned to the bow and my draw length.

Mathematics skill is an interesting topic, too. While I made it through high school usually at the top of my class, I have an aptitude towards arithmetics and algebra but not really for non-numeric geometric construction or set theory. My university exposure to math was intense, but focussed on the math I would need in physics and chemistry., including calculus and statistics. So one could argue that I have a math skill appropriate to good high school knowledge, refined by specialization in university, but with known disadvantages in certain fields, and unknown disadvantages in other fields I haven't had deep encounters with yet. And how I perform in a certain situation may depend on which research tools are available to me, and how much I am left alone with what I recall from having learned explicitely, what I can cobble together from similar things I have done, and what I can deduct from given basics and applying to the problem before me. Not to mention general fitness, urgency, stress and other influences on my performance.

Sometimes these factors may just be summed up in the randomization of a die roll. Sometimes the obvious eludes even the expert, at other times a first impression may be more spot on than any intense cogitation.

If I roll up a modern character with the background "university diploma in chemistry", this will represent a skill set. Different people with this grade will have vasty different skil sets, through specialization, subjects dropped from the local curriculum, or extracurricular activity resulting in side knowledge. Do I get "Craft Glassblower" at entry levels because I learnt to bend glass tubes or blowing glass bulbs out of them using a Bunsen burner? Does knowledge about the structure and synthesis of certain pharmaceutical substances warrant any level in pharmacist, or does it call for the "Lore/Craft Chemist" skill at some situational penalty instead?

Your experience matches mine.

I studied Physics at university for 5 years, and I consider my knowledge of mathematics to be very poor.

On the other hand, I have basic understanding of Quantum Physics.

[Zit]

Whatever the game rule, you'll always find a counter-example in real life. At some time, it is necessary to accept that everything cannot be simulated and that logic and common sense (if this does exist at all) supersedes any rule.

[Atgxtg]

On 12/11/2017 at 5:38 PM, Algesan said:

As for the Combat side of the house...well Chaosium is fairly ate the heck up from a certain point of view (along with every other game designer out there).  The armor penalties are totally out of line with the reality...except that they kinda do simulate someone having to train up skills to compensate, although the real top end plate was far less cumbersome than several earlier iterations of protection. 

Yup. I was doing something for Pendragon awhile back that got into the Gothic armor with overlapping layers of plate. It would port over fairly well to BRP/RQ, too. Bascially better protection at less weight and/or better weight distribution. 

On 12/11/2017 at 5:38 PM, Algesan said:

The weapons though...to use your example, longer swords are perfectly usable as short spears (sometimes very short) because no sword is ever "razor sharp" (it makes the edge easier to nick, weakening the blade and causing it to break faster) and people fighting with swords tend to wear some sort of glove that will protect them totally from getting sliced (all it takes is light leather and you can even do it bare handed somewhat).  Of course, the infamous Halberd, which can be considered in many ways a long spear, a 2H axe and a 2H hammer/pick (depending on the back of the axe head).

Yeah, and that sword makes a good club, too. Historically, it might make a better club that a sword. Likewise a spear can make a decent staff in a pinch 9and if fact there is a decent amount of overlap between spears and staves). 

Personally, I don;t mind using the old RQ2 "related weapon" rule to allow fro such cross overs. I'd limit the PC to the lower damage (either becuase of a lack of a sharp edge/point or beucase the mode of use doesn't take full advatage of such).

 

But the point was that while you might be able to use a sword as a club or axe, it probably isn't as good as the real thing. 

On 12/11/2017 at 5:38 PM, Algesan said:

I think I'll skip over shields, which are far, far more deadly weapons than a d3 or d4 portrays. 

The same holds true for knives. The problem is that in real life getting cut or stabbed in a serious, potentially life threatening injury while 1d3 or 1d4 isn't much of a threat in game terms. 

On 12/11/2017 at 5:38 PM, Algesan said:

  Look at a dinner plate sized buckler...it isn't a shield, it is a hand held parrying device that can land hard punches, it doesn't belong in shields, it belongs in brawling weapons and should use the same skill.

Yeah, but it's "damage rating" in BRP terms should probably be in the punch (1d3)+1 or punch+2 levels-at least compared to the other weapons. If RQ/BRP had some sort of stun/shock mechanic things could be different, and a low damage weapon could still wind up being useful and effective. 

On 12/11/2017 at 5:38 PM, Algesan said:

Heh, being able to do house rules is fun.

We're always able to do house rules. How "fun" that is can vary quite a bit.