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Teaching


Butters

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Teaching is an advanced skill but can it default to the Int + Cha characteristics as we are not meeting a lot of N.P.C's with the skill and I really want to learn a new skill. we are currently traveling through the Rainforest with some natives and I'm thinking that knowing how to use a spear would be really handy especially as the gunpowder becomes too damp but it's doubtful that any of the natives have the teaching skill.

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They might not have a formal skill, but every society will have people who are better at imparting knowledge than others. They would be the ones who teach children skills, who take boys into the forest and teach them the skills of war or take girls into the forest and teach them skills of healing, or whatever.

Ask around and the GM might point you to someone who can teach. Thnking about it, you may well be the GM, so have one of the natives be a teacher.

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So if nobody has the teaching skill, then who teaches the little natives how to throw a spear? Obviously somebody in the tribe knows how to teach even if they don't have a formal education.

I suspect perhaps a too literal reading of the teaching skill? The skill lists assume a European setting which this does not appear to be. Perhaps you just meant none of the small group helping your party has the teaching skill.

Also it is a spear, not advanced calculus. I know the rules say teaching is required, but its a spear, take pointy end and jab... repeat until you are good at it. 😊

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Lol all true but I'm trying to get used to the mechanics of the game and whilst this is not the first time the desire to learn another skill has come up its certainly as you say the simplest and it seems that not many characters take teaching as a skill and that includes N.P.C's. At the moment we have just hand waved it by going "He knows how  to fire cannons, stay with him for two weeks and the G.M makes a roll and decides. I'm just wondering if we could just use teaching on its default level if a character doesnt have it when the situation crops up again in the future to give some sort of transparent mechanics otherwise I don't think we will ever find a competent teacher. :(

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I have Renaissance, but don't have experience with it.

Looking at the learning a new skill rules, it appears to me you only need a "teacher" to learn an advanced skill. Anybody can teach a regular skill as long as they have 20% greater skill than the pupil. Once you have the skill yourself you can practice, practice practice.

Having a qualified teacher (has teaching skill) for a regular skill just provides an opportunity to learn / improve the skill faster.

 

As far as not many people having the skill, I still think that has to do more with people reading "teaching" as formally educated to teach rather than just having the ability to instruct others.

 

Throk the exceedingly patient, may be an illiterate caveman but when teaching others how to make fire, throw a rock or paint lovely cave art he may very well be an excellent natural teacher. Not because he went to Caveman University, but simply because he is patient and explains things well.

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Teaching is an immensely difficult skill that only the most sophisticated members of any society, current or historical, could even dream of meddling in.

Only the cream of this elite could really teach and accomplish all the astonishing feats and wonders we gratefully and full of awe associate with the almost magical art of teaching.

Yes, I am a teacher in real life. Why do you ask?

Edited by Der Rote Baron
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Thanks for all the replies I had somehow missed the research option for Learning a new skill.

Since my character is currently hacking his way through the Jungle I'm hoping that since it's a relatively easy skill that I want to learn I can just take the time and have a Karate Kid style montage with a friendly native where he reveals the secrets of wax on wax off.

Edited by Butters
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  • The rules state for Advanced Skill "The following skills cannot be used by characters who lack the requisite training." As Game Master I decide who has the requisite training. Mayan natives, yes they can teach someone how to throw a spear. That is how I read it.
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  • 1 year later...

Before the birth of pedagogy and andragogy (finding the best and most efficient means to teach a subject to a group of people), we had master-apprentice training (which is still used today, of course). Given a good master who cares for the apprentice (and doesn't just use them as a punching bag for their drunken moments) it is still the most efficient way to teach a single person or a very small group: you work with your apprentice, show them how you do things (even if you cannot explain it in words) and give them more and more difficult tasks as their skills improve.

In order to teach larger groups efficiently (as we need to do in the modern world), you need pedagogical theories, methods (didactics) and attitude that goes beyond the requirements of master-apprentice relationships.

Teaching someone to toss a spear with the pointy end hitting the target is very much something you can teach in a master-apprentice relationship. Actually, it doesn't even require that. Fathers and elder siblings and villagers probably taught it to the younger children in their outdoor games long before the skill was actually needed to hunt anything. So, basically, in an RPG setting, I'd just have the characters go and practice with a group of children and have them run and laugh at the inexperience of the characters while they learn.

And, yes, I'm also a teacher (I actually teach pedagogy to future teachers). 😕

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