On Jan 9, 2012, at 10:02 AM, "Alaconius" <[email protected]> wrote:
> One of the rules I "houseruled" very quickly was the OJT such that you can't > get above "well trained" or in some cases "expert" with the skill. Day to > day ordinary activities almost never bring you into circumstances in which > you become a verifiable expert at your given skill. Case in point: > > Individual works as a computer operator for 10 years. He's never given the > security access to utilize commands that are above his pay grade (ie commands > that would require an expert on the computer system to utilize). He's never > been exposed to the manuals that explain those commands (ie he's not > improving his skill via the means of self-training via books or the written > word). Would you expect such an individual to become not only an expert > within the field of computer operations, but be one of those people for whom > publishing his thoughts would render him an instant authority in the known > world? Yet, with OJT experience, such an individual can become the expert in > all things job related. > > As the rules are written - OJT leave a little bit to be desired. Also? One > of the house rules I used back in the bad days when a single 1/2 point gained > an individual a foothold in a skill, I used to permit players who used a > skill by default, or any skill at less than expert level (aka 16), to gain a > single experience point in the skill used if - they get a critical success at > a stressful time (ie no bonuses to the skill roll). Even a crit failure was > good for this simply because you learn from your mistakes as much (if not > more!) than your successes. > > In any event, those are house rules I used back in the day. Power-Ups 3: Talents has something like this in the Job Training Advantage. The idea is that you select a very specific job that you are trained in (such as F-16 Technician; "Fighter Technician" is too broad for this) and you get a Talent-like bonus to all skills pertaining to that job — but only when you're using them in a manner that's applicable to that job; and the Job Training deteriorates if you don't spend substantial time and effort (something like eight hours a day on average) putting them to use and/or attending seminars etc. to keep your Training up-to-date. The advantage is that Job Training is easier to teach; in game terms, it's even cheaper than a Talent, and explicitly _can_ be improved through the study time rules (in fact, that's the preferred mechanism for improving it). The result is that you can quickly become _very_ good at a specific job; but that expertise doesn't translate to anything else, and requires constant upkeep to prevent it from deteriorating. (You still need at least one point in each of the job-related skills, representing basic proficiency; but other than that, you're free to sink all of your job-related experience points into Job Training.) I suppose you could do something similar using a variant of the Expert Skill, but with a focus on practical know-how pertaining to a particular job instead of knowledge pertaining to a particular subject. It's a similar concept to Wildcard skills, but nowhere _near_ as broad. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
