Why does a SciFi RPG "need" skills?

I'd perhaps look at it a different way, and ask "Why do so many fantasy games use class-based systems?"

First, answer the question, "How many fantasy games use class based systems, and how many do not?" How many of the class-based fantasy systems currently out there aren't retroclones?

Or rather, it is inferior for simulationism and generally inferior for narrativism*.

I'll buy it for simulationism. I don't really see it mattering for narrativism, which isn't about what a character can do, but what a character wants, and the decisions they make when those wants come into conflict.
 

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Now sure, there's stupid people who can't fix a flat tire, or figure out to reboot their PC when Windows locks up. But I like to think that sometime in the future, there was a purge of stupid people before we headed to the stars.
I wish I shared your optimism ;) ... But isn't that what the B Ark is for? :D More seriously: The less capable part of humanity will most likely simply be left behind.
 


Which is in my opinion a very poor benchmark for RPGs.
In fiction people never fail, unless the failure is required to ultimately succeed. Someone rises to the challenge because in fiction failure is never shown. Yet in RPGs failure must be an option unless you want a very easy game where everyone always succeed. So when failure is a option, either because of realism and/or challenge, you can not simply say that everyone can do everything.

And saying "intelligent people can do everything a bit" is, well, not very intelligent.
Proficiency has not only to do with intelligence but also experience. No matter how intelligent you are, if you, at best, only have theoretical knowledge of how electronics work you will not be able to repair the wiring of a big machine as well as a trained yet less intelligent electrician.

Everyone may be able to fly a shuttle, but how often do you see tactical officers reprogram transporters or analyze anomalies?

I think you forgot the very first sentence from the post you partially quoted.

I don't expect to be GOOD at everything. But in a pinch, lacking an expert to do the job for me, there's a lot of problems I have had to solve outside my professional expertise zone.

So I never said "if you, at best, only have theoretical knowledge of how electronics work you will be able to repair the wiring of a big machine as well as a trained yet less intelligent electrician." for you to need to counter it with "if you, at best, only have theoretical knowledge of how electronics work you will not be able to repair the wiring of a big machine as well as a trained yet less intelligent electrician."

What I am saying is that people tend to be more diverse in their skill sets. I know an MD that programmed his own expert system. I know another that fixed the wiring in his practice's sign because the idiot "export" failed to do it and charged him a ton of money so he figured it out. At this point in my life, I've gotten really good at fixing plumbing, and that's certainly not in my career path.

I do think that there are some limits to these "extra" skills. It's pretty easy for someone like me to fix an electrical system or plumbing system because it's not rocket science. You can stare at the system, think about how it works, then troubleshoot it, and solve the problem, having never done it before because it's well within our mental capacity. It's a key attribute of being a hairless ape.

Problems that are contained inside black boxes are a bit more difficult. If you can't see the guts of a hyperdrive (too small), your going to have a hard time fixing it. this is why modern cars are harder to fix (computers do all the work). Since you can't see the components, you can't decipher it and relate it to any theoretical knowledge as easily.

So in real life, I probably can't build a rocket to the moon (or space for that matter) as I am not a rocket scientist (I ain't that smart). The complexity to the shuttle sitting on a pad is high enough that I can't fathom how all the parts work to fix it if NASA called me up and asked me a swing by and give them a hand.

However, in a sci-fi setting, where everybody's exposed to rocketships (and probably heard their dad talk about exhaust manifolds at dinner because he's a rocketship repairman), the common level of understanding may be higher in that society. So that PC might have a keener grasp of the basics to get started (especially if time is not a concern, or the problem is visually identifiable to an area the PC can focus on).

I don't think a person can be good at everything.

But I do think they can have a broader scope at being functional than most skill-based RPGs grant.

The trick, as I mentioned earlier, is granting enough broadness to allow a "functional" level of skill, while also identifying skill areas that the PC needs to suck at in order to be vulnerable/realistic/balanced.
 

I do think that there are some limits to these "extra" skills. It's pretty easy for someone like me to fix an electrical system or plumbing system because it's not rocket science. You can stare at the system, think about how it works, then troubleshoot it, and solve the problem, having never done it before because it's well within our mental capacity. It's a key attribute of being a hairless ape.

Its also possible to stare at the system, think about how it works, then troubleshoot it...and in your hubris, make things exponentially worse- another key attribute of being a hairless ape.

My Dad is an MD with an alphabet of letters after his name. He tried to chane a float valve and didn't turn off the water properly. The resultant flood cost $1500 in cleanup...and down the road, thousands more in renovations.

Or consider the scene from Big Bang Theory in which the car breaks down on the highway. The driver asked if anyone in the car knew anything about internal combistion engines. Everyone said yes. The driver then rephrased; did anyone know about fixing internal combustion engines? Everyone became sheepishly silent.
 

Its also possible to stare at the system, think about how it works, then troubleshoot it...and in your hubris, make things exponentially worse- another key attribute of being a hairless ape.

My Dad is an MD with an alphabet of letters after his name. He tried to chane a float valve and didn't turn off the water properly. The resultant flood cost $1500 in cleanup...and down the road, thousands more in renovations.

Or consider the scene from Big Bang Theory in which the car breaks down on the highway. The driver asked if anyone in the car knew anything about internal combistion engines. Everyone said yes. The driver then rephrased; did anyone know about fixing internal combustion engines? Everyone became sheepishly silent.

There is that too. We can't discount the Incompetence factor (a person who is incompetent is more likely to think they are more competent than a person who is actually competent at the same task).

However, for the purposes of designing an RPG, is it more valuable to thwart an attempt by the PC to solve the problem because a professional NPC isn't available (and likely to be a common occurrance). Or is it more valuable to let them have a better than terrible, but less than good chance of success?

For your dad, assuming you mean the float in a toilet, that's a pretty small mistake with a large impact (and oddly enough, a pretty simple detection/correction before it got that bad). I don't know how somebody screws that up with more than an "oh crap, it's overflowing, raise the bulb, turn off the valve" with the only consequence being wet socks and a mess to clean up in the bathroom. Obviously, when those go bad, floors get wet. But when one is fixing a float valve, one should be fairly cautious in making sure it works.

Clearly, a case that I can't fathom getting into, because I'm inherently cautious about fixing plumbing because I'm not a pro, so I don't trust my work until it doesn't leak for a month. Yet just as clearly, it happened to somebody reasonably smart.

For the Big Bang boys, part of that is exaggeration of nerdly ineptitude at all things practical, manly or automotive. Given my work in nerdly endeavors (tech industry rather than academic, and that might be the difference), all the engineers are pretty much nerds, but each had significant side skills in other areas. I knew several who were grease monkeys on the weekend, and could easily solve a car problem (having re-built and raced their own as a hobby).

The probability of a car with 4 randomly selected actual nerds and none of them knowing how to fix a car shouldn't be that high.

Either that or I've surrounded myself with more Ben Franklins than most other people. It's all about the Benjamins baby.
 

My own personal double-digit sized nerd herd...errr...gaming group is mostly composed of computer scientists. There are 2 guys I can think of who probably could get a car going if something went wrong. The rest?

Magic 8-Ball says "Ask again later."
 

My own personal double-digit sized nerd herd...errr...gaming group is mostly composed of computer scientists. There are 2 guys I can think of who probably could get a car going if something went wrong. The rest?

Magic 8-Ball says "Ask again later."

So it's possible that on your roadtrip to GenCon, somebody in the care has some skills (possibly limited) that can help fix a broken car.

For the non-car-fixing friends, do they have any practical skills outside of computers?

As a Competent Person, I may be suffering from the secondary effect of the Incompetence Phenomenon. In that I see what I can do as pretty basic, and I expect that anybody else on the planet can do it as well.

Along with my actual expertise in software development and IT stuff, I've got a business degree, a black belt, can fix plumbing, can fix basic car stuff (alternators, tires, brakes, hoses, belts), carpentry and home repair, firearms, weapons, archery, sewing, cooking, painting (art and walls), metalworking, farming, janitorial services, first aid.

Now a good chunk of those things, I'm basically better than somebody who sucks at it. But in a pinch, I can do any of those things to a level necessary to get out of a bind.

in a sci-fi RPG setting, I'm sure we want players thinking out of the box to solve their problems, but that still requires them to be skilled enough that their non-professional skills are sufficient enough to provide a viable chance of success.

In other words, if the party of 4 PCs has huge gaps in skills that they are terrible at too many things, they're pretty much stuck more often than not. or worse, relying on their fighting skills to get them out of anything as it is the only hammer that works.
 

But in a pinch, I can do any of those things to a level necessary to get out of a bind.

No, you can do those things to a limited degree which might or might not be enough to get you out of a bind. Not to mention all the other things you can't do at all.
 

So it's possible that on your roadtrip to GenCon, somebody in the care has some skills (possibly limited) that can help fix a broken car.

I'd say its 2 out of 10 guys, maaaaaybe 3 out of 10, so it would depend on the exact size and makeup of the gang on the road trip!

For the non-car-fixing friends, do they have any practical skills outside of computers?
One guy is flat-out handy: he's not a programmer, but a math whiz. But he grew up the son of a contractor. So he knows all the tools you'd care to name...and how to use them.

The other guy I know could fix a car had to because he spent most of his life driving $500 Junkers.

The rest? Well, I can't really say, but I'm sure we could probably follow instructions on how to do stuff! :D

I know we have a couple of hunters and a martial artist amongst us. And one guy did work as a guide at Yosemite.

I'm the useless academic: degrees in law, business, philosophy and economics, can't use the "manly-man" tools all that effectively. My time in the BSA was largely forgotten, though my orienteering/map reading skills haven't atrophied. In the event of the collapse of civilization, however, they will keep me alive as the cook, because I RULE the kitchen.

I also have a pretty good understanding of where to find sizeable fish, even though I can't really use a rod & reel. (Perhaps I'm a descendant of Namor...)

That, and I can sing & play guitar, whoop-de-freakin' dooooooo.

As a Competent Person, I may be suffering from the secondary effect of the Incompetence Phenomenon. In that I see what I can do as pretty basic, and I expect that anybody else on the planet can do it as well.

Its a very easy trap to fall into- what is obvious to one may be completely alien to others.
 

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