Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Aramus Daimorgul]

I'd like to offer these to the players in a comprehensive way, one where the level of how specialized the skills are is taken into consideration. Players won't walk away with Know: All, Know: Underwater Basketweaving or worse something that should simply be covered by common knowledge. Everything will be appropriate and not step on the toes of the other non-knowledge skills. One last thing to consider is not every skill will be available in every setting.

List of possible knowledge skills from the book:
Occult
Science
History
Archaeology
Biology
An Area
Battle
Computers
Electronics
Journalism
Language
Law
Medicine (but heal for treatment)
Tactics

Here are the broad groups of knowledge types that I can see more specialized skills coming off of:
History (Law, Occult, Journalism)
Area (Nation, city, region, planet)
Science (Biology, Archaelogy, Medicine)
Technology (Computers, Electronics)
Language (individual language)
Command (Battle, Tactics)

So, the question is what am I missing in those broad groups and furthermore, what additional specialties should be added?
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Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"
- Bernard Shaw

[DerFinsterling]

When I want to encourage players to take Knowledge skills, I give them a few examples that are appropriate for a setting, but don't provide them with a list.
In my experience, the longer a list the more likely a player is to just choose from it and I'd rather have him come up with a fitting Knowledge skill himself.
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Markus
The Sundered Skies Serial - full of spoilers!
Savagepedia at wikispaces

[jpk]

I'm with DerFinsterling. I've found that the players I've got tend to be just find thinking up a Knowledge if they want one. If they don't, it really doesn't matter what I suggest. They can be contrary.

Also, I'm considering doing something a little Indiana Jonesy where the characters will all be professors at a small college. As a setting rule, everyone will start the game with d12+1 in a generally-considered-useless-or-esoteric Knowledge, no matter what their Smarts are. That'll allow for the otherwise-witless professor of ancient Etruscan soil science...

[Aramus Daimorgul]

I see what you guys are saying - don't worry about the specialization, however, I think this possibly makes identifying the root skills very important.

Broad (specializations)
History (Law, Occult, Journalism, An Area, Legends & Lore)
Science (Biology, Archaeology, Medicine, Physics)
Technology (Computers, Electronics, Robotics, Mechanical Repair, Engineering, Security Systems)
Language (Individual Language)
Battle (Command, Tactics, War History)
Finery (Forgery, Art, Writing, Jewelery, Music)
Profession (Business, Bureaucracy, Politics, Merchant)

One related note: what type of bonus should the specialization give? +1? So, as an example an archaeologist wants to uncover some bones, he would get +1 but if he wanted to biological genetic testing he would not get the bonus. Another way to handle this would be to give them an untrained penalty in everything except their specialty within the group. If the archaeologist was 1d10 and they wanted to do genetic testing they would be 1d10-2. Which is better?
_________________
Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"
- Bernard Shaw

[Aramus Daimorgul]

This also begs the question what if the archaeologist wants to also have genetics as a specialty? Does he have to buy Science: genetics when he already has Science: archaeology?

Possibly, rather than giving a die increase you can just gain another specialty with an advancement, this would make sense with how to deal with gaining new languages too.
Alter page 37 text to read:
Increase two skills that are lower than their linked attribute by one die type, you may replace one or both of those increases with gaining a knowledge specialization instead.
_________________
Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"
- Bernard Shaw

[jpk]

For most folks, really, this sort of thing is likely covered by their backgrounds in the general Common Knowledge bucket. If your character wants to spend a lot of time increasing the breadth of their knowledge, just add it to what their Common Knowledge covers. Unless you're going to require they use that skill at least every other game or so or the skill is a necessary prerequisite for something, just hand-wave it. That's why I'm giving away that one skill for free: it's not really that useful and it won't really be necessary...

[Jordan Peacock]

[skylion]

I typically keep to the broad spectrum that is the whole enchilada.

Is the player going to use this skill at least once every other game. If the answer is no, then it should find a way to default under Common Knowledge for whatever archetype they most conform too.

It is my old conundrum. In a Pulp Action game, would Indiana Jones need Knowledge Archaeology? If most of the game is ferreting out spies, or going against gangsters, or beating sky pirates without an ancient ruin anywhere, then no. If we then head off too the deep jungles of Peru. Boom, he has bonuses to his smarts roll.

If the game is intrinsically centered on going to see a new ruin every session, then having Knowledge Arch is going to be handier then that bonus to CK.

So, in my game I look at it as, what does the player need, not what the game needs.
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[Sitting Duck]

[Wendigo1870]

the problem I have with Knowledge skills is that the more important Knowledge Skills get missed when doing character creation, and later on with advances as well, simply because they're not explicitly mentioned. Some settings have specific Knowledge specialties you normally never take (Example: Sundered Skies; Knowledge (Legends & Lore)). Knowledge (Battle) is also important in most campaigns at some point, but that one too gets overlooked too often.
Agreed, some things can be covered with Common Knowledge (some can argument that Kn:L&L for SS can be covered with C.K. as well), but Kn. Battle seems too specific to me.

And in the end, their in-game use is also important; I wouldn't want to invest my scarce skillpoints in a Kn. Skill I'll never use.

Hence a table and some guidelines as to what knowledge skill is important in what setting would be very useful.
_________________
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

[Aramus Daimorgul]

[Aramus Daimorgul]

I have been giving this some more thought. A way to approach this is to just run with common knowledge - almost exclusively.

If a character is a wizard from the ice peaks. He would have common knowledge as a wizard and as being from the ice peaks, he would also speak the language of the Ice peaks - Iceish.

So those would be translated into three free knowledge skills all automatically set to the character's Smarts attribute - Knowledge Ice Peaks, Magic, and Iceish. This would be in addition to all of the other regular uses of common knowledge. More explicitly you get an area knowledge, a professional knowledge and a language all set at your smarts.

Then, if a character really wants to have a knowledge outside of their characters realm, they would have to buy it.

This does require a player to define their characters profession when not obvious to gain the correct professional knowledge skill.
_________________
Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"
- Bernard Shaw

[Clint]

Another way of using Common Knowledge for that effect that was suggested some time ago is to categorize it more.

There are three levels of Common Knowledge, ranked by how they modify the Trait roll:
Expert +2 (Native language)
Skilled +0 (Fluent language)
Familiar -2 (Pidgin language)

Characters can choose a number of Expert skills/languages equal to half their Smarts, they get a number of Skilled equal to their Smarts, and a number of Familiar equal to Smarts x 2 (or 1.5).

Knowing a language at Native never requires a roll to understand, a Fluent language only requires a Smarts roll under stress (like combat), while a Pidgin language requires a roll for any discussion.
_________________
Clint Black
Savage Worlds Core Rules Brand Manager

www.peginc.com

[Aramus Daimorgul]

This is very explicit and requires a lot of thought about what your character really knows. A d10 smarts character would require you to explicitly spell out 5 expert, 10 skilled and 20 familiar - 35 skills to figure out is a bit much. I would much rather glaze over the specifics and go with "biology" skill and have that include exactly what the character "could" know by having them make a skill check.

In fact, the individual knowledge skill specializations themselves seem to be more specificity than necessary for SW. Getting a list of broad skills and letting the characters background determine what those skills specializations are.
_________________
Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"
- Bernard Shaw

[Tuesday]

Clint:

I think you mean "Pidgin", not "Pigeon".

Unless you're speaking to birds, of course.