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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: eri on May 02, 2012, 04:17:27 PM
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Quick question. What skill should gardening be in? Scholarship? Craftsmanship? Survival?
(Not putter-in-the-garden gardening or I'm-a-farmer gardening, but Head-Gardener-at-the-Lord's-estate (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Pieskowa_Ska%C5%82a_ogr%C3%B3d_zamkowy.jpg) gardening (with a side of Herbalism)
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I'd go with Craftsmanship, maybe Performance since it appears to be something for an audience.
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It wouldn't just be one skill.
Craftsmanship, Performance to make it look good - but also Scholarship (specialising in botany or other plant based science) to know that this flower grows best in this type of soil and those two types of plants co-exist well. Maybe a bit of Survival as well - using the animal knowledge from that to handle pest animals. Quite possibly a bit of Presence as well since you'll be in a leadership position over the other gardeners.
Of course you wouldn't need all of that for a typical home garden, but for a spread like that you'd need more than just the basics.
Oh, a touch of Biomancy wouldn't hurt either.
Richard
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Like Richard said, a spread of skills would be best to represent this.
I could see this work as kind of a mundane ritual. You could treat it as a social "attack", meant to leave the viewer in awe of what he sees. Then you are covering multiple zones, and you have your complexity. Starting off with performance as conviction, you need to use other skills (Scholarship to create a maze, performance to plan the grand design, resources to buy good seeds and tool, etc) and possibly some shifts on the time scale to pull this off. Craftsmanship with a good dose of "has help from X" aspects should cover the rest.
That is, if you really want to get that technical about it.
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Those sorts of niche situations are difficult. If it is an NPC, then you maybe don't need to worry about it.
If it is a PC (especially a Pure Mortal) my choice would be to take 1-3 ranks of Performance, Scholarship or Craftsmanship, then add a few Stunts which give bonuses specifically to Gardening.
The primary gardening skill would depend on the character concept:
Performance would mean the character would be able to express himself artistically in other ways besides gardening, but not as well. This character would be focusing on having a good eye for color, impact, scent.
Craftsmanship would mean that the character is mechanically inclined, which could allow him to make minor Declarations about mechanical things even outside gardening. Maybe his gardening relies heavily on irrigation technology.
Scholarship would imply that the character is well-read and/or knowledgeable about a variety of things. A research gardener. May know other biological or general science trivia.
And if you take multiple of these skills, you can make a variety of effective declarations to really add punch to the gardening efforts. Like:
"Every Last Drop" (Craftsmanship), "How Green Does Your Garden Grow?" (Scholarship), "Breathtaking Arrangement" (Performance), "Experimental Fertilizer" (Scholarship), "The Nose Knows" (Performance), "Look at That Terracing" (Craftsmanship).
Then use Stunts to customize it. Look at all the trappings of other skills you would want this character to be able to replicate using gardening. Maybe a stunt giving a +2 bonus to Gardening-related skill checks using that primary skill, and another to give a bonus to how quickly those checks take. Think of a few other possible applications and then make Stunts for those Trappings. Or maybe Stunts to move other skill trappings to whichever skill you choose for gardening. Like First Impressions: get a bonus if you are able to leverage your horticultural acumen to make a First Impression. Or move some Empathy trappings over: "Hard day? Here, smell this flower... it is said to soothe the worst moods."
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Unless gardening is going to decided the fate of the universe I would just let a character pick a single skill that fits probably craftsmanship possibly modified by scholarship or performance.
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Whoa, lots and lots of options. Thank you so much :)
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Or you could custom-up a gardening skill and add appropriate trappings. Run it by your storyteller and you're golden.