Charity Carpenter: Homemaker

[Haru]

The answer to "Where do you draw the line?" happens to be "where it feels right." 

Sure, nothing wrong with that. And nothing wrong with splitting those skills. In general. I just don't see the need to do it for a dresden game (or to be more precise: for a dresden game as I would play it). If I were to play a different game with the same system, or maybe even a dresden verse game that would be centred on something different, I would certainly go and switch the skills around to reflect the change in style.

Which brings me back to the beginning again and to a question. Where do you see Homemaking used as an active skill? From the trappings, I personally can't think of anything, but I will gladly be convinced.

[Mr. Death]

Which brings me back to the beginning again and to a question. Where do you see Homemaking used as an active skill? From the trappings, I personally can't think of anything, but I will gladly be convinced.

That's the crux of my objection. The trappings give no indication of what the mechanical purpose is, or how it will be useful to a character outside of a very narrow setting. Most everything involved could be important, yes, but more as setting flavor than as game mechanics.

So, seconding Haru's question: How would using the skill actually benefit or progress the game in a way that's not already possible?

[sinker]

It's a support skill that serves two purposes. Firstly the threshold trapping, which I like from a GM standpoint. Have you ever had a player try to game the threshold rules? "Oh, I rent out my safehouse to a family of four," etc. This gives players a measure of control over this, which makes them less inclined to try something ridiculous.

Secondly it gives the players a chance to apply aspects related to feelings of warmth or wellbeing. For example, I can use the skill to apply the aspect "Well fed" or "Reminded of home" or any number of things like that.

One of the things I realized last night while I was drifting off to sleep is that all this is really doing is creating a specialized craftsmanship (my wife works in the culinary industry, unless you're a food stylist the idea that cooking is Performance is a bit silly). So really if it's mechanically the same thing then does it matter if you use craftsmanship with the specialization rules that Sancta mentioned before, or a skill named Homemaking?

[Mr. Death]

It's a support skill that serves two purposes. Firstly the threshold trapping, which I like from a GM standpoint. Have you ever had a player try to game the threshold rules? "Oh, I rent out my safehouse to a family of four," etc. This gives players a measure of control over this, which makes them less inclined to try something ridiculous.

Eh, I'd prefer to use compels for that sort of thing. "Oh, you do? Well, since you don't live there, your power can't come in with you," or, "In that case, the bad guys are targeting them too. Good job!"

Secondly it gives the players a chance to apply aspects related to feelings of warmth or wellbeing. For example, I can use the skill to apply the aspect "Well fed" or "Reminded of home" or any number of things like that.

One of the things I realized last night while I was drifting off to sleep is that all this is really doing is creating a specialized craftsmanship (my wife works in the culinary industry, unless you're a food stylist the idea that cooking is Performance is a bit silly). So really if it's mechanically the same thing then does it matter if you use craftsmanship with the specialization rules that Sancta mentioned before, or a skill named Homemaking?

That's what I'm saying--why not just use the trappings of other skills (Craftsmanship easily covers cooking and handcrafts, Personal Touch is an easy declaration) instead of making up a whole new, very specialized skillset that's going to take up space on the pyramid?

Besides, if you have a Homemaking skill, it's only a matter of time before someone comes up with a stunt to somehow justify it being used for dodge rolls, and that would just be ridiculous.

[sinker]

Eh, I'd prefer to use compels for that sort of thing. "Oh, you do? Well, since you don't live there, your power can't come in with you," or, "In that case, the bad guys are targeting them too. Good job!"

That's one way to do it, but I guess I would rather encourage my players to take control of their thresholds without doing ridiculous things to get there. It's the difference between negative consequences to actions, and enabling someone to make the right actions.

That's what I'm saying--why not just use the trappings of other skills (Craftsmanship easily covers cooking and handcrafts, Personal Touch is an easy declaration) instead of making up a whole new, very specialized skillset that's going to take up space on the pyramid?

I'm trying to say that it doesn't really matter either way. If someone has Craftsmanship with a homemaking bent or Homemaking makes no difference whatsoever. Mechanically and thematically it's the exact same thing. And adding another skill really isn't bad in any way.

[Sanctaphrax]

Getting back to the actual topic...

I really don't like this skill. Not only is it redundant and something that should be represented though an Aspect, it's got a significant mechanical issue. And that issue is: it's worthless. Seriously, this skill is so weak that it's kind of laughable. I'd rather take an underwater basketweaving stunt for Craftsmanship then put this down as one of my apex skills.

The difference between Craftsmanship and Homemaking is that Craftsmanship is actually useful.

I really don't think that Craftsmanship works for cooking. Only one of its three trappings is at all applicable.

What's so silly about Performance for cooking?

PS: Going back a bit, I think that Fists and Weapons could be merged without too much trouble. I'd regret the increased difficulty of making certain character concepts, but with a bit of aspect-based wrangling that'd be manageable.

[Mr. Death]

I really don't think that Craftsmanship works for cooking. Only one of its three trappings is at all applicable.

What's so silly about Performance for cooking?

Speaking as someone who cooks, and who does woodworking, there's a lot in common, actually. You put together materials/ingredients, you measure them out and cut them, there's a lot of working with your hands and considerable mechanical and technical knowledge involved.

It can be an artistic expression (hibachi chefs would certainly use Performance for it), but much more often it's simply to create something with utility.

[devonapple]

This may be crazy talk, but I'm thinking about an all-purpose Profession skill. Some thoughts:

Each rank buys you a Skill Trapping from another skill, or lets you make up a new trapping with GM oversight. . All the bought Trappings use the final Skill Rank to resolve. Maybe open to abuse.

Or maybe each Profession (whatever) skill you take allows you to borrow 2-4 Skill Trappings from other skills, with GM oversight (maybe just from the Scholarship/Crafting/Performance skills). Probably not outright combat skills.

Or maybe the skill's purpose is that it simply allows Declarations and Maneuvers within the skill's idiom.

[sinker]

What's so silly about Performance for cooking?

Looking at it thematically Art is something that you have to have some talent for (I have studied for 12 years to be an actor and an artist, and I'm still not as good as others who have had less training), while cooking is a skill that can be easily learned or taught. I suppose that may be a bias of mine though, but it's based on my experience with many artists and cooks.

Mechanically though you're right, I could see two of the three trappings of Craftsmanship (making and fixing) being applicable, but three of the four trappings of Performance (appreciation, composition, and playing to an audience).

[JoshTheValiant]

First up: read the sidebar on page 136. It will probably be useful to you.

Second up: lockpicking is not like breaking. Nothing ends up broken. This is kind of an important difference.

Third up: lockpicking is kind of a weird edge skill that most people will have never attempted in their lives. So it makes sense for it, like surgery, to be gated behind a stunt.

Fourth up: A high Scholarship rating is not what you use to represent skill at Greek History. That's what stunts are for. A high Scholarship skill means that you are highly intelligent and broadly educated/well-read. As a guy with decent Scholarship in real life, I can tell you that this is not unrealistic.

Which is what I was trying to get at earlier. Scholarship 5 includes everything that being intelligent and broadly educated would make you good at and nothing else. By the same token, Investigation covers everything that being perceptive and analytical would make you good at and nothing else. Finding food outdoors and preparing it so that you can live off of it and finding shelter and so on requires more than being perceptive and analytical.

Fifth up: posts like Haru's are what I was trying to head off with my reply to Mr. Death. Most of the successful DFRPG games I've seen do not fit the mold (s)he speaks of. (I'm thinking of Night Fears, Evil Acts, Forced To Fight, and Enduring The Apocalypse here.) And most of the failed games I've seen do fit that mold. (I'm not saying which, sorry.)

DFRPG is a good system to play mortal gangsters with. It's also a good system for a dungeon crawl, and it can handle a game of high-stakes corporate politics too.

Basically, I think that DFRPG is a pretty general system. It can cover almost anything with only a few hacks. So I don't understand or like the whole idea that it's a game about being Harry Dresden.

Though I suppose I could be misunderstanding what Haru means here.

First:  I am well aware of the sidebar.  I think it's a useful middle ground between separate skills and a kitchen sink skill, but I prefer more well defined skills without having to work through "okay, so what is a reasonable specialty subject?  Is history too broad?  How about language?  Should language be limited to just the rules of grammar and diction, or does it also include literature?"  etc.  I'm aware that most players will never deal with that question.  But *I* do.  Besides that, I don't find that marking specialties is a particularly accurate way of dealing with the situation.  I, for example, have fairly low Scholarship, but that doesn't mean that I only have one or two areas of knowledge.  That just means that I'm not deeply entrenched in books.  However, I don't think Butters has five specialties worth of knowledge, since he's mostly been shown to be a medical whiz (reflected by his stunts) and competent with computers and nerd cred.  Should his Scholarship be bumped down to give him less specialties?  I don't think so.  YMMV.

Second:  "Breaking" doesn't necessarily mean "taken apart beyond repair".  Might does that.  Craftsmanship's breaking trapping I've always seen as "disassembling", which allows it to be put back together again.  In that respect, I think lockpicking is absolutely a subtrapping of breaking, because it's using tools to force a lock to disengage without breaking it completely.

Thirdly:  Fair point on a stunt, though if we maintain the argument on specialties, Craftsmanship is definitely up for inclusion, and locksmith is a definite valid category, which I imagine would include knowledge of the tools to open a lock on demand.

Fourthly:  I stepped away from GURPS and D&D because I don't like the "broadly intelligent" application of a knowledge skill or stat.  I believe that people who focus on learning for the sake of knowledge will probably be broadly knowledgeable, but that's not the same thing as assuming that anyone who is knowledgeable is broadly so.  Again, this is an issue of balance for me.  I don't think stunts are the answer to representing a focus in this matter when a variety of skills does the same thing... without costing precious Fate Points.

Fourthly section b:  I agree.  It requires knowledge of the plants and fungi that are safe to eat, and knowledge on the habitats and patterns of other critters so you don't squat in someone else's home.  Which is why I suggested Investigation limited by Scholarship (or, in my skill list, Medicine, which covers biology and poisons). 

Fifthly:  I agree.  I see DFRPG as a mode of Fate, which is my system of choice.  I'm currently using it to run swords and sorcery.  I can see the system being well up to the challenge of running a more social-oriented game, with no physical combat whatsoever.  In fact, I generally think that's Fate's greatest strength, since physical combat can easily be covered by three skills or less.  Next to magic, social combat tends to be where most of its depth is invested.

More than anything I would argue that this skill is definitely setting appropriate...

Whether or not it's mechanically necessary is going to vary from group to group, but I don't see any negative consequences to including it and because of that I don't see any reason to dissuade others from using it if they feel so compelled.

Thank you.  This is what I was getting at with my OP.  In general, we seem to be on the same page, so I won't bother repeating your arguments.

This may be crazy talk, but I'm thinking about an all-purpose Profession skill. Some thoughts:

Each rank buys you a Skill Trapping from another skill, or lets you make up a new trapping with GM oversight. . All the bought Trappings use the final Skill Rank to resolve. Maybe open to abuse.

Or maybe each Profession (whatever) skill you take allows you to borrow 2-4 Skill Trappings from other skills, with GM oversight (maybe just from the Scholarship/Crafting/Performance skills). Probably not outright combat skills.

Or maybe the skill's purpose is that it simply allows Declarations and Maneuvers within the skill's idiom.

I think Fred's blog has some musings about this, or something very similar.  Don't feel like dredging through it right now, but it'd be worth a look.  I'm not generally in favor of it myself, simply due to a general dislike of trapping-per-skill point.  All of your average skills are going to be sorely lacking, and widely applicable skills are not the same thing as strongly potent skills.  :/

[Sanctaphrax]

@Mr Death: Isn't woodworking Performance too? Carpentry is clearly Craftsmanship, but I figure that woodworking refers to arts and crafts.

@devonapple: Probably not a good idea. Partly for the reasons Josh gives, partly because it's so incredibly vague in what it does. Plus, not all trappings are equal. Why would I ever take Fists defence when I could have Athletics defence?

@Josh: There's more to wilderness Survival than finding food. It's a fairly complex activity that doesn't break down well into other skills.

As for Home-making, it's not necessarily a bad idea. Sure, it's not to my taste, but my taste is not that important.

Unfortunately, the current execution of the skill has problems that are not matters of taste.

First of all, the skill's big trick can be duplicated by aspects, which cost nothing. You'll have to rework the threshold system to make this worthwhile.

Second, there really is too much overlap with other skills. You'll have to do some more extensive reworking if you want to avoid redundancy. And you should want to avoid redundancy.

And thirdly, the lesser trappings of this skill are just really incredibly weak. They need to be made stronger.

As for the knowledge skills, the problem here is that the knowledge skills are not extraordinarily powerful and that splitting them up will make them really weak.

I guess you could split every skill into two or three pieces. After all, having swimming and running and dodging use the same competency makes just as much/as little sense as having history and computer science and mathematics use the same competency. Skills are really broad, there's room to split them.

I'd rather just use stunts and aspects, though.

A variety of skills might not cost precious Fate Points, but it does cost precious skill points. And in this case, I think the skill points are more precious.

PS: I gave some thought to the skill list, and I think I've come up with a reworking that compresses everything into 10 skills. But I'm not sure if it's appropriate for here...should I make a new thread?

[devonapple]

@devonapple: Probably not a good idea. Partly for the reasons Josh gives, partly because it's so incredibly vague in what it does. Plus, not all trappings are equal. Why would I ever take Fists defence when I could have Athletics defence?

GM
----
Sight

(I may have had too much coffee)

PS: I gave some thought to the skill list, and I think I've come up with a reworking that compresses everything into 10 skills. But I'm not sure if it's appropriate for here...should I make a new thread?

Cool! Probably a new thread.

[Mr. Death]

@Mr Death: Isn't woodworking Performance too? Carpentry is clearly Craftsmanship, but I figure that woodworking refers to arts and crafts.

Sorry, I was referring mainly to carpentry--but even so, the skills and tools you use for carpentry are the same you'd use for arts and crafts.

[crusher_bob]

The other thing that limits it as a skill is that it's not a skill you would see many people have.  Look at how common many of the other skills are.  On every character sheet, you tend to see athletics, endurance, discipline, conviction, alterness, etc.  If you pulled out a random in genre character, how many would have the homemaking skill?

This is one of the reasons that I don't much care for the 'driving' skill, since the setting doesn't have car chases all that often, or at least, the type of car chases where very skilled driving makes a big difference.

[JoshTheValiant]

@Josh: There's more to wilderness Survival than finding food. It's a fairly complex activity that doesn't break down well into other skills.

As for Home-making, it's not necessarily a bad idea. Sure, it's not to my taste, but my taste is not that important.

Unfortunately, the current execution of the skill has problems that are not matters of taste.

First of all, the skill's big trick can be duplicated by aspects, which cost nothing. You'll have to rework the threshold system to make this worthwhile.

Second, there really is too much overlap with other skills. You'll have to do some more extensive reworking if you want to avoid redundancy. And you should want to avoid redundancy.

And thirdly, the lesser trappings of this skill are just really incredibly weak. They need to be made stronger.

As for the knowledge skills, the problem here is that the knowledge skills are not extraordinarily powerful and that splitting them up will make them really weak.

I guess you could split every skill into two or three pieces. After all, having swimming and running and dodging use the same competency makes just as much/as little sense as having history and computer science and mathematics use the same competency. Skills are really broad, there's room to split them.

I'd rather just use stunts and aspects, though.

A variety of skills might not cost precious Fate Points, but it does cost precious skill points. And in this case, I think the skill points are more precious.

PS: I gave some thought to the skill list, and I think I've come up with a reworking that compresses everything into 10 skills. But I'm not sure if it's appropriate for here...should I make a new thread?

Could you elaborate on Survival?  I think we're using different definitions of the action, and I'd like to know how you see it.

Fair point about trapping strength for Homemaking.

I strongly disagree about knowledge skills being weak.  The very existence of a declaration mechanic in the game makes them be, imo, hell on wheels for turnabout skills, especially when you take into account the possibility of such skills like "Theory in Practice" and "Dizzying Intellect" (both cribbed from Spirit of the Century, both allow knowledge skills to be used as attack skills in physical and social combat, respectively) or to use them for outside the box indirect attack skills.

I personally think the comparison between history and chemistry and computer programming is much closer to the difference between Might, Athletics, and Weapons, myself.  All three of those skills use the same basic physical fitness level of their user in different, specified ways for vastly different effects, just like the previous three use their user's mental capacity for information and facts in vastly different fields for drastically different sorts of results in different situations.

To each his own.  *shrug*

EDIT:  Final point, a character, using the general guidelines in the book, gets about five skill points per additional point of refresh.  A stunt may be easier to decide to get or not get, but skills are always improving.  Frankly, I think skills in general have a tendency to be inflated.  If Superb is master class, it really ought to be a rare level.  If Great is veteran, it shouldn't be too common either, imo.