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 Updating Shadowbeat, Still the best... |
 Jan 19 2004, 12:24 PM
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#26
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 345 Joined: 10-February 03 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 4,046  |
I don't consider a discussion about knowledge/active skills to be a thread hijack sine it's one of the issues I raised initially.
Siege - you're right with the classification, but I was trying to avoid using those terms. Fortune - My point was that there are (pages and pages of) rules to determine exactly how the singing skill is used in the SR environment. Likewise there are similar rules for Enchanting, Surgery, Vehicle customisation etc, which although useful skills for runners, could be used for a seperate career. However there are no rules detailing how a Historian, Accountant or (for that matter) a McDonalds burger flipper does their job on a day to day basis - therefore History, Accountancy and Burger Flipping become knowledge skills. I'd make Chemistry an active skill and the problem is solved until the next rule change... |
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Jan 19 2004, 08:24 PM
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#27
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,677 Joined: 5-June 03 Member No.: 4,689 |
Didn't musical skills and such-like use to be classified as Active (Special) skills? There's still a loose comment in MitS which implies that such skills individually can be considered one area possible for adept centring.
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Jan 19 2004, 09:12 PM
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#28
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 345 Joined: 10-February 03 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 4,046 |
Yes - they were classified as Special Active Skills, which is the way I'd still treat them. However, should a magician want to use a skill for centering I'd almost certainly let him have the skill as a knowledge skill since most of the existing centering skills are (meditation, carving, art, chanting, mathematics). If he also wanted to make money selling wax THAT requires an active skill.
Look at an SR3 archetype and decide what the knowledge skills say about the character - the Adept has professional bodyguarding - this obviously means that he can act as a bodyguard, right? Not really, it covers the aspects that aren't already included in stealth, perception, etiquette, combat etc... Can the Drone Rigger sing professionally? Hell no - he listens to Opera and might well sing along, but put him on stage and he'll be laughed off. Can the Covert Ops Specialist get a job in the Accounts Payable dept working for H Dog? Yes, of course she can. If the intention of a chosen skill is to work in an existing game mechanic as a primary (ie, not complimentary) skill then it's active. If not it's knowledge. It's the only way that the skills can be properly defined. |
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Jan 19 2004, 09:45 PM
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#29
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,677 Joined: 5-June 03 Member No.: 4,689 |
I like that :)
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Jan 19 2004, 10:30 PM
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#30
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Prime Runner Group: Retired Admins Posts: 3,929 Joined: 26-February 02 From: .ca Member No.: 51 |
I'd rather not; certainly not before I find out if I can sneak it into SOTA: 2064 or another upcoming book. |
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Jan 19 2004, 11:37 PM
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#31
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,065 Joined: 16-January 03 From: Fayetteville, NC Member No.: 3,916 |
MitS was written with 2nd edition in mind -- if memory serves. They hadn't experimentd with the idea of knowledge skills at that point, so everything was by default active. Special Active referred to skills that were outside the standard collection. Cooking would/could be considered "Special Active" under that classification. -Siege |
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Jan 20 2004, 02:17 AM
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#32
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
They were indeed considered Special skills in previous editions, where the Knowledge skill category didn't exist. Even then, I seem to recall that they had a different (and cheaper) Karma cost than normal Active skills, being equivalent to Languages in price. If you (Xirces) are still treating them in that fashion, then there's not much difference between them and Knowledge skills.
As do all other non-useful-on-a-shadowrun skills, which is my entire point as to how they are split up in canon. :) |
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Jan 20 2004, 10:11 AM
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#33
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 345 Joined: 10-February 03 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 4,046 |
MiTS is most definately an SR3 book, however Shadowbeat is a first edition book.
To me the special skills were simply active skills that were for specialist use - music/reporting etc are no different from pistol in any game sense. Fortune - I've never seen a reduced karma cost for special skills in any edition and would charge full (active) karma cost for increasing one of those skills, which is why the distinction matters to me - if I did want the reduced karma cost I'd just make them knowledge skills. However, we're agreeing on the point about the way that skills are classified and any disagreement is probably due to my poor explaination - "non-useful on a shadowrun" is a good, if a little unconcise, way of phrasing it. However, to clarify my previous point - Shadowrunning, due to the extenstion of the rules, includes music production and Trid reporting. It also includes Enchanting - a runner could theoretically set up an Enchanting shop and make money within the canon rules, however the rules do not cover Cooking or Accountancy... As noted by almost everyone Chemistry is the one big exception. Assuming the rules in M&M cover the production of useful chemicals that needs to be an active skill rather than knowledge. Phew. |
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Jan 20 2004, 11:27 PM
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#34
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
And yet Journalism is a Knowledge skill in SR3. As is Spell Design, which definitely falls into your defined category. My point was that skills like these, and Psychology, Chemistry, and Navigation (amongst others) are included to round out the character more than was possible in previous editions. They can be useful at times, but are not usually considered the core skills for shadowrunning. Being in a band is not my idea of a 'shadowrun', even though there are rules included in the game covering this enterprise. Your argument is that because Rockers have rules, that they are the only profession that has Active skills associated with them. My point is that all kinds of other professions also could include active skills. The reason there are rules for Rockers is that the Rocker was an archetype in the first editions of the game, but this archetype has since been removed. |
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Jan 20 2004, 11:54 PM
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#35
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 665 Joined: 20-November 03 Member No.: 5,834 |
Fortunately I came up with a houserule that settled the entire knowledge vs. active debate quite easily.
In our games there are only two skills, athletics and thinking. All knowledge skills fall under thinking while all active skills fall under athletics. For instance instead of Martial arts we have athletics (Punching People). And instead of cars we have athletics (Turning the Steering Wheel). Similarly we have Thinking (About Chemicals) and Thinking (About Plants) to replace such moldy skills as Chemistry and Botany. Also Language skills were bundled in under Thinking (About Languages). It's so much more logical than the idiotic way SR3 does things. |
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