I just realized that a major way that RPGs could be more realistic is if high levels of skills and attributes required constant inputs or resources of some kind in order to stay high.

Powerlifting champions have to train up to compete in the championship. SWAT officers practice tactics and shooting constantly. Nobody stays world class unless most of their time is spent honing their skills.

In RPGs, for example Shadowrun, you shouldn't be able to just buy Pistols 6 at the beginning of the game and that skill never goes down ever. It would be more realistic if levels of skill above 3 required constant karma upkeep costs not to decline, with the costs going up as the level of skill gets higher.

People who have Pistols 6 in Shadowrun *are* constantly practicing. One way or the other.

If realism is what we want (and it's not), then skills should be train-by-use anyway.

That said ( ), that could be a good alternate rule system. You might want to bump the awards recommendation again to help a little. The 'some things you never forget' factor should be accounted for, as well. SOTA rules (as opposed to degradation) also makes sense for things like Biotech, etc. Lifestyle could probably be repurposed a little to account for most training and upkeep (gym membership, shooting range, etc.), instead of just being a new minmax opportunity (ohai, my house is Ergonomic, +1 all plz!).

I can see the logic behind requiring upkeep, but generally PC type runners (or characters in any genre) tend to be active ALL the time, unless you've got a rpg system that enforces mandatory downtime while you 'train new levels', but generally a decent GM will just handwavium the time passage "kay you all spend the time you need to level up/etc, and meet back later'.

The lure and beckoning cry of 'more money, more xp, more stuuuuuffff' usually keeps PCs in war-mode frequently. Maybe a runner who's going to retire gets to the point where their skills decline due to lack of use, but even someone like Fastjack, you just know he's rolling perhaps every day, keeping himself sharp through practical experience. The scary kinda stuff too, not just 'run through training scenarios' but 'hm I think I'll hack Aztechnology today."

Ez-zarkly.

There is such a thing as too much realism. I seem to be running into a lot of people who need that reminder lately...

Too much paperwork, not enough playing. If players role play that their guys practice, mention that they work out between jobs, spend their karma in ways that make sense for what they're doing (slaughtering a hundred guys with a shotgun shouldn't give you karma you spend on punching people, without a good reason)...just let it be.

There's a realistic criminal/professional lifestyle simulator, and then there's a playable fucking game of Shadowrun. Let's not confuse the one with the other, or try to shoehorn them into the same thing.

Have to agree. Too much paperwork, like the full damage-tracking system for cyberware in SR3...

Interestingly enough, I've been thinking about this for a while [and might even have raised it in the past] and I do think it can be done...
...But as with many of thing that SR makes part of the game [software upgrading, maintenance, lifestyles] it takes a little effort.

In simple terms, inspired by something from TORG and GURPS...
...I have characters either pay 1 karma for each skill they have above average [level:4+] or have them spend time and money

See, this would be one of those things that I think is covered by continued existence. If your character goes through the effort to get a 6 pistols skill, then a good portion of their off camera time is going to be spent at a shooting range, and the cost for that shooting range is going to be covered by their lifestyle (Provided it is halfway decent).

This is like food, and restroom breaks, and personal entertainment. Just because you don't RP these things out, doesn't mean the character doesn't do them when off camera.

If your hacker has been programing something for the last week of down time, then they spent 8(ish) hours working on the program, having a lunch break and maybe a few restroom breaks, and then after the day's work was done, hopped on Blast-and-Nuke Online^tm for a few hours, ate dinner, trawled the forums for interesting stuff, maybe hacked a few peoples home nodes and disabled the alarm clocks just for fun, went to sleep, woke up, and repeats.

I don't see any reason that further karma should be spent to maintain skills, as this is essentially a punishment for being good at something, and assumes that the only valid representation of time and effort is Karma.

Edit: An even bigger problem with this is how to set the degradation rate? Some groups have their characters on a run every couple of days, and some go a month between jobs. Would sure suck to be the second group if they have to spend 1 karma on every skill over 3 every month.

To much time taken up tracking it... too much paper work. Just keep a mental note (or a roughly written scrawl) of how much each character has been using various skills.

Would make it even more insane if you started talking about knowledge skills as well...

I suppose I could understand a bit of skill degradation if you are put in a situation in which you can't practice a given skill for a very long time (like maybe a prison sentence), but even then, if you're skilled enough to get up to 6, you're likely to come out of even a multi year sentence with a 5 skill, and be able to get back up to 6 with some practice (and no karma expenditure). Or in the case of knowledge skills, a couple weeks picking up the local pulse should top out your knowledge again.

To be honest I think it'd be more likely that skills with low ratings would degrade. The low rating indicates that the character doesn't practice it very often, and so is less likely to remember it, whereas the high rating indicates practice more often, and thus less likely to degrade.