Definitions are presented in OR fashion, not AND.

~J

Sabosect: Indenting was important in the definitions.

Definition 1:
Of, relating to, engaged in, or suitable for a profession: lawyers, doctors, and other professional people.
Conforming to the standards of a profession: professional behavior.

Definitions 2+: Bolded.

Definition 1 required both parts. Definitions 2,3,4 did not. Only the first requires conforming to the standards -- the others do not. And those are the ones that I think Shadowrunning would be included in -- there's no trade school for Shadowrunning, it's sink or swim (like professional writing).

"What we have her is a failure to communicate"

Okay, so the books are saying what? (I obviously don't have it) ;
Skill 1 = barely trained, read a book on the subject once, etc.
Blah
Blah
Blah
Blah
Level 6 - Skilled profesisonal, prefessional athelete, etc

I don't think the book is telling you that the character is a skilled pro, or a pro athlete, but the equivalant of one.

Essentially? Yes to the sarcastic comments.

Welcome to the wide world of "real life considerations of professions" and the joys it provides. And, yes, there is a list of professions where you are not a professional if you are not on the job.

ahh, I was following it. I just didn't realize you were involving your self in such a 'passionate' debate over the term 'professional' as it applied to that little chart in the book.

Like I said, I don't think that chart was saying you are a skilled pro, just the equiv of one. Though I still do not think that it is tools - ownership or posession of - that make you a professional or not. It's What you know, now what you own.

Heh, you need a hobby. Stat.

This is my hobby. My main job is much more boring. I'm not in a physical condition to try something exciting, so meh.

Anyway, it's not just about the wording in the book. It's also about whether or not the runners are street-level operators. By intention stated in the FAQ, they are. Several portions of the book give me the idea they are. And nothing I have seen in or out of reality suggests a street-level operator cannot have a level of skill equal to or above that of professionals. In fact, I would say it's more than possible.

As for what you know determining whether or not you are a professional: Doesn't match up. For example, you can never be a professional ER doctor, no matter how much you know, if you can't get a license. You can be a professional illegal doctor, but that's a different profession.

Edit:

Sabosect
Joined: 9-Oktober 04

Superbum
Joined: 24-February 02

Wow...to think I read this whole thing to see if anybody commented on my original post regarding the glitches and after the first page nobody did!

Just a tid-bit. I'm an engineer. I have pieces of paper saying what I can and can't sign off on and expect people to build it. Very similar to the medical boards in how much those pieces of paper define my ability to legally make a living.

I know several licenced, registered Professional Engineers who are, if not inept then not as good as others who haven't been licensed yet. All the license board does is make sure you meet certain base criteria. (aka Skill:3)

Licensing boards are a temporal, local phenomena; they don't always exist nor do they necessarily use global standards. Go back more than 100 years and you'll find a lack of licensing boards. Various guilds, charters, or groups have regulated these things before but we survived when there weren't any. Sans licensing board, the only difference between a professional and amateur was commitment.

Per dictionary.com:
pro·fes·sion·al Pronunciation Key (pr-fsh-nl)
adj.
1. Of, relating to, engaged in, or suitable for a profession: lawyers, doctors, and other professional people.
2. Conforming to the standards of a profession: professional behavior.
2. Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer.
3. Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football.
4. Having or showing great skill; expert: a professional repair job.
n.
1. A person following a profession, especially a learned profession.
2. One who earns a living in a given or implied occupation: hired a professional to decorate the house.
3. A skilled practitioner; an expert.


am·a·teur Pronunciation Key (m-tûr, -tr, -chr, -chr, -tyr)
n.
1. A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.
2. Sports. An athlete who has never accepted money, or who accepts money under restrictions specified by a regulatory body, for participating in a competition.
3. One lacking the skill of a professional, as in an art.
adj.
1. Of or performed by an amateur.
2. Made up of amateurs: an amateur cast.
3. Not professional; unskillful.


Since we are discussing equal levels of skill, the only thresholds are source of income, a license, or practictioner. Since income is silly (I don't cease being a professional engineer when unemployed, I'm just broke), and a license is only as good as the one giving it (*cough*Microsoft Certified Professional*cough*), we are left with the experience and commitment of the individual in question. This, in game terms, is known as background.

If only I could have said it like Kigmatzomat did.

blakkie: I was thinking it

Wow. Just... wow.

Well, I can't continue. Kigmatzomat did one hell of a job cutting straight and narrow and getting to the core.

of the only thing seperating a pro from a non-pro is the sertification then im staying eternaly non-pro and happy

Thank you, thank you, the 9:30 show is completely different from the 7:30 show and be sure to tip your servers.

It helps that I generally work as a consultant for municipal utilities, meaning any given client will have staff with technical expertise ranging from godlike to "I don't see why Mr. Fork and Ms. Outlet can't be friends." Since most of my time is spent on computer simulations of large hydraulic networks, an esoteric and sometimes counterintuitive subject, I spend a lot of time translating from geek to english. In other words, my primary skillset is sifting wheat from chaff.

Getting back on topic, I haven't seen that many glitches except when people where rolling pitiful numbers of dice. The Force:2 air spirit, for instance, critical glitched twice in a row. I've only got one good gaming session to go on but with 6 people all doing as many different things as they could think of to try and break the system you'd think we'd have enough dice rolls to give us an idea.

'Could be, though, that all our characters were twinky attempts to break the system and thus had too many dice to roll. (Except for soaking. The mage glitched soak checks twice)

The session i ran saw 2 critical glitches rolled. One with a dice pool of 8 (pretty respectable after situational modifiers), the other i don't recall how many it was. But it was above 5 dice. We were using the Sample Chars right out of the BBB, at least the ones that Critical Glitched were. So maybe not so optimized PCs. There might have been a Glitch or two, but on the NPC side.

They aren't all that rare until you get into double digit dice pools, after modifiers of course. So tweaked 'runners when in their area of specialization don't have to worry about it unless they are in very bad conditions. The rest of the time expect to see at least a few Glitches a session, and perhaps a Critical mixed in here and there.

At any rate this isn't SR3's rule of all 1's that you only see once a year, unless your players had a habit of rolling Skill (1) or more than the rare Skill (2). Personally i NEVER saw a SR3 all 1's rolled with more than 3 dice in hand.

I have. I've seen 10 dice come up all 1s in SR3. Fun Fun Fun. Biggest roll of 1 I have seen. Although there was an infamous story long time back in the DSarchives of a caster who rolled 48 dice for a fireball and they all came up 1s......