Task System for GURPS Space

A thread of 2 messages, 14 February 1990 to 21 February 1990, in the order they were sent.

#1012 Task System for GURPS Space

[unnamed sender] · 14 February 1990

This question involves GURPS Space and MegaTraveller.

One thing that I like about the task system is that the level
of difficulty for various tasks uses words from the English
language.  In GURPS, you generally assign a penalty for very
difficult tasks which is subtracted from skill.  I've seen
GM's assign as much as a -12 penalty to perform a task that
I didn't think was impossible.

I was thinking about trying to use the MT difficulty levels
since saying that a task is "formidable" is more descriptive
than saying its a -5 feat.  Can anyone advise me as to what
is reasonable?  And BTW, are there guidelines concerning when
to assign a "difficult" instead of a "formidable" roll or
a "simple" versus "routine?"

I was thinking of something like this:

Simple:     skill + 2
Routine:    skill
Difficult:  skill - 3
Formidable: skill - 6
Impossible: skill - 12

In GURPS, you roll three 6 sided dice for an average roll of 10.5 .
It just so happens that a novice in a certain skill will have a
skill of 10 or 11 and will therefore succeed with a routine task
about 50% of the time.  A reasonably experienced operator will
usually have a skill of about 13 (maybe level 1 or 2 in traveller)
and succeed in a routine task around 60-70% of the time.  So, how
often should this reasonably experienced operator succeed if the
task is simple, difficult, formidable or impossible?


        Ron Abramson   email: [email removed]
                      telnet: 1-[phone removed]


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#1079 Re: Task System for GURPS Space

Solo · 21 February 1990 · reply to #1012

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> This question involves GURPS Space and MegaTraveller.

Nice to see I'm not alone in using GURPS for a Space campaign...

> [stuff deleted to save bandwidth]
> I was thinking of something like this:
>
> Simple:     skill + 2
> Routine:    skill
> Difficult:  skill - 3
> Formidable: skill - 6
> Impossible: skill - 12
>
> In GURPS, you roll three 6 sided dice for an average roll of 10.5 .
> It just so happens that a novice in a certain skill will have a
> skill of 10 or 11 and will therefore succeed with a routine task
> about 50% of the time.  A reasonably experienced operator will
> usually have a skill of about 13 (maybe level 1 or 2 in traveller)
> and succeed in a routine task around 60-70% of the time.  So, how
> often should this reasonably experienced operator succeed if the
> task is simple, difficult, formidable or impossible?

  Hmm.  OK, time to dig out the GURPS books I guess.  The easiest way to
approach this would seem to be to check out the descriptions of various
skill levels, and work from there.
  In GURPS, level 12 in a skill is described as that of a talented
beginner, or an average man after a little study.  I don't think this
translates to Traveller skill 2 - level 1 maybe, but not 2.  Looking
further down the table we see that a "veteran" fighter (one with
experience, but not a lot of it) has a skill of ^15.  This leads to
the following rolls/percentages for different tasks:

        Simple    : Roll 16, 98.1% (as a roll of 17+ always fails)
        Routine   : Roll 15, 95.4%
        Difficult : Roll 12, 74.1%
        Formidable: Roll 9,  37.5%
        Impossible: Roll 3,  0.5%

  This seems to be in keeping with how I see Traveller skill level 2 -
although the chance for the Impossible task is perhaps a little on the
low side.
  Someone with a *lot* of experience will have a skill level of about
18, thus adding 3 to all the above rolls.  Thus, he will succeed at an
Impossible task about 9.3% of the time.  This, to me, seems like the
sort of skill level I would give someone with Traveller skill of 3.
  A Master, as described in GURPS, has skill 20.  He will succeed in the
Impossible task about 25.9% of the time.  Sounds like Traveller level 4
to me.
  A Wizard (described as someone who could fight blindfolded) has a
skill of 25.  This gives him a 83.8% chance at succeeding at the
Impossible task - Traveller skill 5, at a minimum.

  It is possible under the GURPS rules to have levels even higher than
this, although the cost of such levels is usually prohibitive, at least
for the Physical skills, such as Combat, Piloting etc.  I don't think
it's really necessary to go beyond level 25 for the purposes of looking
at the task system - much further, and the person attempting the skill
roll can do virtually anything 98.1% of the time (not 100%, as noted in
the table above.)
  All the above comparisons are based on the description of combat
skills found on page 45 of the GURPS Basic Set, Third Edition.  They
seem to fit the task levels presented fairly well to me, although
different people would of course need to alter them to fit with the
overall levels of skill found in their campaign.

Sayonara,
       Derek.

PS: To Richard Johnson - Received your mail test OK, did my reply ever
    reach you?

- --
Derek MacColl,          JANET:  [email removed]
Ex-Computer Science,    ARPA:   [email removed]
Edinburgh University.   UUCP:   Sorry...
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"I'm the best there is at what I do, and what I do isn't very nice."