Artistic Skills... Michelangelo
monkey mike
longer to increase than mental skills, even if the mental skill is
mental/hard it still only takes 2cps to increase your skill.
My question is this...
I have had many suggestions about the skill of fighters in a given city army
and what their skill would be. It seems people feel that the best fighters
in the city would have between an 18 and maybe a 22 skill in their primary
weapon, depending on how battleworn the soldiers are. BUT, now lets look
at an artist.
Someone who cares nothing for battle and spends all their time practicing
the artist skill or the sculpting skill etc... what would a high skill be
for them? Now you might say a 21 is a very high skill, and this may be so
for sculpting since it is a physical skill and takes 8cp to increase to a
higher skill level. But painting or drawing is covered under the artist
skill which is a mental hard skill and requires only 2cp to increase to a
higher skill level. And, since it takes 200 hours of practice to gain 1cp,
a painter could easily get 1600 hours of practice a year painting (assuming
6 hours of painting a day, 5 days a week). This would give the painter 8cps
to put into painting every year. This might sound like a lot of time but it
really is not. My father is an oil painter and he (as well as his friends
in the Broward Art Guild in Florida) always averages at least 6 hours of
painting in a day (total of 30 hours per week) and he also had a full time
job during the week. I would assume that most artists in the middle ages
spent more time than 6 hours a day 5 days a week painting so they might even
have higher character points totals at the end of a year.
Even if I decrease the amount of character points to 6 in a year (1200 hours
a year), it would give the artist 60cps in a ten year period. So assuming
6cps in a year, 60cps in 10 years... Someone who began painting at the age
of 16 and is now 66 (50 years times 6cps) would have about 300cps in
painting giving them an artist skill of 150. Even if you cut this in half
their artist skill would still be 75, and this assumes only 3cps a year
which means they would be spending only 2 or 3 hours a day painting.
Michelangelo certainly had an awesome skill with painting and with
sculpting. If I assume he spent only 6 hours a day 5 days a week (which is
not very much at all), and split this time between sculpting and painting,
and assumed he did this from age 16 to the age of 66 then he would have...
(50 years times 6cps/year = 300cps). Split the 300cps between artist and
sculpting and you get 150 each. This gives a sculpting skill of about 17
and an artist skill of about 75.
I would guess that Michelangelo spent twice as much time with both painting
(artist skill) and sculpting so you could probably double the scores above.
Sculpting skill of 34 and painting (artist skill) of 150. (he probably even
spent more time than that, it was his life).
You could say that a skill of 25 in artist skill means that you can paint a
perfect painting, but then what advantage is there to having a skill of 75
or 150. If 25 is so good it would not make sense, because after only 10
years of practice at 6 hours a day 5 days a week they would have a skill of
30 in artist. So that is too easy to get based on how much my father and
his friends in the Broward Art Guild in Florida paint.
What skill in painting (artist skill) would allow someone to paint a
recognizable human form?
What sculpting skill would allow the sculptor to sculpt a recognizable human
form.
What skill for rendering a good looking human form?
What skill for rendering a beautiful human form?
What skill for the most perfect... blah blah...
Etc...
What do you think the above skills should be both in artist skill and
sculpting skill. And, what do you think Michelangelos skill would be in
both. Remember that artist skill (painting and drawing) is a mental/hard
skill and sculpting is a physical/average skill.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
David Johnston
>
> Michelangelo certainly had an awesome skill with painting and with
> sculpting. If I assume he spent only 6 hours a day 5 days a week (which is
> not very much at all), and split this time between sculpting and painting,
> and assumed he did this from age 16 to the age of 66 then he would have...
> (50 years times 6cps/year = 300cps). Split the 300cps between artist and
> sculpting and you get 150 each. This gives a sculpting skill of about 17
> and an artist skill of about 75.
The first problem with this analysis is that it assumes that time
spent doing something is always spent productively in terms of
self improvement. If that was true, there would be no 25 point
senior citizens. It isn't. Just because some character is
painting away for 35 hours a week, 52 weeks a year doesn't
mean that his painting won't be crap. He might never learn
anything from all that effort, except "I really, really
am sick of painting." The GM has to rule that the activity
is productive of improvement, that the character is actually
learning.
The second problem is of course that GURPS is not, and was
never intended to be an accurate simulation of every single
sphere of human endeavour. The costs for physical and
mental skills have a great deal to do with the need to make
it possible for players to play the characters they want
to play while still being a more or less equally contributing
member of the group.
Which brings me to the third problem, which is what the heck
is a PC doing spending that much time on painting? And if the
character isn't a PC, then why are you calculating his
training times?
>
> What skill in painting (artist skill) would allow someone to paint a
> recognizable human form?
I can draw stick figures and everyone will recognise that as a representation
of the human form.
> What sculpting skill would allow the sculptor to sculpt a recognizable human
> form.
A ten.
>
> What skill for rendering a good looking human form?
Well, that would require a successful roll, and to make a successful
roll on a reliable basis would be something like a 15.
> What skill for rendering a beautiful human form?
> What skill for the most perfect... blah blah...
> Etc...
>
> What do you think the above skills should be both in artist skill and
> sculpting skill. And, what do you think Michelangelos skill would be in
> both. Remember that artist skill (painting and drawing) is a mental/hard
> skill and sculpting is a physical/average skill.
Mike would probably be somewhere up around 25 for painting and
21 for sculpture.
Peter Knutsen
monkey mike wrote:
[...]
> Someone who cares nothing for battle and spends all their time practicing
> the artist skill or the sculpting skill etc... what would a high skill be
> for them? Now you might say a 21 is a very high skill, and this may be so
> for sculpting since it is a physical skill and takes 8cp to increase to a
> higher skill level. But painting or drawing is covered under the artist
> skill which is a mental hard skill and requires only 2cp to increase to a
> higher skill level. And, since it takes 200 hours of practice to gain 1cp,
> a painter could easily get 1600 hours of practice a year painting (assuming
You're slightly wrong here. If you are practicing, at a rate of 1 CP
per 200 hours, you are not producing anything that can be sold. (Don't
confused by the fact that sketches and old notes and stuff can be sold
for huge fortunes - that'll only happen decades after you're dead,
unless you're a Professor of Middle English who's practically created
a whole new genre of written fiction).
Experience from working at a craft, such as painting, is 1/4 rate, or
1 CP per 800 hours (personally I think that's too generous, 1/8 rate
would make more sense).
Also the 200 hours per 1 CP is if you're training under a qualified
teacher (I think he must have both the skill trained plus the Teaching
skill), without a teacher the rate is halved to 1 CP per 400 hours.
> 6 hours of painting a day, 5 days a week). This would give the painter 8cps
> to put into painting every year. This might sound like a lot of time but it
He needs to eat every day. Without earning any money, he'll grow
Skinny, then Dead, and then it's game over for him and his player.
Have him work normally, earning 2 CP per year. Or have him paint
sellable paintings 4 hours a day at 800 hours per CP, and
self-practice the other 4 hours a day at 400 hours per CP, then he
gets an income that can maintain himself, and once he grows skilled
enough, can also maintain a wife and kids.
> really is not. My father is an oil painter and he (as well as his friends
> in the Broward Art Guild in Florida) always averages at least 6 hours of
> painting in a day (total of 30 hours per week) and he also had a full time
> job during the week. I would assume that most artists in the middle ages
> spent more time than 6 hours a day 5 days a week painting so they might even
> have higher character points totals at the end of a year.
Leonardo daVinci spent a lot of time practicing. He didn't actually
paint much, he just made sketches and stuff, studies of how light and
colours worked. I don't know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me at
all if Michelangelo did exactly the same.
> Even if I decrease the amount of character points to 6 in a year (1200 hours
> a year), it would give the artist 60cps in a ten year period. So assuming
> 6cps in a year, 60cps in 10 years... Someone who began painting at the age
> of 16 and is now 66 (50 years times 6cps) would have about 300cps in
> painting giving them an artist skill of 150. Even if you cut this in half
> their artist skill would still be 75, and this assumes only 3cps a year
> which means they would be spending only 2 or 3 hours a day painting.
Congratulations, you've just found two off the flaws in GURPS:
1. You get too many CPs for practicing a craft (the rate of 1 CP per
800 hours is too generous).
2. You can keep increasing skills at a "flat cost", usually of 2 or 4
CPs per level. That simply does not match reality. 50 year old truck
drivers don't have Driving skills in their 30's.
The first flaw is easily fixed (lower the rate), the second is much
harder.
> Michelangelo certainly had an awesome skill with painting and with
> sculpting. If I assume he spent only 6 hours a day 5 days a week (which is
> not very much at all), and split this time between sculpting and painting,
> and assumed he did this from age 16 to the age of 66 then he would have...
> (50 years times 6cps/year = 300cps). Split the 300cps between artist and
> sculpting and you get 150 each. This gives a sculpting skill of about 17
> and an artist skill of about 75.
I can't say for sure, but I suspect the distinction between physical
and mental skills will be muchly reduced, if not entirely removed, in
4th edition. Probably they'll both "cap out" at 4 CP/level.
> I would guess that Michelangelo spent twice as much time with both painting
> (artist skill) and sculpting so you could probably double the scores above.
> Sculpting skill of 34 and painting (artist skill) of 150. (he probably even
> spent more time than that, it was his life).
>
> You could say that a skill of 25 in artist skill means that you can paint a
> perfect painting, but then what advantage is there to having a skill of 75
> or 150. If 25 is so good it would not make sense, because after only 10
> years of practice at 6 hours a day 5 days a week they would have a skill of
> 30 in artist. So that is too easy to get based on how much my father and
> his friends in the Broward Art Guild in Florida paint.
>
> What skill in painting (artist skill) would allow someone to paint a
> recognizable human form?
What kind of recognizable? Do you mean police sketch recognizable
("The man who mugged me looks like this")?
> What sculpting skill would allow the sculptor to sculpt a recognizable human
> form.
>
> What skill for rendering a good looking human form?
> What skill for rendering a beautiful human form?
> What skill for the most perfect... blah blah...
> Etc...
>
> What do you think the above skills should be both in artist skill and
> sculpting skill. And, what do you think Michelangelos skill would be in
> both. Remember that artist skill (painting and drawing) is a mental/hard
> skill and sculpting is a physical/average skill.
>
> Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
I own the Who's Who (I or II, I don't remember as I own them both) in
which Leonardo daVinci is statted up. I can go look up his Painting
skill, then we can assume Michelangelo was a couple of levels better.
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
David Johnston wrote:
> monkey mike wrote:
>>Michelangelo certainly had an awesome skill with painting and with
>>sculpting. If I assume he spent only 6 hours a day 5 days a week (which is
>>not very much at all), and split this time between sculpting and painting,
>>and assumed he did this from age 16 to the age of 66 then he would have...
>>(50 years times 6cps/year = 300cps). Split the 300cps between artist and
>>sculpting and you get 150 each. This gives a sculpting skill of about 17
>>and an artist skill of about 75.
>
>
> The first problem with this analysis is that it assumes that time
> spent doing something is always spent productively in terms of
> self improvement. If that was true, there would be no 25 point
> senior citizens. It isn't. Just because some character is
The freeware system Quest FRP has a good, simple and useful rule where
you get less work experience if you're just practicing the routine
aspects of a craft. To get the full working experience allotment, you
must do cutting-edge work, i.e. be working at the edge of your skill
level. For GURPS I'd interpret that as there being a significant
probability that the objects you're producing will turn out so flawed
that they're unsellable, i.e. you've botched your skill roll. A highly
skilled weapon smith ought to be crafting Fine swords, if he wants the
full working experience, and an even more skilled one should be going
for Very fine swords, otherwise he won't be improving himself. Quest
FRP rules that you get half the experience for routine work compared
to cutting-edge work, but I suggest being much, much harsher. 1/10
rate might work well.
[...]
> Which brings me to the third problem, which is what the heck
> is a PC doing spending that much time on painting? And if the
> character isn't a PC, then why are you calculating his
> training times?
The OP has the noble and admirable attitude that the rules should
treat the PCs no different from how they treat NPCs.
--
Peter Knutsen
Pesterfield
It's likely that not all those points will go to painting and sculpting.
Architecture to know about the building he's painting and how best to do it.
Theology(Catholic), and other such skills, to know his subject material.
Various patrons and contacts in the art world.
Gregory L. Hansen
monkey mike <lsk...@Wsdfjoisd.com> wrote:
>Physical skills take 8cps to increase after a certain point and take a lot
>longer to increase than mental skills, even if the mental skill is
>mental/hard it still only takes 2cps to increase your skill.
>
>My question is this...
>I have had many suggestions about the skill of fighters in a given city army
>and what their skill would be. It seems people feel that the best fighters
>in the city would have between an 18 and maybe a 22 skill in their primary
>weapon, depending on how battleworn the soldiers are. BUT, now lets look
>at an artist.
>
>Someone who cares nothing for battle and spends all their time practicing
>the artist skill or the sculpting skill etc... what would a high skill be
>for them?
If players were interested in gaming art the way they're interested in
gaming combat, there would be a separate technical skill for each medium
the artist works in, a familiarity penalty if they don't use their own
tools, plus additional conceptual skills for each genre. And maneuvers
like Dab On Leaves With Sponge, and Crosshatch Shading. Earlier artists
would need to roll against Prepare Art Supplies (medium) to properly find,
grind, and mix their pigments and build their brushes, for instance, and
the degree of their success may impose penalties on the technical
execution of their work. And there would be advantages to choose from
like Trained By Master (Studio Arts), Steady Hand, and Eye For
Perspective.
But that's not what the game usually hinges on, so art, like mathematics,
is much easier to master than a fighting style.
--
"A good plan executed right now is far better than a perfect plan
executed next week."
-Gen. George S. Patton
David Johnston
wrote:
>> Which brings me to the third problem, which is what the heck
>> is a PC doing spending that much time on painting? And if the
>> character isn't a PC, then why are you calculating his
>> training times?
>
>The OP has the noble and admirable
Or wrong and dumb.
attitude that the rules should
>treat the PCs no different from how they treat NPCs.
I'm sorry but I don't have time to make up time usage
charts for all of the thousands of characters I may have
introduced into a long term campaign. I have no intention
of having every new character the PCs meet be a 100
point character just because I just made them up and
the PCs started at 100 points. Some will be 25 point
characters. Some will be 1000 point characters.
Not, mind you, that I'll know since I never bother
to calculate the point totals of characters that aren't
PCs or PC offshoots. Some will be from species that the
PCs aren't even allowed to play. Some won't
even be sentient. And a demand that I change
that will be treated with the derision it deserves.
Being a gm is time consuming enough without
getting bogged down in the fiddley math crap
that players only have to deal with for one or
two characters but for the gm involves thousands
of characters.
Michael W Ryder
When he was painting the Sistine Chapel he spent most of every day,
except Sundays, working. Part of the time was spent preparing the
materials and the work surface, another part was spent laying out the
day's work and correcting problems with previous work. He was not only
practicing his painting skill, but also materials and surface
preparation and the setting up of the scaffolds to work on.
> You could say that a skill of 25 in artist skill means that you can paint a
> perfect painting, but then what advantage is there to having a skill of 75
> or 150. If 25 is so good it would not make sense, because after only 10
> years of practice at 6 hours a day 5 days a week they would have a skill of
> 30 in artist. So that is too easy to get based on how much my father and
> his friends in the Broward Art Guild in Florida paint.
>
One thing that bothers me about the artist skills is that they don't
take into account any inspiration, other than as critical successes. An
artist may not have the best technical skills in his field but he could
still produce a far superior work of art because of his vision. Another
thing to take into account is how dedicated is he to his art. If he
just goes through the motions his work is probably going to be inferior
to someone who struggles to make sure that everything is perfect, even
if his skill is better.
> What skill in painting (artist skill) would allow someone to paint a
> recognizable human form?
> What sculpting skill would allow the sculptor to sculpt a recognizable human
> form.
>
> What skill for rendering a good looking human form?
> What skill for rendering a beautiful human form?
> What skill for the most perfect... blah blah...
> Etc...
>
> What do you think the above skills should be both in artist skill and
> sculpting skill. And, what do you think Michelangelos skill would be in
> both. Remember that artist skill (painting and drawing) is a mental/hard
> skill and sculpting is a physical/average skill.
>
Another thing to keep in mind with someone like Michelangelo is that he
wasn't just a painter and sculptor. He also designed St. Pauls
Cathedral in Rome (Architecture and Engineering), and I believe he also
did some bronze casting (Metallurgy). As a lot of his work was things
that had never been done before there might also be a jack of all trades
skill. He also had to have some supervisory skills, geology skills for
choosing the correct blocks of stone for sculpting, along with others.
Lars Embøll Nielsen
skill.
I have figured out the distance to Tau Seti in miles, and calculated, by
every raindrop representing a mile, how long, far and dense the rain would
be (as an answer to a water mage's "where am I"-spell) 1500yards is the
distance you can se on a clear day, therefore a radius of 1500 yards, 4
raindrops/ meter /sec => 7,87 hours of rain; they were far away from home.
Unnecessary work, (she never used the god dammed spell), but fun, and good
for perspective
Lars, Denmark
"David Johnston" <rgo...@telusplanet.net> skrev i en meddelelse
news:3f370771...@news.telusplanet.net...
Mark K Styles
"monkey mike" wrote...
> Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
I like the simple rule for Job Experience that JefWilson(?) brought up.
Instead of getting (Time/800)pts (one-quarter credit towards 200 hours per
pt), it's (Time/(200xPts))pts, or the time spent at a job divided by the
number of points already in the skill then divided by 200, or it takes 200
hours times the number of points in the skill to gain a point, obviously
banked 'til you can raise the skill. I might also enforce something like a
Job Success Roll, in order to get the point, but maybe not.
So, for example, a noticibly smart (IQ13) guy, say, 30 years old, wants to
try something new, takes a couple of night college art classes (M/A,
2pts=>Painting-13) and decides to screw-it-all and paint full time (using
your 1600hours per year). After 400h he has one more point, another 400h
and his skill goes to 14(4pts), rounding out the year gets another point,
midway through the second year he gets another for skill 15(6pts). End of
March in Year 3 (+1200h) he gets another, and at the start of Year 4, he has
Painting-16(8pts). Years 5 and 6 raise his Skill to 17(10pts). At Year
8.5, 18(12pts); Year 11.5, 19(14pts). Year 15 is when he hits
Painting-20(16pts), in another 4 years he hits hits 21(18pts). His 40th
Year painting is when he hits Painting-25(26pts). If he makes it to 77.5
years of work (a healthy 107, I suppose), he'll hit Painting-30 and have
gained 36pts over a nearly eight decade career.
For Mental Skills at least, the rule basically adds a cumulative six months
for every increase in Skill (And a cumulative two years for Physical Skills?
Really not sure about this and don't feel like doing the math right now.).
prometheus
> The second problem is of course that GURPS is not, and was
> never intended to be an accurate simulation of every single
> sphere of human endeavour. The costs for physical and
> mental skills have a great deal to do with the need to make
> it possible for players to play the characters they want
> to play while still being a more or less equally contributing
> member of the group.
>
Yes. Clearly GURPS' max cost of 2 pts for almost all IQ based skills
and cost max of 8 pts for dex based skills is intended to deal with
the fact that all the combat skills are dex based, and so, in general,
far more valuable in most games.
Where this falls down is in Magic and Psionics (no idea about super
powers). Granted, magic, at least, usually requires a dex-based skill
as well in order to damage someone, but for non-direct damage spells
(sleep, for example) and for most psionics, you don't even need that.
The upshot is that one glaring possibility for rules abuse is for
players to take magic or psionics (if allowed) and get a few skills in
those areas to a disgustingly high level. NPCs can do the same. A
very few magic skills (spells) are mental/very hard, but that still
maxes out at 4 pts per skill level, not 8.
Ozzy
> Congratulations, you've just found two off the flaws in GURPS:
>
> 1. You get too many CPs for practicing a craft (the rate of 1 CP per 800
> hours is too generous).
>
> 2. You can keep increasing skills at a "flat cost", usually of 2 or 4
> CPs per level. That simply does not match reality. 50 year old truck
> drivers don't have Driving skills in their 30's.
>
> The first flaw is easily fixed (lower the rate), the second is much harder.
I favor a mean to "solve" this flaw. When a player want to increase a
skill with points other than adventure points, he must make a skill
roll: if he miss, then the job/practice has been profitable and the
skill increase. If the skill roll succeed, then the points are spent but
without effect. 17-18 is always a "success". I autorize a bonus of +1
per point above what is necessary to increase.
This way, the higher the skill, the lesser the chance to increase it
through study points outside adventures.
I'm using it since many years and it works, with players full satisfaction.
--
Cordialement
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Charlton Wilbur
> Where this falls down is in Magic and Psionics (no idea about super
> powers). Granted, magic, at least, usually requires a dex-based
> skill as well in order to damage someone, but for non-direct damage
> spells (sleep, for example) and for most psionics, you don't even
> need that. The upshot is that one glaring possibility for rules
> abuse is for players to take magic or psionics (if allowed) and get
> a few skills in those areas to a disgustingly high level. NPCs can
> do the same. A very few magic skills (spells) are mental/very hard,
> but that still maxes out at 4 pts per skill level, not 8.
But this is as true of any situation in which one or two skills are
valuable to the exclusion of all others. If players can "win" by
putting all their points into Basketweaving, they'll do it. If
players learn quickly that putting lots of points in combat skills is
the way to succeed, then they'll neglect all the other skills. This
has little to do with the difference in point caps per level between
mental skills and physical skills.
The solution, if you're concerned about this kind of abuse, is to
create situations that call for a variety of skill checks. If the
player put 20 points into Fireball to the exclusion of social skills,
make sure that not all situations can be solved by some application of
Fireball, and that some require social skills to deal with.
(The real world often works like this: the person who succeeds best is
not the brilliant programmer with no social skills or the charismatic
and social extrovert with no other skills, but the decent programmer
with reasonable interpersonal skills.)
Charlton
--
cwilbur at chromatico dot net
cwilbur at mac dot com
David Johnston
Not a real problem with psionics since power is usually more important
than skill. As for magic...well it just isn't that big a deal. The
fact is being a one-trick pony with your sleep spell just isn't as
appealing as, say, being a Fencing one trick pony, or an Archery
one trick pony. What would you rather boast of, being the best
swordsman in all of France, or being a generally crappy wizard
who has one spell he casts all the time because it's the only
thing he really knows how to do? It's not as if you can take
any trick shots with your Sleep spell. The best swordsman in
all of France can show off by carving his initials into people's
chests, or skewering a mosquito. The best caster of Sleep
spells in France, can generally just knock people out, one
at time a good 30 feet further away. Big whoop. In
order to feel like the real master of Sleep you'd need a
variety of spells to do things like reading and shaping
people's dreams at a minimum. That's why spells are so
narrowly defined in the first place.
Apart from that, to some extent, the low fixed price
of spell skill levels is accounted for in the system.
Why do you think that range modifiers on spells are
such killers or that they give the effect on fatigue
costs for spell skills of up to 30? And why are
the degrees of effect that you can achieve, no matter
how high your skill with the spell, so limited?
That's why.
Apart from that, though, there's also the age skill
limit to deal with. Even in a high point total game,
the points will tend to go into stats and advantages
because those have no starting age limit to deal with.
While in theory someone could achieve one trick pony
status after the start of play by dumping 20
points into a single spell that they really like (or
more likely several related spells), in practice
because the experience points are doled out in dribs
and drabs, and because the difference between Sleep
21 and Sleep 22 is infinitesimal while you get a
dramatic and obvious increase to your power by spending
those 2 points to get 2 entirely new spells...
it's just not something that happens much and it
can be managed when it does happen.
WHUTAGUY
(Runequest and Call of Cthulhu).
I have used a variant of this. After an adventure, players can check by this
method any skill they used successfully and if they "fail" they get a free 1/2
point for this skill. Earned points on the other hand can be spent normally on
any skill they could have reasonably learned or practices on the adventure or
between adventures. Note that I do not allow the 1/2 point checks for routine
use (ie job, daily life).
whut
>I favor a mean to "solve" this flaw. When a player want to increase a
>skill with points other than adventure points, he must make a skill
>roll: if he miss, then the job/practice has been profitable and the
>skill increase. If the skill roll succeed, then the points are spent but
>without effect. 17-18 is always a "success". I autorize a bonus of +1
>per point above what is necessary to increase.
>This way, the higher the skill, the lesser the chance to increase it
>through study points outside adventures.
>I'm using it since many years and it works, with players full satisfaction.
Of course I'm crazy, but that doesn't make me wrong
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