| From: | Erik Jameson <erikj@****.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Skillz to pay the billz |
| Date: | Mon, 18 May 1998 20:01:15 -0400 |
>>Close, but no cigar. Your approach makes sense, but (at least in my
>>campaign) 'Law Enforcement' is an Etiquette concentration, specialised
>>by organisation (eg Lone Star) or by jurisdiction (eg UCAS),. I'd make
>>Law itself another Etiquette concentration, separated from Law
>>Enforcement, and Corporate, by one dot and specialised by the type of
>>law (Criminal, Civil, Corporate). (Is the distinction between types of
>>cases really that major? The same skills are involved for each:
>>research, persuasiveness, the ability to spot and exploit weaknesses in
>>the opponent's arguments and testimony.)
>
>The Concentration reflects not the skills involved but the focused area
>of study. In other words someone with a concentration in criminal law is
>skilled in arguing all kinds of law, but, is only familiar with criminal
>cases and proceedings. (ie what type of evidence is admissable, what
>kind of testimony is allowed)
To borrow the phrase, close but no cigar. Even a regular beat cop has to
know what sort of evidence is admissible. And since cops do a lot of
interrogation, they also have to have an idea of what kind of testimony
will stand up in a court of law. But many of them have never taken a
formal class is criminal law. Instead they know police procedures, which
would be a different skill/concentration/specialization in SR.
You have to remember that it's the cops out there collecting the bulk of
the evidence for criminal trials. If they don't know how to gather
evidence of all sorts (including verbal), then the entire prosecution gets
thrown out.
I've been trying to sort out a way to make this clearer, but I can't.
Essentially criminal law and police procedure cover a fair amount of
similar territory. But strictly speaking, for many beat cops their
knowledge of criminal law is strictly incidental to their knowledge of
police procedures. So it would be like they are related concentrations of
some root skill perhaps.
This opens up a gripe I know some people have with the SR skill system.
Armed Combat for example. I find it highly unlikely that someone who has
been training with a sword (of whatever type) will be able to pick up a
quarterstaff and use it just as well as they did their sword. Yes, they
will understand basic melee combat and they will have a better grasp of
attacking and defending, but they simply won't be able to be anywhere near
as effective.
Firearms? Everyone claims that shooting a gun is shooting a gun. But
having fired handguns, shotguns, hunting rifles and assault rifles, I can
say that while the principle is the same, there are major differences,
especially between pistols and rifles/shotguns. The basic Firearms skill
seems to indicate that you can pick up and small-arms in an instant and use
it just as well as any other firearm, even if you've never fired that
particular gun before.
And we all know that the skill "Computer" has no such real life analogue
anymore. How many of you that can actually program your computer can also
set up a LAN? Create a firewall? Write your own OS? Yet to my eyes the
SR "Computer" skill allows all that to be known with the general skill.
I don't know. I'm got my own idea of an option, but I'd like to hear other
people's concepts first.
Erik J.
Fight the Future on June 19th!
"What was that popping sound?"
"A paradigm shifting without a clutch."
