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What did WEG intend for Knowledge?
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 14, 2019 11:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why Beast Handling in Knowledge?

Most of the others make some sense, but that one seems an anomaly?

And what about First Aid? Should that stay Tech, or should it move to Knowledge?
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Whill
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:00 pm    Post subject: What did WEG intend for Knowledge? Reply with quote

I was editing my original post from last night and accidentally deleted it, but I recovered the text so I am reposting it...

CRMcNeill wrote:
Copied from here.
Whill wrote:
I doubt many would agree with you that Command sits on the edge of the two attributes because most would probably not have your view of Knowledge, but I fully support you putting it wherever you feel is appropriate in your game. Maybe as a project you could eventually create a new thread that has all your tweaked attributes definitions and skill reassignments with your justifications?

That's just it; I don't think it's tweaked, I think we've been misreading what WEG intended.

There is a distinct difference between justifying what makes sense to you for your game, and discussing what the game designers originally intended. Now if individual GMs want make choices based on what they feel WEG intended because what WEG intended is most valuable to them, that is fine, but may I please remind that WEG's original intentions, like RAW as published, is not inherently superior to any GM's House Rules. And choosing to change something from WEG's intentions does not necessarily mean we are misreading the intentions...

CRMcNeill wrote:
What did WEG intend for Knowledge?

I understand the question, but ultimately we are still free to put skills in whatever attribute we want in our games, regardless of WEG's intentions. I am 100% certain that WEG always intended for Beast Riding to be a Mechanical skill despite the interactive and influence aspects of it. And I see their reasoning - It still involves the same spatial awareness to not crash into things like all the operation of moving vehicle skills in Mechanical. I moved Beast Riding to Perception anyway, as my very first house rule when I started playing this game in 1988. Whatever the case, what WEG may or may not have intended should not be as important as what you want for your game, and it should also not be used to criticize choices of other GMs.

CRMcNeill wrote:
I have an idea for another skill, which I'm thinking of calling either Cool or Poise, which will be a measurement of a character's temperament, and their ability to stay calm and under control.

If I followed through on this, I'd use the new skill as the resistance skill for my psychological effects rules, and I can potentially see some other applications...

I like this and consider the Cool/Poise concept as part of my Willpower skill. Like a nerve sort of thing. Maybe my skill should get a more-encompassing name.

CRMcNeill wrote:
garhkal wrote:
I don't see knowledge as anything to do with 'force of will' or interactive.. BUT i do think willpower still deserves to be under knowledge..

And yet Intimidation is very much an interactive skill.

Here you are using the fact that Intimidation is officially a Knowledge skill to argue that it is not out of place for Knowledge to include interactive skills. Your question is, What did WEG intend for Knowledge? Knowledge preexisted the Intimidation skill, so the question of what did WEG originally intend for Knowledge includes looking at the game before it had Intimidation and bringing into question whether Intimidation should have been a Knowledge skill. Did WEG betray their original intention of Knowledge with that 2e skill-attribute assignment?

CRMcNeill wrote:
Mamatried wrote:
Taking away Intimidation and willpower for now I can see Knowledge being mostly your academical aptitude.

But you didn't take away those two "for now"; you left them out completely and used the remaining skills to justify your own foregone conclusion. Put those skills back in and you premise falls apart.

The title of this topic is "What did WEG intend for Knowledge," which means that the skills that WEG included in the Knowledge Attribute should be taken into consideration, not simply discarded to fit a preconceived notion.

This seems as equally dismissive as what you are accusing him of. The "preconceived notion" of Knowledge is 1e which was conceived before these skills. It is completely warranted to consider the attribute without those skills, because the attribute preexisted those skills. 2e added a lot of skills, but most of their attribute assignments are not in question to most GMs. 2e was not reinventing the wheel of the SW attribute/skill system and forging a whole new Knowledge.

    1e didn't have a Willpower skill, but an aspect of willpower was inherent in the Perception attribute, not the Knowledge attribute.

    In 2e, the original aspect of willpower was not removed from Perception when the new Willpower skill was placed in Knowledge.

    1e didn't have the Intimidation skill, but Intimidation is admittedly an interactive skill. In 1e, all interactive skills were placed in Perception except Beast Riding, which has a much stronger case for being in Mechanical than Intimidation has for being in Knowledge.

    In 2e, Knowledge has this single interactive skill only. None of the previously existing interaction skills moved from Perception to Knowledge, and another new interactive skill (Persuasion) was placed in Perception.

Does the Knowledge premise really "fall apart" for gaining one new interactive skill in 2e (Intimidation)? The both-editions willpower aspect of Perception and the 2e Willpower skill both really don't correlate to any of their attributes, but WEG originally chose to lump it in with Perception. And Perception was never a "dump stat".

I've had this game since 1987. I feel the weight of the evidence indicates that it is most likely WEG originally intended Perception to be the home of all interactive skills, and willpower for better or worse. For that reason, it seems clear to me that they only put Intimidation and Willpower in Knowledge to beef up Knowledge, not because they always intended Knowledge to include those concepts.

But I can kinda understand why GMs that started playing this game with 2e might feel that these new skills always belonged in Knowledge, and like I said, you should all have it anyway you see fit for your game regardless of WEG intentions.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 14, 2019 2:01 pm    Post subject: Re: What did WEG intend for Knowledge? Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
There is a distinct difference between justifying what makes sense to you for your game, and discussing what the game designers originally intended.

I started this topic for the specific intention of discussing what WEG's 2E placement of Intimidation and Willpower in the Knowledge stat tells us about their intentions, and also at your request as to avoid hijacking a different topic (linked in the OP). There are any number of other topics here where GMs may discuss what skills they have moved to other attributes for their own purposes, and the justifications thereof. I put this particular topic in House Rules because I already knew the implications of the topic were going to take me into House Rule territory, but if you feel this topic would be more appropriate to Official Rules, feel free to move it.

Quote:
Whatever the case, what WEG may or may not have intended should not be as important as what you want for your game, and it should also not be used to criticize choices of other GMs.

If we are no longer allowed to point out the errors and faults in others' reasoning, the post count here will drop off precipitously. Mamatried has an overly narrow view of Knowledge; there are any number of Knowledge skills that can be gained and practiced through practical application as opposed to academics (what class does one attend to learn Streetwise, after all?), and many non-Knowledge skills involve some degree of academic study (Astrogation, most Technical skills, etc).

The point of Knowledge is to measure what the character knows about the universe around them, including (as is being argued here) themselves. Some of that can be learned academically, but knowledge is not gained exclusively in a classroom. Not even remotely.

Quote:
I like this and consider the Cool/Poise concept as part of my Willpower skill. Like a nerve sort of thing. Maybe my skill should get a more-encompassing name.

I do the same, but I've long considered the idea of separating the two in order to add a little more granularity to characters (as in, a character might be very strong-willed, but also have a hair-trigger temper).

Quote:
Here you are using the fact that Intimidation is officially a Knowledge skill to argue that it is not out of place for Knowledge to include interactive skills. Your question is, What did WEG intend for Knowledge? Knowledge preexisted the Intimidation skill, so the question of what did WEG originally intend for Knowledge includes looking at the game before it had Intimidation and bringing into question whether Intimidation should have been a Knowledge skill. Did WEG betray their original intention of Knowledge with that 2e skill-attribute assignment?

I wasn't asking what WEG originally intended; that's a 1E question, and per the Forum Posting Guidelines, discussions on the forum default to 2E/2R&E unless specifically posted in the 1E sub-section. Knowing what the rule was originally mostly has bearing on what WEG halfway changed it into for subsequent editions (beyond even the SW license: D6 Space still has Intimidation and Willpower under Knowledge).

I have never claimed WEG was perfect, but I don't like throwing out aspects of their system if I can find a good reason to leave things where they are. Moving certain personality aspects to Knowledge makes sense in that it allows more variation in a character's mental traits, such as allowing a character to be strong-willed while not particularly charismatic. My only complaint is that WEG didn't make the full leap until after they lost the SW license (in D6 Space, Metaphysics powers with mental effects are resisted with Willpower/Knowledge, not Perception).

Quote:
Does the Knowledge premise really "fall apart" for gaining one new interactive skill in 2e (Intimidation)? The both-editions willpower aspect of Perception and the 2e Willpower skill both really don't correlate to any of their attributes, but WEG originally chose to lump it in with Perception. And Perception was never a "dump stat".

See my above. I didn't say that Knowledge as a whole fell apart for gaining one new interactive skill; I said that viewing Knowledge purely as an academic attribute fell apart, and that's before one considers all the various non-academic sources and methods of acquiring and using Knowledge that would all be grouped under the Knowledge attribute.

I also never said Perception was a "dump" stat, but the claim has been made elsewhere on this forum that Knowledge is a "dump" stat, and not without some justification. As such, anything that increases Knowledge's utility is a good thing, especially if one can find official justification for it.

Quote:
I've had this game since 1987. I feel the weight of the evidence indicates that it is most likely WEG originally intended Perception to be the home of all interactive skills, and willpower for better or worse. For that reason, it seems clear to me that they only put Intimidation and Willpower in Knowledge to beef up Knowledge, not because they always intended Knowledge to include those concepts.

Whatever WEG originally intended it to be, it has changed, and was not changed back, despite an opportunity to do so. And as I said above, anything that increases Knowledge's utility is a good thing.
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 14, 2019 8:15 pm    Post subject: Re: What did WEG intend for Knowledge? Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Whill wrote:
There is a distinct difference between justifying what makes sense to you for your game, and discussing what the game designers originally intended.

I started this topic for the specific intention of discussing what WEG's 2E placement of Intimidation and Willpower in the Knowledge stat tells us about their intentions, and also at your request as to avoid hijacking a different topic (linked in the OP). There are any number of other topics here where GMs may discuss what skills they have moved to other attributes for their own purposes, and the justifications thereof. I put this particular topic in House Rules because I already knew the implications of the topic were going to take me into House Rule territory, but if you feel this topic would be more appropriate to Official Rules, feel free to move it.

GMs speculating on WEG intentions in the game design could have easily gone in Official Rules, Gamemasters, or even Star Wars Games. Official Rules threads typically go to house rule discussions by the first reply, and in this case you mentioned moving Command to Knowledge in the OP, so House Rules is fine. I wasn't actually speaking to which forum this thread got posted in.

I was only pointing out that in the other thread, I was actually encouraging you to just post a new thread with your system for all attributes and skills, and your reasons for why things are placed where they are. In this thread you did that, but you attached your system to the original intention of WEG and titled the thread only referring to the intention of WEG. This can come across as conflating two different considerations into one. A D6 GM's chosen skill/attribute system should not cater to WEG's intention if he doesn't want it to.

As I stated for example, I fully acknowledge it was always WEG's intention to put Beast Riding in Mechanical, but I don't care. I disagree with WEG intentions and RAW. In my concept of Perception, it is best there. It is my prerogative to do so, and WEG intentions are not superior to my judgement for my own game, even according to WEG.

CRMcNeill wrote:
Whill wrote:
Whatever the case, what WEG may or may not have intended should not be as important as what you want for your game, and it should also not be used to criticize choices of other GMs.

If we are no longer allowed to point out the errors and faults in others' reasoning, the post count here will drop off precipitously.

I wasn't speaking of disallowance of anything that already happened. It was a friendly warning for the future. You can disagree with others and state why. My point here was, we should be detached from the outcome of these disagreements. At the end of the day, he can exclude Intimidation from Knowledge for any or no reason, and we should respect his choice for his game. WEG intentions are not superior to any other personal criteria a GM has for his game.

CRMcNeill wrote:
there are any number of Knowledge skills that can be gained and practiced through practical application as opposed to academics (what class does one attend to learn Streetwise, after all?), and many non-Knowledge skills involve some degree of academic study (Astrogation, most Technical skills, etc).

The point of Knowledge is to measure what the character knows about the universe around them, including (as is being argued here) themselves. Some of that can be learned academically, but knowledge is not gained exclusively in a classroom. Not even remotely.

I quite agree. I feel it is very explicit in RAW that Knowledge is mostly memory of experiences. The only core skill in Knowledge (or any attribute) that could be completely academic is Scholar and its specializations. Sure most of the other skills in Knowledge could certainly have some academic origins in a character's background, but most of them are going to be learned more from experience.

And yes, skills in other attributes also have a knowledge component to them, but like I said in the other thread, a GM could go crazy with that criteria and end up with almost all skills in Knowledge. 'The knowledge of shooting blasters, etc.'

Quote:
I wasn't asking what WEG originally intended; that's a 1E question, and per the Forum Posting Guidelines, discussions on the forum default to 2E/2R&E unless specifically posted in the 1E sub-section.

Other editions are relevant to the question of WEG intentions. WEG SW 2e is a step in the evolution of the D6 game system. With 2e, WEG was not trying to reinvent the D6 attribute wheel. In 1e, it was more clear that Knowledge did not include all the concepts you feel it has in 2e. Your premise of WEG's intention for 2e Knowledge is only possible if their intention was to alter their original concept of Knowledge, and your cited evidence is these two new skills being placed there. But if they were only putting the two skills there because it is a dump stat, then that would mean that their intention wasn't actually to alter their 1e concept of Knowledge, so WEG's 1e concept for Knowledge is not irrelevant to the discussion.

Quote:
Knowing what the rule was originally mostly has bearing on what WEG halfway changed it into for subsequent editions

This statement assumes that WEG intention was to actually alter the concept for Knowledge for 2e and they just did a half-@ss job with it. Knowing what the rule was originally gives just as much insight to how WEG may have gone astray from their original concept only for the sake of heavy-handed game design features like artificially beefing up a common dump stat.

Quote:
I also never said Perception was a "dump" stat, but the claim has been made elsewhere on this forum that Knowledge is a "dump" stat, and not without some justification.

No one said Perception was a dump stat. I said it was not a dump stat because your case for the intention of Knowledge would be stronger if Perception had been a dump stat but they choose to put the two skills in Knowledge anyway. That would have been a strong indication they had intended on Knowledge including those personality aspects. But Perception never was a dump stat, and the two skills many SW GM question being put in Knowledge did end up being put in the dump stat.

Quote:
anything that increases Knowledge's utility is a good thing

I disagree that anything is a good thing. Knowledge would have more utility if you moved you Space Transports and Dodge there, but no GMs are doing that. Skills being in inappropriate attributes as I define them is not a good option for me. I prefer to deal with Knowledge utility by being clear up front that min-maxing and powergaming are unacceptable player gaming styles at my table, and by making Knowledge skills important in adventures.

But to each GM, his own.
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 15, 2019 5:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
(beyond even the SW license: D6 Space still has Intimidation and Willpower under Knowledge)... My only complaint is that WEG didn't make the full leap until after they lost the SW license (in D6 Space, Metaphysics powers with mental effects are resisted with Willpower/Knowledge, not Perception)...Whatever WEG originally intended it to be, it has changed, and was not changed back, despite an opportunity to do so.

I'm glad that you brought up D6 Space. I like a lot about it and it is inspirational on my game system. I think you have a point that Intimidation and Willpower remained in Knowledge. Of course, it is also a good point that Command remained in Perception where it always has been since SW D6 1e. One possible explanation is that they just 'hit the continue button' on a lot of choices made for previous editions, whether they were good decisions or not. After all, D6 Space was meant to be 'Star Wars D6 3e' with the serial numbers filed off.

D6 Adventure, the least genre-specific of the D6 cores, wasn't just D6 Space with the space opera filed off. In D6 Adventure, they took the Star Wars/D6Space attributes but removed Mechanical and Technical, split Dexterity into two attributes, and split Perception into two attributes: Perception and Presence. It is worth noting that even though there still is a Knowledge attribute with same type of skills, Intimidation, Willpower, and Animal Handling all appear in Presence along with Command, Con, Persuasion, and Charm.

D6 Fantasy renames the attributes but are largely the same as D6 Adventure. Perception and Presence are Acumen and Charisma. Some of the skills are renamed too, but the analogous D6 Adventure Presence skills remain in the corresponding Charisma attribute. (Willpower is called Mettle here, but it, Intimidation, and Command are not in Intellect.)

SW R&E p.54 wrote:
Several Perception skills are interaction skills — they are used to influence other people the characters meet. Using these interactive skills often pits the character's skill against the other person's skill to resist it (often Perception or willpower).

I think this is interesting. Normally these type of statements state the attribute of the skill named. Weird.

In my Star Wars game system, I moved the Willpower skill to Perception and allowed it to be used to resist the Force, which realigns the Willpower skill with the inherent willpower attribute aspect of Perception. I feel Willpower doesn't easily apply to Knowledge or Perception, so I included it with the other personality oriented skills.

I put all influence skills in Perception, so that means I moved Beast Riding there in 1988 (and later expanded it include an animal empathy and handling component), and I moved Intimidation there in 1992. You may still feel that WEG was trying to redefine Knowledge and Perception in 2e, but you've got to give me credit for consistency. All influence skills are in one single attribute in my game. In 2004, WEG finally caught up with me.

That does mean Perception has three components in my game: environmental awareness, influence, and willpower. With advantages and disadvantages, you can further fine tune character concepts to be good at one or two of these without being good at the other(s). That way I don't have to add more attributes to the game, or put Willpower in a slightly less applicable attribute.

But to each GM, his own.


EDIT: I deleted my duplicate posts.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 16, 2019 2:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why I feel willpower fits under Knowledge ( and Perception, though mostly knowledge in the sphere called academia, not to be confused with academics)

Let put a trained intelligence officer in a room, he is not super charismatic but got by on wit.

Would simply being big and scary looking intimdate this man?

Would this man have had training in how to withstand influences?
Would this training be something you are thoughtin a school or class, with possible reading and course material?
or would this be simply "perception" person to person interaction personality reflecting success alone?

I dare say a trained KNOW 3D intelligence agent would have had "academic related" training in resisting influence, he would have both material to study and have practiced this in some "live" form, but both being part of "education" and school training.

being "swwet" and nice, orhaveing a commanding precence is not something you learn, is your personality, and under perception

Intimidation is very much a knowledge academic and academia skill. the little guy can without raising his voice say the "right thing" at the right time, a thing he has studied, he has learned that triggers, this scares the s*** out people.

if we also consider skills to have connections we can see where both intimidate and willpower will have more possible KNOW connections that Persception, example, scholar of various types, now while they may not provide direct bonusesm we could argue that a practicing pscyhologist would be very very initimidatiing if he wanted to use his science to "scare" you
Likewise the same psychologist, or politician or anyone in similar fileds, would be able to have enough academic knowledge to know if somone is sincere, to resist being persuaded, inimidated to a far greated degree than somone with a cute smile or a dminating personality alone.

so acadeical knowledge at least to a degree is needed to be inimidating and to reist influence, and these are thought, they are also more than "ONLY" peronality
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 16, 2019 2:30 am    Post subject: Re: What did WEG intend for Knowledge? Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
I fully acknowledge it was always WEG's intention to put Beast Riding in Mechanical, but I don't care. I disagree with WEG intentions and RAW. In my concept of Perception, it is best there. It is my prerogative to do so, and WEG intentions are not superior to my judgement for my own game, even according to WEG.

For the most part, I agree with most of the choices you've made insofar as shifting certain skills around (as has been discussed in multiple other threads).

Quote:
The only core skill in Knowledge (or any attribute) that could be completely academic is Scholar and its specializations.

Agreed, although even there I can see some exceptions where the skill would be a mix of both academic and practical application: an Indiana Jones crossover, for example, would likely have a relatively high dice rating in Scholar: Archaeology, with both scholastic and field experience contributing to it.


Quote:
'The knowledge of shooting blasters, etc.'

I recall making a sarcastic remark about exactly that at some point

Quote:
Your premise of WEG's intention for 2e Knowledge is only possible if their intention was to alter their original concept of Knowledge, and your cited evidence is these two new skills being placed there. But if they were only putting the two skills there because it is a dump stat, then that would mean that their intention wasn't actually to alter their 1e concept of Knowledge, so WEG's 1e concept for Knowledge is not irrelevant to the discussion.

As is the fact that they changed it. While some gamers may be of the opinion that Knowledge is a dump stat, I have never heard any suggestion that WEG thought it was. There were a lot of changes between 1E and 2E, but also a lot of mistakes made, many of which have been discussed in detail in the various topics on this forum. Why assume they screwed up if there is evidence of purpose?

Quote:
No one said Perception was a dump stat. I said it was not a dump stat because your case for the intention of Knowledge would be stronger if Perception had been a dump stat but they choose to put the two skills in Knowledge anyway. That would have been a strong indication they had intended on Knowledge including those personality aspects. But Perception never was a dump stat, and the two skills many SW GM question being put in Knowledge did end up being put in the dump stat.

This makes no sense to me. If Perception was the opposite of a dump stat, that would also be justification to move certain aspects of it to another attribute in order to not give too much weight to that one Attribute over others.

Quote:
I disagree that anything is a good thing. Knowledge would have more utility if you moved you Space Transports and Dodge there, but no GMs are doing that. Skills being in inappropriate attributes as I define them is not a good option for me.

This is something of a Reductio Ad Absurdum, don't you think? It's a common turn of phrase, but you seem to be taking it to an extreme merely to disagree. I can, for example, say "anything that helps me pass my final tomorrow is a good thing," while also saying that paying the local biker gang to threaten to beat up my teacher if he doesn't give me an 'A' is not a good thing. Reasonable people recognize that there are limits, without needing to explicitly delineate them.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 16, 2019 2:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
Of course, it is also a good point that Command remained in Perception where it always has been since SW D6 1e.

True, and I recognize that there are reasonable arguments for leaving it as well as moving it. There are several skills where plausible arguments could be made for putting them under different attributes. Vehicle Blasters or Blaster Artillery, for example, could very plausibly be argued as falling under either Mechanical or Dexterity. This is just my personal choice to help beef up the Knowledge stat, as I think Perception has more than enough tools in its kit already.

Quote:
With advantages and disadvantages, you can further fine tune character concepts to be good at one or two of these without being good at the other(s).

My thought there is that natural aptitudes should be based in the Attributes, with advantages and disadvantages being supplementary to that. Therefore, subdividing different personality traits between multiple attributes allows the creation of characters with obvious strengths and weaknesses at a basic level. Obviously, a two-way split isn't as flexible as the D20 Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma division, but it at least provides a little more granularity than grouping everything under one.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 16, 2019 1:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Re allocated skills *

(To hit and to be Nimble)
DEXTERITY
Acrobatics
*Blaster
Blaster Artillery
Bow
Bow Caster
Brawling
Brawling Parry
Contortions
Dance
Dodge
Firearms
Grenades
Lightsaber
Melee Combat
Melee Parry
Missile Weapons
Pick Pockets
Run
Thrown Weapons

(Physical Strength and resistance)

STRENGTH
Climbing/Jumping
Lifting
Stamina
Swimming

(By force of personality and action and person to person interaction)
PERCEPTION
*Artist (to perform or create)
Bargain
Command
Con
Gambling
Persuasion
Search
Sneak


(can you learn this in a book and Learning from books 50%+)
KNOWLEDGE
Alien Species
Art (art history)
Bureaucracy
Business
Cultures
*Forgery (you need a ton of "book" knowledge to forge something like a pass port)
Intimidation (an iterrogator is a trained intimidator, he knows and have studied how the mind works, how to make innuendos etc, a bully is not)
*Investigation (this is more technical in nature than mere gaining information from scourses, forensics is
more about collecting evidence than to spot them, though that too is part of the field)
Languages
Planetary Systems
Scholar
Streetwise
survival
tactics
traffic control procedures
value
willpower
(yes you can learn trhough studies how to be better at resisting mental influence, how to mentally push your self etc etc, is a reason why
special forces are selected for their ability to push them selves mentally, and they learn this through various methods, these are by nature
academical and when practiced upn they are practical exercises. we could even argue self help books can be included.

(if it moves, if it is on or in something that moves, and is directly related to things that move)
MECHANICAL
Astrogation
Beast Handling
Beast riding
Communications (I do not include common comlinks here, but for them this skill covers a "professional" communications procedure)
cap ship gunnery
cap ship pilot
cap ship shields
ground vehicle
hover vehicle
nautical vehicle
repulsorlift
sensors
Space Transports
Starfighter pilot
starship gunnery
starship shields
walker ops
*vehicle blasters ( I can't see how a speeder or walker mounted balster is "hand held")

(all things that needs fixing, reapiring, or designing)
More or less unchanged





I have taken a large bulk of the skills here, not just willpower and intimidation, perception, but the whole.

To me the list I presented is a better realocation of skills, with willpower and initimaidation both falling closer to knowledge than to perception, and I even moved invesitigation and forgery to knowledge skills with a small comment on reasoning.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 16, 2019 11:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mamatried wrote:
Re allocated skills
...
I have taken a large bulk of the skills here, not just willpower and intimidation, perception, but the whole.

To me the list I presented is a better realocation of skills, with willpower and initimaidation both falling closer to knowledge than to perception, and I even moved invesitigation and forgery to knowledge skills with a small comment on reasoning.

Is this a change from the thread you posted about this?
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Mamatried
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 17, 2019 12:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

it was actually meant as to where skills maybe was intended fluff wise to fit in as a part of what skills where, but yes it fits there....


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 17, 2019 2:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mamatried wrote:
it was actually meant as to where skills maybe was intended fluff wise to fit in as a part of what skills where, but yes it fits there....


Smile

Maybe in the future you could post a link to that thread. And I don’t see what bearing this has on the original question of what WEG intended to do with Knowledge.
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 17, 2019 4:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Quote:
I disagree that anything is a good thing. Knowledge would have more utility if you moved you Space Transports and Dodge there, but no GMs are doing that. Skills being in inappropriate attributes as I define them is not a good option for me.

This is something of a Reductio Ad Absurdum, don't you think? It's a common turn of phrase, but you seem to be taking it to an extreme merely to disagree.

That's funny. Just last night reread a thread where you straw-manned me bad, taking every single thing I said to a ridiculous extreme and attacking the extremes. What's not funny is that you would even suggest that my goal here is merely to disagree. That's a quite disgusting concept to me. I never do that. But I can forgive this horrible suggestion about my character because, from you saying I'm making no sense, I think it is safe to say you have largely missed my points in this thread. If I am not making any sense to you, I can understand why you might think I am disagreeing just to disagree.

And for the record, no that is not Reductio Ad Absurdum. I never said you or anyone else would move Space Transports and Dodge to Knowledge. In fact, I said "no GMs" would. The real purpose of that was just to segue into my sentence after that. That is the important part, and it is a statement about myself without comparison to anyone else: Defying my sense of where skills should go just to increase the utility of Knowledge does not work for me. I withdraw the two proceeding sentences, and I am sorry.

CRMcNeill wrote:
This makes no sense to me. If Perception was the opposite of a dump stat, that would also be justification to move certain aspects of it to another attribute in order to not give too much weight to that one Attribute over others.

For me, no it isn't justification. See below. I am going to sum up the basic ideas expressed on this forum surrounding these skills. This is admittedly an oversimplification. I do this intentionally only for the sake the illustration. I am not trying to pigeon hole or dismiss anyone's positions and nuances. And for further simplicity, let's just ignore Willpower and only talk about Intimidation, which was a new influence skill in 2e that was assigned to Knowledge instead of with the other influence skills.

Two main positions are: (1) Those who feel Intimidation should be a Knowledge skill, and (2) those who feel it should be a Perception skill.

In the former group (1), there are two main reasons they feel it should be in Knowledge. One is (a) the skill increases the utility of Knowledge which it needs. The other is (b) the skill belongs in Knowledge.

In the latter group (2), there is one main reason they feel it should be a Perception skill: (c) the skill really belongs in Perception.

(1) Intimidation in Knowledge
(a) Knowledge needs more utility and it does help that.
(b) It belongs in Knowledge.

(2) Intimidation in Perception
(c) It belongs in Perception.

Intimidation was put in Knowledge for some reason (let's presume WEG didn't just just flip a coin or roll dice to randomly determine attribute assignment for skills). For WEG intentions, (a) and (b) could both be true (hypothetically), but it is possible that it was only one of them. (a) and (c) could both be true. (b) and (c) could not both be true, meaning it should belong in one more than the other (let's presume it is not 50/50).

Some in Group 1 and Group 2 agree WEG's reason may be (a), but Group 2 feels that was not a good enough reason for it to be there because (c) outweighs (a) in their opinions.

Some in Group 1 feel the reason it was placed there is (b), but Group 2 feels (c) which is contrary to (b). IF (b) is not true, then (a) would be the reason.

[IF Perception was the attribute that GMs felt needed more utility, then putting Intimidation in Knowledge despite that would be a clear indication of (b). My only point in even pointing out that no one felt Perception needed more utility was to provide another point that WEG's intention was (a), which allows for (c) to be true. But that was never a main point and please just forget that part if I am still being too confusing.]

In this thread, you have expressed sentiments in line with both (a) and (b), which is fine. There seems to have been a shift over time with the emphasis going from (b) to (a), which is fine. Let me agree that (a) was probably WEG's intention, and agree to disagree that that the skill should be on Knowledge.

However, it is still true that a GM's speculation of WEG's intentions, whatever they may be, should only be a determining factor for a GM's skill-attribute assignments if the GM wants them to be. And it is true that there are other ways to give more utility to Knowledge skills, such as a GM making Knowledge skills important when writing adventures, and moving other skills to Knowledge. For example, I mentioned that I moved First Aid to Knowledge (extremely important), and I was inspired by Bren to move Investigation to Knowledge with other information gathering skills. That makes Knoweldge more important while at the same time has personal influence skills all in one attribute.

CRMcNeill wrote:
Quote:
With advantages and disadvantages, you can further fine tune character concepts to be good at one or two of these without being good at the other(s).

My thought there is that natural aptitudes should be based in the Attributes, with advantages and disadvantages being supplementary to that. Therefore, subdividing different personality traits between multiple attributes allows the creation of characters with obvious strengths and weaknesses at a basic level. Obviously, a two-way split isn't as flexible as the D20 Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma division, but it at least provides a little more granularity than grouping everything under one.

I get what you mean by redefining Knowledge to possible include Command that you would still consider it to be a single natural aptitude, but Perception still leaves you will social and environmental awareness skills. By my advantages and disadvantages statement, I was referring to the criticism that Star Wars Perception often gets (from even from some die hard D6 fans) that it lacks the ability to make characters good in social or environmental awareness and not good in the other. You could have an option that give bonuses to certain Perceptions skills and penalties to others. The only other option is to split the attribute into two attributes as D6 Adventure and D6 Fantasy have done, which is undesirable to all SW GMs I've talked about it with. With me having Willpower on Perception (with Intimidation and Command) doesn't make achieving granularity for better defined character concepts any harder.

Quote:
I recognize that there are reasonable arguments for leaving it as well as moving it. There are several skills where plausible arguments could be made for putting them under different attributes.

What do you think about D6 Adventure and D6 Fantasy moving Animal Handling, Intimidation, and Willpower/Mettle to the social/personality "Perception" attribute (Presence/Charisma)? One possibility is the authors felt that they always should have been there, but D6 Space was intentionally left as they were in Star Wars to be more like Star Wars as published.

Quote:
Vehicle Blasters or Blaster Artillery, for example, could very plausibly be argued as falling under either Mechanical or Dexterity.

Agreed. I decided to combined these two skills, named it Heavy Weapons (after the 1e skill of that name) and moved it to Mechanical.

CRMcNeill wrote:
This is just my personal choice to help beef up the Knowledge stat, as I think Perception has more than enough tools in its kit already...

Amen. This is beautiful. This is what I was hoping for in the other thread when I asked you to create a new thread. Your personal choice. Whatever works for you.
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Darklighter79
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2019 6:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How does this look like in Zorro, the newest D6? Also in the context of skills consolidation...
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 18, 2019 7:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Darklighter79 wrote:
How does this look like in Zorro, the newest D6? Also in the context of skills consolidation...

The PDF hasn't been sent yet. You were the one who posted the last update in our thread about the Zorro game. The last Kickstarter update was Dec 3rd and they were still hopeful of getting the PDF out before the end of this month.
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