Missing Pursuit or Skill Shifting?

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Hi All,

 

Firstly sorry for not getting the promised writeup done. My wife and daughter have been away for a holiday in Europe for the last four weeks and I've been spending 3 or 4 days, depending on the week at a local hospital getting a 'tune-up' done. So between just keeping the house clean, myself fed and the medical stuff it's left me tired and without much time to sit and think through the writeup of what will be a significant post. It has been started in a word doc and I'll copy it over when it's done. Now to the topic of this post.

 

Expertise skill set covers a broad range of skills, everything from Doctor to Navigator to Tracking to Music to Gambling to Lockpicking and then a few more. However there is no pursuit outside of Wastrel and Criminal that grants a Pursuit Talent for expertise or ready access to skill advancement in that area. This essentially reduces me to considering a degree of criminality or gambling narrative to be able to freely exercise and advance those skills.

 

It seems that a "legitimate" method (Pursuit) in which to advance and focus on the implementation of what could be argued are fairly normal skills is missing. Say a Doctor for example, or an expert Navigator, or even a stunt rider from one of those Wild West shows. I understand that designing a new Pursuit at this stage is a massive ask but it just seems that there is a reasonable hole that is missing from the Pursuit system.

 

The issue originally arose based on the narrative write-up on the Pioneer who appeared to be a Frontiersmen of sort being involved in making their way through the Wilds or being involved with husbandry as a 'farmer/pioneer' or a woodsman/survivalist. But then the Pursuit talent, Advance talents and skills advances are all based on actually being a physical and mental hardy individual. I understand the reason why but it appears that a natural marrying of the Wilderness, Tracking, Husbandry and Navigation skills with the Pioneer are overlooked. Again this type of 'narrative' character is channeled by the rules into the Wastrel or Criminal pursuits.

 

Due to the issues around creating a new pursuit and talents to go with it and then causing the numerical imbalance with two pursuits for each skill set I'm left wondering if perhaps some skills shouldn't be listed as dual sets? So Doctor skill for example is both Expertise and Academic. Or Husbandry, Track and Wilderness couldn't count as both Training and Expertise skills. After reading the introductory writeups and justifications on why particular skillsets are listed as a particular type it makes sense on why the 'legitimate' expertise skills are listed as such but it leaves me trying to marry my Doctor character archetype into a Pursuit archetype that doesn't quite fit the narrative space those Pursuits fill in the game, not to mention talent advancements that don't fit as seamlessly as other Pursuits and their character archetypes.

 

I don't have any real answer to the issue, and as I said I'm looking at just taking a reasonably well dressed individual with an aversion to criminal and reckless 'she'll be right mate, we got luck on our side' types and ignoring the narrative elements of wastrel that don't fit. I do understand that if i focus on using those expertise skills a lot in a game then the FM can allow me to advance them but it leaves me with Pursuit advancement talents that don't quite marry in with the character concepts. It almost seems some mixture of the talent advances for the Academic, Criminal, Drudge and Overseer would allow a player to create a Pursuit that will fill the hole of a Fated that has decided to focus on Expertise skills but in a legitimate manner.

 

I would be interested in knowing if there are any thoughts other's have on rectifying the issue or even if it has arisen as an issue for discussion in your gaming groups or is it my current 'bandaid solution' of 'ignorance is bliss' is the best option. Also would like to know if anyone sees any issues around balance or mechanics that may not be evident at first for any possible solutions.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

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[solkan]

There are a bunch of little answers to your questions, I think.

 

First, I'd like to point out the "Trust me, I'm a doctor" box on the page for the Academic pursuit.  Second, the list of pursuits and careers in the book has no chance of being comprehensive.  A more reasonable goal for the initial book was "interesting" or "characterful" pursuits.

 

If I wanted to make an Academic doctor, the first thing I would want to do is take the advice in the section for Academics and create an academic skills called Medicine.  The academic skills presented in the book aren't meant to be comprehensive, and certainly don't cover all of specialties like foreign languages, or exotic academic areas of interest that a character may want to know about.  Instead you've got examples and broad outlines.

 

Keep in mind that the Doctor skill listed under Expertise is essentially surgery and/or first aid.  Then have a look at the Doctor NPC character in the Fatemaster's book, and notice the spread of skills there.  That doctor could equally be an Academic, practicing medicine as taught in school, or that could be a "Rough and tumble country doctor" or an "anime action doctor" as depicted in shows like Black Jack or Town Doctor Jumbo.  Not to mention the "action investigator" doctor that other stories fall into.

 

Also, it's important to notice that all of the pursuits include the phrase "... in addition to those skill Advancement options presented by the Fatemaster."  At the end of the adventure, a player gets advancement options based on what they did, and on top of that the different pursuits have their default biases that you can fall back on.

 

And, last, it may be worth asking "What on Earth is a respectable character doing a story like this?" 

 

P.S.  As far as I can tell, the different pursuits have different "When you fail this challenge, draw a card" abilities to push those different pursuits into different play styles.  For example, an Academic is going to try to figure out things before hand because if they fail they still build a bigger hand of cards for cheating.  And if they succeed, hopefully they found something useful out. 

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And, last, it may be worth asking "What on Earth is a respectable character doing a story like this?" 

 

Not being on 'earth' is kind of the point. Hiding from his past, and bits of his present   It'll become clearer when I get the character post up I think.

 

Thanks for the response and consideration. Going to chat to my FM and other TtB players to canvass their thoughts.

 

wave

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[solkan]

In case it helps, what I'd have in mind for that Academic: Medicine skill would be that textbook or comprehensive knowledge based part of medicine.  You've got your patient, and here are the symptoms, and now you ask "So what's wrong and how do I fix it?"  In other words, splitting the treatment process in two parts, like how Engineering (making a plan for something) is an Academic skill but building the thing you designed is a Crafting skill.  The heroic moment for a doctor is just as likely to be figuring out what's wrong and who to get help from, as actually fixing the problem personally.

 

As for the "hiding from his past, and bits of his present" admission.  There are any number of individuals in the Criminal and Wastrel pursuits who appear respectable (or are trying to appear respectable, anyway).  And any number of those people were completely honest and respectable people before their fate turned.