Gaming has been influential in giving me a sense of adventure and exploration. It has helped frame much of my life experiences in this way and helped me choose some books [1] that help reinforce this gamer mindset in other aspects in life.
This had lead me to view skills more carefully and to pursue them more thoughtfully. This makes me reevaluate how some games veiw some skills and abilities, and try to gamify much of what I learn in real life into the game and see how the game helps me frame real life.
Skills I’ll first Tackle are the most basic Problem Solving Skills:
- Observation
- Research
- Inquiry
- Language
- Technical Expertise
- Basic Understanding.
- Awareness and Familiarity of the expertise and many elements related to it and interconnected to it. This include some key benchmarks, and insights that cannot be gleaned from a glance or a surface inspection.
- Able to perform some basic aspects of the skill.
- Some awareness of the occasions the skill applies and can be used.
- In GURPS this is skill 8-10, modified by how easy or hard the feat can be.
- Good understanding.
- Able to communicate the key concepts well or a near intuitive grasp of the key principles when performing the skill.
- The skill takes up less working memory and its minor feats can be employed automatically. The ability to perform the more sophisticated feats with some preparation.
- In GURPS this is skill 11-13, modified by how easy or hard the feat can be.
- Mastery.
- High consistency of performing the skill,
- The skill is ingrained or conditioned into the user, the abilities granted by the skill become in passive. they can be used without much thought.
- In GURPS this is skill 14+, modified by how easy or hard the feat can be.
Research
Research is finding information. This is the most basic skill that begins the Rationalist or Intellectual pursuit. Aided by Curiosity, interst, and wonder this skill fundamental and the gateway to other pursuits and interests. This is the use of Literacy to pursue knowledge.
Research deals with:
- knowing sources of information
- Knowing under what category information may be found
- Knowing who deals with the information
- Knowing what may collect or reflect the information, an indirect sources of information.
- Example looking at sales to determine demand instead of asking a population on a particular amount of demand.
- knowing how information is organized
- Key words, search terms
- Key concepts, typically abstract or epistemological concepts
- Key questions
- Searching for information in various mediums
- Using a Libraries System
- Accounting is Medium of Information
- Finding groups that discuss the topic or may know the information
- Note taking
- Accounting is a form of Note Taking or a Storytelling with numbers.
- Sorting and Organizing information in a meaningful or effective way. [2]
- poorly sorted information creates confusion and even hampers understanding and remembering.
GURPS notes
- Research.
- Intelligence Analysis. This is the contextual interpretation of data. This tends to overlap with Professional Skill. If you want to value professional skill more you can build into it Intelligence Analysis.
- Accounting. a medium of information.
Observation
Managing attention is a key part of Observation. It deals with being able to direct attention efficiently and effectively to pick up details, patterns, and deviations. It also the working memory to hold this information for comparison and for bounds of processing.
- Pattern seeking and seeing pattern deviations
- Ability to hold a number of details for comparison.
- Ability to break down the subject of observation into workable chunks of data
GURPS notes
- Observation. there was some confusion about this skill being able to approach a target unaware of observation. Its better to just use stealth or acting for that and leave observation to the scope described above.
- Intelligence Analysis. Some analysis skills allow for enhanced observation, we can leave it with Profession and just make it a difficult use of the skill.
Inquiry
If research is searching for information in literate mediums, Inquiry is asking questions and verifying that information from people and stories. This is also the ability to generate a lot of meaniful and useful questions .
- Knowing what is not known or uncertain.
- the ability to detect certainty or doubt or completeness of information
- Being able to organize information, getting stories straight
- Inquiry and Ideation
- the ability of asking questions, and follow up questions for every question answered.
- this allows the creatiion of many ideas and opens up directions for inquiry or lines of questioning.
GURPS notes
- Interrogation. this is the inquiry skill in GURPS, which sounds antagonistic from the description. if you dont think this fits well you can use Diplomacy or Philosophy (Socratic).
- Diplomacy. Humble Inquiry puts diplomacy and negotiation as a
- Philosophy (Socratic). This can serve as the Inquiry skill in the western tradition. For the eastern tradition Confucianism and Bhuddism has some Inquiry.
Related Notes
Language
I may be the only one in the room that may consider language an Adventuring skill, but I do really believe it – but i may be collored with my perspective as someone who grew up bilingual. As I was learning chinese it lead me to re-examine all the things I took forgranted with my language skills.
- Speaking Skills
- Phrases or lines of speech that convey Courtesy
- Being able to make requests
- Being able to make deals or facilitate trade
- The ability to communicate Research and Observations.
- Facilitating Inquiry skills
- Facilitating the use and understanding of Technical Expertise
GURPS notes
- Language ability
Technical and Professional Skills
Technical and Professional skills are defined as Specialized Knowledge that are job or task specific. There are many technical skills and they are generally covered as a category. The category of technical skills are actually broken into two more sub categories: Technical deals focuses more on the core skill while Profession deals with the general field and roles related to the core skill.
The difference between an Engineering vs Engineering Profession, Programming Skill vs Programming Profession, etc… In a Profession there are multiple roles while in a Technical expertise there is the highest valued skill.
Examples are engineering, manufacturing, art, crafts, professions, certifications, degrees,
- Technical Guidance
- Jargon or a communication medium
- for other things it gives Instructional Scaffolding
- Understanding of Key roles (pretty much covered in my Professional Skill Post)
- See Professional vs Technical
GURPS notes
- Professional Skill
- Expertise Skill
- Some core skills of a profession example:
- Farmer and Farming,
- Blacksmith and Smithing (Iron)
- Programming and Programmer
- Civil Engineer and Engineering (Civil works).
- Etc…
[1] The Experiencing self vs remembering self in thinking fast and slow by Daniel Khaneman.
Part 2 Physical Adventuring Skills
- Trekking
- Running
- Climbing
- Swimming
- Weapon skills
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