Character Can't Swim

[Wizard]

Just thinking of a character concept where the character has been on a desert world all their life. They, with the rest of the population, can't swim.

The Athletics skill has Dexterity, Endurance and Strength specialities so it seems wrong to have a Swim specialty under it. Possibly a new Swim skill is needed?

Or maybe some kind of character flaw mechanic could be introduced, and then we could have flaws such as "can't swim", "scared of heights", etc.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

No swimming pools on their world? Sounds like a role-play thing to me, rather than a game rule needing changes. If a character doesn't swim, it would make sense that they either ignore any swimming rules since they can't use it anyway or they would quickly learn to swim on the spot using their athletics rule.

Would this even be an issue if a character didn't have an athletics skill? It's a rare thing for this character concept vs. character skill to even come up.

 

[Garran]

Athletics already lists long-distance swimming under the Endurance specialization, so I'd take it as covering swimming by default, using Str/Dex/End depending on what you're trying to do.

 

[Wizard]

Athletics already lists long-distance swimming under the Endurance specialization, so I'd take it as covering swimming by default, using Str/Dex/End depending on what you're trying to do.

It bugs me that it is assumed that everyone is able to swim if they have the Athletics skill. I suppose that is one of the issues of having broad skills. Ease of play versus hundreds of skills. I do have a few thoughts on a Familiarity mechanic. No need to discuss it here as it is too granular for the Traveller core rulebook. It can wait until we start discussing the Companion.

 

[-Daniel-]

It bugs me that it is assumed that everyone is able to swim if they have the Athletics skill. I suppose that is one of the issues of having broad skills.

I do understand the thought, but if it is not too sassy, I would like to point out it is as bad to assume they wouldn't know how to swim. :wink:

On a more serious note, I agree, one of the negatives of having fewer, very broad skills is there will be some odd situations but, in my opinion, the positive we gain is a level of simplicity in the game.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Just thinking of a character concept where the character has been on a desert world all their life.

Makes me think of the scientist who taught himself how to swim by reading a book. Anyone recall his name?

 

[-Daniel-]

I was thinking about this swimming thing and I realized there are a few areas where I just hand wave additional abilities into a skill to allow the game to not get bogged down with tons of skills or record keeping.

Example: Just because someone learns to speak a language does not insure they know how to read or write it. Today, in real life, there are a large number of functional illiterates. So the idea that my space merchant learns to speak an alien tongue but does not know how to read it, or can only read it at a very low level (think first grader level) is not unrealistic. Yet in game we just assume that if you learn a language you learn both to speak and read it.

The more I think of this the more I realize I am not worried that everyone with an Athletics skill might know how to swim. It just feels better than assuming I now need to track Athletics (Swimming) and Athletics (Long Jumping) and Athletics (Rock Climbing). They just have Athletics (DEX) or (STR) or (END) and I just hand wave the rest into one of those three.

Now, having said that, if a player said to me, "I want my character to not know how to swim because I grew up on a moon with no pools." Fine, for role playing reasons I would go along with them. I would never hand wave away a player trying to role play. :mrgreen:

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I learned from YouTube.

 

[Nerhesi]

Im rather against skill-glut. Less skills > More skills.

More re-use, more meaningful education and less skills never being used except once in a blue moon