Acting and Harry Canyon's Question

[Crimson Arrow]

In response to a recent question

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=3186

Steve talked about the business of being an actor. I think his response was spot on (I bet Steve's really relieved I agree with him ;) ), but Harry asked about KS: Acting as well (at least in the heading of his question).

I suggest that PS: Acting is not only the business of being an actor, but also other practical things such as learning your lines, knowing stagecraft (or television or film etc) and being able to take direction.

KS: Acting would cover theoretical or anecdotal knowledge about different methods of acting, famous actors, acting schools, great performances etc. Actually it is possibly more than merely theory or anecdotes, but covers knowledge rather than practice. I think there is a bit of blurring here between a PS and a KS, but I can't see it causing any real problems, except with a very fussy GM.

I suppose this distinction applies to some other skills as well, for example Combat Driving is the ability to handle a vehicle which moves in two dimensions in difficult circumstances. PS: Racing Driver is the business and the practicalities (pit stops, race tactics etc.), while KS: Motor Racing is about the sport, the competitors etc.

Anyone got some interesting ideas about what a PS (I think that KSs are reasonably self-explanatory) might add to a non-background skill. Some are pretty obvious (PS: Doctor over Paramedics), but maybe some of you have some thoughts?

[Talon]

I do my best to play this up in-game. For example, a thief with high Climbing and Stealth will be a good burglar...but will miss a lot of details (the merchant is out of his house every Sunday /except/ the fourth of the month...) without PS: Burglary.

[pinecone]

Yep I'm on the same boat...Lock picking and climbing let you steal...PS:Theif lets you know how to be a theif...so you can find partners and crooked lawyers and fences...streetwise overlaps but That skill is actually finding a fence, Not how one does such things...so a honest PI might well have PS:Theif so he knows how to catch them. Simularly PS:Racing could be a NASCAR fan....PS:Acting, could be a "super fan"/stalker,etc...(or a roady/stage hand)

[TheEmerged]

Okay, let's use an example I'm more familiar with: Computer Programming.

The skill itself determines the actual Programming part of computer programming.

PS: Programmer kicks in on the "professional" side of the job -- doing adequate documentation, being able to anticipate "feature creep", writing your programs so that others can adjust them well (or, writing them so confusingly that others can't while maintaining this ability yourself), the ability to create flowcharts, evil tricks like putting "wait" statements into a job so you can "optimize" the job later (don't laugh, I've caught people doing this before)...

KS: Programming kicks in on the "informational" side of the job -- why program bugs are called "bugs", what "feature creep" is, what the Theseus Principle is and why it matters, what a binary search or a b-tree is...

[sachmo]

Maybe the difference between KS: Military and PS: Military. There are people (geeks like me! :D) who have a decent working knowledge of military hardware, ranks, formations, etc. but have never served a day in the military. While my KS would help talk about military subjects or identify equipment and such, without the PS, if I were to try to impersonate a soldier for a day I would probably fail miserably.