College Professor Skill Level

[Ron]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

As a college professor, I think that a college professor would have a single specialized discipline that would be known well (15- or 16-). When I say specialized, I mean *specialized*: the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning or the interactions of pi-mesons.

 

The broader category, Physics, English Literature, Geography, would be known at a higher level than the ordinary populace. I would suggest 11- or an INT roll. Remember that most heroic characters get an Everyman skill of AK: Local Area at 8-, so I would expect concentrated study to yield an AK of the next level up: 11- or INT roll.

 

Outside of that broader category, college professors are just as dumb as anyone else.

 

Have being a professor for near 10 years, I think this is a fair assessment of the profession. Funny how people believe that as I have a Ph.D. in biology I would be an expert in all biological fields. However, in terms of gaming, I would rather simplify to a single skill.

 

Regarding salaries, academia pay less money, but give a freedom not found in most jobs, which more than compensates the salary. At least to me and most of my coleagues. As such, individual choices are more important than salaries to determine if a person with Ph.D. would go to academia or some sort of corporate job.

[Markdoc]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

Having read the responses, and thought about it a bit, I do think it would be a good idea to give two PS:s - one for teaching and one for research. They are largely unrelated skills and this would reflect the fact that it takes a bit more training to teach at college level than grade-school level.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Shike019]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

THank you all for your responses. The character I have has a 12- is both Eastern and Western Philosophy as well as a 12- in Zen Buddhism. He also has a PS: Instructor skill at 12-. I was wondering if these were sufficient to get a position teaching Philosophy.

[Agent X]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

Having read the responses, and thought about it a bit, I do think it would be a good idea to give two PS:s - one for teaching and one for research. They are largely unrelated skills and this would reflect the fact that it takes a bit more training to teach at college level than grade-school level.

 

Cheers, Mark

I don't agree with that. Teaching students untrained in learning means teaching them how to learn and teaching them content. If you are teaching an academic subject that means knowing content and knowing a suite of techniques to train the students to become self-learners.

 

A college instructor can assume that his/her students already have a background in self-learning. College students may learn to use a library in a more sophisticated manner or learn a new style of documentation for their research papers but they generally won't be taught skills designed to show them how to read more effectively, take notes, and the like.

 

College instructors need to know more content but they really don't have to develop the skills to "rescue" a student who has poor learning skills.

[Markdoc]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

I don't agree with that. Teaching students untrained in learning means teaching them how to learn and teaching them content. If you are teaching an academic subject that means knowing content and knowing a suite of techniques to train the students to become self-learners.

 

A college instructor can assume that his/her students already have a background in self-learning. College students may learn to use a library in a more sophisticated manner or learn a new style of documentation for their research papers but they generally won't be taught skills designed to show them how to read more effectively, take notes, and the like.

 

College instructors need to know more content but they really don't have to develop the skills to "rescue" a student who has poor learning skills.

 

I can see your point, but stand by the original comment - teaching and research obviously both cover a wide range of activities, but I have worked with excellent teachers who specialist knowledge was only about PhD student level: their skill was the ability to accurately and interestingly transmit what knowledge they had and to field questions they couldn't answer gracefully. I've also worked with brilliant scientists who simply were dreadful teachers. I'm not talking about an inability to communicate. They could, in some cases, communicate very effectively with their peers in a subject. But they couldn't (or wouldn't) teach.

 

The best teachers, of course are those who both like to teach and also know and love their subject, but not everybody can do this. So I'd rate those skills as complementary, but different, just as I have also worked with professors who are briliant adminstrators, but poor teachers and would rate teaching and administration as different skill sets.

 

cheers, Mark (WHO Distinguished Visiting Professor in Immunology )

[Agent X]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

I can see your point, but stand by the original comment - teaching and research obviously both cover a wide range of activities, but I have worked with excellent teachers who specialist knowledge was only about PhD student level: their skill was the ability to accurately and interestingly transmit what knowledge they had and to field questions they couldn't answer gracefully. I've also worked with brilliant scientists who simply were dreadful teachers. I'm not talking about an inability to communicate. They could, in some cases, communicate very effectively with their peers in a subject. But they couldn't (or wouldn't) teach.

 

The best teachers, of course are those who both like to teach and also know and love their subject, but not everybody can do this. So I'd rate those skills as complementary, but different, just as I have also worked with professors who are briliant adminstrators, but poor teachers and would rate teaching and administration as different skill sets.

 

cheers, Mark (WHO Distinguished Visiting Professor in Immunology )

I don't see why you disagree with my point. If an observer is to make a decision based demonstrated skills, the average primary and secondary school instructor will more likely demonstrate a wider range of teaching skills as they have a responsibility to a wide range of types of learners and the college or university instructor will more likely demonstrate fewer methods of teaching while demonstrating a greater deal of content knowledge.

 

As a student at a university and as a student and teacher at primary and secondary schools (and as someone who has discussed this very issue with several university instructors) - I have to say the most skilled teachers are definitely those at primary and secondary schools, in terms of methodology, whereas the greatest content expertise was definitely to be found at the university level. Frankly, I would say many teachers have a greater relative command of content than many university instructors have a command of teaching methodology.

[Markdoc]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

As a student at a university and as a student and teacher at primary and secondary schools (and as someone who has discussed this very issue with several university instructors) - I have to say the most skilled teachers are definitely those at primary and secondary schools' date=' in terms of methodology, whereas the greatest content expertise was definitely to be found at the university level. Frankly, I would say many teachers have a greater relative command of content than many university instructors have a command of teaching methodology.[/quote']

 

I wouldn't try to make the split so clear cut - I had two maths teachers at high school with excellent command of their subject and abysmal teaching skills (I came out of their classes, not surprisingly, with poor maths skills and had to painfully teach myself at university, what I should have learned earlier - though I realise that's not entirely their fault). I've had (and worked with) university level scientists who are superb teachers: they get their classes enthused so that knowledge is imparted almost painlessly and put it into a relevant context so that it is retained.

 

And I realised when I started teaching myself, that teaching skills are not innate - they have to be learned. Scientists (academics generally, I think) are not well-trained to teach - teachers are. So it wouldn't surprise me if generally their teaching skills were better. But it's by no means a given. To be taught something, you have to want to learn, as my own maths experience shows.

 

It is true that college level teachers generally don't have (or need) remedial skills and that school teachers in the sciences don't have (or need) high-level research skills: but otherwise, knowledge and teaching skills can be found in one person (or not) depending more on their inclination and ability than their job's location.

 

cheers, Mark

[Agent X]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

I wouldn't try to make the split so clear cut - I had two maths teachers at high school with excellent command of their subject and abysmal teaching skills (I came out of their classes, not surprisingly, with poor maths skills and had to painfully teach myself at university, what I should have learned earlier - though I realise that's not entirely their fault). I've had (and worked with) university level scientists who are superb teachers: they get their classes enthused so that knowledge is imparted almost painlessly and put it into a relevant context so that it is retained.

 

And I realised when I started teaching myself, that teaching skills are not innate - they have to be learned. Scientists (academics generally, I think) are not well-trained to teach - teachers are. So it wouldn't surprise me if generally their teaching skills were better. But it's by no means a given. To be taught something, you have to want to learn, as my own maths experience shows.

 

It is true that college level teachers generally don't have (or need) remedial skills and that school teachers in the sciences don't have (or need) high-level research skills: but otherwise, knowledge and teaching skills can be found in one person (or not) depending more on their inclination and ability than their job's location.

 

cheers, Mark

I didn't make the split so clear cut. There was plenty of qualification for someone reading my post if they wanted to see it.

[Shike019]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

Personally I believe that both are necessary for teaching at ALL levels. But that is beside the point. Though i do have some credentials, my father has been a succesful college professor for over 30 years and I am a Librarian at a State University in Michigan.

 

 

Do all think that the skills and skill levels I posted earlier are sufficient to obtain a position teaching at the college/university level?

 

(to reiterate, KS: Eastern Philosophy 12-, KS: Western Philosophy 12-, KS: Zen Buddhism 12-, Profession (Instructor) 12-)

 

Thanks

 

Shike

[Cancer]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

I've been in departments where that Instructor PS would be too high but yes, in the frameworks we've seen here, that ought to be OK.

[Lamrok]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

In the last couple of years, I've seen three of my old college professors on TV, in the role of experts on various subjects. One of them was also a passable instructor, but the other two were excellent teachers - professors who took great delight in finding ways to ignite their enthusiasm for the things they loved within the imagination of their students. These two are nationally recognized experts (one has won two Pulitzers), but I think they could have taught nearly anything to anybody.

 

Certainly, there are some professors who don't care much about teaching (I had a couple of those as well), but I don't think you can make a generalization about an inverse relationship bewteen expertise and teaching ability.

[Cancer]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

Certainly' date=' there are some professors who don't care much about teaching (I had a couple of those as well), but I don't think you can make a generalization about an inverse relationship bewteen expertise and teaching ability.[/quote']

 

Certainly, and I'm sorry if I conveyed that impression. That's not what I meant. It's just that I've been with departments where 10 to 25% of the senior people were what I'd call "tenured lint" ... people who remain sharp enough to skin a grad student over some marginal topic (which seems to be their chief pleasure in life) but seem to be teaching from the same lecture notes they learned from 20+ years ago. The best folks aren't like that in general; but it is often true that the people most successful at attracting grant funding are like that.

[Outsider]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

The consensus of 12- being PhD level seems a bit low to me. It doesnt provide much granularity for lower levels of education (hobby/interest/minor, BA, MA) and it is just a tad too cheap (IMO) for something someone has to go through 6-8 years of schooling to get.

 

At that level (2 per skill, if the person has 'scholar' or 'scientist') 15 points (the equivalent of buying DEX up to 15) will get them half a dozen PhDs. How many people out there really have 6 PhDs? Not too many, I'd bet.

 

What I'd lean towards more (in a supers game) would be the following

 

_8- : 1 point : Minor/hobby/interest

11- : 2 points : BA

13- : 4 points : MA

15- : 6 points : PhD

 

Then if the person could be described as a 'brilliant' whatever, spent an extra point to have his skill based on a bought up stat. So a 'Brilliant' PhD candidate (MA holder) will approach or equal the effective skill of a run of the mill PhD holder. The use of scholar or scientist would be applied afterwards as pure bookkeeping.

[Markdoc]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

The consensus of 12- being PhD level seems a bit low to me. It doesnt provide much granularity for lower levels of education (hobby/interest/minor, BA, MA) and it is just a tad too cheap (IMO) for something someone has to go through 6-8 years of schooling to get.

 

At that level (2 per skill, if the person has 'scholar' or 'scientist') 15 points (the equivalent of buying DEX up to 15) will get them half a dozen PhDs. How many people out there really have 6 PhDs? Not too many, I'd bet.

 

Presumably then you'd want to push the cost of languages up to maybe double, and drop the cost of martial arts and combat skill levels and...

 

Don't confuse the points value of a thing with how difficult it is to acquire. They are costed o how useful they are in game, not on learning time. PS:Janitor, PS: Physician and PS: Accountant cost the same in points, but do not reflect how long it takes to get each. In most games (unless you are playing Papers and Paychecks converted to hero system) the different PS:s add a little flavour and an an indication of what you are generally familiar with. To get much game use out of them, you generally need additional skills, though they will occasionally be useful in their own right.

 

The reason for setting a professional level of skill at around 12, is simply that you can get very large bonuses by using extra time, complementary skills and tools. As a GM, you don't want people routinely going:

 

"Well I have 15-, I take a whole day to get +6 on the roll and I have access to a state of the art library for another +3, so that's 24-, so even with the -10 for "impossibly difficult" I make it on 14-. I'll take an extra minute to make a complementry skill roll, which gives me an extra +3, just to be sure."

 

That's appropriate for Professor Brainthe Sizeofaplanet, but not for Dr. Joe Collegeprofessor.

 

And to honest, you don't *need* a great deal of granularity - hobby/interest, basic training and expert pretty much cover it. In real life, when it comes to making a living at specialist fields, either you're an expert, in which case people will pay well to hear what you have to say, or you know enough to do the job (in which case they might be interested) - or you don't (in which case, they probably aren't).

 

"Knowledge" is a pretty abstract quality and trying to define it to precise quanta strikes me as being in the same category as trying to juggle soap bubbles. What we're looking for (I think) is a workable rough gauge.

 

cheers, Mark

[megaplayboy]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

example thought:

Theoretical High Energy Physics Professor

PS: Instructor, 12-

SC: Physics, 12-(or INT-based)

SC: Theoretical High Energy Physics, 14-(or INT+2)

SC: Mathematics, 11-

SC: Lab Research, 11-

Scientist

Systems Operation(lab equipment, particle accelerators, etc), 11-

KS: The Scientific World, 11-

KS: Prominent THEPs, 11-

Oratory, 8-(gives lectures to large classes, presents papers, etc)

PS: Technical writer, 8-

KS: Statistics, 8-(everyone in a remotely scientific or medical field seems to know a little bit about statistics)

 

about 24-25 points--sounds about right for a typical field expert.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

I agree that people with 17- or 18- in a Science skill should at least be getting Nobel Prize nominations, even if your campaign equivalent of Reed Richards is consistently hogging the top spot every year with his 22- or more.

 

(Tangent -- speaking of Reed Richards, you wonder what the Nobel committee does in the MU. Do they just mail him the prize every year without even holding a ceremony, or did they give him a Lifetime Achievement Nobel Prize and then put an asterisk next to the name of everybody else who won one in the record books? ("Reed Richards voluntarily withdrew from competition this year."))

 

Well, the Nobel Committee disqualified RR due to his frequent time-travel, as he could easily pick up discoveries from the future, then go back into the past and publish papers on them, claiming them as his own research before the "actual" researchers.

[Outsider]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

Well, here's another thing to consider...

 

A 30 INT is in the high end of "normal" for an age 60+ character. Such a character with a full skill based on INT will have that dreaded 15- to start with, and will be able to perform impossibly difficult tasks daily, as per the scenario given. This isnt someone with 'superhuman' INT... its a normal.

 

The way I usually prevent "taking extra time" from skewing the probabilities too much is by assigning longer 'minimum times' to complex/intricate tasks. A +6 for taking all day assumes a 1 turn basic task performance time. As GM, I am also free to assign other modifiers as I se fit.

 

Oh, and with all of the modifiers in the scenario presented (+6 for time taken, +3 for library, +3 for compliment) even a character with just a 12- skill has a 14- (~90%) chance of performing an 'impossibly difficult' task, instead of the ~99.5% chance that the 15- base person would. So I'd say the argument that calling a PhD to 12- rather than 15- in order to prevent daily performance of the 'impossible' is still broken.

[OddHat]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

Well, here's another thing to consider...

 

A 30 INT is in the high end of "normal" for an age 60+ character. Such a character with a full skill based on INT will have that dreaded 15- to start with, and will be able to perform impossibly difficult tasks daily, as per the scenario given. This isnt someone with 'superhuman' INT... its a normal.

 

Well, it's a person with Legendary intelligence. It's a Leonardo da Vinci, someone who will be remembered five hundred years from now. That kind of person ought to be incredibly rare in most campaigns; if the math in the book suggests otherwise, I'd ignore the book.

[hancock.tom]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

When does the ultimate skill come out again?

 

Anyway, I don't think you can base this mechanically on what level of education is reached (ba, ma, doctorate, phd, etc). There are also huge differences in different fields. For example, every lawyer has a doctorate degree when they graduate law school. For that field, doctorate degree is probably a 11- roll. Also, like many fields, even those with more degrees (like the LLM degree) are still behind people with experience. On the other hand, degrees like Nursing, I would give 11- to people with a 2 year degree (LPNs), probably a 12- to those with the 4 year degree, and who knows what to people with nursing masters (commonly called AADs, almost-a-doctor degrees).

 

The point i'm doing a bad job of making is that while the charts people have come up with are very good as baselines, this is an area where abstractness is probably necessary just because of the differences in fields. I like the charts, but only because I think rules/guidelines can be useful even when the exceptions to that rule/guideline outnumber the non-exceptions.

[Markdoc]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

Well, here's another thing to consider...

 

A 30 INT is in the high end of "normal" for an age 60+ character. Such a character with a full skill based on INT will have that dreaded 15- to start with, and will be able to perform impossibly difficult tasks daily, as per the scenario given. This isnt someone with 'superhuman' INT... its a normal.

 

Nope, that ain't no normal - as you say, it's someone at the top end of the human scale - a Feynmann, Hawking or Goethe.

 

The way I usually prevent "taking extra time" from skewing the probabilities too much is by assigning longer 'minimum times' to complex/intricate tasks. A +6 for taking all day assumes a 1 turn basic task performance time. As GM' date=' I am also free to assign other modifiers as I se fit.[/quote']

 

Sure - all competent GMs should do this. But why increase the base roll and then add negative modifiers to make it less useful? Why not just start from al lower base?

 

Oh' date=' and with all of the modifiers in the scenario presented (+6 for time taken, +3 for library, +3 for compliment) even a character with just a 12- skill has a 14- (~90%) chance of performing an 'impossibly difficult' task, instead of the ~99.5% chance that the 15- base person would. So I'd say the argument that calling a PhD to 12- rather than 15- in order to prevent daily performance of the 'impossible' is still broken.[/quote']

 

The point of the example is to show that even with a relatively low roll you can still easily tackle quite complex tasks - as you point out. Which is why a 15- roll (allowing such complex tasks to be completed in minutes rather than days), seems to me to be a little excessive for your average college professor.

 

That's not say characters and gifted NPCs shouldn't have high rolls - there's nothing magical about 15-. But that reflects the point that they ARE special. A high base for ordinary people encourages players who have genius concepts to start buying base rolls of 18- or higher. And that really does start to get broken in ordinary use, rather than on in the sort of extreme example I used.

 

cheers, Mark

[Outsider]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

Nope, that ain't no normal - as you say, it's someone at the top end of the human scale - a Feynmann, Hawking or Goethe.

 

Depends on how you look at the "normal" range. I look at is as the range of characteristics that one can have without being 'abnormally' capable. Not a cap, but a waypoint. If it were a 'cap' representing the actual limit of human ability there wouldnt be a mechanism (pay double) for buying past it.

 

Of course, I am coming from a background of having done mostly heroic, rather than superheroic campaigns, where, if someone wants to be exceptionally strong or exceptionally smart, they tend to buy past the NCM, even though they are 'normals'. The superhero genre seems much more intent on making non-supers into incompetent windowdressing, either to be rescued by the actions of the superpowered protagonist, or defeated by him in batch lots by him/her, depending on which side of the 'good/bad' divide they fall on.

 

 

Sure - all competent GMs should do this. But why increase the base roll and then add negative modifiers to make it less useful? Why not just start from al lower base?

 

As I said above, there isnt enough granularity to suit my taste putting a PhD at 12-. Part of this probably comes from the fact that most of the FH games I've played or run, spells tend to run 45-60 active points and are required to take a -1/10 RSR. At which point a competent wizard needs a 15-18 skill roll just to pull off casting his spells with a decent chance (62-75%) of success. And I equate a competent wizard with a PhD holder.

 

 

 

That's not say characters and gifted NPCs shouldn't have high rolls - there's nothing magical about 15-. But that reflects the point that they ARE special. A high base for ordinary people encourages players who have genius concepts to start buying base rolls of 18- or higher. And that really does start to get broken in ordinary use, rather than on in the sort of extreme example I used.

 

I think the comment about genius concepts touches on one of the basic differences between the superheroic genre and a heroic one. In superheroic campaigns, skills tend more towards being a background/concept thing, rather than the being central to a character's function. As such, players generally dont want to spend a significant portion of their points on them, or will, if they really need them for the concept, but will be cranky about it when those skills dont come into play as often as they feel they should for the number of points they spent on them. "Dangit! I spent 50 points getting 6 PhDs and being a super-genius! I want more scenarios where Theoretical Physics is involved!"

[Springald Jack]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

it takes a bit more training to teach at college level than grade-school level.

 

If you mean more training is required by US educational institutions, this is factually untrue.

 

If you meant to effectively teach requires more I can't prove that you are wrong but I am skeptical.

 

As for Research and Instruction being different skills this is definitely true.

[Shike019]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

This is a Super's game, but unless you describe your character as "inhuman" in some way, such as being a mutant, werewolf or cartoon character, you have NCM. The DM also has an added disad, where if you cannot buy any primary Characteristic above the NCM level. As such, non supers will most likely not have any state above a 20 (which in my GM's mind is the Normal Human Max). With this being said, I thought that a 12- roll is decent.

[Markdoc]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

If you mean more training is required by US educational institutions' date=' this is factually untrue. [/quote']

 

It may be "factually untrue", but not "actually untrue". It's essentially impossible to get even an assistant professor position without a PhD these days, although formally it's not a requirement. Thus the minimum requirement - a PhD - requires a minimum of 6 years and more like 8 for almost everyone to attain.And that's a minimum: even for a state college, not having a postdoc is becoming a major handicap in the jobs race. That's not the case for grade school or high school teachers. Of course, this says nothing about their teaching skills - it's merely the requirement to participate.

 

Note, I'm talking about science here, though given the surplus of non-science PhDs washing about, I doubt it's much different in other faculties (with the likely exception of business studies, where other things can occasionally substitute for a PhD). And after 8 years in the US academic system, plus extensive involvement ever since, I know whereof I speak.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: College Professor Skill Level

 

Depends on how you look at the "normal" range. I look at is as the range of characteristics that one can have without being 'abnormally' capable. Not a cap' date=' but a waypoint. If it were a 'cap' representing the actual limit of human ability there wouldnt be a mechanism (pay double) for buying past it. [/quote']

 

 

I guess it's just a question of preference, then.

 

Like you I mostly run heroic level games, and to me NCM isn't a cap (in fact I hate hard caps and never have them in my game in any aspect). However, it does define what's *ordinarily* possible. Someone at the cap is going to be at the top of his game. So the examples I chose (Feynmann instead of Einstein, Goethe instead of Da Vinci) were deliberate - representing someone at or slightly over the cap, not someone who was probably over it.

 

So in my heroic game, I have had (with NCM) characters with 23 STR or 26 DEX. That's never been a problem for me, conceptually, because these guys are on their way to being legendary heroes. The village blacksmith however, be he never no muscular, has to content himself with 15-18 STR. He's not a hero and never will be.

 

Same with college professors - your average college professor is not a cutting-edge researcher and never will be. So, for me, 11- or 12- is fine. Likewise, 15- for someone out of the ordinary is fine (though they probably won't be teaching many classes, in that case). I just prefer to set the base lower: it reflects, I think, what I see in real life.

 

Cheers, Mark