The more I think about it, the more I find that the current system of skills and "skill augmentation" does not really match the "motto" of Eclipse phase "your mind is software - program it". Skillsofts are very limited, both in terms of how good they can make you at something, of what things they can make you good at, and how many things they can make you good at. Skill imprints are also relatively limited, and has some "weirdness" to the mechanics: every skill can be improved, but it stays improved for a small fraction of the time necessary to implant it before "decaying".
I'm starting to tinker with some modified rules for skills that allow much more general "skill editing".
I'll start by posting some basic guidelines of where I want to go; and work our the mechanics from there, ideally with your input. This includes criticism -- even non-constructive criticism like "it's really a bad idea" as long as there's some explanation.
The basic ideas are the following:
1. Any skill can be artificially improved or implanted, and to any level (at least in theory).
2. There is a limit to the number of skill points a (transhuman) character may have. It's simply not possible to be simultaneously accomplished at phenomenal levels in every skill, both because the mind has a finite capacity, and because being really good at some things "bends" the mind in ways that make it worse at other things.
Mechanically, I'd tie this to the aptitude scores; a character can have at most 10 times his aptitude score in Active skill xps tied to a particular Aptitude, plus 10 times his aptitude score in Knowledge skill xps tied to a particular Aptitude.
3. To implant or significantly improve a skill, some "knowledge base" is required -- an ego with the skill at the appropriate level is a starting point, from which an experienced psychosurgeon can "distill" a knowledge base.
Mechanically, I was thinking about something along the following lines. Distilling takes one week per 10 points of the ego skill. The resulting knowledge base has a level equal to the MoS of the roll, capped at the level of the ego skill. Thus, with a (successful) Psychosurgery roll of 65, one can obtain a Knowledge base of level 65 from an ego of skill 80, and a Knowledge base of level 50 from an ego of skill 50. There are many knowledge bases available on the market; a Networking roll allows one to find a knowledge base equal to the MoS. The cost is Low for knowledge bases of level 40, Medium for level 50, High for level 60, Expensive for level 70. Knowledge bases of level 80+ are sufficiently rare that acquiring one is usually a unique task that should be roleplayed.
Some modifiers:
Artistic skills are treated as 10 points higher in terms of difficulty to Distill, cost, and difficulty to obtain.
Common skills are treated as 10 points lower in terms of cost and difficulty to obtain.
Uncommon or restricted skills (e.g. most "criminal" ones) are treated as 10 points higher in terms of cost and difficulty to obtain.
Psi skills and other similary very rare skills are treated as 20 points higher in terms of cost and difficulty to obtain.
4. Once armed with a Knowledge base, a skilled psychosurgeon can improve a subject's ego by implanting it. The final skill of the subject is equal to the minimum between the psychosurgeon's MoS and the level of the Knowledge base. The final subject also incurs some stress (how much?).
Previous knowledge of the skill by the subject may help the operation (fewer things that must be taught) or may hinder it (conflicts). For simplicity, I'll start by assuming that the two things cancel out; but it would be nice to have some mechanic where, the higher the initial skill of the subject, the better the final expected skill, but the greater the stress for the subject.
5. Any existing skill may be improved *a*little* by fine-tuning the subject psyche. I'd say by 1/10th the MoS of the psychosurgery roll, with a penalty of 1 to *every* other skill, and some stress.
6. Any existing skill may be "erased"
The effects of this is that skills become far less a defining element of individual characters than before. I don't think this makes characters more "cookie cutter", for two reasons. First, they still have their traits, their personalities etc. -- this modification will make them stand them out even more (which is a *good* thing, in my opinion). Second, extraordinary skills -- at level 80+ -- still remain rare enough that they can't be acquired without serious roleplaying. So, you can become a good hacker by tracking down the right skills, but becoming a legendary one is still out of reach, unless you track the ghost of rms and devour it.
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More powerful skillsofts
Thu, 2012-08-02 12:49
#1
babayaga
More powerful skillsofts
Thu, 2012-08-02 19:37
#2
OpsCon
Well, game balance issues
Well, game balance issues aside, I can think of two really good reasons that skillsofts don't go over 40.
1) Pride.
The people that make these things are the kind of people that worked hard to be among the best, to be used to record these things. Who the heck wants to spend 5-10 years of their life becoming the best at a skill only to have someone make a recording of your skill so that Joe the village idiot can be as good 15 SECONDS after plugging in your skillsoft?
I can answer that: NO ONE.
This is a setting, after all, where your earnings are pretty much based not at all one what you can make, but what you can do. No one with a lick of sense (or a lawyer with a lick of sense) is going to let you record the thing that lets them eat each week at the same level of them.
2) These are not so much skills learned, as skills that possess you.
Notice there are no skillsofts for knowledge skills. You can't just 'implant' knowledge like that. Knowledge is the summation of life experiences, memorization, synthesis of data to make informed choices, etc. Skillsofts replicate active skills, because those are in part related to a muscle memory based on environmental stimulus.
When you use a skillsoft, [i]you don't actually know what you are doing.[/i] The program runs your body on automatic and your conscious brain is just kinda along for the ride. Kinda like those stories of possessed people where they talk about the body 'doing a skill they never learned or thought they were capable of' except in this case you downloaded and installed the demon.
And with the way they work, Firewall probably has a hand in limiting their max skill rating because GOD HELP US ALL if a series of say, "Call of Modern Warfare: Easy Security Skill Training version 3.6" skillsofts that gave Fray, Kinetic Weapons, and Unarmed at 60 each got infected by an insurgent strain...
Whee! They want to murder us AND we gave them the skills!
—
KT
Alex 'Iceshade' Andrade
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Fri, 2012-08-03 03:47
#3
Janusfaced
Good point. I have some idea
Good point. I have some idea about knowledge skilsoft and permanent skill imprant psychosurgery also. So I am positive about on your ideas.
Agreed, at least in theory.
While I agree the principle, I felt the mechanics might require a little too much bookkeeping. I am feeling managing by numbers of skills, like "(COG + WIL) Skills", would work better. A person with COG 20 and WIL 15 can have 35 skills.
To be honest, I am confusing the whole "distill" concept. Doesn't new type of psychosurgery work?
So if I want the best swordfigter, I can have +5 bonus to Blade Skill and -5 penalty to ALL OTHER Skills, can't I? I think it is a new and nice psychosurgery.
It can be done already, as Skill Supression psychosurgery(p. 232).
While I wish to solve, I must admit there are problems on game balance and in game universe.
Skills influence (and sometime define) personality. Do more uniformed skills mean more uniformed personality?
If you can improve/implant skills, why can't you improve/implant mental aptitudes and traits?
If the haves can afford skills by money or rep, does it broaden chasm between the haves and the have-nots?
—
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Fri, 2012-08-03 04:50
#4
Janusfaced
I figure many infugees didn't have option,
I figure many infugees didn't have option, so Rating 60 Skill Imprint psychosurgery is available.
That said, I am fine about 40 limit of skillsoft. After all, skillsofts are handier than psychosurgery and cause no Stress. It is low-return but low-risk.
Or is it? Let's assume I have no training on unarmrd combat but installed unarmrd combat skillsoft and went fight. In fight, I must judge what attack to dogde or endure, figure how to break my opponent's defence, when retreat a few step to avoid enclosement... And those decision makings need sensory inputs and think acter, So I figure I am the decision make, not a possessed by skillsoft (Even if the skillsoft provide knowledge to enforce me into certain conclusion).
That said, I am agree about skill influences person. I think Active Skills have some influence-risk also, but if Knowledge Skills have more and if it is the problem...
—
Your average, everyday, normal, plain and dull transhuman
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Fri, 2012-08-03 05:20
#5
Xagroth
Please do notice that 40 in
Please do notice that 40 in the skill is a professional level (not to mention adding characteristics later to that) and that nothing prevents you from "unloading" and "loading" different sets of skillsofts. I remember a character of the second Takeshi Kovacs novel with a bunch of "USB skillsofts" tied to her hair for easy plug-in.
Fri, 2012-08-03 05:44
#6
Arenamontanus
Having the tech to give
Having the tech to give people high skills has *explosive* social consequences, even if the total sum remains constant.
Consider Focus in Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky": essentially moving all skill points into one skill and giving the character an obsession about using it. A society with that would be nearly unbeatable in many domains (engineering, economics, military...), and hence other societies better adapt or get out of the way.
If the skills are easy to re-allocate, then you get a situation where at least well-off people always have the skill they need at a high level. If it is really fast, the cornered CEO will quietly reallocate his business ability to martial arts and tactics, creaming those hooligans trying to rob him. Even if it takes a while you get a situation where the effective skills of the population becomes far bigger and better.
In a world where skillsofts and AI can reach 40, people with 40+ skills are valuable... but people without them are at most bodies to be directed in grunt-work by somebody who has the skills or should be upgraded with a skillsoft (economics permitting). In a world with 60+ skillsoft any normal person is in this category: you are essentially a body that need to download the right job skill for many jobs, making a vast majority of people interchangeable.
Now this is not an argument against the idea of empowered skillsofts or skill re-engineering... quite the contrary. This is the kind of scary and exciting social revolution that might occur in Eclipse Phase.
I would probably turn this into an ongoing background plot in a campaign: first spread rumours that Cognite are developing the next quantum leap in skillsofts. Then give some information, watching how munchkin players and characters drool and want to get access to the betas. Then show how Cognite begins to grow... and grow... and GROW as they empower their own research teams and marketers. Other companies are trying to follow suit (plenty of shadowy stuff going on), the inner system elite begins to use the tech while the outer system realizes the danger of being left behind. The Titanians and argonauts are desperately trying to reverse engineer things, the Jovians are becoming desperate since they cannot compete. Meanwhile Firewall are starting to get really scared as Cognite seems to be racing towards their own collective corporate singularity (with amazingly good press, lobbyists and security: they seem to have the PC in their hands). Maybe there are hidden back-doors and risks with the skill tech, but it could just as well be that it does exactly what it says it should. By this point things might get really dangerous, as various groups realize that unless they do something they have to become something like the Cognite system: maybe pre-emptively crashing the inner system is the best choice...
—
Fri, 2012-08-03 07:58
#7
Xagroth
Arenamontanous, while your
Arenamontanous, while your idea is great, it is also extremely optimistic: remember that skillsofts are "made" from scrubbed forks! People might find disturbing to inject themselves not with some sort of software, but "cleaned bones" from somebody else. Not to mention the roleplay background of the strange an "alien" body language imposed upon you when doing physical tasks (like writing in an implanted language... using a calligraphy that is not your own, or even having to go left-handed! Not to mention if we are talking about martial arts or something similar).
Also, remember it takes one action to switch between skillsofts plus one turn to bring the skill online. If you happen to be in a good habitat with wireless connectivity, its ok to just download it from your personal server space... But if you are in a combat zone, jamming and repeaters sabotage/destruction will be there in force, meaning anybody there will prefer to have them in "USB pendrives" so to speak: Complex physical action (and an interface slot of sorts) to switch between skillsofts, plus another turn for the skill to come online...
In CP 2020 there were skill chips, limited to +3 at most (on a 0-10 scale, with attributes in the 1-10 scale), but they had a problem: you couldn't stack the chip with your skills, and you weren't able to improve your chipped skills.
Fri, 2012-08-03 09:58
#8
Arenamontanus
Xagroth wrote:Arenamontanous,
Fine. I don't mind that the new tech is totally disturbing or that a lot of people would not want it. It doesn't matter.
If you could take cheap infugees and turn them into decently skilled professionals (and there will be enough desperate enough to accept a sufficiently long indenture to make even a fairly high initial investment to pay off) you have a huge economic advantage, which will allow you to sweep up even more of them. Sure, maybe nobody else want it... but Cognite in this scenario would not care. Their subsidiaries would be reaping huge profits by outcompeting companies dependent on expensive skilled people.
I'm seriously thinking of writing up this campaign. Might not be to everybody's taste, but a corporate singularity based on skills from flensed egos sounds great to me.
—
Fri, 2012-08-03 13:45
#9
Unity
Arenamontanus wrote:Xagroth
This is especially nasty if you combine it with Alpha Forking. And by nasty, I mean economically destabilizing.
As if copyrations weren't dangerous (and profitable) enough to begin with.
—
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Fri, 2012-08-03 16:17
#10
Xagroth
Mmmm... Can't wait to see
Mmmm... Can't wait to see this Project: Frankenstein :p
I can see a "but", however: there are a lot of infugees, and the people who wants indetures can be very picky. That is a situation like nowadays we have in Spain, for example: tons of people with a very wide array of skills, as a group, and no use for them, since the amount of jobs in the market is so low.
Which kinda enforces Cognite's approach to a secret project to prepare the next step after the next three steps: once everybody with valuable skills got a body and is no longer working like a slave for years, the infugees without skills deemed worthy will get the indentured service. And that is what Cognite is making, while other less imaginative corps make the "ah, but that contract was for your deceased version that was never backed-up, we never made any deal with you".
Which in turns places things into the "complicated, not so sure if I have to stop it" backyard of the Hard Decissions School. That shiny place were old Paladins go to lose their holy status... :p
While corporations are very liberal when it comes to alpha forking (ok, with anything that carries the motto "as long as you are not caught with" or "as long as you can deflect the PR/responsability fallout"), there is no real need for it: Beta Forks are good enough to use those skills with a limit of 60 and a penalty of -5 to all attributes. So make an ego (or find one) with 25 in the wanted attribute, then skillsoft him. Somebody with a 60% flat on a skill. Make him work in a group to go to 90%...
Sun, 2012-08-05 16:21
#11
Chevre
Arenamontanus wrote:
Something similar is well within the rules as written. One action turn to activate the skillsoft while they're threatening him and suddenly the guy has a 40 in grievous bodily harm. Corporate types can afford to get shiny expensive implants and show them off to all their buddies. Possibly over a boardroom table, American Psycho business card style.
—
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Mon, 2012-08-06 06:48
#12
babayaga
Arenamontanus wrote:Having
I agree (I also agree with most of the projections you make). However, I would point out that EP already has technologies that produce virtually the same effect, albeit through slightly different channels.
The main one is forking. If you want to quickstart a major corporation, you need only a handful of people willing to fork and do the job. Ultimately, it's not quantity that counts, it's quality: a single security expert with Infosec 80 allows you to deploy thousands, or even millions, of security experts with Infosec 80. All you need is the computational power to host them, which in turn requires access to a single cornucopia and a relatively modest amount of energy and mass. Sure, there may be social taboos against this, but the competitive advantage is such that it really stretches credibility to assume that no one would do it (in fact, the corebook already provides as a canon example a criminal cartel run "single-handedly" by a single person forked all over the place).
The dynamics of what is a difficult task and what is not certainly change: the "size" of the job is no longer as important as its "peak difficulty" and its "social appeal". We have already witnessed similar revolutions in our society: printing was one of them (suddenly, producing the first copy of a book becomes more labour intensive than producing the next million copies).
On the one hand, it's not obvious that skills would necessarily be fast enough to reallocate. Second, I don't think this is any different from *our* society. The well-off almost always have the necessary skills at hand. They are just "locked" within other people. But that is still fairly convenient, most of the times. Why (except for some faddish meme) should the CEO want to unlearn his business acumen and replace it with some tuggish skillset -- when he can just hire a bunch of real thugs with that thuggish skillset?
As you correctly pointed out, the main societal impact of skill implanting would be because of skill *replication* (increasing the number of agents capable of some important task), not skill *reallocation* (changing which task can be performed by whom). And forking already provides almost limitless skill replication.
Mon, 2012-08-06 07:26
#13
Xagroth
babayaga wrote:
Objection! ^^
You cannot quickstart a corporation with forking somebody with skills at 80: Alpha Forking is illegal in Sunward, and frown upon in Rimward, where you could only get away with that in an isolationist habitat or some shady places: remember some autonomist habitats grant rights to Beta Forks, not to mention Alpha ones!
Also, a Beta Fork has an skill max of 60, plus the -5 to all attributes, so yeah, it's better to fork a guy with 65+ in as many skills as possible, but you won't be able to get more than 60% success in the rolls (up to 90 thanks to teamwork, gear, or whatever).
As for the Pax family... this is a strange position: while it is true that all members are forks of the same woman, the "leader" or original vector is at least 5 years older than the next oldest alpha fork, arguing about the "duplicate of alphas", plus it is in the Rimward side. She asked her previous copy if she would work for her, instead of indenture her, etc...
While more data about this family would be needed (I think it was not mentioned but on the core book?) the details regading the legal standing of those forks would be something related to expert courts.
Mon, 2012-08-06 07:27
#14
babayaga
OpsCon wrote:
History blatantly contradicts you. Today, most of us can attain within a few months, days, or even minutes knowledge that took our predecessors years or even lifetimes to obtain, because they shared it (not necessarily selflessly). This is the essence of civilization, and the main reason why you are using a computer, receive medical aid, know how to read and write, and have mastery over fire.
This is another unsubstantied statement. If someone told me "You are a good engineer, would you be willing to accept a billion dollars (once) in exchange for sharing your engineering skills with anyone who might want them?" I would accept. Wouldn't you?
There are really two issues you are raising here.
The first is the "unreplicability" of knowledge skills because they are somehow too personal. In your words: "You can't just 'implant' knowledge like that. Knowledge is the summation of life experiences, memorization, synthesis of data to make informed choices, etc.". But this is contradicted by the fact that it can't be that hard to make AIs with knowledge skills at levels 40-80 (e.g. "security" AIs get Profession: security system at level 80, and Muses pack a whole lot of skills -- including Academics:Psycology and Profession:Accounting both at level 60). It is also contradicted by the fact that you can implant skills up to level 60 through Psychosurgery (even though they eventually "degrade").
The second is the danger of having a bunch of dangerous physical skills at level 60. Well, the corebook already allows one to gain that sort of ability e.g. through psychosurgery or hiring a beta fork of someone who has them.
Mon, 2012-08-06 07:53
#15
Xagroth
While Knowledge skills might
While Knowledge skills might not be avaiable as skillsofts, there are a lot of knowledge questions you can answer with a quick search on the Mesh, at least depending on the length of the question (and you can always make a networking roll to get the answer from a buddy...).
In fact, I think Knowledge skills cannot be "chipped" because they tend to grant bonuses to normal skills. To such an extent, that I houserule in my games that the bonus you get from the knowledge skill is a flat 10% of it, but you can get the bonus from several ones (for example, trying to program a counter agent for a nanovirus of TITAN origin, you could get the bonuses from Knowledge: nanotech, Knowledge: TITAN nanotech, and Knowledge: nanoviruses. With the regular rules, you would be limited to a flat bonus of up to 30-40% from one of the skills, taking much possibilities out from knowledge skills.
Mon, 2012-08-06 08:00
#16
babayaga
Xagroth wrote:
It seems the corebook gives a slightly different view of forking (on p.273) "Creating alpha forks is illegal in many jurisdictions, including most of the inner system and the Jovian Republic. In others it tends to be viewed with distaste, though there are some habitats/cultures in which it is encouraged.". So yes, it's not that difficult to create a company that makes heavy use of alpha forks; all you have to do is choose the jurisdiction with some care. Nothing different from today's companies dealing in cryptography (the USA used to have some pretty heavy restrictions on the export of cryptographic products at least until the early 90s) or in certain medical procedures (e.g. artificial insemination, abortion, or stem cell research).
Sure, who said anything about "enslaving"? You just fork with the idea of remerging; it's likely that, if you start with this idea of your own, most of your forks will keep it for a reasonable period of time. I just tried this thought experiment. What if yesterday evening I had forked myself in three, so that today each of my three forks would do one third of the work I'm supposed to do over the next three days? I tried thinking of myself -- the one who's typing right now I mean -- as one of the three forks, and imagining my other two "me"s in the next room. Would I have any particular fear or distaste of "merging" with them this evening, ending up with the memories of three "today"s by the time I go to sleep? Honestly, it seems pretty ok to me.
Mon, 2012-08-06 12:23
#17
Prophet710
I think Arena is on to
I think Arena is on to something. In a corporate, hyper-capitalistic environment, this would be just the thing that a hypercorp would use to gain that fine edge against the competition. I can't wait to see the PDF.
—
"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
Mon, 2012-08-06 12:42
#18
Xagroth
Mmmm while I agree that the
Mmmm while I agree that the autonomist won't look twice to the multiple alpha-forking, I doubt the hypercorps of Sunward will allow legal transactions with that corp. The Pax family is a "criminal" company for a reason ^^.
Anyway, if you can deploy that kind of resources, frankly, your best bet is to gather all your actives, get some gate time and go to a colony, and "play Minecraft" until you have an automated utopia that will answer your every will. Come to think about it, I bet there are more than one of those out there. And if their "masters" are good enough programmers, they could even create "live performances" oout there...
Mmmm... Troy...
Now back into topic, I'd like to see that it would be hard to fork yourself at alpha level with the thought of remerging for true. Ok, I don't know about youm but I know about me, and I have a rule: any "copy" of myself I see, I kill it before it kills me! I tend to get so distracted and to go off the rails all the time, so I bet any alpha fork of mine would require less than four hours to want to go away... Not to mention the fact that all Alpha forks would believe them to be the original...Psychosurgery would be necessary, so you need somebody you can trust to mess your head so you deploy some sort of "hive mind", in which you (and thus, all of your forks) won't have any issues about merging, which needs some sort of "collective loyalty", or a "if at least one of ours survives, all of ours will survive". Which incidentally is quite against my thoughts on "inmortality through resleeving".
Mon, 2012-08-06 12:50
#19
OpsCon
babayaga wrote:OpsCon wrote:
Yes, indeed. KNOWLEDGE! Your words, and indeed civilization is the accumulation of knowledge. However, I can not just replace Tony Hawk today, because the very skill that makes him famous, is in game terms, a learned [i]active skill.[/i] We can all get knowledge via books and the internet, but learning masterful kung fu, not so much.
And I bet if you took any athlete, performer, artist, or the like, they would protest being told that someone could go the The Pirate Bay and download the very skill that makes them famous.
That's that human pride I'm talking about.
Let me rephrase what you are saying to what would happen in Eclipse Phase if these skillsofts existed:
In short, "Let us put your skills in 10,000 cases for the cost of one year's salary so we can essentially cut labor overhead expenses by 1,000,000,000 this year and every future year."
Yeah, lets give MORE power to the Planetary Consortium. They've already got the souls of 200 million workers in a box till they need them. Why not give them more power.
Good science is often knowing the difference between what you CAN do and what you SHOULD do. I make good cases above why anyone in a knowledge economy would HATE to be replaced with expert systems, and would take steps to prevent that.
And read the sidebar on muses (p 265), mot notably the fact that they all have real world naivete. Sure, they have Psychology 60. They still suck at it. They do not truly emote, empathize, or relate to the fact that remembering your last death is a traumatic experience. It's like getting on a couch with Wolfram Alpha. Now, the accounting, they are probably good at that, because there is no [i]subtext[/i] to that skill. You can indeed learn all you need to know about it via books and online data.
But some skills need that real world experience to be relevant. And the people that have those skills, [i]they want to remain relevant too.[/i] It's called self actualization.
—
KT
Alex 'Iceshade' Andrade
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Mon, 2012-08-06 14:27
#20
Xagroth
OpsCon wrote:
Mmmm... Muses don't have Psychology 60 to treat their owners (in a pinch they could try, though), but to understand his needs and to make a profile so they can anticipate his wishes and make a lot of answers for him (like automated rep votes).
As for the Good science, you know, creating fire was great for cooking, but I dare to recall that in certain time periods fire was used to burn some human beings alive. There is no "good science" or "bad science", just destructive/evil and constructive/good uses of what tools we have. Even a gun can be a tool if you envision it as such: you can use it as an improvised hammer, as a weight, or some pieces to make other stuff!
I still fear more The A-Team or McGuyver than John Mclane, mind you... Mclane is predictable in which he will try to protect those he care for (and then innocents), then kill the bad guys using weapons or desperate melee attacks. The other guys? Pray they don't have american tape, brides, chewing gum, wood, and some garbage bags...