One of the downsides of GURPS is that while the system is largely "roll 3d6 under", statblocks are often fiddly. This is particularly true because GURPS likes to present lots of detail in its statblocks. You don't have First Aid 12, you have First Aid (E) IQ+1 [1]-12.
For the non-GURPSist, this is telling you First Aid, an Easy skill, with a relative level of IQ+1, on which you have spent 1 point, for a final current level of 12.
There are sometimes good reasons for this. When presenting a character template, the aim is to make it easy for you to adjust by moving or adding points, so you need to know how many points have been spent on things already. I'm less sure about the necessity for including skill difficulty and both final levels and relative levels. It comes up if your attributes change, though.
It occurred to me that, for many trope-based character concepts (which covers a great deal, for my characters at least), the Talents generally cover all the skills you need, particularly if you smash two together. Medic? Healer covers the treatment skills, with Empath if you're the friendly intuitive sort, and Academic if you're a research-minded doctor. Couldn't we present simplified statblocks that simply list Talents instead of skills?
A slight complication is that unless you've put points into a skill, you rely entirely on defaults (if any). The first point in a skill (making it "known") allows us to use the skill level derived from its difficulty class (Easy, Average, Hard, Very Hard).
But if we want every skill covered by a Talent, spending 1 point in each of them is more-or-less the same price as the first level of Talent (required specialties aside). So why not simplify character sheets by allowing the first level of Talent to count as the first point in the skill, and by removing the 4-level restriction on Talent?
This has the effect of making groups of related skills much cheaper to raise to a high level. Taking five Very Hard skills to IQ+4 costs 35 points via Talent, rather than 120 when bought individually. Isn't this a problem?
If all the skills are highly desirable, that may be a concern. A slight counterpoint is that Talent rarely covers a set of highly desirable skills without "dead weight" - if paying for skills normally, would the player choose to buy up Connoisseur to the same level as Two-Handed Axe/Mace?
Of course, a player who wants to raise twenty or more skills can simply buy up IQ or DX, with the same effective cost as above - and raise every other IQ- or DX-based skill into the bargain, #emph[and] every default based on the attribute, #emph[and] attribute rolls. For 100 points, the character has every IQ-based, Per-based, or Will-based skill - that is, the vast majority of non-combat skills - at 12 or better, resists Will-based attacks with 15, and excels at Fright Checks. Talent would raise twenty skills to the same level for the same price, without creating an all-round genius.
In general, consider that a player could legitimately spend a single point in every skill they want, then buy up an attribute and appropriate Talent. Unless it would be considerably cheaper to achieve the same effect by buying high levels of Talent and allowing Talent-as-improvement, there's little risk.
This is, in fact, exactly how spellcasters usually operate. Because spells are IQ-based and Magery raises all spells, the standard expectation is to put 1 point in each spell, buy as much Magery as permitted (because it's cheaper than IQ), and raise IQ. The cost of a single spell is negligible; as soon as you spend that first point, you have it at IQ+Magery-2. The side effect is indeed that spellcasters tend to be very good at every IQ-based skill, both due to high defaults, and because it's extremely cheap to spend 1 point per skill to get them at 12 or better, so you might as well. Building such a character is simply more efficient than other options.
Of course, standard spellcasters do need to spend points on individual spells, because prerequisite chains mean we need to know which spells they have learned. The same doesn't apply to skills. There seems to be no major downside to permitting Talent 1 to count as 1 point in each skill, triggering the difficulty-based level instead of defaults.
If a Talent applies to all specialties of a skill, and a character is likely to want several specialties rather than relying on defaults, this can result in significant discounts. Of course, there are often other routes to savings. For example, a mechanic aiming for IQ+2 in every specialty of power plants would need to buy up ten or more skills, at a cost of 160 points. Far cheaper to spent 32 points raising one specialty to IQ+6 and then rely on the skill-4 defaults, even though this isn't what the player really wants.
Still, the GM and player might agree to have one specialty as the lynchpin of the Talent, and rely on defaults for others. This doesn't always work, though; for example, Theology specialties don't default to one another. An alternative is to raise the price of a Talent that covers many specialties if they are relevant. In a game set entirely within a remote Buddhist monastery where foreigners never set foot, a monk's (frankly inexplicable) expertise in Malagasy animism and Norse Neo-Paganism are unlikely to crop up.
Isn't this just Wildcard Skills?
Not quite. Wildcard skills have a #emph[single] level, while this option for Talent still gives disparate skill levels based on difficulty and controlling attribute. Moreover, it doesn't have the cinematic aspect that wildcard skills often do, and doesn't require any GM attention to ensure it remains balanced compared with those using "standard" skill purchases. It just makes bookkeeping easier by removing the need to track how many points have been allocated to individual skills.
Isn't this just wildcard skills with the numbers filed off?
Not quite. Wildcard skills have a single level, while this option for Talent still gives disparate skill levels based on difficulty and controlling attribute. Moreover, it doesn't have the cinematic aspect that wildcard skills often do, and doesn't require any GM attention to ensure it remains balanced compared with those using "standard" skill purchases. It just makes bookkeeping easier by removing the need to track how many points have been allocated to individual skills. It still requires the player (or GM, for NPCs) to calculate the actual skill level as and when necessary - or to turn the compact Talent-based statblock into a more comprehensive one for play.
For truly simplified and compact statblocks, wildcard skills are superior.
An Example
Judy creates Professor Smedgewick, a slightly sinister occult detective. Rather than purchase any skills, she buys Close to Hell 6 and Natural Copper 3, for a total of 55 points. To create a keen-eyed detective, she raises Per to 12.
With Smedgewick's default IQ of 10, this gives Body Language-13, Criminology-11, Detect Lies-12, Exorcism-13, Hidden Lore (Demons)-14, Intelligence Analysis-10, Interrogation-11, Observation-13, Occultism-14, Psychology (Demons)-13, Religious Ritual-13, Savoir-Faire (Police)-12, Search-13, Shadowing-11, Streetwise-11, and Theology-13. He also has a useful default of Ritual Magic-7.
Smedgewick's background is Scottish Presbyterian, so Judy opts for his Religious Ritual and Theology to have the Christian specialisation. His Ritual Magic default has the corresponding specialisation ("Ritual Magic (The sort of occult shenanigans loosely inspired by Christian-derived folk belief that the Medieval clergy got up to)").
He is not otherwise particularly intellectual, and has no general academic expertise. If Judy wants him to remember facts easily, she buys Eidetic Memory.
What she actually writes down is: Per 12; Damage 1d-2/1d; BL 20; Basic Speed 5; Move 5; Close to Hell (Christian) 6; Natural Copper 3; Eidetic Memory; Higher Purpose (Solve occult crimes); Reputation -2 (Sceptics; 10 or less); Sense of Duty (Victims of occult crimes).
She doesn't particularly need to write down other stats, which are staying at 10. An experienced player could dispense with the default derived values (damage, lift, speed and move) as well. If we were adding the Professor to a scenario or NPC collection, we could similarly exclude them on the basis that the GM can trivially work them out.
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