[0.9] Why Does Teacher Still Exist?

Muir

Muir

Fighter
In the vein of the discussion surrounding Read and Write, I have similar questions regarding Teacher, as a skill.

As it stands now, Teacher is effectively a bottleneck to OOG character advancement. We go to great pains to make clear in the rulebook that OOG character class and mechanics are clearly separate from the IG world. Yet at the same time we gate the ability to buy OOG skills with Build behind another player both having spent Build on Teacher, and taking time to use it.

This disproportionately affects new PCs as well, as skills only need to be learned once to be purchased as many times as you happen to be able to afford.

I would suggest that Teacher is not appropriate as a Game Skill under the 2.0 paradigm. It does not have any game effect other than being a resource sink to let the player be nice to other players and enable them to spend their Build. The roleplay aspects of it can be easily maintained without needing to tie them to a Build-purchased skill, much in the same way that Biata Mental Abilities are not Game Skills.
 
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Muir said:
In the vein of the discussion surrounding Read and Write, I have similar questions regarding Teacher, as a skill.

As it stands now, Teacher is effectively a bottleneck to OOG character advancement. We go to great pains to make clear in the rulebook that OOG character class and mechanics are clearly separate from the IG world. Yet at the same time we gate the ability to buy OOG skills with Build behind another player both having spent Build on Teacher, and taking time to use it.

This disproportionately affects new PCs as well, as skills only need to be learned once to be purchased as many times as you happen to be able to afford.

I would suggest that Teacher is not appropriate as a Game Skill under the 2.0 paradigm. It does not have any game effect other than being a resource sink to let the player be nice to other players and enable them to spend their Build. The roleplay aspects of it can be easily maintained without needing to tie them to a Build-purchased skill, much in the same way that Biata Mental Abilities are not Game Skills.
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I whole heartedly disagree. I think teacher is a great skill and in the 22 years I've been playing the game I've never seen it bottleneck OOG advancement - I honestly see more of the situation where people have been taught skills and are waiting to have the points to purchase said skills. That's not to say it's never happened, but this is the first time I've heard anyone complain about it. It is a great rp tool and can (and has) drawn people less interested in rp into the rp aspects of Alliance. And frankly, if it is just a skill that lets players be nice to other players and thus fostering community and fellowship within the game, why would we ever want to get ride of something that did that? I'm all for character vs. character, but it should never be player vs. player; I fail to see why being nice is a bad thing in any way.

Biata and Stone Elf Mental Abilities are not game skills because they can be ignored, which I disagree with but that is whole other conversation.
 
Years and years ago, in a chapter far far away (see what I did there), back when profs were hand and weapon spefic (you needed master profs for +3 build for a fighter for each one) one player knew thrown weapon. "Rock boy", he did not know teacher and a few players that had master profs wanted to learn. There was a "bottleneck" issue.
All in all most of the issue was solved when years later master prof was removed (making all profs master profs).

I agree with the op that teacher is another skill that hinders as you are "forced" to seek out others or other avenues to get what is needed. I believe we as a whole shouldn't force rp.
 
It seems incredibly silly that one must spend a sliver of build to understand how to teach. "Sorry, I have all of this ability to do a thing, but I can't fathom how to show you how to do it" doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Removal of the Teacher skill, like Read/Write, but keeping the system makes sense in my mind (Other than the per day piece, obviously). It expands role play opportunity for players -- not just those who spent build on being able to let others use an ability.
 
Removal of the Teacher skill, like Read/Write, but keeping the system makes sense in my mind (Other than the per day piece, obviously). It expands role play opportunity for players -- not just those who spent build on being able to let others use an ability.
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I agree with this. It sounds like the people for keeping the Teacher skill like the RP. If that is the case, just give everyone teacher. It can be kept so that you still have to learn from someone with the skill, but anyone with the skill can teach you.
 
Saephis said:
It seems incredibly silly that one must spend a sliver of build to understand how to teach. "Sorry, I have all of this ability to do a thing, but I can't fathom how to show you how to do it" doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
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Really? You have never had a teacher in your life and thought "how in the world did this person become a teacher"? Not everyone is skilled in relating information to others in a way they understand. There is a reason that a teacher needs years of training (IRL) before they are unleashed on students. It's 1 BP. I don't think that is a huge sacrifice to teach someone.
 
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Meditation and literacy likewise require actual training, but current rules iteration provides free of charge.

The fact that it's only one build makes it feel like a throw away skill. I've always had a few ranks, not opposed to keeping it.

However the, everybody has teach, option isn't the worst, as it will still require the ig training to occur.

Good suggestion @Shades
 
Note that Read/Write was removed but the prereq skill in it's place is Educated. So now everyone can read/write, but to do the magic and alchemy skills, you still are required to put build into something.
 
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Not to be a naysayer here, but the idea of teaching well, and just teaching are two different things. We have come to expect a certain level of literacy or otherwise from our modern day educators, but elves in the hunter gatherer days im sure were able to teach someone how to shoot a bow long before they were able to read. Teaching a skill does not require any higher education than knowledge of the mechanics of said skill. As someone who has studied adult education I can teach you skills I don't personally know, and with a great degree of efficiency, but before I knew any of that, I could teach you how to communicate with someone through space, because another non educator taught me how.

Maybe everyone can teach what they know is a solid plan, and someone with the teacher skill can teach the fundamentals of any skill in the game (this would be more accurate to a real world scenario- if we were trying to compare).
 
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I've been a photographer for about 10 years now (probably more). Shot professionally, hobby, semi-, whatever. I can teach you how to shoot and you'll be good at it. Do I WANT to? HELL NO. I don't have the patience to deal with teaching it to anyone other then my GF. I don't need a teacher card, I ain't teaching anyone ****.

On the other hand, not only do you need a teacher card in game, it should be more used for other skills.

You went and learned level 1 blacksmithing from someone. Great! You can fix armor, you can make a few things. Why the hell do you not need another teacher card at 10 to become an artisan? And you sure as hell should need one at 20 to go for master! Hell, you should need one at 5 just to not be considered a beginner.
 
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mythic said:
Really? You have never had a teacher in your life and thought "how in the world did this person become a teacher"? Not everyone is skilled in relating information to others in a way they understand. There is a reason that a teacher needs years of training (IRL) before they are unleashed on students. It's 1 BP. I don't think that is a huge sacrifice to teach someone.
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Formal education (Even public school) and medieval-fantasy are two very different topics.

You need a teacher for "How do I figure out what end of this sword is sharp, and where do I hold it", for example, in the current system.

Remember: The book says "Be all you can't be"; and a position of "You can't figure out what end is sharp without someone instructing you through a day" seems a tad silly.
 
Why is it silly?

You're learning One-Handed Edged. That means you can now pick up ANY edged weapon that is one-hand length. This means you also know how to use this weapon. Great! Go have fun! Why is there no sharp tip on that one? It's an epee, it's a blunt tip sword. That one there is a sabre, no not a saber. This one is a rapier, its terrible for the type of fighting you're looking for, and you're not even holding it the right way! That one's my favorite, it's a shaska. No, that's not how you use it. Here, just take a Spatha, it'll work fine for you.

Of course you should have a teacher for learning how to use a sword!
 
In terms of IG consistency, it makes total sense for the teaching skill and the teaching mechanic to exist. However, in terms of IG consistency, it also makes sense for Read/Write to exist. In my opinion, the parallel is quite pertinent.

R/W was removed as a skill for pretty much the same reasons that Ward Keys were removed and unconscious time for 0 body was reduced to 1 minute: Customer Service. I strongly believe this is a customer service issue as well. Sure, 1 build point may be nearly meaningless (though, for some players that represents almost 2 full paid weekends), but it is 1 build point that is ENTIRELY spent for someone else. In fact, it is a speed bump skill where another player has to pay the cost of the speed bump so that you can continue to spend build (or vice versa).

Speed bump skills always frustrate players, no matter how low cost they are. Add in forced RP interaction and paying for a speed bump that you don't personally benefit from and you have a skill that is poor customer service. Has it caused the game to lose players? I honestly can't say for sure, but I know it has caused frustrations or exacerbated other frustrations with the game.

I won't even try to argue against the existence of Teacher for purely aesthetic or world building reasons. For all those reasons, I think it makes total sense. But both mechanically and at a customer service level, I think it is a terrible skill and that 2.0 is a great opportunity to remove this artifact of our rules system.

-MS
 
Tulbor said:
Why is it silly?

You're learning One-Handed Edged. That means you can now pick up ANY edged weapon that is one-hand length. This means you also know how to use this weapon. Great! Go have fun! Why is there no sharp tip on that one? It's an epee, it's a blunt tip sword. That one there is a sabre, no not a saber. This one is a rapier, its terrible for the type of fighting you're looking for, and you're not even holding it the right way! That one's my favorite, it's a shaska. No, that's not how you use it. Here, just take a Spatha, it'll work fine for you.

Of course you should have a teacher for learning how to use a sword!
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Seeing how the skill is "One handed edge" and teaching is quite literally "This is where your hand goes, and this is where the edge is", I find it hard to follow this.
 
Saephis said:
Seeing how the skill is "One handed edge" and teaching is quite literally "This is where your hand goes, and this is where the edge is", I find it hard to follow this.
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You're right, I'm sorry, my post was more for "why should I need a teacher for this?" not "why do I need a teacher skill to teach it", too many conversations and I brain farted.

In this case it just goes back to "just because you know how to do it, doesn't mean you know how to teach it." You don't have to buy the teacher skill, no one is forcing you to teach stuff to others. We have the same setup in a Firefly nerf larp and I don't have teacher there. "Hey you know how to use these guns?" "of course I do!" "can you teach me?" "nope!" and walk away.
 
I believe (and maybe the rules have changed) that teaching any weapon skill is beyond "Put the pointy end towards the bad guy," but instead is teaching the person how to effectively use it in combat. Hence why there is a rule that requires training to even use a certain class of weapon.

And it does take some skill to teach someone well enough to pursue a skill even at the most basic levels. With that being said though, I believe that having a teaching skill is little more than a build sink. If kept, maybe require certain higher level skills require the training skill (all PTD skills, every fifth level of Formals, every 10th level of a craft skill) if you want the RP experience. (This is a sleep deprived idea so take it with a few grains of salt.)
 
I have had a conversation in the past with a player who wanted to learn the Dodge skill. No player character at the time was willing to teach the skill to them. Plot had not introduced any NPC's to provide access to teachers with this skill. The player felt it was frustrating that NPC'ing was the only apparent option to accessing the skill, and wanted the opportunity to learn it in game. They had been in this position for quite some time, and were expressing their annoyances to me about the situation.

While their experience is most likely not the norm, I am sure they are not the only character that has confronted this challenge. From a customer service standpoint, this is a failing of the system. While the roleplay concept behind the mechanics of teacher may be appealing to some, the skill in its current form faces several challenges.

• The benefits of the skill should be universally accessible to all characters, and should not serve as a roadblock to character progression, such as in the above account. The current system demonstrates points of failure in this regard.

• Characters should not be put in a position where they must endure "forced roleplay", particularly in instances where players are opposed to or uncomfortable with such exchanges. The current system demonstrates points of failure in this regard as well.

• Players should not be forced to endure obstacles to build expenditure. If a character wishes to not purchase a skill until they feel they have "learned it" in game, then they are free to pursue those roleplaying opportunities, and make that unique and individual choice for their characters. Deliberate hindrances should not be placed in the path of progression, and no external factors should inhibit players from utilizing the build that they have earned through their event registration fees and / or attendance.

This is absolutely a customer service issue. Successful organizations place customer experience and satisfaction at the forefront of their business model, and we should be striving to do the same. If a player wishes to roleplay their character learning a skill, there is no mechanism in place to prevent them from doing so. If they do not, however, then there is absolutely an obstacle in their way. We lose nothing as an organization by removing this skill. The players who enjoy the concept would not be denied access to the roleplay that is associated with it, and would remain free to pursue it to their satisfaction and drive their own interactions. The players who do not wish to traverse this process would then be free from the forced roleplay and other potential issues associated with the current system.
 
My 2 copper:

Arguments centered on realism (have you ever met someone who can't teach!?) in a game where you can receive a 1 minute first aid band-aid to recover in another minute from getting your jugular sliced (Eviscerate) because the weapon hit the tip of the two-handed sword you were holding with one hand seems nonsensical. There are numerous examples of Alliance mechanics that make no real-world logical sense, but they are part of the game for one reason or another. Alliance is a representational mechanics game, not a realism game.

In my opinion, I like the Teaching mechanic. I like the RP of having to teach people things for them to learn a skill. I like that it is a hurdle for characters to overcome to find a teacher so they may learn a skill. I don't like that it is limited by times per day. I don't like that it costs build. I don't like that you need to be taught Teacher to teach. I don't like the fact there isn't a "read it from a book" option to learn a skill.
 
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