@jennkryst said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:
If we want hyper realism for surgery, you will have plenty of teamwork dice and equipment bonuses and specializations and merits. So it's more than just Int + Medicine.
So....
ETA - If we want Hollywood realism (as is my suggestion, since it makes the most sense with other rules, too) then yeah, let whoever use whatever.
Edit 2 - without going too POLITICSy, remember that Ben Carson - the man who thinks the Pyramids were grain silos - is also a world class brain surgeon who invented at least one revolutionary surgical proceedure. So massive Int is not a requirement.
Honestly, though, the purpose of this thread isn't to talk about how difficulty it is too make a realistic system or how we would House Rule a game to prevent these examples. It is really a question of whether the rules really support a Storyteller coming in and saying 'you know, even though Alex has the same die pool as Bill I'm going to assign a penalty to Alex' (beyond the obvious rule of ST fiat).
In fact I actually should slightly reverse my position on one point. If a Storyteller wants to say 'you have to have 3 dots of Medicine to be a licensed doctor' I can actually get behind that to some degree (except see my next post) because to become a licensed doctor you have to graduate from an accredited medical school, undergo a residency, and then pass your boards. A character with Intelligence-5 and Medical-1 might have the same skills as a doctor but they have not gone through all the steps required to receive their license. That said, I still do not support the idea that the Intelligence-3 Medical-3 character is more skilled than the Intelligence-5 Medical-1 character. They have the same pool and should be capable of undertaking the same tasks.