These skills are the Life Science skills. https://www.sindome.org/help/game/life science skills/ Found there.
They are also very heavily underutilized in my experience. Both for their systems, and for their RP.
Now, that being said, They are broad because for systematic simplicity, it has to be. And they exist in a category of skills that all are that way. So I find no problem with them. Because in the field of Life Sciences all of the skills are broad, and it's because these aren't representing on specific class or type of science, but a broader field of study... An archetype of the sciences. With there being only possible debate between medical and bio tech being separate even though those are technically a similar field systematically and tend to come in pairs, I'd say they are ultimately separate from a definite RP standpoint. A bio Tech studies the mechanic interfacings and a medical student studies the purely natural ones.
Of these skills the I'd say, Artistry is the most broad, but also the most simultaneously unnecessary.. There is not a single point to artistry in the game beyond customization(IE RP) and prestige(IE RP) to hire an artist in this game. And that is a mark in Artistry's favor, in my opinion. If you were to separate out say tailoring from Artistry, you would remove an already scantily useful skills only money making use and turning it into something that simultaneously makes both more pointless.
Artistry is a broad skill, in a category of broad skills, it is just the most widely adopted skill from this category in the game. With the most systematic context given to it.
This is a good thing ultimately. As it allows artistic characters too initially feel out how their character might do something... And because of the broad amounts of systems it interacts with, it enforces the notion that it should be considered normal(In our worlds sense) to know a little about artistry. Pretty much everyone in the modern day has taken a 2 week course on artistry.
And that brings me to my next topic... The other skills in this category, cause hooo boy do I have a lot to say on the failure to self enforce the RP here.
We are constantly told that we as starting characters are not capable of being truly skilled and that is something we build up to being.
We are constantly told that Ordinary is not ordinary to us, but rather relative to the world's ordinary.
And... We ignore this a lot of the time... Myself included before I did a lot of thinking over the past week or so.
Largely because humans are pattern recognizing and forming beings, we ignore critical aspects of these skills in our day to day RP.
A mixer PI or Solo should study forensics, just as a corpsec or judge should. Because forensics isn't JUST studying dead bodies, it's also, studying scenes of crimes or even non-crimes, establishing schedules... Events...
It's specifically, according to the definition in the help file...
The use of science, technology and common sense to investigate physical evidence to discover factual details.
Note the words "common sense" there. Let's apply the same logic of artistry's and in fact every other skills system's to the RP surrounding Forensics for a moment.
A character without forensics should be hamstrung when asked to find someone or something. Or utterly reliant on instruction from those who have studied it. It is not a narrow field, but rather an illustration of a massively broad field. Encompassing, and I'm gonna give an example of just how impactful some of this -SHOULD- be to players without it.
Crime Scene Research(These bullets are coming from somewhere? If Forensics: "What roofs are nearby?" Else: "They came from above me and to the right.. FUCK I JUST GOT SHOT..")
Psychology(He was likely attacking the man because of the bounty put out on him, but why? If Forensics, "He was desperate for money, The bounty was under 10k. And he wasn't an easy mark, this implies desperation, or inexperience." Else: "Fucker was bound to die anyway. Bounties aren't something you avoid for very long.")
Evidence finding and chains of evidence(Get killed, If forensics: "Maybe I should go to the people who run the streets here see if they know more?" Else: "Who the fuck knows how I got killed, anyone who saw it is probably too fucking pussy to tell me anyway.")
I could go on, but there are many places where character routinely take steps that if you applied the rationale that was imposed in every other system, to the RP of the skill, you would be incapable of it.
Next up... Chemical
Does your character look at drugs and just know what they do? They should have at least a little chemical then. Unless it's just very general surface level knowledge acquired purely from use...
Chemical effects not just drug making but knowledge of ANY drugs beyond the surface level, and even then, not much is surface level. How this should play out.
With Chemical, Dealer, "Marcy is THE fucking feel good drug, it makes your mind get in the groove and your whole body vibrate with the energy of a neutron fucking star. Stimulate your senses and get yourself a bump today."
With Chemical, Scientist, "Marcy is a stimulant, MrC, with a lowercase r, and it works on the frontal cortex to stimulate transmission of hormones from the mid brain and increase blood-flow to the prefrontal cortex, this causes a chain reaction of energy and a sort of sense of wakening, creative energy over flows. Accompanied with it's stimulant properties is a bevy of side effects including, increased sense of social awareness and empathy, confidence, and psychosomatic physical effects as an example, some users report a vibration like feeling in the sexual organs. And so on."
Without Chemical. "I dunno, just makes me feel good, hard to describe. REAL good for sex though. Hear deckers use it sometimes too."
I'm gonna stop here, before I go into the two more systematically driven skills here, because I may spoil some things with them... And do artistry next.
Artistry is not too broad, as long as the characters are being policed/self-policing enough in it to not be instant multi talented superstars. And as far as I've seen, off the top of my head, they are policing enough. There have been a few weird ass cases... But that's mostly stomped out pretty quickly as characters find what they like to do in character.
It's kinda like a middle or freshman high school art class. You're gonna learn a bit of everything at the start, so that next year/after a month or so of play, you can pick the elective you actually want to specialize in.
Changing the pace a bit, just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. This is the central tenant for all of these skills. Think about your RP. And how your characters might apply these skills. And then also think about the systematics of artistry and every other skill in the game. And contrast that with the relevant field of knowledge skill here.
Because you're not a modern human, you're a post-modern human... Skills flesh out what your character knows, attributes just provide the capacity to know it.
Further most of these other life science skills especially in comparison to artistry, are heavily underplayed -and- under enforced at current. So players do need to think about things a bit more... And self police as well.
If you don't have forensics, maybe you can't identify your very plain looking friends corpse... Hell maybe you don't want too, because without the grounding in those sciences, bodies skeeze you out.
If you don't have medical skill, don't have knowledge of the basics of gendered anatomy. Maybe struggle to train your body after a certain point, because you lack the knowledge of targeted exercises that would allow you to work muscle groups you don't know about.
If you don't have chemical knowledge, maybe don't have a memorized list of what each drug does in general. Maybe describe drugs in words like, "I need my happy pills," or "Gimmie those eye needles." Cause you know what they do but can't recall exactly what they are called. Bumping it up to the names of the drugs in question as you raise your int(And thus have a better memory) and so on.
If you don't have bio tech or a biotech around, maybe you know the names of some of the implants if you're smart(And thus have a good memory)... Or you just know what they do, and you describe shit as, "Those go fast juices," or "That thing that stops me hurting so much."
This is already getting long... But ultimately, players use these skills all the time in RP... I've seen it everywhere... And yes it's hard to think of these things in tense situations. Like the forensics under gunfire one above, but they are VERY relevant to think about after the fact. And trace through if your character would have known. Or wouldn't have known.
People slip, people RP smarter, better, more skilled than they are all the time... But like with anything, take some time, look at your character and think about, what they know? And why? What are they good at? And why? And then slowly think through situations?
Look at your characters stat sheet, and consider, "If I don't have forensics, how would I know the exact direction that bullet hit me from enough to make a guess at the exact rooftop that person is on?" Or, "If I don't have medical, how do I know that there's actually an anatomical component to virginity?" Or "If I don't have Chemical knowledge how do I know what marcy withdrawals look like specifically?"
Because if you don't have artistry you can't really paint? Right? So how would you know or use these incredibly specific pieces of skills that are in the game if you don't have them?
Fuck remind me not to write posts at 6AM again. This was hopefully mostly coherent.
And Jesus fuck it's four pages long... I'm sorry.