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Passive checks are different from active ones
A passive check is a special kind of ability check that doesn’t involve any die rolls. Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again, or can be used when the DM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at ...
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Knowing stuff about machinery goes under Knowledge (architecture & engineering). Yes, that means the one skill covers some fairly disparate stuff, but that’s the nature of a game—it has to simplify reality in order to be playable. Many of the skills in the game are multi-purpose, and not all of those purposes are necessarily trained for in the same ways—...
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Mike Mearls is simply wrong.
Read the book, play the game, learn from your experiences, ignore the tweets.
He's wrong when he says that an ability check requires an action. It's unclear whether he means an action in terms of the turn structure, or an action in the informal sense of putting forth effort to do something, but either way there are obvious ...
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As all things in rpgs, communication is key. I've gm'd a lot of GURPS 4e games, and played in quite a few, and detect lies tends to be one of those skills almost everyone gets. There are a few reasons why it won't be as problematic as "Detect evil" could be in some DnD games.
First, uses of detect lies are opposed by the acting skill of the speaker. And even ...
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The interpretation by Mike Mearls is on the liberal side of RAW
From the Player's Handbook page 175 (emphasis added):
Passive Checks
A passive check is a special kind of ability check that doesn't involve any die rolls. Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again, ...
2
The first relevant book for this question will be Legend of the Five Rings – Roleplaying in the Emerald Empire, aka the first edition core rules.
Let's skip right to Character creation, Chapter 2: Book of Water. Page 56 defines skills, and then page 57 instructs as following:
Third: choose a school
... Then, write the Skills in the Skills section. ...
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Watch Lie to Me, Read Mysteries, and Don't Worry
These two sources should be enough to show how to avoid most of the lie-detection problems you seem to be worried about.
Lie to Me is very useful because it demonstrates mysteries where the whole party has near-impeccable lie detection ability (which is better than most RPG parties can boast). Sure, sure, a ...
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It's called Detect Lies, not Solve Mystery.
Obviously the final arbiter here is your GM, but a good way to approach this problem is to treat it as a mirror, because GURPS is often a pretty symmetric game. When your scoundrel tried to lie to somebody, how would your GM rule that you should roll? Every sentence, every essential falsehood, or just one roll to ...
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Imagine how you would detect a lie in real life. Asking somebody who doesn't feel any pressure an answer which can be answered in one word without knowing any details will not succeed. That's why real life investigators don't ask for the big picture.
If players outright ask "Are you the killer?" lie detection should fail. They have to figure out details ...
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Yes. Unfortunately, I can't provide an example, but that fits exactly the text involved.
Honestly, as a GM, restricting the skill to just Trips or just Grabs seems a little too restrictive to me (and contradicts prior 2E guidance), so I'd probably let a player include a few combat maneuvers, although getting a bonus to all of them also feels a bit odd.
...
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I would suggest setting a Perform (Oratory) DC to command a crowd's attention, and then a seperate Diplomacy or Bluff check to sway them according to the normal rules.
I would scale the Oratory check up with the size of the crowd and with chaotic conditions that would make it hard to get a crowd to listen, (like a riot or a battle).
I would scale it down ...
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