Now that I think about it, it may make sense to have a negative skill rank. An ewok in my game could start with a -1 (one difficulty upgrade) in piloting skills. If a player would want to do that I could give him +5 xps to start, but make it 10 xps to train a -1 to zero. That would hopefully stop a player from having all -1s besides the skills he wants. I'll have to think about this some more to see if I'm needlessly complicating my game.

I'll have to decide before this weekend, because I'm starting a new game where the wookie was captured as a child and the trandoshan hunter who captured her is training her in combat so he can release her into the wild for a safari. We decided that she would not take gunnery or ground piloting (even though they are career skills) because she would have had no way to train them in captivity. I may want to see if she would be interested in a negative rank in a couple skills.

... I would suggest not allowing players to take negative ranks in skills. YMMV

Now that I think about it, it may make sense to have a negative skill rank.

That is going to incredibly skew game balance.

Why draw the line at just Medicine and Piloting requiring at least 1 skill rank to perform a task without horrendous penalties? Why not the various weapon skills? You should probably be familiar with a gun before just picking one up and blasting away. Surely computers too, right? I mean, those are complex systems that takes years of training and experience to understand and manipulate properly. How about Mechanics? Same thing there. You want someone without skill ranks in Mechanics taking a wrench to your ship? Heck no! And to even attempt an Education checks should require first that you actually got an education, I'd think. I mean, its the name of the freakin' skill, after all...

I just read the description on p.17 about picking locks and the "Picking a lock with no comprehensible mechanism" example and it seems fairly appropriate to a stone age tribesman trying to comprehend a space ship.

I think it is important to recognize the difference between "untrained" and "stone-aged tribesman". Because the gap is significant. I really doubt that many people are playing the tribesman. If the player wants to play Encino Man in space, and the GM is willing to work out the details, that's all good. However, I think the vast majority of characters will be familiar with spaceships and other assorted technology. They may not be trained professionals, but they have probably seen people pilot before, played a piloting simulator, whatever.

For example: When I was first learning to drive a car, I was untrained, but I sure knew the core concept. You have a wheel, gas pedal, brake pedal, and you go. Nothing to it. At the time, I wasn't adept at driving. I couldn't parallel park (it's still a pain), I accelerated all jerky, I dinged a few bumpers. But I could get my truck across the open field behind the house.

To me, that is Piloting with just Agility and no upgrades from training. Not the guy you wanted driving in a blizzard, but capable (well, as capable as any 15 year old can be) enough to get you there without any major problems (usually). The task of driving is the same for me as it is for a racecar driver, but at 15, I had way more setbacks and lacked the training and talents to be good at it.

0.02

I don't disagree I'm just answering the OPs original post, which was a stone age savage with no background at all.

I don't disagree I'm just answering the OPs original post, which was a stone age savage with no background at all.

I believe that the concept of a "savage" and a hyperdrive was a hyperbolic example to get his point across. What species option even remotely qualifies as "stone age savage"? The Ewoks are the closest and even they understood the concept of how a speeder bike is operated. The core of the question is whether a PC should be able to attempt a particular check without a rank of training in that skill. The answer is YES. Unless a PC happens to go way outside the norm in his character concept, he should be familiar enough with the universe he lives in to attempt actions.

I don't disagree I'm just answering the OPs original post, which was a stone age savage with no background at all.

I believe that the concept of a "savage" and a hyperdrive was a hyperbolic example to get his point across. What species option even remotely qualifies as "stone age savage"? The Ewoks are the closest and even they understood the concept of how a speeder bike is operated. The core of the question is whether a PC should be able to attempt a particular check without a rank of training in that skill. The answer is YES. Unless a PC happens to go way outside the norm in his character concept, he should be familiar enough with the universe he lives in to attempt actions.

Again, just answering his example, not disagreeing. Someone with zero concept it would be ok to jack the difficulty up.

True, I just doubt they would be able to stay at "zero concept" for long. A lot of species that are sapient but choose to live in more rustic settings (Wookiees, Whipids) still understand blasters and the like, as a culture they just live a certain way. The only truly "stone age" group might be Talz, but enough of them get off-world that even that is questionable. Basically, I'd make it a problem for MAYBE the first session, then they start to pick things up to where difficulty no longer shoots up. But that'd be a fringe case to begin with.

Again, just answering his example, not disagreeing. Someone with zero concept it would be ok to jack the difficulty up.

I follow you, but think Kshatriya has the right of it. It would be an issue for a couple sessions before it wasn't reasonable anymore. I don't see much point in bothering with it.

Edit: I don't know that even Talz would qualify as stone age. Isn't there one in the ANH cantina scene? They definitely had some technology in SWTOR. Every time I'd cruise by some on Hoth I would think, "Aren't the Talz an extremely peaceful species? Why are they shooting at me for driving past them?" Then I would Force Choke those wannabe Wampa mother fuckers.

Edit: I don't know that even Talz would qualify as stone age. Isn't there one in the ANH cantina scene?

There is one. I think they're relatively new on the Galactic scene. Or maybe that's more Imperial propaganda to justify enslaving them. I forget.

I'd consider it counter to the spirit of not only the game, but of heroic adventure, to refuse a skill check for a character who had no ranks in a skill.

Heroic characters are often pushed to extremes where they have to make a last-ditch effort to do something desperate with little to no training. I think the rules reflect this well, because you can use your Intellect to make a Medicine or Mechanics check, you can use your Presence to Charm, etc, even without any ranks in those skills.

Wouldn't a simple solution be to up the difficulty and add a bunch of setback dice? You're not preventing them from making the check, but narratively they would have a ton of stuff working against them.

Wouldn't a simple solution be to up the difficulty and add a bunch of setback dice? You're not preventing them from making the check, but narratively they would have a ton of stuff working against them.

To me that's effectively saying "you shouldn't be making this check" through another means.

I can see adding Setbacks under the right circumstances, but they should mostly be the same circumstances under which a trained person would be receiving Setbacks - environment, distractions, etc.

Wouldn't a simple solution be to up the difficulty and add a bunch of setback dice? You're not preventing them from making the check, but narratively they would have a ton of stuff working against them.

To me that's effectively saying "you shouldn't be making this check" through another means.

I can see adding Setbacks under the right circumstances, but they should mostly be the same circumstances under which a trained person would be receiving Setbacks - environment, distractions, etc.

I respectfully disagree. If one Twi'lek is negotiating with another, they may gain a bonus die (as per an example in the beginners game), one would assume that means that a Wookiee would gain a setback die when negotiating with a Transdoshan due to cultural hatred between them. These bonus and setback die would be granted irrespective of their presence characteristic. I can see how maybe adding difficulty would be rule breaking, but adding setback or bonus based on "cultural" or "life experience" reasons (i.e., having little to no experience with starships), would totally be within the GM's rights. I also think this could lead to some funny narrative stuff where maybe they are able to take off, but they end up accidentally causing other problems and the crew scrambles to try and fix whatever the savage accidentally caused.