General adventuring aside the skills seem to allow for 3 (legal) ways of obtaining an income- Craft, Perform, Profession (coincidentally those skills correspond to each of the three mental abilities- neat huh?)
So if crafting is making something you can expect to be paid upon selling said item to a customer- Craft alchemy-> antitoxin-> sell antitoxin-> MONEY, that one is pretty cut and dry.
How does one note the difference between a Performance and a Profession. In the general speakingness of the two skills obviously if I roll Perform Sing and get paid it was a performance but how would that differ from Profession Singer (in generality)?
And to ask the REAL question that I am concerned with: Fortunetelling, is this a performance or a profession? I can see under Perform there is not Perform Harrow Reading skill, but there isn't Profession Fortune Teller listed either so brick wall on the obvious.
If I relate the scenario: I own harrow cards and someone asks me to do a reading and I do then they pay me for that reading it seems like a Performance skill (I would own a flute and someone says play and I play and they pay) and my Charisma seems to be directly influencing of the immersion I create for the reading.
But I am not entirely certain how that would differ from a Gambler who is listed under profession.
How does Perform differ from Profession?
Side question: Herbalist is a profession, but it almost seems like you would just be getting paid to make Survival checks for other people? So why not just do that? What specifically is Herbalist doing Profession-wise?
Should this be in the Rules section? I debated, and picked Advice by default since there wasn't a particular RULE in question...
The key is the timeframe.
A performance takes a short time. The length of a song, or of a dance, or of a Harrow reading. Spend the short time, make the check, easy money.
A profession is a longer time commitment. A life-long skillset to earn a steady living. Those checks are made once per week. Work for a whole week, make a check, money (not quite as easy). It can be the same skills, singing, dancing, whatever, but it's now a weekly source of income rather than a single incident of quick cash.
To be a professional fortune teller, you will need to devote a week's worth of work (at least 40 hours, I would imagine), with a stead stream of customer proving a steady stream of income.
Stick to performance. It pays better and you don't need to spend all week doing it.
How does one note the difference between a Performance and a Profession. In the general speakingness of the two skills obviously if I roll Perform Sing and get paid it was a performance but how would that differ from Profession Singer (in generality)?
And to ask the REAL question that I am concerned with: Fortunetelling, is this a performance or a profession? I can see under Perform there is not Perform Harrow Reading skill, but there isn't Profession Fortune Teller listed either so brick wall on the obvious.
Profession, like Craft, is an umbrella with a theoretically infinite number of skills under it. Perform, like Knowledge, is an umbrella with a fixed number of fairly well-defined skills under it.
That is, there isn't a Perform (Fortune-telling) because it's not one of the nine defined Perform skills, just as there isn't a Knowledge (Fortune-telling) because it's not one of the ten defined Knowledge skills.
This doesn't mean you can't use Perform; you just have to find an existing skill it fits under. Remember that the samples given for each Perform skill are specifically described as small samples. I think Perform (Act) is perfectly suited to fortune-telling, though you'll have to check that your GM agrees.
But I am not entirely certain how that would differ from a Gambler who is listed under profession.
Mostly it differs in that one falls under a defined Perform skill and one doesn't. :)
Side question: Herbalist is a profession, but it almost seems like you would just be getting paid to make Survival checks for other people? So why not just do that? What specifically is Herbalist doing Profession-wise?
Herbalists make medicines to be sold for later use. The Survival skill is always concerned with here-and-now.
Hope this helped.