One of the things I rather like about GURPS is how it’s divided its skills into different tech levels. TL3 Smith is different from TL9 Smith. Is it crazy granular? Yeah, in a way, but it allows one trait to be multiple traits with minimal new rules and description and that is always a win with a roleplaying game.
Below is a trait I use in my games to allow for some additional utility for skilled characters without outright going to wildcard skills.
Tech-Genius
4 points/level
You’re used to working with varying technology levels. Each level of this trait lets you ignore -1 worth of TL penalties for any skill or roll. This can be penalties due to using lower technology or higher technology then you are used to. Non-gadgeteers can have up to five levels of this trait, gadgeteers can have any number of levels.
At the GM’s option, you can buy a cheaper version using the Accessibility limitation (p. B110). This allows you to buy skills and equipment from your TL, but equipment has increased cost (p. B27) and high-TL skills suffer penalties when dealing with lower level equipment (p. B168). Please note that there is no -80% version of this limitation; for something that narrow, take the Cutting-Edge Training perk (GURPS Power-Ups 2: Perks, p. 16).
Special Limitation
Limited (Extensive): Your advantage only applies to an extensive area: Biotechnology & Medicine, Power, Transportation, or Weapons & Armor (see GURPS Campaigns, p. B512). -20%.
Limited (Broad): Your advantage applies to skills and equipment in one of the following fields: Agriculture, Armor, Arms, Biotechnology, Information Technology, Machinery, Material Science, Medicine, Power (Fission, Fusion, etc.), or Transportation (Air, Ground, or Water). -40%.
Limited (Large): Your advantage applies to an even narrower range than above: Computer, Genetic Engineering, Pharmacology, Airplanes, etc. -60%.
Picking Over The Bones
This trait sort of came about after I was running a game where two of the players sheets were over 150 skills and the bulk of them were simply “Smith/TL3 (A) IQ+3 [1]-15, Smith/TL4 (A) IQ+3 [1]-15, Smith/TL5 (A) IQ+3 [1]-15, Smith/TL6 (A) IQ+3 [1]-15, Smith/TL7 (A) IQ+3 [1]-15, Smith/TL8 (A) IQ+3 [1]-15, and Smith/TL9 (A) IQ+3 [1]-15” It made me batty. The sheet looked terrible, the players were spending extra points on things I didn’t think they needed to spend them on for the versality they’d need for the game. So I did some tinkering and came up with Tech-Genius.
Tech-Genius is effectively the Anachronistic Training technique from GURPS Infinite Worlds (p. 183) made into a wildcard technique (GURPS Monster Hunters Power-Ups 1,p. 5). You’ll notice it costs one more point than otherwise that build would indicate and that’s because playtest revealed that three points was too cheap. Four points is much more in line with what it gives you. One thing that is does that may not be obvious is that it works for both low TL penalties and high TL penalties, thus someone with Tech-Genius 5 and Machinist/TL8 could work just fine with TL9 tech or as low as TL5. And that works for a lot of games, both cinematic and realistic. There are people out there that are just better at dealing with a wide variety tools and methods.