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Kiero
2010-08-31, 07:40 PM
I know some people say something to the effect of "show me a character sheet, and I'll know if I like this game". Using the character sheet as a gauge of crunch, things that matter in the game and so on.

For me it's the skills list, assuming it's a game with them (and many do). See for me any list with more than 20 things on it is too long. I reflexively and instinctively need to pare down, merge and otherwise rationalise whatever is on that list until it is a neat 20 or less.

It's why D&D 3.x is just not even worth countenancing, far too many skills, far too granular and the accounting with points that goes with it, ugh. Compare and contrast to the lovely simplicity of D&D4e's list. Or the half-done, incomplete work of Star Wars Saga Edition (why are Climb, Jump and Swim still separate, and worse in a sci-fi setting where people don't generally bother with them anyway?).

FATE 3.0 incarnations invariably have 20-something (or in the case of Diaspora 37), but that's a game that makes it really easy to tinker with.

I was looking at Warrior, Rogue & Mage, and though it has less than 20, instead the issue was that about a third of the list was different weapon types, and there were no social skills. I like my lists at a minimum to cover combat, knowledge/vocational and social arenas. Being as simple a game as it is, that's a trivially simple fix though.

Or more recently Shadow, Sword and Spell, which has divisions that make little sense to me (and with 36 in total, there's lots of room for consolidation). Defend that's separate from Melee, Dodge that's separate from Acrobatics. It's bad enough separating Acrobatics from Athletics, but Dodge as well? And having weapon skill independent of being able to defend yourself with said weapons? Sense and Observe (like Search and Spot/Listen in 3.x)?

An interesting spin on skill is in the forthcoming Soft Horizon, which only has seven skills, and given the focus of the game it isn't an attempt at the usual "model stuff PCs normally try to do". Because by default the characters are planes-spanning exemplars. PCs have one that's defining, two that are good and three functional. The one they choose not to take is significant as well.

Another that's gotten my attention for brevity and elegance is Get Smart Now! a game of super-spies and espionage with only 10 skills. Each represents a core competence in the spy game, and PCs have five of them at varying levels.

For me, the list of skills tells me a lot about the designer's intent (like whether they think they're balancing certain types of characters by requiring several skills to do what ahouldn't really require multiple). They also give an idea of the scope of what they think should be possible under normal circumstances.

NotScaryBats
2010-08-31, 07:49 PM
I think that's an interesting idea, but why cap it at 20 when there are way more than 20 things a person is supposed to know?

By that I mean, look at World of Darkness. On the core character sheet for any given game are a variety of combat skills (melee, firearms, dodge, brawl) a variety of knowledge skills (repair, academics, occult) and a variety of social skills (manipulate, intimidate) that all account for greater than 20.

Does that make the game necessarily complicated? I don't think so. WoD is not very complicated, and just because a skill exists doesn't mean it comes into play every single game.

I like the variety of a bunch of skills to choose from.

Kiero
2010-08-31, 08:01 PM
I think that's an interesting idea, but why cap it at 20 when there are way more than 20 things a person is supposed to know?

By that I mean, look at World of Darkness. On the core character sheet for any given game are a variety of combat skills (melee, firearms, dodge, brawl) a variety of knowledge skills (repair, academics, occult) and a variety of social skills (manipulate, intimidate) that all account for greater than 20.

Does that make the game necessarily complicated? I don't think so. WoD is not very complicated, and just because a skill exists doesn't mean it comes into play every single game.

I like the variety of a bunch of skills to choose from.

Because if there's more than 20, chances are the developer doesn't really know what they want skills to represent. And have tried to go down to too great a level of detail in over-thinking it.

In your WoD analogy, why do I need a Dodge skill that's separate from Athletics or Acrobatics (I can't remember if the latter is one)? I could quite easily pare that list down to 20 and still have the things I think matter covered. Differentiation between characters is what matters, not as accurate a representation of all the things a person could as is possible.

There are whole swathes of things not important enough in any given premise to be represented, or simply not in the realm of things characters would be doing. I'm a big fan of tailoring skills lists for each and every game. Sure there'll be a core set that is probably fixed, but around that other things can be switched in or out at will.

Any list of more than 20 is too long for me. I like using generic Stunts in FATE because the massive lists in SotC, SBA, LoA and I believe DFRPG are simply too much. Needless to say the laundry lists of powers in many games are too long for my tastes, though that's one of the many reasons I won't play a mage.

Knaight
2010-08-31, 08:05 PM
I would at least consider varying the acceptable length for games that are and aren't skill based. D&D doesn't have all that many skills in any edition, but is still heavyish due to the amount of combat crunch (particularly 2e forward). Whereas Fate is almost entirely skill based, and can take a fair few more.

That said, for your list. Chronica Feudalis is skill based, and has exactly 20 skills. 4 categories: Combat, Parley, Subterfuge, and Chase. Chase being wilderness skills, ride, etc. as those rarely warrant rolls outside of a chase. 5 skills per category.

Kiero
2010-08-31, 08:22 PM
I would at least consider varying the acceptable length for games that are and aren't skill based. D&D doesn't have all that many skills in any edition, but is still heavyish due to the amount of combat crunch (particularly 2e forward). Whereas Fate is almost entirely skill based, and can take a fair few more.

Doesn't really make any difference for me, 20 is a hard limit. If you can't encapsulate the things that matter in that many, you're not trying hard enough.


That said, for your list. Chronica Feudalis is skill based, and has exactly 20 skills. 4 categories: Combat, Parley, Subterfuge, and Chase. Chase being wilderness skills, ride, etc. as those rarely warrant rolls outside of a chase. 5 skills per category.

That sounds pretty cool, I shall have to look into this game a little more.

Kiero
2010-08-31, 08:27 PM
Here's an apt example for me of just how much you can rationalise skills and still have meaningful distinction between characters. Get Smart Now! (http://getsmartnow.wikidot.com/) is a FATE-based game that has 10 (yes, ten!) skills:


The ten Training Fields are:

Access
Analysis
Combat
Conditioning
Fieldwork
Infiltration
Influence
Operations
Special Skills*
Systems


*Special Skills is a catch-all for anything that doesn't otherwise fit, so allows some flex if you've got something out there.

You pick five that your agent is trained in, ranking them +5 (exceptional) to +1 (average).

The Glyphstone
2010-08-31, 08:36 PM
That sounds like it'd work for a focused, themed game - by the looks of the list, all the characters in this game are spies/secret agents. With that, you can easily have a small skill list.

In a broad, more open-ended system like D&D or others,, systems where you're expected to have characters with wildly different skills sets, it's not so easy. Consolidate too far and you end up with people who by all rights are excellent in something they have no reason to be even competent in. NWoD with its 24 different skills has a little bit of this problem...someone with 4 dots in Science effectively has a college degree (though not a doctorate) in biology, geology, chemistry, quantum physics, nth-dimensional string theory, you name it. You could blend Brawl and Weaponry into "Melee", but if they consolidated, say, Science, Medicine, and Academics into "Education", then now the librarian, the biologist, and the neurosurgeon are all equally adept in each other's fields.

Knaight
2010-08-31, 08:48 PM
Doesn't really make any difference for me, 20 is a hard limit. If you can't encapsulate the things that matter in that many, you're not trying hard enough.

You can, but you lose detail. Take the Get Smart game, I've played it, it works pretty well, but it uses 10 skills just on different kinds of spies in an extremely pulp feeling game. More down to earth heroes have narrower competencies, and warrant more skills, a broader setting had more to be competent at, and warrants more skills. To use a much better fate based game than Get Smart, Blood Sweat and Steel has somewhere around 35 skills, because it covers sword and sorcery people, who are far more than just spies, and while they still have broad competencies, all 35ish feel natural and needed within the broader setting. You could trim them down to 20, and fairly easily at that, with a mere 4 for combat to begin with that can be cut to 2 easily enough, but a lot of detail is lost.

valadil
2010-08-31, 10:19 PM
How do you feel about weird or esoteric skills? Like in the Mage game I was in last weekend we had 30 some odd skills, but a few characters had some unique skills penciled in that were only available to their tradition. This seemed appropriate.

NotScaryBats
2010-09-01, 12:30 AM
How do you feel about weird or esoteric skills? Like in the Mage game I was in last weekend we had 30 some odd skills, but a few characters had some unique skills penciled in that were only available to their tradition. This seemed appropriate.

I agree. For example, a martial artist may have skill points in their martial arts style (depending of course on how the game is set up)
Using WoD again, you could have Kaliendo, Do, Fencing, Boxing, and a million others depending on your splat books.
I think rolling all that into [attack skill] is less fun and interesting.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2010-09-01, 12:42 AM
Can't you have a system with a small, sensible skill list but terrible mechanics otherwise? I agree that a needlessly bloated skill list is a bad sign, and that a good skill list is a good sign, but you could say the same about looking at any other central mechanic in a vacuum.

Kurald Galain
2010-09-01, 03:17 AM
For me it's the skills list, assuming it's a game with them (and many do). See for me any list with more than 20 things on it is too long.

That strikes me as arbitrary.

There are many games that have more skills but you'll see only a few of those on the char sheet. There are also many games that allow players to add a custom skill which is whatever they like. Some games have skill trees or specialty skills.

It really depends on what a game is doing with the skills. The Whitewolf list is very well thought out, and it's pretty hard to find something missing or redundant on there. For instance, there is a clear and obvious difference between Dodge and Athletics: the former is for combat, the latter is for sports. Thus you can make a combat character who is bad at sports, or a sports character who is bad at combat.

Conversely, the shorter 4E list has some issues, such as that many people use Acrobatics and Athletics interchangeably (they sound similar, and in most situations where you can use one, you can also think of some way to use the other instead). And occasionally people miss things like Performance on there.

It's never as simple as "1 - 20 skills = good, 21+ skills = bad".

Volthawk
2010-09-01, 03:36 AM
Thing is, some games may use attack skills, so one of your skills influences your accuracy/damage, while others may not.

The Rose Dragon
2010-09-01, 03:56 AM
Man, you must hate GURPS, since it has skills for everything. Trying to talk to your superiors to get a promotion? There is a skill for it. SCUBA diving? There is a skill for it. Field surgery? There is a skill for it. Surgery in a clean room? There is a skill for it. HALO jumps? There is a skill for it? HAHO jumps? OK, that one uses the same skill as HALO jumps, but you get the point. It has far more than 20 skills, and it actually works.

It's not really the number of skills, but how they interact with the rest of the game. You might not like complex games too much, but it doesn't make them bad games.

Saph
2010-09-01, 03:57 AM
Have to agree with Kurald and Knaight - your reasoning strikes me as pretty arbitrary. Having less skills means less differentiation between characters and tends to leave big gaping holes. This is fine if you're playing a very niche game, but it's not so good if you want something with more variety.

Psyx
2010-09-01, 04:43 AM
For me it's the skills list, assuming it's a game with them (and many do). See for me any list with more than 20 things on it is too long. I reflexively and instinctively need to pare down, merge and otherwise rationalise whatever is on that list until it is a neat 20 or less.

It's why D&D 3.x is just not even worth countenancing, far too many skills, far too granular and the accounting with points that goes with it, ugh. Compare and contrast to the lovely simplicity of D&D4e's list.



I'm utterly the opposite. I like 30-40 balanced skills. 4e is far too simplistic to me. I also find that a larger skill list can 'balance' skills better. Acrobatics is a great skill mechanically. So is Dodge (your reflex save). Separating them means that to get these two awesome skills requires twice as many points as buying -for example- the (relatively useless) 'Art' skill. Basically; the skill list can be used to balance skill points, so that there are fewer all-powerful 'no brainer' skills that everyone maxxes out.

When I see 'perception' and 'basketweaving' on the same skill list at the same points buy cost, it makes my skin crawl. Even worse: When 'melee' or 'firearms' are the same points cost as 'basketweaving'. If relatively useless background skills are the same price as combat skills, then everyone skimps on interesting background skills.


I like more detailed systems. Ideally, there should be sufficient scope that characters are all very different, even in -say- an 'all fighter' game. About a page of A4, fairly densely printed is what I look for, and I don't buy games with very sparse character sheets.

Kiero
2010-09-01, 05:01 AM
That sounds like it'd work for a focused, themed game - by the looks of the list, all the characters in this game are spies/secret agents. With that, you can easily have a small skill list.

In a broad, more open-ended system like D&D or others,, systems where you're expected to have characters with wildly different skills sets, it's not so easy. Consolidate too far and you end up with people who by all rights are excellent in something they have no reason to be even competent in. NWoD with its 24 different skills has a little bit of this problem...someone with 4 dots in Science effectively has a college degree (though not a doctorate) in biology, geology, chemistry, quantum physics, nth-dimensional string theory, you name it. You could blend Brawl and Weaponry into "Melee", but if they consolidated, say, Science, Medicine, and Academics into "Education", then now the librarian, the biologist, and the neurosurgeon are all equally adept in each other's fields.

I don't agree (on either point). I was looking at GSN! and thinking how apt it would be for Leverage (a TV show and now RPG of conmen and criminals) without any changes at all. It's got little to do with theme and more to do with the preferred focus of the people playing it. Do you want broadly capable characters, without sweating too much of the difference, or would you rather be splitting hairs about what they can and can't do with really detailed accounting of small differences?

There are other means of picking out specialisms without splurging on an overly-narrow list of skills. Having specialisms which boost a skill through a special ability of some sort, for example. If it really bothers you that people could be a generalist with loads of skills at an expert level, there can always be a cap on how high the usual general level goes with the skill system.

So Education might cap at 3 dots and you need to use some other resource to pick out your specialist area of knowledge to take it any higher.

Let's take your "Education" example. An easy one is using other parts of the system to pick out specialisms


You can, but you lose detail. Take the Get Smart game, I've played it, it works pretty well, but it uses 10 skills just on different kinds of spies in an extremely pulp feeling game. More down to earth heroes have narrower competencies, and warrant more skills, a broader setting had more to be competent at, and warrants more skills. To use a much better fate based game than Get Smart, Blood Sweat and Steel has somewhere around 35 skills, because it covers sword and sorcery people, who are far more than just spies, and while they still have broad competencies, all 35ish feel natural and needed within the broader setting. You could trim them down to 20, and fairly easily at that, with a mere 4 for combat to begin with that can be cut to 2 easily enough, but a lot of detail is lost.

And I say I'm not concerned about the lost detail. As above most of the "detail" just feels like pointless drains on character resources. You get systems where building things that are actually not that difficult in real life make it hard or impossible to get rounded characters.

Games that separate physical aptitudes into all their constituent parts for example. Try making a traceur in one of those if you've got climb, jump, run, acrobatics and endurance, say, as skills.


How do you feel about weird or esoteric skills? Like in the Mage game I was in last weekend we had 30 some odd skills, but a few characters had some unique skills penciled in that were only available to their tradition. This seemed appropriate.

One Skill for the esoteric, customised by the player. What I don't like are esoteric skills that are "over-skills" (same as a collection of other skills, does them all at once) or worse those that are the same as another, but with different fluff.

Even then, I prefer the estoeric skill for unusual things that are outside the scope of the game, and use other parts of the system for "this is skill X but with some really unusual applications".


I agree. For example, a martial artist may have skill points in their martial arts style (depending of course on how the game is set up)
Using WoD again, you could have Kaliendo, Do, Fencing, Boxing, and a million others depending on your splat books.
I think rolling all that into [attack skill] is less fun and interesting.

Do is a classic example of an over-skill. Bad design, IMO, use the regular skills to represent martial arts ability, then other parts of the system for the unusual stuff that's attached to it.


Can't you have a system with a small, sensible skill list but terrible mechanics otherwise? I agree that a needlessly bloated skill list is a bad sign, and that a good skill list is a good sign, but you could say the same about looking at any other central mechanic in a vacuum.

I've rarely seen a system with a sensible list of skills that doesn't also align to my tastes in other respects. In particular those with bloated skill lists are often bloated elsewhere.


That strikes me as arbitrary.

Course it's arbitrary, all preferences are ultimately arbitrary. You might have a collection of reasoned points as to why you prefer random chargen to point buy, but the ultimate summation of why one set of justifications weighs heavier than the other is arbitrary.


There are many games that have more skills but you'll see only a few of those on the char sheet. There are also many games that allow players to add a custom skill which is whatever they like. Some games have skill trees or specialty skills.

How many you see on the sheet is less important to me than the choices a player has to make in creating a character.

Adding lots of custom skills or fragmenting into trees is the opposite of what I'd like to see in a skill system. As above, I think there are ways to do that without layering on complexity.


It really depends on what a game is doing with the skills. The Whitewolf list is very well thought out, and it's pretty hard to find something missing or redundant on there. For instance, there is a clear and obvious difference between Dodge and Athletics: the former is for combat, the latter is for sports. Thus you can make a combat character who is bad at sports, or a sports character who is bad at combat.

I don't think WW's list is well thought out. That split doesn't make any sense. Athletics isn't a measure of "sports" it's supposed to be general physical conditioning and aptitude. The idea of someone who isn't well-conditioned, yet is so well co-ordinated they can dodge blows is faintly ridiculous (but aren't otherwise agile or fit).

Either you split all the agility-related parts of physical conditioning into a general acrobatics type skill (covering all sorts of balance, tumbling and so on - which would include dodge), or you leave them together in one general athletics skill. But picking out one specific application for a skill in its own right is sloppy design, IMO. Which also allows unrealistic characters.


Conversely, the shorter 4E list has some issues, such as that many people use Acrobatics and Athletics interchangeably (they sound similar, and in most situations where you can use one, you can also think of some way to use the other instead). And occasionally people miss things like Performance on there.

It's never as simple as "1 - 20 skills = good, 21+ skills = bad".

They might sound similar, but they're quite obviously different in their applications. The ability scores they key off should be enough of a signal to anyone reading it. That people don't know how to apply them (or don't understand the difference between co-ordination and strength) doesn't make it a bad split.


Man, you must hate GURPS, since it has skills for everything. Trying to talk to your superiors to get a promotion? There is a skill for it. SCUBA diving? There is a skill for it. Field surgery? There is a skill for it. Surgery in a clean room? There is a skill for it. HALO jumps? There is a skill for it? HAHO jumps? OK, that one uses the same skill as HALO jumps, but you get the point. It has far more than 20 skills, and it actually works.

Yes I loathe GURPS, it's a classic example of skills-bloat. But that's part of the general list compulsion that defines the game.


It's not really the number of skills, but how they interact with the rest of the game. You might not like complex games too much, but it doesn't make them bad games.

The number of skills (and their level of granularity) define how they interact with the rest of the game. You can't separate one from the other, and if someone has applied the list mentality to skills, chances are they've done the same elsewhere. GURPS is a case in point. Laundry lists of skills, laundry lists of Advantages and Disadvantages, and so on.


Have to agree with Kurald and Knaight - your reasoning strikes me as pretty arbitrary. Having less skills means less differentiation between characters and tends to leave big gaping holes. This is fine if you're playing a very niche game, but it's not so good if you want something with more variety.

Less differentiation between characters, yes, but often enough differentiation. Holes, rarely since with a greater level of abstraction there are less likely to be gaps for things you didn't consider.


I'm utterly the opposite. I like 30-40 balanced skills. 4e is far too simplistic to me. I also find that a larger skill list can 'balance' skills better. Acrobatics is a great skill mechanically. So is Dodge (your reflex save). Separating them means that to get these two awesome skills requires twice as many points as buying -for example- the (relatively useless) 'Art' skill. Basically; the skill list can be used to balance skill points, so that there are fewer all-powerful 'no brainer' skills that everyone maxxes out.

"Useless" skills should either not be on the list (perhaps added at the player's option as a wildcard/esoteric skill) or folded into another skill. Each one should be of equal value and worth in the game.

As above, Dodge and Acrobatics as separate skills are just a skills tax. Furthermore, if something is a "no brainer" that everyone maxes out, then perhaps everyone should automatically get that skill maxed so we can focus on the ways a character is different.

For example in a game of The Matrix, everyone is good at combat, they download all the styles in their initial training. So differentiating between the technical abilities of the characters in this respect is kind of pointless. Sure, tell us which styles they prefer to use and how they personalise it, but don't have varying levels of ability, and don't waste character resources that could have been spent on things that define the character.


When I see 'perception' and 'basketweaving' on the same skill list at the same points buy cost, it makes my skin crawl. Even worse: When 'melee' or 'firearms' are the same points cost as 'basketweaving'. If relatively useless background skills are the same price as combat skills, then everyone skimps on interesting background skills.

Ugh, varying costs for skills. Another pet hate of mine. As before, make all skills of equal weight and do away with the complication. "Basketweaving" shouldn't even be on the same list as "perception", "melee" or "firearms", it's at a different level of abstraction. Far too granular a skill. "Craft" would be more appropriate.

Interesting background skills should be folded into broader skills, and if necessary specialisms picked out by other parts of the system. So your basketweaver has a high level of general crafts skill, but excels in basketweaving (via a special ability or the like).


I like more detailed systems. Ideally, there should be sufficient scope that characters are all very different, even in -say- an 'all fighter' game. About a page of A4, fairly densely printed is what I look for, and I don't buy games with very sparse character sheets.

You can still manage that with a smaller list of skills, not least because there are other parts to the system as well. And ultimately, you don't need that many points of differentiation to manage to make four to six PCs different.

Lord_Gareth
2010-09-01, 05:04 AM
In defense of White Wolf, their nWoD line has a much more condensed (and yet still varied and flavorful) skill system that cut out a lot of the extraneous skills or converted them to attribute tasks, then added in specialties for added fun at half the complexity.

*Loves nWoD*

Saph
2010-09-01, 05:12 AM
Less differentiation between character, yes, but often enough differentiation.

According to who? I like characters who are supposed to be different to actually be different. It's the reason I find Wushu so dull - gamewise, every character is pretty much identical to each other.

Trying to make everything simpler is not invariably a good thing. 4e is a good example - yes, the skill system is simpler, and after trying it for a while, our group stopped playing it and went back to Pathfinder and 3.5. Why? Because simplicity isn't everything.

Morph Bark
2010-09-01, 05:21 AM
What if a game would be entirely skill-based with a skill list of over 20? Where combat is skill-based, magic (if even existing) is skill-based, etcetera? I'd say that would be a simple enough game to play and would perfectly justify a longer skill list.

Connington
2010-09-01, 05:37 AM
So basically, you dislike granularity in your RPGS, and prefer rules-light systems. More power to you.

Personally, I love granularity. From my perspective, the devil is in the details. It encourages a degree of specializations (which is a good thing in RPG groups), and clearly defines what you can and can't do.

I think another aspect of this is that I like my fluff to match my crunch in games. I think that's a huge mental gap. To some people, a character sheet is mostly divorced from the character it represents. My cold-blooded sniper and your sneaky pistol ninja are basically the same on character, with points in Gun and Hide. Leaving aside the personalties of the characters, they both have very different ways of doing things, that get lost in a low-resolution game.

Alternatively, you can have sheets that match up very well with the modus operandi of the character. You can study a character's sheet, and tell that even though they're both infiltrator conmen, they operate in completely different ways. One does elaborate acting, disguises and forgery to get anywhere given enough time, while the other coasts on his natural charm and lying ability to get in far quicker, but can't get everywhere. To some people, that difference may be inconsequential, but I personally find it satisfying.

Keep in mind, none of this has to do with personality or role-playing ability. An ultra rules lite system can support characters just as deep and awesome as a rules heavy one. Using a rules-light system isn't being lazy, and using a rules-heavy system isn't being a slave to the sheet. Just a matter of tast

Psyx
2010-09-01, 05:42 AM
In defense of White Wolf, their nWoD line has a much more condensed (and yet still varied and flavorful) skill system that cut out a lot of the extraneous skills or converted them to attribute tasks, then added in specialties for added fun at half the complexity.


NWoD has pretty much the right number of skills, although I'm not convinced that they have been overly well balanced, in the desperation to keep physical/mental/social skill lists of the same length.



As above, Dodge and Acrobatics as separate skills are just a skills tax.


Yes. It is. Good: Because not only are they totally different skills (I fail to see how walking a tightrope and doing a handstand help you judge the speed and timing of an attack enough to lean back 6 inches to avoid it), but because they need to be balanced with other skills.



Furthermore, if something is a "no brainer" that everyone maxes out, then perhaps everyone should automatically get that skill maxed so we can focus on the ways a character is different.


Or perhaps we should look at the mechanics and fix them.



Ugh, varying costs for skills. Another pet hate of mine. As before, make all skills of equal weight and do away with the complication.


That's what I said. That's why 'acrobatics' and 'dodge' are split up and 'craft' is a wider encompassing skill in sensible systems. We were talking about reactions on looking at character sheets. When I see 'Dodge/Acrobatics' on the same list as 'basketweaving', I cringe.



Interesting background skills should be folded into broader skills...


For my homebrew, I have about 30 non-combat skills which I define as 'worth rolling dice for': Notice, Acrobatics, Dodge, Intrigue, Etiquette, Generalship et cetera. Combat skills have different granularity and different cost to non-combat skills. Everything else 'stuff not worth rolling dice for' is a variable-cost talent and a flat XP buy to just do it. That's everything from craft skills (I don't have a 'craft' skill. Instead you buy 'carpentry', 'mason' or whatever) through to 'dance: courtly', 'sing', 'forester' and 'siege engineering'.

Zeta Kai
2010-09-01, 05:44 AM
Yeah, I have to agree that the OP's point is arbitrarily restrictive, & also ignores the fact that different games operate is different ways. Sure, you can pare down D&D 3.x skills to a great degree, combining skills until you get below 20; in my houserules, I've done exactly that, cutting the list down from 36 to 18. But then there's attacks, saving throws, defense, magic, et cetera. D&D 4.x doesn't consider those things to be skills, but other games do.

GURPS & WoD have even larger lists, which are more inclusive of things that D&D doesn't consider skills, so those lists are harder to pare down. That doesn't make them bad games, it just makes them different. They may not suit your tastes, but if your tastes are so blindly binary, then it is difficult to see what the point of your restrictions are. If you're going to be arbitrary, then you might as well not like books that were published in odd months, or games that have core rulebooks with more than 300 pages (299 is fine, but more is a bore).

In the game system that I am currently developing, there are 36 skills, with the option to switch some out for others (Ride for fantasy, Drive for modern). But this list includes 4 offensive skills (melee, unarmed, shooting, & throwing), 4 defensive skills (dodging, fortitude, magic resisting, & willpower), 4 magic skills (enchanting, invoking, morphing, & prophecy), in addition to more traditional skills like acrobatics, stealth, & deception. It's a big list, but it would be hard to cull or combine things without throwing balance out the window. It works for me, & while it may not work for you, it wasn't made according to a number picked out of a hat at random.

Kurald Galain
2010-09-01, 06:18 AM
Adding lots of custom skills or fragmenting into trees is the opposite of what I'd like to see in a skill system. As above, I think there are ways to do that without layering on complexity.
It doesn't have to be complexity. For instance, systems like On The Edge or Risus or even a simplified Paranoia ask you to write down three to five skills that can be whatever you like. There's literally hundreds of skills and no complexity.



Athletics isn't a measure of "sports" it's supposed to be general physical conditioning and aptitude.
No, it is not: that would be their Dexterity and Stamina attributes.

It is simply false that being good at running makes you good at evading gunfire. They are related in that a character with high Dexterity is reasonably good at both. That's why it's (usually) Dex + Athletics and Dex + Dodge.


The idea of someone who isn't well-conditioned, yet is so well co-ordinated they can dodge blows is faintly ridiculous (but aren't otherwise agile or fit).
Any system can be used to create combinations that don't make sense. For instance, characters with olympic-level strength and paraplegic-level endurance (e.g. Str 20, Con 5 in D&D) don't make sense either, yet are clearly allowed. That such an exaggeration exists doesn't mean the system as a whole is bad.


That people don't know how to apply them (or don't understand the difference between co-ordination and strength) doesn't make it a bad split.
Actually, it does: if people are often confused by the rules, then they are bad rules. In real life, being dextrous helps a lot in climbing a wall, so it is not unreasonable for a player to ask to use Acrobatics for climbing when by RAW it should be athletics. It is also not uncommon for a DM to grant this.

In fact, the only reason Athletics is based on strength in the first place (and likewise, Climb/Jump in 3E) is because otherwise there wouldn't be any skills related to strength. It's purely a game balance decision; in real life, a nimble weakling (Dex 18, Str 10) is going to be better at both climbing and jumping than a sumo wrestler (Str 18, Dex 10).

So yeah, there's redundancy here. There are other redundancies, such as the obvious overlap between Bluff and Diplomacy (it's silly to make the distinction simply "if your char lies, use bluff; if it's the truth, use diplo"), or the overlap between History and Religion.

So just like how adding more skills doesn't necessarily make the game more complex, neither does using less skills automatically result in less redundancy.

Knaight
2010-09-01, 06:26 AM
You can still manage that with a smaller list of skills, not least because there are other parts to the system as well. And ultimately, you don't need that many points of differentiation to manage to make four to six PCs different.
No, but you need enough points of differentiation for however many characters they bring up. To use your Get Smart example, sure, you applied it to Leverage, which is an incredibly similar genre. Furthermore, how many other parts of the system there are varies highly. Take Fate, attributes are rolled into the skill list, so while D&D is let slide with 20 skills plus 6 attributes, Fate with the D&D attributes would be arbitrarily restricted to 14 skills, according to your system. Granted, you usually see something more like Brawn, Brains, Guts, than the standard SDCIWC system, but it still eats into your skill list. Stunts help this rather dramatically, but in the simplest Aspect-Skill system they don't. For a D&D styled game, you would want the 6 attributes as skills, and the 9ish spell schools as skills, leaving only 5 more under the arbitrary cap, before condensing. Again, skill based systems are taxed.

bokodasu
2010-09-01, 06:41 AM
You'd have loved the homebrew Fudge system we were using for one-shots for awhile: there were four skills, plus magic which cost twice as many points. (Well, ok, you wouldn't have liked that part but keep with me here.) You got three points to put into skills, plus a fourth point that you put into a write-in skill.

So you could have a point of magic, a point of smart, and a point of typesetting, if you wanted. Or two points of fighting, a point of sneaky, and a point of sharp-dressing. Whatever. For superhero themed games, you got five points.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I still use it to introduce people to rpgs. I definitely get the frustration with skillbloat. But I also like GURPS, because it works in the opposite direction: our game was almost entirely conceptual - you had an idea and you played it and the rules stayed out of the way for the most part. GURPS you can shut your eyes and open the book in four random places and then come up with a really fun justification for putting them all in the same character. It just depends which direction you want to start from. (And both have their drawbacks. My 7-year-old has played both systems, and she found the first a little paralyzing with all the open-endedness, and the second too hard to pay attention to all the rules.)

Kiero
2010-09-01, 07:57 AM
What if a game would be entirely skill-based with a skill list of over 20? Where combat is skill-based, magic (if even existing) is skill-based, etcetera? I'd say that would be a simple enough game to play and would perfectly justify a longer skill list.

FATE is entirely skill-based. I almost always hack it so that there are less than or equal to 20 Skills. Including magic (which IMO only merits one Skill).

For example, this was the Skills list for my FATE/Malazan hack (http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Malazan_FATE):


Skills [original LoA Skills]
Athletics [Athletics]
Craft [Art and Artificer]
Deception [Deceit, Gambling, Rapport]
Empathy [Empathy]
Gather Information [Contacting and Investigation]
Healer [Science]
Lore [Academics and Art]
Melee Weapons [Melee Weapons]
Perception [Alertness and Investigation]
Persuasion [Intimidation and Leadership]
Physicality [Endurance and Might]
Ranged Weapons [Ranged Weapons]
Resolve [Resolve]
Resources [Resources]*
Riding [Drive, Pilot, Survival]
Science [Engineering and Science]
Sorcery [Mysteries]
Stealth [Stealth]
Survival [Survival]
Thievery [Burglary, Gambling, Sleight of Hand]
Unarmed Combat [Fists]

*Campaign-specific, remove in some campaigns, keep in others.

I condensed down twenty-something regular Skills, plus about twelve Power Skills (one for each type of magic) into 20.


Yes. It is. Good: Because not only are they totally different skills (I fail to see how walking a tightrope and doing a handstand help you judge the speed and timing of an attack enough to lean back 6 inches to avoid it), but because they need to be balanced with other skills.

They're both general body co-ordination with some practise. You're seriously going to tell me a trained gymnast or tumbler isn't also going to be good at dodging?

There's two places your "dodge" skill would come from. Training of combat skills (in which case it's covered by that combat skill) or acrobatics training (in which case it comes from that). It doesn't merit a separate skill in its own right, you don't learn dodging outside of combat skills or sports.


Or perhaps we should look at the mechanics and fix them.

Yes, which is why that skill vanishes. IMO that is a fix.


That's what I said. That's why 'acrobatics' and 'dodge' are split up and 'craft' is a wider encompassing skill in sensible systems. We were talking about reactions on looking at character sheets. When I see 'Dodge/Acrobatics' on the same list as 'basketweaving', I cringe.

I agree with the problem of over-specific basketweaving, but not splitting out dodge and acrobatics.


Yeah, I have to agree that the OP's point is arbitrarily restrictive, & also ignores the fact that different games operate is different ways. Sure, you can pare down D&D 3.x skills to a great degree, combining skills until you get below 20; in my houserules, I've done exactly that, cutting the list down from 36 to 18. But then there's attacks, saving throws, defense, magic, et cetera. D&D 4.x doesn't consider those things to be skills, but other games do.

GURPS & WoD have even larger lists, which are more inclusive of things that D&D doesn't consider skills, so those lists are harder to pare down. That doesn't make them bad games, it just makes them different. They may not suit your tastes, but if your tastes are so blindly binary, then it is difficult to see what the point of your restrictions are. If you're going to be arbitrary, then you might as well not like books that were published in odd months, or games that have core rulebooks with more than 300 pages (299 is fine, but more is a bore).

It encompasses the fact that there are games I like, and games I don't. As I said, the skills list tells me a lot about whether or not it'll be a game I like.

And no, all forms of arbitrary are not created equal. Just because the ultimate root of a preference is arbitrary, doesn't mean any form of arbitrariness has equal meaning.

I have other preferences, like not buying into systems that can't fit everything I need to play into a single (not huge) corebook. I play 4e, but I haven't bought a single thing, and wouldn't run it.


In the game system that I am currently developing, there are 36 skills, with the option to switch some out for others (Ride for fantasy, Drive for modern). But this list includes 4 offensive skills (melee, unarmed, shooting, & throwing), 4 defensive skills (dodging, fortitude, magic resisting, & willpower), 4 magic skills (enchanting, invoking, morphing, & prophecy), in addition to more traditional skills like acrobatics, stealth, & deception. It's a big list, but it would be hard to cull or combine things without throwing balance out the window. It works for me, & while it may not work for you, it wasn't made according to a number picked out of a hat at random.

Why is dodge separate from combat skills? Why do you need magic-resisting and willpower? Seems just like WoD you've gone too far in trying to preserve a particular aesthetic (four of each type) and so padded them out with skills that aren't really necessary.


It doesn't have to be complexity. For instance, systems like On The Edge or Risus or even a simplified Paranoia ask you to write down three to five skills that can be whatever you like. There's literally hundreds of skills and no complexity.

Except then you get the "no consistency" issue in place of no complexity. Instead of the designer making a decision about what matters, they leave it up to the group to work it out each time. So the GM can be vigilant in making sure skills are of equal breadth at the start, or potentially suffer interminably arguments during the game about whether "Pistol Marksman" should be better than "Gunbunny" because it's more specific.


No, it is not: that would be their Dexterity and Stamina attributes.

They're potentials or talents, not training. Course this is precisely why I don't much like attributes, they're like spare wheels or relics of older design.


It is simply false that being good at running makes you good at evading gunfire. They are related in that a character with high Dexterity is reasonably good at both. That's why it's (usually) Dex + Athletics and Dex + Dodge.

That's assuming the system has folded acrobatics into athletics. In which case it's an abstraction as most things in the game are.


Any system can be used to create combinations that don't make sense. For instance, characters with olympic-level strength and paraplegic-level endurance (e.g. Str 20, Con 5 in D&D) don't make sense either, yet are clearly allowed. That such an exaggeration exists doesn't mean the system as a whole is bad.

Actually it does. Again that's why I prefer a greater level of abstraction, corner cases and absurdities are much rarer. As is min-maxing that tends to go with exploiting those corner cases.


Actually, it does: if people are often confused by the rules, then they are bad rules. In real life, being dextrous helps a lot in climbing a wall, so it is not unreasonable for a player to ask to use Acrobatics for climbing when by RAW it should be athletics. It is also not uncommon for a DM to grant this.

They're badly explained rules, but then that's not surprising given how badly written the 4e PHB is.

Being dextrous is only good for vaulting small walls. Climbing big ones is almost entirely about strength (and where you put your feet). Agility is useful for landing correctly if you fall off, though. Vaulting a small wall, Acrobatics. Climbing a big one, Athletics (or possibly even getting into Endurance if it's a mammoth climb).


In fact, the only reason Athletics is based on strength in the first place (and likewise, Climb/Jump in 3E) is because otherwise there wouldn't be any skills related to strength. It's purely a game balance decision; in real life, a nimble weakling (Dex 18, Str 10) is going to be better at both climbing and jumping than a sumo wrestler (Str 18, Dex 10).

So yeah, there's redundancy here. There are other redundancies, such as the obvious overlap between Bluff and Diplomacy (it's silly to make the distinction simply "if your char lies, use bluff; if it's the truth, use diplo"), or the overlap between History and Religion.

It's a split because they're using different general capabilities. Look at specialists in their sporting fields. A gymnast isn't built like a swimmer, who isn't built like a climber, who isn't built like a sprinter, who isn't built like a marathon runner.

There is redundancy in 4e's list, I don't consider it perfect by any means. It's passable, but I'd be hacking it right away were I to run it, rather than play.


So just like how adding more skills doesn't necessarily make the game more complex, neither does using less skills automatically result in less redundancy.

It necessarily makes the game more complex if those you are adding are concrete and fixed. A game with 10 fixed skills is automatically less complex, all other things being equal, than one with 20 fixed skills.


No, but you need enough points of differentiation for however many characters they bring up. To use your Get Smart example, sure, you applied it to Leverage, which is an incredibly similar genre. Furthermore, how many other parts of the system there are varies highly. Take Fate, attributes are rolled into the skill list, so while D&D is let slide with 20 skills plus 6 attributes, Fate with the D&D attributes would be arbitrarily restricted to 14 skills, according to your system. Granted, you usually see something more like Brawn, Brains, Guts, than the standard SDCIWC system, but it still eats into your skill list. Stunts help this rather dramatically, but in the simplest Aspect-Skill system they don't. For a D&D styled game, you would want the 6 attributes as skills, and the 9ish spell schools as skills, leaving only 5 more under the arbitrary cap, before condensing. Again, skill based systems are taxed.

Actually I did FATE with D20-style attributes folded in (in a Saga Edition-styled hack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103051)), and it didn't need six Skills for the attributes (or saves). I mapped everything across to what it was in the hack, and had a skill list thus:



There are 20 Skills and they are as follows (Saga Edition terms) [SotC terms]:

Athletics (Athletics and Acrobatics; Reflex Defense/Dexterity) [Athletics]
Close Combat (Melee BAB) [Fists and Weapons]
Deception (Deception/Charisma) [Deceit, Gambling, Rapport]
Empathy (Perception/Wisdom) [Empathy]
Endurance (Endurance; Fortitude Defense/Constitution) [Endurance]
Gather Information (Gather Information) [Contacting]
Knowledge* (Knowledge/Intelligence) [Academics, Art and Science]
Mechanics (Mechanics) [Engineering]
Might (Strength) [Might]
Perception (Initiative and Perception/Wisdom) [Alertness and Investigation]
Persuasion (Persuasion/Charisma)
Pilot (Pilot) [Drive and Pilot]
Ranged Combat (Ranged BAB) [Guns]
Resolve (Will Defense/Wisdom) [Resolve]
Resources (-) [Resources]
Stealth (Stealth) [Burglary, Stealth, Sleight of Hand]
Survival (Ride and Survival) [Survival]
Treat Injury (Treat Injury] (Science)
Use Computer (Use Computer) [Academics/Engineering/Science]
Use the Force (Use the Force) [Mysteries]

*Specialisms in the Knowledge skill are represented with Stunts. Some of the specialisms are as follows: Bureaucracy, Galactic Lore, Life Sciences, Linguistics, Physical Sciences, Social Sciences, Tactics, Technology. Each of these specialist Stunts gives a +2 to the Knowledge Skill when dealing with that particular area.

Languages are handled thus. Every character gets their native tongues, plus Basic for free. Then each level of Knowledge gives you that many languages in addition. Average gives you one more. Fair gives you another two (on top of the one from Average) and so on.



You'd have loved the homebrew Fudge system we were using for one-shots for awhile: there were four skills, plus magic which cost twice as many points. (Well, ok, you wouldn't have liked that part but keep with me here.) You got three points to put into skills, plus a fourth point that you put into a write-in skill.

So you could have a point of magic, a point of smart, and a point of typesetting, if you wanted. Or two points of fighting, a point of sneaky, and a point of sharp-dressing. Whatever. For superhero themed games, you got [I]five points.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I still use it to introduce people to rpgs. I definitely get the frustration with skillbloat. But I also like GURPS, because it works in the opposite direction: our game was almost entirely conceptual - you had an idea and you played it and the rules stayed out of the way for the most part. GURPS you can shut your eyes and open the book in four random places and then come up with a really fun justification for putting them all in the same character. It just depends which direction you want to start from. (And both have their drawbacks. My 7-year-old has played both systems, and she found the first a little paralyzing with all the open-endedness, and the second too hard to pay attention to all the rules.)

It's not simply about the fewer the better, it's about the right number. Which for me lies somewhere between 7ish and 20.

Knaight
2010-09-01, 08:04 AM
For example, this was the Skills list for my FATE/Malazan hack (http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Malazan_FATE)

Sure, but it has some odd links that shouldn't be. Academics and Art for instance, and Rapport makes little to no sense under Deception. Similarly Contacting and Investigation are totally different, a more forensic based character probably shouldn't have much in the way of contacting by default, it works with the archetype of the private detective, but much else is lost to generalities. And there are 21 skills including resources already.

Kiero
2010-09-01, 08:34 AM
Sure, but it has some odd links that shouldn't be. Academics and Art for instance,

The knowledge aspects of Art (recognising works, evaluating them, knowing about the artist, etc) are in with Lore. You'll note the practical parts of it (painting, sculpting, sketching, etc) are folded into Crafts.


and Rapport makes little to no sense under Deception.

Deception is the catch-all interpersonal "soft" Skill. Rapport is just as much a part of that as Deception is. Doesn't make a lot of sense being able to manipulate people without knowing how to make them like you.

As opposed to Persuasion which is the harder one for impressing, intimidating and so on.


Similarly Contacting and Investigation are totally different, a more forensic based character probably shouldn't have much in the way of contacting by default, it works with the archetype of the private detective, but much else is lost to generalities.

No, but for the focus of the game the differences are entirely in how the player chooses to describe those applications of Gather Information. Do they do it by reaching out to people, or hitting the books?

More pertinently, a private detective is a rather modern phenomenon (though I'm sure you might have had troubleshooter/investigator type analogues), MBotF is a fantasy setting.


And there are 21 skills including resources already.

Resources is optional and a hold-over from other incarnations of FATE. I'm not a fan of it (I prefer other means to handling wealth that treating it as a Skill), but I left it in if people wanted to use it.

Duke of URL
2010-09-01, 09:14 AM
I take the opposite tack, actually. I like the wide diversity of skills -- Hide and Move Silently as separate skills makes more sense than rolling them into "Stealth" -- someone can be good at one but not the other, for a variety of reasons. Climb, Jump, and Swim are distinct enough to not be lumped as "Athletics" -- being a good climber doesn't make you a great swimmer, and vice-versa, and so on. I think it adds a richness to the game to be able to specialize in specific skills without having to over-generalize.

I agree that there are probably places where useless or redundant skills can be trimmed (e.g., in 3.5 I can make the argument that Spellcraft should be replaced by Knowledge (arcana, nature, and religion) for the various sources of spells).

The problems associated with a wide variety of skills are that 1) skill points being a finite resource, it costs a lot to be good at a set of related, but distinct skills, which prevents improvement in other skills, and 2) there are really two types of skills: combat skills and non-combat skills [with some applying to both]; most players will naturally choose to focus on those skills that make them better combatants (except for characters specifically designed for social encounters), meaning a large subset of skills simply never get chosen because they're suboptimal.

On point #1, if you have a large number of skills and the only way to advance them is by skill points, then characters are either going to be really, really good at a small subset of them and horrible at everything else or they are going to be mediocre at a wider set. The solution here is to either compress the skills list (which I disapprove of) or to allow skills to advance even without skill point investment. The latter approach I think has a lot of merit as it allows for a diverse skill system that isn't crippled by limited skill points, and in fact, I developed such a system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81778) in the homebrew forum, which has been included in Boundless Horizons (the "variant" form listed, that is).

On point #2, it can make good sense to split the skills list into those useful for combat, and those that aren't, and offer separate pools of points to improve them. This leads to a rich skill set, but less prone to players ignoring "flavor" skills in favor of "mechanical" skills, as they get to advance both without affecting each other. (This is the tack taken in Wayward Chronicles, another Victorious Press system in development.)

Volthawk
2010-09-01, 09:16 AM
It's only really a problem for me when you have lots of skills, but not enough points to put in them.

Britter
2010-09-01, 09:54 AM
I am currently enamoured with the Mouse Guard skill system. It weighs in at about 32 skills, which is a bit more than the OPs desired limit, and most of those skills are in some way profession related. However, the nature of the game engine makes it so that skills have a fairly broad ability to be used in in-game conflicts, and they are not defined narowly. As an example, the Apiarist skill might allow you to harvest honey from a hive in the wild, or capture and raise bees, or manage a domesticated hive, or fight of an attack by an angry swarm, or use a hive to distract and drive off a bear, or make candles from wax, or etc.

It would be possible to reduce the skill list, if so desired, and I don't think it would harm the game overly much. I find Mouse Guard to be very hackable.

I have never been happy with the implementation of a skill system in DnD, regardless of edition, because the skills have very limited definitions, do incredibly specific things, and are very constraining in both character building and play, in my opinion. And regardless of which system, it never felt like you had enough skill points or proficency slots to make a character that was competent at his field and still able to function at a normal level in the areas of listening, spotting things, and the like.

I did like the way skill points were allocated in Shadowrun 3e, with a seperate pools for active skills (assigned based on your priorities at character creations), and pools fo knowledge and language skills (based on your characters intellignece stat). I felt that this system allowed a player to flesh out their character with a pretty realistic degree of knowledge and ability. The downside was that in the game system, these knowledge skills were not really worth anything, and you often had a sheet full of skills you would rarely, if ever, use. Like most problems, a good DM could alleviate this, but it still bothered me that my players had all these flavorful skills that said so much about their character, and were so difficult to introduce into play.

I think that the implementation of a skill system is maybe more important than the list of skills. Most games I have played use skills in a reactive manner, where the GM puts a challenge out there and the players ask what skill they need to roll to overcome it. The Burning Wheel system, Mouse Guard, and some other independent games seem to advocate a more proactive use of skills, allowing the player to describe how the skill they have can help them over come a challenge, or using knowledge skills to share authorship with the GM. As an example, the Burning Wheel "Wises" work this way, allowing a player to flesh out a detail of the world related to their area of knowledge, with sucsess giving the player what they want and failure introducing a complication. For instance, a player could have his character test the "Knightly Orders Wise" skill to tell the GM that there is an order of knights in the area known to house weary travelers. Sucsess allows the player to write that aspect of the game world into existence, at which point the GM can use it for plot hooks or what not but the fact that the knights house weary travelers is locked in. Failure, on the other hand, might reveal that the knights do take in weary travelers...who never are seen again because the knights are actually cannibals or some such. The players would then end up having to escape from these knights if they choose to lodge with them, or the GM could use this new fact to work into the game in a relevant way.

I much prefer a skill system with that degree of flexibility, because I feel it really opens up the possibilities for the game. But ymmv, naturally.

Psyx
2010-09-01, 10:02 AM
h general body co-ordination with some practise. You're seriously going to tell me a trained gymnast or tumbler isn't also going to be good at dodging?

Only because he has a good dexterity/agility. The two skills have nothing much to do with each other. I have yet to see somersaults successfully used in a street fight. I have yet to see a punch avoided by anything more complex than ducking or leaning at the right time, which anyone can do, physically. Flexibility and range of movement don't come into it either. Being able to accurately judge how far someone can reach with a bit of metal in his hands is what you need, but Acrobats don't really focus on that... In fact, acrobats don't actually train to dodge anything ever, as far as I can see.
The fights outside your local bars may differ, or you may be basing things on fictitious kung fu films.



It's a split because they're using different general capabilities. Look at specialists in their sporting fields. A gymnast isn't built like a swimmer, who isn't built like a climber, who isn't built like a sprinter, who isn't built like a marathon runner.


Exactly the case with Dodge and Acrobatics. Dodging stuff is not at all about flexibility, agility and limberness. It's about perception and timing. which is why it's worth having as a separate skill. From a balance perspective, if these were 'weak' skills, I'd roll them into one perhaps out of generosity. However; they are both individually rather powerful skills... although not as powerful as 'magic' or 'combat', as seen in some systems, listed next to 'swimming' and 'gambling'.

Psyx
2010-09-01, 10:10 AM
I have never been happy with the implementation of a skill system in DnD, regardless of edition, because the skills have very limited definitions, do incredibly specific things, and are very constraining in both character building and play, in my opinion.


My problem is mainly with the resolution system being idiotic, rather than the skills.
However, the skills are too narrowly defined in some places, while completely lacking in other areas. And this sometimes comes to the detriment of the system ['He asked for a listen check: It must be a threat that's audible, rather than visual']. Mostly, they could be condensed more to no real detriment (athletics, acrobatics, notice, stealth) though. I just think that 4e stripped it down a little too far when you also consider the 'skilled/not skilled' status of everything.

Essentially those saving throws are sort of 'skills' too, so there is certainly a lot of scope for many games to include things like 'will' 'dodge' and 'endurance' under skills... and many do.

Also; some game systems need to increase granularity in their focus areas. A game that was massively about social interaction would logically have a wider range of social skills than 'hackfest: The game', which might just have a 'socialise' skill, or whatever.

You can tell a lot about the focus of the game by the skill list.

Also: Modern games tend to require more skills, too.

Britter
2010-09-01, 10:30 AM
Psyx, I agree that the bigger issue is probably the mechanics and resolution behind skills. HOW a game engine uses the skill list is more important to me than the actual skill list. I do find myself agreeing with the OP, however, in the fact that an overly large skill list (or, honestly, an overly large trait, flaw, stat or even gear list) is not desireable in a system. I have no time for GURPS because of this...lists as long as the GURPS skill list contain a ton of unnecessary overlap that adds pointless distinctions to a system, and in my opinion that sort of thing impedes play.

The Big Dice
2010-09-01, 10:35 AM
Psyx, I agree that the bigger issue is probably the mechanics and resolution behind skills. HOW a game engine uses the skill list is more important to me than the actual skill list. I do find myself agreeing with the OP, however, in the fact that an overly large skill list (or, honestly, an overly large trait, flaw, stat or even gear list) is not desireable in a system. I have no time for GURPS because of this...lists as long as the GURPS skill list contain a ton of unnecessary overlap that adds pointless distinctions to a system, and in my opinion that sort of thing impedes play.

Replace 'skills' with 'feats' and you pretty much summed up how I feel about 3.x and 4th editions of D&D.

Kiero
2010-09-01, 11:25 AM
Only because he has a good dexterity/agility. The two skills have nothing much to do with each other. I have yet to see somersaults successfully used in a street fight. I have yet to see a punch avoided by anything more complex than ducking or leaning at the right time, which anyone can do, physically. Flexibility and range of movement don't come into it either. Being able to accurately judge how far someone can reach with a bit of metal in his hands is what you need, but Acrobats don't really focus on that... In fact, acrobats don't actually train to dodge anything ever, as far as I can see.

Gymnastics is full-body co-ordination. The kinaesthetic sense that comes with it is equally applicable to dodging blows. As a direct result of training gymnastics, those things are developed. You don't get "agility" in isolation from the somersaults. That's not the same as actually training combat skills, mind, but there's some cross-applicability.

Judging distancing and such come from combat skills (the other potential source I listed upthread), not some separate "dodge" ability which can be trained in isolation from those. Because it can't. If you're practising dodging blows, you're learning combat skills which are one and the same thing. I've yet to train in any sort of class where they only teach you how to avoid being hit, because it's a pretty crappy form of self-defense on its own.


The fights outside your local bars may differ, or you may be basing things on fictitious kung fu films.

Ho ho!


Exactly the case with Dodge and Acrobatics. Dodging stuff is not at all about flexibility, agility and limberness. It's about perception and timing. which is why it's worth having as a separate skill. From a balance perspective, if these were 'weak' skills, I'd roll them into one perhaps out of generosity. However; they are both individually rather powerful skills... although not as powerful as 'magic' or 'combat', as seen in some systems, listed next to 'swimming' and 'gambling'.

Perception and timing which are part of combat skills again. Not a separate skill in it's own right. Trained combatant? Congratulations, you also know how to evade along with parry, block or intercept incoming blows. It makes absolutely no sense to take one of those four (evasion) and hive it off into it's own skill.

As an abstraction we might allow Acrobatics to be used for the evade part as well as the others that are only covered with combat skill.

Psyx
2010-09-02, 07:19 AM
I have no time for GURPS because of this...lists as long as the GURPS skill list contain a ton of unnecessary overlap that adds pointless distinctions to a system, and in my opinion that sort of thing impedes play.

GURPS and Rolemaster are both bad for this. I like detailed systems, but not to the degree of either system. For increased 'detail', I would rather allow characters to simply specify an area of speciality in a skill and gain an extra dice or whatever because of it. Then you have detail, with no more book keeping or faff.



Gymnastics is full-body co-ordination. The kinaesthetic sense that comes with it is equally applicable to dodging blows. As a direct result of training gymnastics, those things are developed. You don't get "agility" in isolation from the somersaults. That's not the same as actually training combat skills, mind, but there's some cross-applicability.

There's some, but not enough for a full overlap, to my mind. I'd rather attribute (mechanically) that overlap to a statistic bonus.
You'd want to put 'disarm trap' and 'crafting' together, by the same rote? This is essentially where we differ: I believe that there is by far enough difference between the two skill-sets (In that I see only the tiniest of overlaps at only the most simplistic of levels) to separate them. I would also want them separated for afor-mentioned balance reason: Acrobatics and a reflex save and something of use in combat should not be the same 'price' as -say- Knowledge: History. I like 30ish skills, and I imagine that you like a lot less.

I understand what you are saying. I just don't agree on either a practical, gamist, or simulationist level. I'm pretty good at 'dodge'. However, I can only manage forward rolls, and I can't walk a tightrope! I have never thought 'darn, if I could backflip, I could totally avoid that kick to the nads'


It makes absolutely no sense to take one of those four (evasion) and hive it off into it's own skill.

That totally depends on the game. 3.5 does it with your Reflex saving throw, for example. My own homebrew system does it as well, with Acrobatics covering its area, Athletics covering a different one, and Dodge being more than good enough to rate being a separate skill with its use as 'reflex saving roll' and a use in combat, where characters can elect to dodge instead of actually using 'combat' techniques. It makes a lot of sense in the right context. But in a game with only 10 skills: It makes a lot less sense.




Replace 'skills' with 'feats' and you pretty much summed up how I feel about 3.x and 4th editions of D&D.

Feats started out as a good idea: A way to differentiate fighting styles and establish character's 'shticks'. But there's too many of them, and a small selection are blatantly more powerful than the other 90%.

Kiero
2010-09-02, 07:53 AM
There's some, but not enough for a full overlap, to my mind. I'd rather attribute (mechanically) that overlap to a statistic bonus.
You'd want to put 'disarm trap' and 'crafting' together, by the same rote? This is essentially where we differ: I believe that there is by far enough difference between the two skill-sets (In that I see only the tiniest of overlaps at only the most simplistic of levels) to separate them.

There isn't a full overlap, acrobatic training is the poor cousin to combat training. But there doesn't need to be a full overlap to get some cross-applicability.

Thus evasion is covered under acrobatics (as well as combat skills), but it doesn't have blocking, parrying or intercepting. You only learn those through combat training.


I would also want them separated for afor-mentioned balance reason: Acrobatics and a reflex save and something of use in combat should not be the same 'price' as -say- Knowledge: History.

All skills should be the same price. Knowledge: History is quite clearly not at the same breadth as acrobatics or a combat skill and thus needs abstracting up a level or two.


I like 30ish skills, and I imagine that you like a lot less.

No imagining necessary, I already said 20 is my cap.


I understand what you are saying. I just don't agree on either a practical, gamist, or simulationist level.

Can we please avoid the GNS nonsense? It doesn't illuminate or aid the debate in the slightest, just clouds things and brings baggage we don't need.


I'm pretty good at 'dodge'. However, I can only manage forward rolls, and I can't walk a tightrope!

And how exactly have you learned this "dodge"?

Sounds like a basic grounding in "acrobatics" or physical co-ordination, but not much more than that.


I have never thought 'darn, if I could backflip, I could totally avoid that kick to the nads'

Which is totally irrelevant, that's about the appropriateness of a specific method of evasion.


That totally depends on the game. 3.5 does it with your Reflex saving throw, for example. My own homebrew system does it as well, with Acrobatics covering its area, Athletics covering a different one, and Dodge being more than good enough to rate being a separate skill with its use as 'reflex saving roll' and a use in combat, where characters can elect to dodge instead of actually using 'combat' techniques. It makes a lot of sense in the right context. But in a game with only 10 skills: It makes a lot less sense.


Evasion is part of acrobatics, and/or combat techniques. Because they're actual places where you could have learned the skills associated and conditioned your body to be able to react to that sort of thing.

Even then, as before it's not as good as actual combat training.

Psyx
2010-09-02, 08:30 AM
There isn't a full overlap, acrobatic training is the poor cousin to combat training. But there doesn't need to be a full overlap to get some cross-applicability.

Which would require some kind of 'half skill' thing. I don't like doing that. I might like a larger number of skills, but I like an elegant system.



All skills should be the same price. Knowledge: History is quite clearly not at the same breadth as acrobatics or a combat skill and thus needs abstracting up a level or two.


Again: We differ. I would rather split the two into acrobatics and dodge than I would sweep knowledge skills into a larger package. By 'price' I mean overall price for buying both, not setting a different price for different skills.

And I disagree that skills 'must' all cost the same. I wouldn't want to go the rolemaster route, but I am happy for skills to be either 'simple' or 'complex' with two different prices.



Can we please avoid the GNS nonsense? It doesn't illuminate or aid the debate in the slightest, just clouds things and brings baggage we don't need.


Ok then: I disagree with your points of dodge on the basis of real-world comparisons and game-design balance.



And how exactly have you learned this "dodge"?


14 years of Aikido, plus fencing, classical fencing, kendo, more than my fair share of punch-ups and quite a lot of playing rugby as a fly-half. I still can't walk a tightrope, though. :smallfrown:

Britter
2010-09-02, 09:00 AM
Re: This Dodge/Athletics/Acrobatics debate.

As a fellow practicioner of Aikido, over the course of my decade plus of training I have learned a lot of things. How to roll and fall in a wide variety of ways. How to lock joints and throw people. How to hit people with both stylized attacks and more realistic attacks. Rudimentary ground-fighting. Very basic sword use. More extensive stick use. Some knifework and knife disarms. Dodging and blocking attacks. How to do proper pushups and situps. Some basic meditation and breathing excersises. Basic combat theory.

There is probably more, but you get the point by now. :)

Now, in DnD or any other game game with a highly granular skill system, I might need a dozen different skills to truly encapsulate my aikido knowledge. I mean, there are three or four weapon proficencies, a knowledge skill or two, increases in my strength and agility and general levels of fitness...and really, at the end of the day I would have to work really hard to make the build playable, because of all the loops I would have to jump through.

Or I can have the skill aikido. And when I roll it, I can use it for any of the relevant things listed above. Guy attacks me, I roll my aikido to dodge him. Guy tries to hit me with a car, I roll my aikido with a penalty in order to dodge it, because car dodging is not taught in class. I need to do a series of forward rolls, I roll aikido. I want to walk a tightrope, I am SOL and have to roll some sort of beginners luck test, because nothing in aikido ever prepared me for that. If I am doing something aikido doesn't do very well, say I get caught in a knife fight with an escrimador, I roll aikido, but at a two or three step penalty from my normal rating because my training is just not as focused on knifework as it is joint locking. Essentially, you use the one skill, and play bonuses or penalties by ear based on the situation and some basic guidelines in the rules.

You could even boil it down further. Just have a martial arts skill. The guy who trained karate and the guy who trained aikido have the EXACT same skill on their sheet. But if the karate guy wants to use his skill to perform flowing jointlocks, he would have to test at a penalty or even be told "no, sorry, your background/character decision/chosen martial art, etc didn't include that sort of training". Same for the aikido guy when he tries to break boards or throw kicks.

I MUCH prefer the latter approach, a skill system that gives the skills broad use and a lot of flexibility. I think that the responsibility for differentiation of characters as regards skill use in this approach is dependent on how the player choose to narrate their actions. I know that this doesn't work for everyone, and it is my opinion and expirience that people who have only ever played DnD don't usually understand with or care for this model because it does require a different approach to gaming and rule-sets than they may be used to. And really, just looking at this thread it is obvious that some people really like big lists, granular skills and the systems that use them. So I am not saying there is anything wrong with that. But for my dollar, give me a skill system that has very broad skills and a resolution mechanic that allows me to use them with minimal sub-systems required, and we are good to go.

Kiero
2010-09-02, 09:09 AM
14 years of Aikido, plus fencing, classical fencing, kendo, more than my fair share of punch-ups and quite a lot of playing rugby as a fly-half. I still can't walk a tightrope, though. :smallfrown:

Then you've learned it through combat skills (aikido, fencing, kendo, punch-ups), which is what I've been saying all along.

That you haven't done acrobatics is completely irrelevant, as I've said time and again, it's the poor cousin that only teaches you evasion. You could equally argue that the "athletics" from rugby similarly gives you a weaker version of the same thing.

Again, no need for a separate dodge skill, because it doesn't exist absent of combat skills or some other athletic/acrobatic training. Anyone who tells me they learned dodging by "uh, I'm like really evasive" I call bull****.

Skorj
2010-09-02, 09:27 AM
I generally agree with Kiero that game designers often go overboard in creating a seperate skill for everything that might make two characters different. It's OK to leave some of that out of the crunch. However, I find it helps to formalize what happens in all the corner cases where you need to make the distinction.

For example, let's say we have a "perception" skill that covers D&D's listen, spot, and search. What happens when you're blind? You want a formal rule for that status effect, but it doesn't IMO justify seperate listen and spot skills.

For my current homebrew, I have just the perception skill during character creation/advancement, but keep listen, spot, and search as "subskills" - meaning you don't spend points on them, but they can be affected differently by magic items, spells, and other status effects. Different situational modifiers, not different skills. This seems to be the right compromise between simplicity during character creation (and 90% of play), and keeping verisimilitude in that a character doesn't take a penalty on listen checks when blinded.

To me, that's the key: the skills on your character sheet should represent only things that are choices during character creation, and need to be crunch not fluff. E.g., your game can have 8 different martial arts without needing 8 different skills for that - keep one unarmed combat skill, and if the difference between those martial arts is more than fluff than handle it with the ocasional die roll modifier. Similarly, the difference between diplomancy and intimidate is how you roleplay, I don't see the need for a difference in the skill system for that - sensible use of situational modifiers covers it.

Aotrs Commander
2010-09-02, 09:39 AM
I like Rolemaster. That is all.






Okay, granted, I have folded the weapon skills into categories nowadays, if only so the PCs can get some milage out of all the pretty gun-toys they keep getting. And for D&D I did follow Pathfinder and fold Spot and Listen and Hide and Move Silently into one skill apeice. Mainly because I found that we generally ended up rolling both at once all the time anyway. And if Perception and Stalk/Hide skills are enough for Rolemaster, that's plenty enough! (Circumstantial bonuses apply, mind. I might call for a spot Perception roll to see something, but perception-verses-stealth is quicker and less redunant to do as one roll. Two rolls is twice the chance for the PCs to roll low and twice my chance to roll high; and that's more of a issue than the reverse.

I do tend to treat skills a bit more like Britter said, though, regardless of system. If your Necromancer/Pale Master has say, Craft (taxidermy) and the supplies, he can use some of that skill set to make the tent into a badly-made cloak/hood/thingy to put over his troll skeleton to claim it's a "Robe-Golem" to avoid unecessary hassle from people...

I encourage this sort of thing. (In fact, in Rolemaster, I give the characters what basically amounts to bonus skill points to spend on fluffy, background-y type skills.)

Psyx
2010-09-02, 10:05 AM
You could even boil it down further. Just have a martial arts skill.

Feng Shui does this. It also extends to your contacts in the area and 'book' knowledge of the subject. So if you want to find an arms dealer: Roll your Firearms skill.




Again, no need for a separate dodge skill, because it doesn't exist absent of combat skills or some other athletic/acrobatic training. Anyone who tells me they learned dodging by "uh, I'm like really evasive" I call bull****.

How about bullfighters? :smallcool:

As I said: 3.5 already makes the distinction. Even 4e does. There's your Reflex save and your Acrobatics skills. Both are distinct entities. If you want a player to dodge, you call for a Reflex save.

For the most part 'dodge' doesn't exist as a training regimen in its own right. But that's not to say that it can't exist as a skill in its own right. You might as well argue that 'throwing' is never 'a skill' because learn it as part of Athletics. On a more micro level, one could differentiate between an opening game and end-game skills in chess. You can't simply cry 'there is no 'end-game skill', because -at low granularity- there clearly is.

You like sweeping skills into a smaller pile: I don't always, and I never do it without an eye to skill-balance. Neither approach is 'wrong'.

as I said: I like the broadness of my skills to be balanced with their level of use. I am happy for the top-notch skills that always see use to be more narrow in scope than say 'craft' or 'entertain'. It just makes sense from a game design point of view to avoid skills like 'combat' when 'art' is on the skill list, and instead split it into other skills to balance it with others. whether that splits to 'close combat' and 'ranged', or down to individual weapons, or anywhere between depends on the number of other skills and the granularity required.


For example, let's say we have a "perception" skill that covers D&D's listen, spot, and search. What happens when you're blind? You want a formal rule for that status effect, but it doesn't IMO justify seperate listen and spot skills.

This brushes on the idea of conditional modifiers. I generally dislike them, because they are a pain to track sometimes, and I don't want my PCs saying 'is it against undead' when making perception checks, to see if their conditional modifier kicks in. Narrowing down the skill list too far and using conditional modifiers can result in slower less elegant play than an expanded skill list, sometimes.

Perception is so critical to games that I'm generally surprised that it's not more of a core statistic sometimes. For my homebrew, I have a Perception statistic, which partly influences the Search/Track, Human Perception and Sixth Sense skills (and probably a couple of others), and wholly influences Notice. (For RM fans, each skill is influenced by two statistics)

Reinboom
2010-09-02, 10:45 AM
I generally have a rather significant issue profession based skill systems/ideas:
I don't know Aikido.

I know of and could explain two kihon kada using sai, but can't perform it very well.

To expand this, what about someone who is trained in parkour? Now that's ... very all inclusive.

What if my setting never studied martial and movement arts in the same manner as here?
Parkour and the wide acceptance of mixed martial arts are both relatively new things.

Psyx
2010-09-02, 10:54 AM
There's three ways around that:

Zoom in, and separate each skill into more skills (sword, dodge, unarmed combat, meditation, whatever). It nails things down but increases the number of skills.

Zoom out, and just have 'martial arts'. It simplifies things, but dilutes the differentiating factors between characters. It also opens up things to a lot of player 'debates' as seen in -say- Mage where players attempt to use the skill/sphere that they have to do pretty much everything. 'I should be able to ignore the penalty for being shouted at, because my martial arts training includes meditation, so I can do that'.

Have decent skill descriptions which state what skills can and cannot do - perhaps even at each level of competence. A surprising number of games fail to do this.

Britter
2010-09-02, 11:03 AM
Then you wing it. Just like I would have to wing quantum physics, or computer programming, or medicine, or any other field I am unfamiliar with.

If a player chooses a skill for their character, then they have an idea of what they want it to be able to do for them in game. So, ask them. Have them define it, as they want it implemented in game. And, really, does it have to be realistic? In my opinion, no. It does have to be consistent, so if the GM says "yes, it can do that" at one point, it should always be able to that thing.

In this type of system a player selects skills bassed on how they want the character to interact with the decision making process. In a system that would define subsystems mechanically into the component parts, they are choosing mechanics to implement for a repeatable effect. They are really different paradigms (And, though I keep saying it, I want to be clear that neither is superior, just different and based largely on preference and style of gaming).

It might help to understand that some of the conflict resolution systems that use the more generic, open-ended skills are often far less interested in DnD style combat or binary yes/no task resolution. I have actually had a major fight between life long enemies resolved with a single opposed test and some narration, and every one involved was very pleased with the outcome. In Mouse Guard, a skill doesn't reflect if you can or can't do a thing, it reflects if you can do a thing without having complications arise, or getting angry or tired or sick in the process (and yes, those complications or conditions can absolutely prevent you from completing the task. Sucsess is not garunteed). In these systems, the reasons for rolling skills and the definitions of the skills are different than in systems that try to use skills to reflect a simulation of how the world works.

Reinboom
2010-09-02, 11:23 AM
As I said, I have that issue.
It's to my gaming preference. I prefer granularity.
When something is incredibly broad, I tend to see more debates and fights open up over how to define it.

Now, I don't swing absolutely the other way either. I rather dislike the "this is all you can do" that too many skills causes. D&D 3.5 and GURPS both tend to raise this issue (especially when more and more splat books are introduced).

My preference is skill systems that highlight a broad list of what you can do within each skill but yet purposely cut it short and leave "and more!". Highlight the meaning of each rank of that skill (or... rank block, I guess, if you are going with extremely granular skill systems...) and what it is comparable to.
Then sometimes, for certain things that happen over and over and are expected to happen over and over, also giving hard-fast rules.

However! I believe goal and length of the campaign also modifies this perception. If the game is a one or two shot, I'll be all for a "toss-together" rules system that involves, say "hacking" (wut. I can do packet copying. I can hijack sessions. I can't do complex decyphering. I would usually not be okay with that as a stand alone skill... for longer campaigns.), "aikido", etc. I would even prefer it in order to just get the character out of the way quickly. If it is a much longer series of sessions, however, I want something a lot more specific.

Basically, I'm like a pendulum; I swing both ways as long as time permits. :smallwink:

Arkhaios
2010-09-02, 11:37 AM
With all due respect to the OP, before I format a response, what is the point and purpose of this thread?

Psyx
2010-09-02, 11:56 AM
Highlight the meaning of each rank of that skill (or... rank block, I guess, if you are going with extremely granular skill systems...) and what it is comparable to.



WoD does this well. I've yet to see it really done well elsewhere.

Talakeal
2010-09-02, 04:44 PM
I think it is fairly obvious that you are more into the "game" part of RPG than the "role playing" part. While it isn't usually necessary to know about a players skills in a dungeon (although it sometimes comes up) it is nice to have professions and hobbies as part of your background with at least a little mechanical backing. This is one of the big disappointments with 4e skill system imo, although I agree it was nice that they combined many of the redundant skills to pare down third editions list, which I believe was far too long.

Also, you have to look at the game in question before judging the skill list and what other features they have. For example, my home brew d20 game doesn't have classes, and many of the things that are normally class features such as attack bonus, saving throws, hit dice, and spell casting are instead skills. This doesn't make the overall game any more or less complex, but it does place more emphasis on skills. White wolf is similar in design here.

Most skill systems try to simulate realistic people, and as such you have to find the right balance of competence. On one end of the spectrum you would have all smart people being equally skilled as Authors, Lawyers, Scientists, and Doctors, and on the other end of the spectrum you could have a skilled katana wielder who is so specialized he wouldn't know how to fight with a scimitar any better than he would a salad fork.
I remember white wolf had a long essay about why they chose the number of skills they did in one of their storyteller guides. Some games, such as Alternity, make attempts to remove these problems by having 10 or so broad skill groups which a player may then tinker with further as 10 individual skills if they so choose.

erikun
2010-09-02, 05:03 PM
I like a decent selection of skills available for the characters. I like for the different activities that a character can take (combat, driving a car, mediating a dispute) to be resolved in roughly the same manor, as it allows you to switch between one activity and another without having to worry about various sub-systems and differing factors.

I prefer the new World of Darkness system. It isn't perfect, but it does a reasonable job of giving characters a wide selection of skills without entering into confusion or redundancy. In most cases, it is quite clear what a skill does and does not do, and you generally have a clear idea of which skill to use in a particular situation. Other similar systems, such as Shadowrun, Eclipse Phase, and Burning Wheel, act in a similar manner.


While I do enjoy minimalist systems for their lack of complication, I have to wonder why you would use as many skills as 20 for such a system. A lot of systems only use the Mind-Body-Spirit values similar to Tri-Stat, and something like Physical-Mental-Social-Perception would work as well. I saw one system in homebrew that was based off 8 different attributes of the body. (something like Head, Face, Mouth, Torso, Arms, Hands, Legs, etc.) Indeed, if we are going to generalize to the point where there is considerable overlap between fields (as indicated by the 'dodge as combat/athletics/reflexes conversation) then I wonder why we would use various skill groups rather than the capabilities of the person involved.

Knaight
2010-09-02, 05:26 PM
Indeed, if we are going to generalize to the point where there is considerable overlap between fields (as indicated by the 'dodge as combat/athletics/reflexes conversation) then I wonder why we would use various skill groups rather than the capabilities of the person involved.

Considerable overlap is usually one of the more elegant ways to cover many actions. Take GURPS, if you have the broadsword skill and pick up a short sword you can use broadsword as a penalty, rather than defaulting to zero, and that is realistic. While broadsword seems a needlessly specific skill, the concept works in many areas.

Take something like Athletics and Sailing. Athletics is fairly common in rules medium settings, and both Athletics and Sailing should allow swimming, though Sailing might be at a penalty. A lot of it is genre however. In a highly cinematic genre, you get Athletics. In a more realistic genre, Climb and Swim are two different skills, Jump is probably rolled in somewhere else, and Run would be another skill or be covered by something like a sport.

A further example. I was developing a 1950 sci-fi B movie system on request, and pinned down 5 attributes. Run! Shoot! Talk! and Science! are the four I actually remember this much later, and it covers the genre perfectly. A realistic spy game? Not so much. There is a whole spectrum, and some genres fit best in certain places.

erikun
2010-09-02, 05:40 PM
Considerable overlap is usually one of the more elegant ways to cover many actions.
Well, okay. You do have a point there. And there are times when something like "I want to throw my rapier to pin the escaping badguy's cloak to the wall; would that use my Weapons skill, my Throwing skill, or my Athletics skill?" does come up. However, some days it feels far more common that such situations devolve into thirty-minute discussions and leaving through the rulebooks to determine which skill is more appropriate and if there are rulings in some obscure splatbook. Perhaps I am just getting too jaded from the various D&D versions, though.

I still prefer ultra-lite systems when I am playing a lite system. Halfway between detailed and skills-lite doesn't really work for me.

Knaight
2010-09-02, 06:18 PM
Well, okay. You do have a point there. And there are times when something like "I want to throw my rapier to pin the escaping badguy's cloak to the wall; would that use my Weapons skill, my Throwing skill, or my Athletics skill?" does come up. However, some days it feels far more common that such situations devolve into thirty-minute discussions and leaving through the rulebooks to determine which skill is more appropriate and if there are rulings in some obscure splatbook. Perhaps I am just getting too jaded from the various D&D versions, though.

D&D versions and the D&D mindset. One of the people I help develop homebrew (I lack the focus to do it myself, so I help a fair few people) came into Fudge fresh from D&D, and I've seen the mindset slowly vanish over years. Its amazing how much changes in gaming when it does.