Skills and Abilities: What could go on the list?

[Fiery Diamond]

If we have a d20 or d100 style skill system, what kinds of things could we cover as skills?

D&D has a list that both lengthy and far from all-encompassing. Some of the things on the list are very specific (Climb, Jump, Swim) while others are more general and rather broad (Profession [x], Craft [x], Perform [x]) and still others are broad while looking like they are specific (Diplomacy, Handle Animal). If you were constructing a list of your own, what kinds of things would you put on the list?

Community skill list building time!

Try to be specific without splitting hairs. For example, it's perfectly fine to try to break Diplomacy down into multiple skills, but we don't need a separate skill for High Jump and Long Jump, even if they really do require different training in the real world.

The list can have both active skills and passive skills. Several of the skills in D&D can be applied passively, especially those relating to perception.

[erikun]

Well, first, a skill/ability list could be a vague as "Body-Mind-Spirit" or as specific as you'd want it to be. And, what is more, both can be just as valid for the same playstyle. Some people want to use just Stealth and some want both Hide/Move Silently, and neither is necessarily better. (When you have limited points in a pool to distribute, though, it becomes relevant.)

Second, the dice mechanics aren't really going to specify how vague/specific the skill list will be. d6 dice pools work just as well as d% or anything else with regards to the spell list.

Third, it depends on how specific the game is. If we are talking about a Samurai game focused on duels in feudal Japan, then I would expect specific skills for each kind of strike or feint that can be learned, along with skills like writing/calligraphy, courtly manner, and managing people. If we are talking about something like World of Darkness, though, a very general "weapons" skill works just fine, because a detailed way of swinging a weapon isn't that important.

[Aux-Ash]

Just how specific do you want things to be? Just about everything we do is in one form or another a skill. Really, the optimal amount of skills is as much dependent on how characters are built as anything else.

One could make typing into a skill for instance. It is a trained ability after all. The question is what purpose it'd serve. Sure, very atmospheric for characters with that in the background. But it's unlikely to matter a lot if your character's a fast typist and unless two characters are having a typing contest then it's unlikely to ever face opposition.

Then there's Passive skills. Things like knowledge, profession, craftsmanship and such. These are fundamentally a combination of theoretical and practical knowledge and tricks. Mostly applied to routine work. I've recently started to question wether one really should roll anything with these skills (except in specific circumstances, se below).

If it's something you do routinely then it's something you can achieve without a shred of doubt. Swordsmiths can make swords, good swords even. The quality is often more a matter materials and equipment than skill.

The only reason I can see where a roll makes sense here is if you're attempting something you've never done before (or haven't done in a very long gime or if you're facing some sort of opposition (like say, writing a test or participating in a contest).

So the question is if those should be included in a skill list at all.

However, skills that regularily face opposition should definantely be included in skill lists. Things related to combat, physical movement, social skills and possibly the supernatural arts.

Physical skills and stealth

Physical skills are the most common I think. Easiest to think of.
Climb -
Swim -
Jump -
All fairly self explanatory. They're broad, but a specialisation system could help with that.

March - the skill to in a regular pace cross large distances. Also includes long distance running. This is a pure stamina skill. But one that still requires some technique. Success or failure is more about how delayed you are, rather than wether or not you manage to move the distance. Also useful for chases, I'd say.

Tracking - Following a trail. Definantely a trained skill. Definantely facing opposition (if only plain nature).

Sneak -
Hide -
Pick pocket -
Lockpicking -
The stealth skills. Sometimes combined into a single skill. This I think is a mistake. Not because they're fundamentally different, aside from lockpicking and pickpocket they're almost the same. But rather because stealth is as much taking unexpected paths (ie. climbing, jumping, lockpicking and swimming) as it is to dodge detection. Sneak could be absorbed by hide though. It's essentially the same thing after all.

Skiing -
Skating -
Drive cart/car (steer, perhaps?) -
Ride -
Niche skills to be sure. Not sure if they're neccesarry at all. In a way they're like march. It's more about keeping a steady pace than about not succeeding at moving.

Sailing -
I'm really unsure about this one. I'm not sure if it can be justified being a single skill nor if it'd work on anything larger than a one-man boat. Someone who knows a bit about it could perhaps help?

Overall though. I think that all physical skills should be about time limits. That you need to accrue x successes before y happens. If I scale a cliff, it's how long it takes before I'm too tired to go on. If I am sneaking into a compound it's how long before I'm detected and the alarm is sounded. If I am travelling or chasing someone it's wether or not I can keep up.
A success puts me closer to succeeding, a failure sets me back (if only by "wasting" a round).
Not only does this better represent physical movement in my mind it also allows alternate strategies to succeed. Like trying to climb up the tower rather than sneaking past the patrols.


Social skills.

In most roleplaying games I've played these are very broad and ill defined skills. Very often lie is one of them, which accounts for just about every form of lying there is. Including the ones covered by other skills. Also, often it's about winning an argument. Which poorly represents the dynamics of social interaction, in my mind.

Instead I'd prefer:

Rethorics - the skill to, through reason and wording, put forward a rational argument.
Manipulation - Through promises and seduction lure someone to want to side with you.
Intimidation - Through threats, not neccesarily physical ones, frighten someone. Undermining their confidence in their safety.
I'd see these three as the basics of social interaction, possibly with a fourth one focusing on passions and beliefs. They all include lying. If I try to bribe someone with money I don't have then I'm still using manipulation to pull it off.

And then some more niched, skills:

Dancing -
Singing -
Music - Instrumental
Storytelling -
Haggling -
Acting - Also includes disguise
Cooking -
Gambling -
Etiquette -
Philosophy -
All inherently social. Could most certainly be used to impress or make a good impression on people. Acting, as mentioned, would include the traditional skill "disguise". Since it's often not enough to simply look the part. Haggling is essentially a game, the act of lowering the price might be one of the persuasive skills above. But a good haggling makes it easier.
Etiquette is not avoiding social mistakes, but recovering from them.
Fundamentally, these are not skills to persuade but rather make people enjoy spending time with you and talking to you.

Like physical skills, these are more tools to solve a situation than a binary: succeed Yes/no? Rethorics reinforces your argument, but doesn't win it. Manipulation can work, but if the victim fears someone else then it might not matter.
Threatening the king is a bad idea, even if your intimidate is sky high. Succeeding will make him see you as a threat, and a man with armies behind him have alternate ways of dealing with threats rather than just relenting.
It's about swaying enough factors to your favour, not about spouting the best one liner.

How a supernatural/combat skill list would be detailed depends on how those works in the game/setting. There's no real good default to work from. But the same principle ought to be there. Tools to succeed, not succeses or not.
Knowledge and crafting skill lists makes sense if research and building stuff regularily comes up. Otherwise, like mentioned, I'm not sure if they're actually good for a skill system (that's not saying a alternate system cannot handle them).

Perhaps this post dwelled a bit too much on the minutea of skill systems. But I think that skill lists and skill mechanics are inseperable. A skill needs to have a point. Like I mentioned. Typing is a skill. But making a Skill out of it is rather pointless.

[Arbane]

One bit of advice I remember reading from one of the designers of _Exalted_ (which has a total of 25 skills for _everything_): "The most skills a system has, the more inept the characters will be." After all, nobody can afford (or want) to buy competence-level in ALL the skills, right?

[Incanur]

I tend to favor broad skill categories like "persuasion" and "stealth," though I can see the advantage of narrower ones for certain game concepts. When quantify skills, I find it critical to consider what advancement means and how it should go. Many skills function as binaries or almost so. For example, either you know how to swim or you don't. While skill presumably matters up to point, it quickly peaks and become a matter of physical stats. The same goes for the vast majority of physical skills. Epic jumping or climbing via skill makes no sense to me whatsoever. No manner of experience or expertise would allow me to leap over an orc in my current body, but drinking an elixir of exceptional might could.

[Mastikator]

I'd guess I'd go with a short list to cover all actions:


Atheltics: running, jumping, swimming, walking long distances,

Acrobatics: tumbling, balance, landing, stealth, riding

Melee Combat: fighting with weapons, fighting with bare hands, shields, using armors

Ranged Combat: using bows, crossbows, throwing things, slings

Geographics (fill in area): geographic knowledge about specific area/land/continent, for example, knowing what is the capitol of Russia, or how big the Sahara desert is.

Culture (fill in people): knowledge about customs, history, behavior, traditions of a specific people

Wilderness lore (fill in area): Similar to geographics, but about the wildlife instead, animals, plants, for example knowing what animals inhibit the Norweigan forests, with a sufficiently high skill comes the knowledge about trolls :smallwink:

Hunting/fishing/gathering: ability to hunt game, fish and gather edible foods

Survival (area type): Steppe/Forest/tundra/mountain/swamp/desert, pick one, knowledge about how to make up camp, orientation in a type of area, for example, how to set up a camp in a frozen tundra so you won't freeze to death, or how to get someone out of a swamp hole

Religion (pick one): knowledge about a specific religion (may overlap with culture) and how to use its "divine magic", and if so- how efficiently

Magic (*): If magic comes in various shapes then fill in the asterisk with that type, knowledge about that type of magic and how to use it

Lockpicking: exactly what it says on the tin

Language (pick one): ability to speak a language, (higher means better), may or may not include writing/reading said language, things like lying, diplomacy and the like is covered under this

Craft (pick one): ability to craft a type of thing, like smithing, carpentry, basketweaving, pottery, etc

Medicine: knowledge about extracts, poisons, herbs, treating wounds, mending broken bone


The skills that are accompanied by parenthesis may be acquired multiple times for each type, a bi-lingual character will have two Language skills.

[kaomera]

It depends on what you want the skills to do. For D&D I can see breaking the interesting things that characters are liable to do (assuming that ''kill things'' is not part of the skills list) as: Dungeoneering, Exploration, Magic-stuff, Nobility, and Street-wise as a base. Maybe Merchanting too? What other areas would you expect the PCs to move in? Then you just need to decide how much you want to break each of those down (IME they should work fine as is, but a lot of players crave more detail).

[TheThan]

Here’s a list I came up with for a D20 homebrew.

Acrobatics (Balance, Escape artist, tumble) (dex)

Athletics (Climb, jump, and swim) (str)

Barter (appraising, haggling etc) (wis)

Deception (disguise, bluff, forgery) (cha)

Handle animals (handle animal, ride) (wis)

Knowledge (arcana, dungeoneering, history, local, nature, nobility and royalty, religion) (int)

Perception (spot, listen, sense motive, search) (wis)

Persuasion (diplomacy, gathers information, intimidate, perform) (cha)

Magic (concentration, spellcraft, and use magic device) (int)

Sabotage (disable device, open lock) (int)

Stealth (hide, move silently, sleight of hand) (dex)

Survival (survival, heal, use rope) (wis)

Vocation (craft, profession) (int)

[Arbane]

I like the way some newer games like Unknown Armies do it: Let the players make up their own skills.

Admittedly, this leads to a lot of oddball skills like: "Pimp Slap", "Flail ineffectually", "Argue interminably", or "I just KNOW, Ok?", but it's a bit more freeform than d20...

[Ashtagon]

I like the way some newer games like Unknown Armies do it: Let the players make up their own skills.

Admittedly, this leads to a lot of oddball skills like: "Pimp Slap", "Flail ineffectually", "Argue interminably", or "I just KNOW, Ok?", but it's a bit more freeform than d20...

If you roll a 1 on your Flail ineffectually check, do you hit?

[Arbane]

If you roll a 1 on your Flail ineffectually check, do you hit?

Heh. I believe the way it works is that in UA, the generic fighting skill is 'struggle'. That just happens to be a low-rated variation on it.