Adventure Verbs

[Catullus64]

This is the skill system for my homebrew RPG.

The game is a d6 Dice-Pool system. Tests are resolved by rolling a number of d6 equal to the ability score in question; the number of 5s and 6s rolled is your number of successes.

Adventure Verbs represent a character's particular expertise in certain actions. You begin with 6-9 Verbs granted by a combination of your class and culture. If you are called upon to make an ability score test that falls under one of your Adventure Verbs, you count as scoring a success on 4s as well as 5s and 6s.

You also have three Personal Traits that also function as Adventure Verbs, providing this bonus if you perform an action that accords well with the trait. Performing an action that goes directly one of your traits causes you only score successes on 6s.

You only gain the bonus from a single Adventure Verb per test, even if multiple verbs could apply to the same test. If you are acting against one of your Personal Traits but with one of your Adventure Verbs, you score successes normally. Your Verbs & Traits can be used with any ability score, in theory. These bonuses explicitly never apply to combat actions, which are all more narrowly defined, or to tests that get made as part of casting spells.

Fair warning, reading through these will make the gerund form start to seem all weird.


Basic: Climbing, Digging, Driving, Lifting, Marching, Pain-Enduring, Riding, Rowing, Sailing, Smashing, Swimming, Throwing

Bushcraft: Animal-Wrangling, Cooking, Fire-Starting, Fishing, Fleeing, Gathering, Navigating, Pursuing, Snare-Setting, Tracking, Weather-Enduring, Weather-Knowing, Wound-Treating

Social: Arguing, Bargaining, Captaining, Counsel-Giving, Dancing, Flattering, Insulting, Intimidating, Lying, Mood-Reading, Music-Playing (Pick One Instrument), Singing, Speech-Giving, Torturing

Stealth: Corpse-Handling, Disguising, Hiding, Lock-Opening, Noise-Hearing, Pocket-Picking, Snare-Disarming, Sneaking, Spotting

Craft: Brewing, Cloth-Making, Engineering, Farming, Leather-Working, Metal-Working, Poisoning, Stone-Cutting, Wood-Working.

Academic: Appraising, Lore-Recalling (Pick from Customs, Divine, Kindreds, Occult, Warfare, Wilds), Memorizing, Number-Working, Reading, Writing




A character chooses one trait from each column. A character cannot choose multiple traits from the same row.



Self-Despising
Proud
Overweening


Faint-Hearted
Valiant
Reckless


Undernourished
Hearty Eater
Glutton


Tactless
Truthful
Dishonest


Teetotaler
Social Drinker
Tippler


Prude
Passionate
Lecherous


Miser
Generous
Spendthrift


Uninventive
Imaginative
Fanciful


Forgetful
Mindful
Pedantic


Fanatical
Pious
Blasphemous


Slovenly
Clean
Dandy


Terse
Well-Spoken
Garrulous


Meek
Even-Tempered
Wrathful


Unjust
Honorable
Self-Righteous


Lazy
Steady
Manic






So, the feedback I'm looking for:

1. Do all the verbs seem useful? This is a game with a lot of travel and downtime activities as well as dungeoneering & combat. It's ok if two verbs have some overlap, as long as each one has something it's useful for that the other isn't.

2. Is it reasonably clear what each verb means? Do any of them seem likely to be excessively broad in application?

3. Are there any major gaps in the verbs? Actions typical to fantasy adventures that aren't covered here?

4. Same for the the Personal Traits. Roughly, I tried to make each row involve deficiency, balance, and excess of a particular trait. Does that come across? Do any of them seem too useful or too impeding compared to the others in the the same column?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Either the list of Verbs* needs to be cut down, or the number of Verbs each character has access to needs to be increased. I count more than 60 options, some absurdly specific (fire-starting?), and characters sound like they cap at 15% of the list. I suspect Personal Traits will wind up being far more useful.

And honestly, I like the setup there a lot more. Could you maybe do a similar table for Verbs, with more widely-applicable things like "destroying" and "improvising"?

[Calen]

I agree with Grod, decreasing the options on your list seems like a good idea.

[noob]

Either the list of Verbs* needs to be cut down, or the number of Verbs each character has access to needs to be increased. I count more than 60 options, some absurdly specific (fire-starting?), and characters sound like they cap at 15% of the list. I suspect Personal Traits will wind up being far more useful.

And honestly, I like the setup there a lot more. Could you maybe do a similar table for Verbs, with more widely-applicable things like "destroying" and "improvising"?

Without context about the setting, fire starting might be fairly useful as a mean of conflict resolution.
If because you are good at fire starting you know how and when to start a forest fire without getting caught in it and other uses like this, it could be useful in some worlds.
The lack of any verbs relating to abnormal stuff suggests it is probably a world mostly like real life, the writing verb means that it is historical and not prehistorical and the lack of specialization for the high tech verbs suggests we are not in a too much modern era (probably before the medieval age): else we would not see a verb as broad as engineering.

[MetroAlien]

a lot of the social verbs can be either interpreted as overlapping, or conversely as too specific.

example:
Arguing <-> bargaining <-> intimidating

does "arguing" mean
A: make an argument to convince the other party of your point of view (very general, overlaps with the other two)
B: confrontational/aggressive speech act with the explicit intent to cause a scene/provoke the other party (feels very limited to specific scenarios)
C: participate in a structured debate based on logic/semantics, e.g. in a court room (feels like a "symbol shaped key")

does "bargaining" mean:
A: make stuff cost less in a strictly material transaction (very specific)
B: come to a compromise with by lowering the other party's agreement threshold, including immaterial conditions, such as ethics, etc... (overlaps with the other words)

does "intimidating" mean:
A: explicitly to blackmail the other party with violence and/or other consequences (a very specific kind of interaction, almost a "symbol-shaped key")
B: generally cause stress to the other party so as to lower their overall negotiating power (overlaps with the other words)
C: project a threatening aura to lower the other party's mood/morale, e.g. to discourage conflict, etc... (yet another "symbol-shaped key")


** symbol shaped key: think of keys in resident evil games
----
and since "lying" is also present as a verb, does that mean all of the above explicitly exclude wilful dishonesty?
Does "lying" only concern factually incorrect information?
i.e. are "white lies", lies by omission, emotional gaslighting allowed?
Or are they separate words?

Basically, it comes down to whether or not these are distinct, exclusive tools for players to pick up and hammer appropriately coloured nails with?
or flavourful touches that may or may not apply to any given action the players perform?

Either game can work fine, I guess, as long as everyone agrees which of the two it is.


---
PS:
I'm editing this in to avoid a double-post
but basically, after thinking about the (dis-)advantage dice
I figured the system lends itself more to the latter interpretation (overlapping is deliberate, mostly for flavour)
but do bear in mind, when presented with a list of options players will subconsciously treat them as hammers and start looking for nails.

Also, since the "disadvantage" penalty is more severe than the "advantage" boost is beneficial, on a meta-game level, there's a clear, well, advantage to choosing words that are less likely to be used against you
(i.e. avoiding possible penalties is better than seeking out bonuses, provided they have equal chances of applying)

Maybe there could be a system for added depth that allows players to choose some purely negative words in exchange for other bonuses?

[Catullus64]

a lot of the social verbs can be either interpreted as overlapping, or conversely as too specific.

example:
Arguing <-> bargaining <-> intimidating

does "arguing" mean
A: make an argument to convince the other party of your point of view (very general, overlaps with the other two)
B: confrontational/aggressive speech act with the explicit intent to cause a scene/provoke the other party (feels very limited to specific scenarios)
C: participate in a structured debate based on logic/semantics, e.g. in a court room (feels like a "symbol shaped key")

does "bargaining" mean:
A: make stuff cost less in a strictly material transaction (very specific)
B: come to a compromise with by lowering the other party's agreement threshold, including immaterial conditions, such as ethics, etc... (overlaps with the other words)

does "intimidating" mean:
A: explicitly to blackmail the other party with violence and/or other consequences (a very specific kind of interaction, almost a "symbol-shaped key")
B: generally cause stress to the other party so as to lower their overall negotiating power (overlaps with the other words)
C: project a threatening aura to lower the other party's mood/morale, e.g. to discourage conflict, etc... (yet another "symbol-shaped key")

** symbol shaped key: think of keys in resident evil games
----
and since "lying" is also present as a verb, does that mean all of the above explicitly exclude wilful dishonesty?
Does "lying" only concern factually incorrect information?
i.e. are "white lies", lies by omission, emotional gaslighting allowed?
Or are they separate words?

Basically, it comes down to whether or not these are distinct, exclusive tools for players to pick up and hammer appropriately coloured nails with?
or flavourful touches that may or may not apply to any given action the players perform?

Either game can work fine, I guess, as long as everyone agrees which of the two it is.


A helpful set of examples, thanks. I had conceived of the system as having broad overlap between verbs. The verbs you mention I conceived roughly as:

Arguing: Making & presenting a case based on overtly stated (if not necessarily truthful) premises & conclusions.

Bargaining: Angling for the most personally advantageous outcome in a deal or transaction.

Intimidating: Persuading someone to comply via the immediate or general threat of violence.

Lying: Intentionally leading someone, for whatever purpose, to believe something other than what you know to be the truth.

I think that, based on your parse, I would do well to do brief one-or-two-sentence write-ups for each Verb to help clarify how I imagined it being applied.

The same action could have a case made to be any of these verbs, hence why a given roll can only receive one Verb Bonus at a time. A particularly heated deal with a merchant could be a valid use for all three of the example verbs you selected. All of those verbs could be used in place of Lying if the player acts the part; Arguing based on false premises, Bargaining with false coin, Intimidating based on strength you do not in fact possess.

What I do want to avoid is any total overlap, wherein Verb A can be applied to basically all the cases where Verb B could be applied, but Verb A also has uses beyond Verb B. Lying could encompass any instance based around intentional deception, but there are distinct areas where Bargaining, Arguing, and Intimidating could be extended where Lying could not.

[Trafalgar]

Basic: Climbing, Digging, Driving, Lifting, Marching, Pain-Enduring, Riding, Rowing, Sailing, Smashing, Swimming, Throwing

Bushcraft: Animal-Wrangling, Cooking, Fire-Starting, Fishing, Fleeing, Gathering, Navigating, Pursuing, Snare-Setting, Tracking, Weather-Enduring, Weather-Knowing, Wound-Treating

Social: Arguing, Bargaining, Captaining, Counsel-Giving, Dancing, Flattering, Insulting, Intimidating, Lying, Mood-Reading, Music-Playing (Pick One Instrument), Singing, Speech-Giving, Torturing

Stealth: Corpse-Handling, Disguising, Hiding, Lock-Opening, Noise-Hearing, Pocket-Picking, Snare-Disarming, Sneaking, Spotting

Craft: Brewing, Cloth-Making, Engineering, Farming, Leather-Working, Metal-Working, Poisoning, Stone-Cutting, Wood-Working.

Academic: Appraising, Lore-Recalling (Pick from Customs, Divine, Kindreds, Occult, Warfare, Wilds), Memorizing, Number-Working, Reading, Writing



What does "Corpse Handling" mean? I am imaging some Victor Frankenstein stuff going on.

[Catullus64]

What does "Corpse Handling" mean? I am imaging some Victor Frankenstein stuff going on.

That sort of thing could certainly be included! I imagine it could encompass moving dead bodies, searching them, deducing clues from them, embalming them.