The Perfect Skill List?

[Nawara]

Hi, my name's Jeff and I'm new to this forum.

Anyway, I need some help designing a versatile skill list for a modern-day, comedy/drama political RPG (think of a cross between Buffy and Tom Clancy). Ideally, I'd like to have 20-30 skills that can handle just about any circumstance handed to them (specialties will be available for specific aptitudes), and will be more focused on everyday life than traditional RPG skill lists. Combat will be skill-based, and I only need to distinguish between guns, melee weapons, and hand-to-hand combat.

Skill resolution will be Attribute+Skill, or maybe Attribute+(Skill x2) (Any thoughts on which is more realistic?). The Attributes are pretty much your standard White Wolf 9: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution (changed from Stamina), Perception, Intelligence, Wits, Appearance, Manipulation, Charisma. The dice system is something I'm still working on.

I'm not really sure exactly what the skill list should be, and that's why I need help. Any suggestions for a simple, but highly versatile skill set would be highly appreciated. Here's what I've got so far:

Academics***
Alertness
Art*
Athletics
Brawl
Crime*
Drive
Firearms
Investigation
Linguistics
Medicine
Melee
Science
Stealth
Technology
Social**

*The Art skill covers performance art, studio art, and craftsmanship. The Crime skill covers committing crimes, preventing them ("Security" in other games), and the culture surrounding crime ("Streetwise"). The only thing it doesn't cover is Investigation, which I made into its own skill.

**As far as social skills go, I don't know what to do here. White Wolf uses eight: Empathy, Expression, Intimidation, Leadership, Subterfuge, Animal Ken, Etiquette, and Bureaucracy. Buffy uses one: Influence. D&D uses six: Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Intimidate, and Sense Motive. I'd like to err on the side of too many different social skills  than not enough (the setting is heavy on interpersonal realtionships), but any advice is appreciated.

***I'm not sure if I should break Academics down into multiple skills or not. It's a VERY useful skill, and, on its own, is without a doubt the single most important one in the setting. However, all the things it could be broken down into work better as specialties (Law, Politics, History, Sociology, Finance, etc.), as anyone with a high rating in one field will probably have a decent rating in all the others (ever met a lawyer that didn't know who Andrew Jackson was, or an economist who didn't know what kind of government Venezuela has?). For right now, I'm keeping it as a single skill, and valuing realism and versaltility over game balance.

That's what I have so far. Again, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

-Jeff

[Jeph]

Hey, another Jeff!

Hi and welcome to the Forge (tm). :^)

On mechanics, I'd suggest going with simply Attribute+Skill. There is really no reason to do Attribute + (skilx2), as you woul get a similar range of results and more granularity if you simply doubled the range of skills. I can't really comment on if that's more "realistic" or not, as "realism" is entirely subjective for things like RPGs.

Speaking of which, what do you envision to be "realistic" in the context of your game? What precisely are you trying to model, and what mechanics do you have to support this? If there are any literary or film references you could give us (Buffy/Tom Clancey is a good starting point), what are they? What do characters do in those references? What do they do in your game? How do they go about doing this? Can you think of (and relate) an example of how play should go?

The more answers you give us, the more able we are to help you. :^)

Good luck,
--Jeff

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I can't really comment on if that's more "realistic" or not, as "realism" is entirely subjective for things like RPGs.

Use the search feature to find past discussion on realism. One of the most recent threads is here.

[Christopher Weeks]

I don't have an opinion on your skill list because I prefer to let the players define their skills.  But...

Skill resolution will be Attribute+Skill, or maybe Attribute+(Skill x2)

At the same time that I like the idea of weighting the skill over the stat, I hate having to multiply it.  Instead, why not just have the range of stat scores be lower than the range of skill scores?  Maybe stats run 1-4 and skills 1-8 or something.

Chris

[Nawara]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone... here are some replies to specific questions:

Speaking of which, what do you envision to be "realistic" in the context of your game?

The system; I want a system that accurately models real life. I know that's like saying I want to be the President and have a supermodel/neurosurgeon for a wife, but I'm still going to try to get it as accurate as possible without making it too complicated. Imagine if you LARPed without rules... if you can do it in real life, you can do it in the game. If not, you can't.

I really like the Storyteller system (die mechanic aside), with a few easily-fixable exceptions. I've been designing my own superhero world (155 characters so far!), and statting them out in a heavily-modified version of Aberrant. I've changed the die mechanic to make results more reliable (you stand an 80% chance of getting the statistically average result for your skill level), and fixed some issues with movement, damage, and specific powers.

I'm not worried about how my system reflects combat; I intend combat to happen maybe once every twenty or thirty games, and even with what I have now it should reflect reality: the military characters get a kill ratio of about fifteen-to-one, and the civilian characters can either take cover or get shot.

I'm not sure exactly how to describe what I want, other than to explain how the system is going to be used. I will assemble a group of intelligent people who have never roleplayed before, and let them do whatever in the hell they want to. The only instructions they will receive at the beginning are to do what they would do in real life. Only one character will have a pre-arranged plot seed. The rest can either follow and assist, or do whatever they want. If their character wants to go to the mall, great. Everyone's character will be as close to their player as possible (they won't see their sheets, because they won't need to), and they won't even know about the system (I'll be doing all the die rolling for them).

Hopefully, this will eliminate both the tendency toward combat, and the tendency to group together and look for "adventures". I often wonder what roleplaying would have been like if it hadn't evolved from Dungeons & Dragons, because you can see the taint of the game on everything out there, from Star Wars to Mage.

The first few times I run it, I won't incoporate any sci-fi elements. It'll basically be the Dawson's Creek RPG. Only once I'm convinced that I've gotten a game that doesn't encourage typical roleplaying behavior will I start bringing in

At the same time that I like the idea of weighting the skill over the stat, I hate having to multiply it. Instead, why not just have the range of stat scores be lower than the range of skill scores? Maybe stats run 1-4 and skills 1-8 or something.

Good idea... anyone else have any opinions on this? Double-weight the skills over the attributes, or not? Which is, as a general rule, more reflective of reality?

Also, does anyone have any thoughts on how I should break down the social skills?

Sorry for the long post, and especially sorry for the inability to properly express my thoughts,
Jeff

[Andrew Martin]

Only once I'm convinced that I've gotten a game that doesn't encourage typical roleplaying behavior...

Hi, Jeff.

Have you considered a game where desirable roleplaying behaviour is encouraged?

[M. J. Young]

Jeff, I have an opinion on the attributes+skills question.

Why are you doing it that way at all?

Don't misunderstand--there are good reasons to have attributes and skills, and there are good reasons to combine them in a resolution mechanic--but most games that do it don't do it for any of the good reasons.

Let me give you some aspects to consider.

Why shouldn't it be just roll against your skill?

In character creation, does your system encourage the creation of characters with super high attributes and low skills, because one attribute will give you bonuses on many skills?

Does your advancements system (however it works) encourage players to increase their attributes rather than their skills, for the same reason?

Does the player get any advantage for increasing the skill ability level rather than investing that in an attribute level that would tip the balance in the decision?

You wanted something realistic. It is more realistic, it seems to me, that people get better at particularly skills rather quickly, and at basic attributes much more slowly, if at all. An attribute+skill system that doesn't do something else with attribute and skill numbers to clearly distinguish them encourages the creation and development of characters with rapidly improving attributes and rather stagnant skills.

Just to make it clear where I stand, I designed Multiverser (which it seems to me does a lot of the things you're trying to accomplish), and we use an attribute+skill system for our resolution mechanic. However, there are a lot of reasons within the system for investing in skills rather than attributes, and most people do so.

Hope that helps.

On the skill lists, any distinctions you make will be artificial. You'll just have to make the distinctions which seem to make the most sense to you. You might consider creating skills with concentrations--for example, you note that academics is broad, but specializing makes it narrower. Could you do something like, "Academics: pick one major, two minors, and four peripherals, and justify how these are related"? That way someone could do "Academics: Law; Theology and Philosophy; Psychology, Literature, Music, and Communications" (not at all unrealistic--that's pretty close to me, except that I couldn't figure out where to put game design). Then bonus anything in the major or the minors, and penalize anything outside the peripherals.

Just a thought.

--M. J. Young