Skill List

[JohnG]

Currently my skill list is; brawl, dodge, melee, ranged, thrown, shield, martial arts, athletics, deception, charm, leadership, perform, alertness, Arcane (Magic Type ex. Elemental [this is the skill used to access and cast spells in the different schools]) empathy, stealth, knowledge (insert topic ex. religion), medicine, acrobatics, crafts, lockpick, and ride.

Obviously this is a basic list that will change based on the era and genre, like computer or pilot skills.  I always have trouble thining of skill lists though, any input and ideas on my skill list would be a great help?  What else should I have, what don't I need?

[Vulpinoid]

How many skills are you going for roughly?

V

[JohnG]

I don't really have a set amount, just enough for people to be able to play without going.  "umm what skill do I use to do xxxx" too often

[Ken]

Hi-

I saw that you included crafts, but didn't see a trade skill for building stuff (carpentry, metal smithing, etc.); is it the same thing? Also, you may want to included a mechanics skill.

Also, are your skills ranked, or just flat bonuses?

Ken

[Ken]

Also-

Do languages qualify as skills in your game, or do you just make them free for effect? What about reading? How about tracking, survival, climbing, boating (piloting), trapping, & animal training?

Just brainstorming. The game I'm working on doesn't use a ranked skill system, so I don't have a skill list; I just allow players to write down whatever skills they want to have (for a price, of course), and hand out a bonus when they attempt a task related to the skill.

Hope that helps, and take care,

Ken

[thomas mill8]

Remove lockpicking and make Theivery(SP? too tired to use a dictionary to check) which would encompass lockpicking and pickpocketing, and probably more than that.

Combine charm and deception. They are both charismatic abilities, and making someone like you isn't too different than tricking them.

Add Armor, and give it the 3 generic subcategories of light, medium, and heavy.

(I assume that there are subcategories for melee and ranged. If not, make them.)

[Vulpinoid]

You are right in saying that if there are too few skills, players will say...

"What skill do I use here?"

...but the flip-side of this is when there are too many skills, and players say...

"I could use skill W, skill X, skill Y or skill Z in this situation, which one do I think covers it best?"

In my opinion 3rd Ed D&D did the stupidly over-complicated thing of throwing dozens of similar skills at players, then giving synergy bonuses between them. Hey some people may like this, but a few groups I've played with didn't even bother with synergy bonuses because it made the level advancedment progress take quite a bit longer with dozens of page flips through the book, and only one GM who had to try to explain it to half a dozen different people each time they wanted to progress.

Of course, D&D isn't immune to this, and a game like Rifts does much the same sort of thing.

3 examples: Storyteller System, Rifts and Cadwallon

In White Wolf's old version of the Storyteller system you had thirty or so skills, each divided into categories of 10. These could be paired up with the 9 attributes to give 90 possible types of skill effects. Character can buy multiple levels in specific skills if they want to become more specialised. This is a pretty standard format that appears in quite a few games.

In Rifts you have dozens apon dozens of skills which are divided into about 15 classes of skills. For example "Subterfuge" skills include all those dirty tricks you might play on people as well as ways to stop those tricks being played on you, "Domestic" skills include things you might do around the house. In Rifts most players would probably never even look at domestic skills excpet for the fact that they often get to choose 30+ skills for their character (this means that they literally run out of useful skills and have to start picking flavour skills to round out their characters). This is an old-school method of character generation, where you crammed everything you possibly could onto unwieldy character sheets. It does have some benefits though which I will explain shortly.

Cadwallon is French and therefore has a very different take on roleplaying. It is a very tactical game and everything is defined to the letter, this is so extreme that a character doesn't purchase Melee as a skill, instead they purchase "Lunge", "Slash", "Disarm" and "Parry" as separate actions. Instead of Brawl, they use "Bash" when they are hitting a person or "Smash" when they are hitting a door or object. Most other fields of skills are also defined by specific actions which apply to specific attributes (and attributes apply to states of mind). For example, a player gains a bonus to bash things if they are in an aggressive state of mind, but while they are in this state of mind they find it harder to socially interact with people or consider abstract concepts. It's a clever system, but it takes a bit of getting used to.

Trying to find a balance

If you want character generation to be fairly quick, skills can be one of the aspects that really slow the process down. Having too many of them leads players to option paralysis.

The game Chill from the late 80's, had an interesting system of narrow and wide skill categories. If I go back to the Rifts example, this would be like saying...

"In this game we're not going to focus on espionage or investigation, it's going to be a game about grunts in the military dealing with the psychological horrors they have to face day after day. So instead of picking specific skills in the Espionage or Subterfuge categories, just have a generic score that coveres everything in that type of field, don't worry too much about the specifics because they won't be used much."

In this way the game could be tailored to specific sub-genres and settings by tailoring the skills. You can have maybe ten general categories of skills, then expand out the ones that will be important for this particular game. If a skill category is being played in narrow mode for a game, then a player can increase specific skills within that category for a given amount of experience points. If a skill category is being played in wide mode for a particular game, then a player can boost that entire category by spending two or three times the amount that would normally be spent on a specific narrow skill.

If you have ten wide categories of skills, and sub-divide these categories into five or six specific skills you can have a skill that covers almost every situation. But you can remove the option paralysis and help define the game for the players from the start by saying which categories are using wide or narrow mode, out of 60 possible skills, you can narrow the choices down to 30 or so, which becomes a bit more manageable.

If you wanted to ensure the character generation process speeds along a bit faster again, you can always apply character templates. There has been much discussion on niche gaming and templates skirt those fields of debate, some people like the concept for it's streamlining factor, others hate them because they restrict scope of character choices.

Ken has raised a good point regarding languages and wilderness related skills such as tracking and survival.

If you are going to have a range of defined skills try to make them relevant to the genre of the game. A game of archaeological investigation (a la "Indiana Jones") would have scope for a variety of skills relating to obscure arcane knowledge of different types as well as heroic stunts and athletic feats (so these skills could use the narrow format described above), but military strategy is certainly not covered to this degree.

Another important thing to consider is whether characters can attempt actions without possessing the specific skills that would normally be associated with those actions. Can people attempt to drive a car without the "Drive" skill?

I hope some of these descriptions and examples have proven useful at some level.

V

[Bossy]

Cadwallon is French and therefore has a very different take on roleplaying. It is a very tactical game [...]

I have to protest, in a friendly manner of course, against the frenchness of Cadwallon. Cadwallon is an interesting game indeed and very tactical too, mainly because it's a skirmish-type wargame spinoff: Confrontation (quite a good wargame btw). Granted there's a French touch in the indie RPG world, but you'll find anything there: dungeon crawling, hack'n'slash, narrativist, etc.
Cadwallon is typically the game with a huge list of skills and every single one is redundant with another. That generally ends up with the player choosing the skill that gives his character the most chances of success which are generally very good regardless of the mood. For instance, in Agressive mood, you can have good social interactions as long as the interaction consists on somewhat intimidating or commanding.

Usually, I put the limit at 20 stats, including attributes, skills and gauges. Above that, you know you're making a complicated system which is not evil per se but makes a more ambitious project, another kind of gaming.

[JohnG]

brawl, dodge, melee (type ex. sword), ranged (type ex. bow), thrown, shield, martial arts, athletics, persuasion, leadership, perform, alertness, Arcane (Magic Type ex. Elemental)*, empathy, stealth, survival, knowledge (insert topic), medicine, acrobatics, lockpick, crafts, and ride. 

This is my skill list now, pickpocket will just be a cascade ability of stealth and track will cascade off of survival.  Skills like melee will have multiple different forms, (Melee: Sword, Melee: Axe, Melee: Spear, etc)  Obviously different settings will have new skills, (Modern will have computers, drive, etc) but this is my base list for the fantasy setting Ember that's my first project slated for release.

[Vulpinoid]

Confrontation (quite a good wargame btw). Granted there's a French touch in the indie RPG world, but you'll find anything there: dungeon crawling, hack'n'slash, narrativist, etc.
Cadwallon is typically the game with a huge list of skills and every single one is redundant with another. That generally ends up with the player choosing the skill that gives his character the most chances of success which are generally very good regardless of the mood. For instance, in Agressive mood, you can have good social interactions as long as the interaction consists on somewhat intimidating or commanding.

You're right, I could have gone into a lot more details about the Cadwallon system, but I erred on the side of simplicity.

I actually play Confrontation (the miniatures game that spawned Cadwallon) with my wife, and have done so for 4 years or so. It's a great game, and we've actually been exploiting the Dogs of War supplement for the core system of role-playing campaign.

Cadwallon has an interesting take on skills in that there are many skills that do the same basic thing, but extra degrees of success take the results in different directions. This is off the top of my head as I write my post at work (and far from my copy of the rules), but a slash and a thrust might both do damage to the square in front with a success. Extra successes on the slash might do more damage, while extra successes on the thrust allow you to hit opponents slightly further away.

Definitely skills and redundant skills, but the intricacies allow some very specialised characters.

It's an interesting concept and definitely worth a look, but certainly not appropriate for a lot of gaming groups.

V

[LordKiwi]

Obviously this is a basic list that will change based on the era and genre, like computer or pilot skills.  I always have trouble thining of skill lists though, any input and ideas on my skill list would be a great help?  What else should I have, what don't I need?

What's the game about? I'd personally say you want skills to make players focus on what you want them to be doing. don't include a seperate move silently and hide skill, just call it stealth, unless it's going to be important in the game.

If you are going for a universal system (which it look like you're hinting at) you could arrange them into categories and then depending on the setting you take individual skills (for important things), a whole category as one skill (for less important things) and ban other categories (for things that don't fit the setting).

So for instance....

Code Select Expand

Category (Individual Skills)
--------------------------------------
Stealth (Hide, Move Silently, Pick Locks)
Computers (Hacking, Browse, Programming)
Magic (Fire, Frost, Healing)

That'd mean if you wanted a D&D style setting you could have Stealth as a category skill, Magic as individual skills and Computers banned (skill list: Fire, Frost, Healing, Stealth) but for a Shadowrun style game they would all be individual skills.

Hope that make sense,
John Keyworth

[JohnG]

Lord Kiwi,

Yeah I am leaning to a universal system and I was leaning towards a similar idea to what you're suggesting, I'm just now trying to figure out how exactly I want to group those categories.  Thanks for the suggestions, they're very helpful.

[LordKiwi]

Yeah I am leaning to a universal system and I was leaning towards a similar idea to what you're suggesting, I'm just now trying to figure out how exactly I want to group those categories.  Thanks for the suggestions, they're very helpful.

I'd think one of the best ways to do that would be to compile a skill list from games of many different types. Filter out any you don't like and group the remainder sensibly.

Then try to compile a skill list for each type of game and see if it's possible to get good skill lists.

John,