Bear with me if the posting isn't 100% coherent. I'm trying to work out the exact mechanics as I go along.

Let me first state my intent: I don't want skills for Ygg. What I'm specifically against are the a) necessarily looking through skill lists at character creation and b) skills needed for adequate performance during the average challenge.

How I started out

Initially I had a skill system with all the usual mechanics, including deriving each from stats (even combination of stats to make it more "realistic" - I know how silly that sounds). But I grew out of that. For the fantasy game I'm creating there is no need for explicit skills as they only come to play rather seldom.

Except, of course, combat. So I seperated out the combat skill (two of them, one for missile combat and one for close combat) and put them on equal grounds with the stats. Everyone has it.

To replace the skill rolls one would roll stats or use an ability. This is a very old approach. This is pretty much what you get with D&D out of the dungeon.

Sidenote: Motivation

I could have created a massive skill system, but that means the players need to familiarize themselves with what skills are important and which ones are unimportant. I was aiming for a game where a newbie wouldn't need to read through a tome to select skills.

Also, the more skills (usually motivated by detail and inconsistency in level of details), the more diluted the actual skills get. That in turn tends to drive an increased number of skills to be taken, and prolonging the lookup time even further.

To get a skill system with pre-listed skills which "covers everything in detail" is an impossible thing (tm).

Fine granularity also runs into the risk of severely handicap characters not taking skills. There is also the effect of skill levels "carrying over" helping increasing other skills. Making a system for this would not only be a challenge, but a completed such system would still have no guarantee to be even remotely predicting reasonable results (although it might model the world nicely)

First sign of problems

Creating the abilities I discovered that maybe some of them ought to have their results affected by the stats. That was a problem, but not a fatal one. What was worse was that I wanted to have skills to form a kind of colour to character. For example you would take the "skill reduction" or "un-skill" of "can't swim" because the character might be afraid of water and so on.

Suddenly there was skills and with those the problems a skill system brings. How would they relate to the stats?

One more step of problems

Enter riskbreakers as defined in my Ygg part 2

This is nothing more than creating new skills (assumed trained during non-adventure time for the simulationists out there) on the fly.

These new skills are registered in the system, or should be at least.

Despite my best intentions I have skills. So how do I keep them from messing things up.

New thoughts

As far as narrativist games go, my suggestions aren't very new, but doing it in a sim-geared game like Ygg it's a big step to take.

First, what about reducing skill to "descriptors"?

What happens when you "increase a skill"? Well that would mean you can modify your description.

A "riskbreaker" would then simply let you add a descriptor, with the descriptor having to describe the riskbreaker situation, stuff like "jumping a 5 meter wide chasm" and so on. In general they have to be specific.

Now it gets a little fiddly though. How do we actually systemize these ideas?

What does it mean to have "succeeded in jumping a 5 meter wide chasm" or "afraid of swimming"?

If we regulate it to a +1 bonus or a -1 bonus we haven't really gotten anywhere. We're stuck with creating an elaborate mechanism with very little grounding in reality.

I was thinking that could be avoided by thinking of the descriptors as modifications to difficulty rather than to the skill level.

However, this is not to be thought of as each simply modifying a chance of success through a difficulty modification.

In fact, these descriptors can be used without invoking the authority of stats. For example "knows his way around Paris" exactly means that. It's not a modification to the skill roll, but really a stat in itself. If the GM decides that it is enough for Bob to find a decent hotel, then that's what's gonna happen. If the GM is not sure, he simply invokes the 50-50 rule of dealing with unknowns. If it's not enough (too obscure) then GM simply declares no success.
OR of course Bob may use a riskbreaker (if the GM thinks that would be enough) to try to get a 50-50 roll. If the riskbreaker succeeds, Bob finds what he looks for and gets to improve the descriptor to include his recent amazing find in Paris.

The rules gets a little vague here, because it's up to the GM to decide what is a) needed for success and b) if you can use a riskbreaker and c) what the limits are on improving the descriptor.

a) is simplified a little because there are only three possible choices: you might find it, you can't find it, and you will find it.

b) A riskbreaker basically means: "you can't find it, but if you had improved a little you would have had the chance". This might not be all that difficult to determine.

In many other cases it simply provides a bonus. Like "good at jumping chasms" might decrease the difficulty to jump cliffs by 1.

However, the interesting thing to note is that the skill is not a skill with a rating, but a descriptor which has different effects depending on the sitiation.

You can actually interpret the fact that stats are used as basis for skill roles as having the descriptor "common skills trained to a level determined by the stat (or in other words, as long as it was easy)"

Please also note that the "bonus" you get from a skill might vary. In some cases the bonus might be larger than others, all depending on how appropriate it is for the situation.

However, I think this is fairly easy to work out from the descriptors alone.

Now, to end this, let me give you an example:

Name: Rick Dangerous
Profession: archeologist adventurer
Descriptors:
Trained at jumping chasms
Good at avoiding falling rocks
Used to quick thinking


When Rick Dangerous wants to jump a chasm, he might get a big bonus to his agility. And if there's a falling rock he probably not only will succeed in avoiding it once he discovers it, but is also more likely to see it than most people.

Rick probably also knows a few stunts to make rock dodging easier. He's also used to quick thinking which means his stress level is probably a bit lower than usual.

And so on.


Now this isn't so unlike other approaches which usually say "put together your character's concept and choose keywords and make your character out of that"

However, I find such a notion a little difficult to introduce in a sim game. I read Hero Wars use tables of examples as well as option to intruduce own stuff, but as I don't have the game I don't know how it feels.

All in all, I already have rather vague rules, but I still want the feeling of the game rather well defined. It's to be sim after all, and the "freedom" of the game is supposed to feel more like "unchartered territories with a guide provided" which the players may or may not choose to explore the use of. This is why I provide it as an add-on rather than the core mechanic.

Without getting into why that's important (you just have to trust me that it doesn't fit with Ygg), how can I bring some solid feeling to the system above without forcing it onto the players. Can I disguise it a little more efficient perhaps so it doesn't seem so free-forn?

Since there are people here well versed in making these kind of games, maybe you have some suggestions.

Now, to end this, let me give you an example:

Name: Rick Dangerous
Profession: archeologist adventurer
Descriptors:
Trained at jumping chasms
Good at avoiding falling rocks
Used to quick thinking

Andrew Martin wrote:
Wouldn't those last three descriptors be included within the profession Archeologist Adventurer?

Then the player could individualise the character description of the Archeologist Adventurer for example, Great with a Whip.

Hmm. Unfortunatly, descriptors are always a bit vague. Not sure what you can do about.

Your objection to skill list is that they make it difficult to create a characther, because you have to look at tons of skills and it is impossible for skill list to apply to every situtation.

One method would be to have a broad list of skills, say just 3.
Physical Skills
Intelectual Skills
Social Skills

Charachters assign a priority to each area to each area at creation. Also, they have certian number of free riskbreakers. Thus, when a situtation comes up where they need a skill, they may assigne of their free riskbreakers to get a descriptor under the appropriate area. (GM approves if these make sense)
Frex Archeoligist Rick may start with
Phsycial Skills 3 ( I used 1-3 as an examples)
Intelectual Skills 1
Social Skills 2

After a few scenes he has used the characther a bit and may have
Physcial Skills 3 (Using My Whip, Evading stone Traps, Climbing)
Intelectual Skills 1 (Reading Egyptian, Riddlin')
Social Skills 2 (Hitting on Ladies, Asking for Grants)

The idea is you select broad priorites at creation, which is small list, and easy, and then specify it afterwards. Experianced players may know what they want their descriptors to be at the beginning, but this works for newbies also.
This also helps ensure characthers tend to have appropriate skills to the champaign.

Christoffer Lerno a.k.a. Pale Fire wrote: I could have created a massive skill system, but that means the players need to familiarize themselves with what skills are important and which ones are unimportant. I was aiming for a game where a newbie wouldn't need to read through a tome to select skills.

Christoffer Lerno a.k.a. Pale Fire wrote: Since there are people here well versed in making these kind of games, maybe you have some suggestions.

M.J., my problems isn't with the combat. In fact, the descriptors are definately not to be used to combat maneuvres.

There is a deliberate lack of focus on skills. In fact, I could throw out the descriptors and still have a working system. That system would consist of stats, combat rating (considered a stat!) and abilities.

Stats are the general replacement for skills.


Why do I want a "skill system"? Well, for a player to be able to say "my character can/can't swim" for example. Actually those things does not need any rules, I could have the player state them at any time. However, there's no rules for their improvment.

With good players there would be no need for a systems, but I'm thinking of the potential abuse of declaring advantage whenever a need arises:

GM: "There's a cliff..."

Player: "Did I tell you that my character always was jumping over things as a child?"

GM: "There's a long dive down into the raging bubbling waters of the river below"

Player: "My character was always diving when he was little, he's good at that"

What I mean is, riskbreakers were supposed to be used in these situations to maybe get a chance to up the stat rating a little. If you can declare background traits on the fly without any limit there will be people who go that route all the time.

I was thinking of maybe a cap on background traits. Maybe like suggested elsewere (by Valamir?) to cap them by stat. If you have stat 5 you have 5 background traits to use in total (for skills regulated by that stat), before or after creation to flesh out your character with. After that it would be pure riskbreakers (which only possibly increase a stat check for that action by 1).

Does this sound like what you're suggesting?

Pale Fire wrote: If you can declare background traits on the fly without any limit there will be people who go that route all the time.

Andrew Martin wrote: Then why not allow players to pay for the ability to succeed in this situation, by spending a currency? That way, the expense becomes a limiting factor.

And, if other players object (for example, the GM), they could spend their own currency against this.

This is partly a continuation of the conversation from the Ygg right now part 1 thread. That thread has passed over the page horizon, and there are enough active Ygg threads right now that I'm not inclined to bring an old one back. However, the remaining issues that I wanted to comment on are both on the topic of this thread.

Christoffer (from the Ygg part 1 thread) wrote:

Walt wrote: You sort of imply that riskbreakers are used in situations with an element of risk. Your example is jumping over a chasm. But what if I just want to jump over a puddle so my boots don’t get wet?

Actually I was thinking of allowing them for whatever situation the player wants. The name is simply pointing to the best use for it. It's the "advancement in the middle" you suggested yourself in the "level" thread, sneaking its way into the actual rules ;)

Ok, I admit it's kind of a paradox.

My thinking goes something like this:

Skills->Skill lists->Too much choice at creation, dillution of skill usefullnes, necessary lack of completeness of said list.

A skill based system would also imply a focus on skills. That tends to lead with bad and/or inexperienced GM's to the situations where skills are abused into a form of failed illusionism. You know, when you do what the GM wants you don't have to have the skill or roll. If you go against the story, the GM forces you to perpetually roll for skills in a hope that fortune eventually will trip up the player.

My use of karma resolution for the action resolution is very much in line with my lack of focus on skills.

But why not throw them out completely?

This is due to me perceiving a use of them as a way to characterize things.

Skills can work two ways. A lack of "swimming skill" might imply that you didn't live near sea. Or "you didn't live near sea" might imply a lack of swimming skill.

So far so good. Here you could argue don't really need skills, because you have the description of "didn't live near sea" which gives you increased chance already.

But what if I make the character Rokk, who worked his whole life as a fisherman but never learned to swim. Quite plausible. Then you'd like to have some descriptor about that.

OR of course you could free form it. When I jump into the ocean I just make up if I succeed or not, with the GM to override it if he/she wants.

That works, but it kind of eliminates any improvement of skills. That might not be an issue in some cases, and maybe not even in Ygg.

But I was thinking, wouldn't it be neat to at least have a descriptor? For example Rokk might have "unable to Swim", "Worked as a fisherman since he was young", "Learned The Power Word of Ghnamus from a Strange old Man"

When Rokk goes to a library to read about the Sibylla of Monmuria, you could add "read about the Sibylla of Monmuria"

If Rokk eventually learns to swim, he could update his Swimming descriptor with that info.

As for the Riskbreakers, I was envisioning them as "off-screen training which pays off", although your vision of them has its merits.

What I was thinking about is that Rokk doesn't need to say he's practicing jumping. He can, of course, declare that in his off-screen time he's gonna train jumping. OR he can whip it out when it's needed as a Riskbreaker. If Rokk trains jumping he simply writes down "trained jumping". That wouldn't be the same as ristbreaking, as you only have a chance to improve when riskbreaking, whereas the dedicated training is automatic. Naturally there would have to be some kind of currency regulating those things as well, or someone might come up with the idea of saying that they trained 1 billion things during a month to cover all situations.

What I don't like about skills are the effect of them. The dilution of efficiency, the look-up and read-up of descriptions, the lack of completeness, the focus on skills and the usage of them as a failed illusionist method to keep the players in line.

I think Hero Wars is working along the same lines. You write up descriptors, and then interpret them during the game instead of narrowly defining them at character creation as isolated entities.

Okay, you do want skills (I wish I could get you to say that, though. If you can't bring yourself to type the sentence "I want skills in Ygg" then I still think you should not have them.) But there are some problems (and some matters of taste) you want to avoid.

What you need is some middle ground in the spectrum between skill lists and open-ended descriptors. Skill lists have some of the problems (look up, incompleteness), while descriptors are too difficult to keep consistent in scope.

Perhaps you might want to try some ideas I was tinkering with a few years ago. (Basically, at the time I was trying to invent FUDGE. Then FUDGE came out, having pretty much achieved everything I was trying to do, so I downloaded FUDGE instead.) I wanted open-ended player-selected abilities that all cost the same, and I was worried about scope variations too.

One possibility I worked on is to have a list, not of abilities, but of types of ability descriptors. This could be a fairly short list, with a dozen or two dozen or so choices. When you make up an ability, it has to be patterned after one of the descriptor types. In other words, they're descriptor descriptors.

An example of a descriptor type might be "unusual quality of a specific body part." A specific body part is further defined as one internal organ or one limb (skin, head, and sense organs not permitted). An unusual quality is further described as a plausible and nonmagical characteristic. Descriptors that would fit that descriptor type would include:

- A scarred hand that cannot feel pain.
- An "iron" stomach (can eat any nontoxic substance in any amount without discomfort)
- A bow drawing arm that never (or almost never) tires.
- A liver that can break down alcohol as fast as you can drink it.

Here are a few more possible descriptor types and some example "skills" that they could engender:

Performs a common physical feat in an unusual way.

- Rides sidesaddle or bareback
- Sleeps sitting up
- Mounts horse by vaulting
- Puts pants on both legs at once

Can survive long-term with half of the normal amount of some essential need.

- water (adapted like a Bedouin to less water)
- oxygen (adapted like a Sherpa to high altitudes)
- food (adapted like an Eastern Ascetic to less food)
- sleep (adapted like a medical resident to less sleep)

Can manufacture some specific tangible thing from the raw materials.

- buckets
- arrows
- castles (with lots of help...)
- catapults (with lots of help...)

Communicates in an unusual nonverbal way with others with similar ability

- embossed code (braille)
- sign language
- yodeling
- smoke signals
- coded birdcalls

Can perform a common physical or mental feat faster than normal

- fast swimmer (but no less likely to drown in heavy surf)
- fast runner
- fast reader
- can wash, dry, and stack a banquet's worth of dishes in record time

Is the friend of the spirits of some specific natural thing in its natural state (that is, "oak trees" is OK but "wood" is too general and too removed from its natural state), and cannot be hurt by it

- cannot drown in natural bodies of fresh water
- will always be able to find way out of natural caverns
- can climb pine trees with no danger of falling
- will not be harmed by any wild bear
- will not be harmed by snakes in their natural habitat

Can always find another (any small harmless object of no great value) hidden on his or her person.

Can perform a common physical or mental feat a little better than most people

- running leap (a bit farther)
- swimming (a bit better technique, less likely to drown in surf -- but no faster)
- cooking (always times the heat and gets the seasoning just right)
- poetry

Needless to say, the "descriptor descriptor" list would need a lot of work, to weed out less useful choices, spot loopholes, and invent a full range of choices with sufficiently broad coverage. But the end result could be a dozen or two descriptor descriptors that would allow an infinite variety of skills all with fairly well constrained scopes.

Another idea I was playing with was requiring each ability to have at least one of a standard set of drawbacks. (Kind of like Hero System without all the numbers.) The main purpose was to force the player to reveal an understanding of how the ability was actually done (rather than just the effect it had). For example, a pickpocketing ability with the drawback "requires extended advance preparation for a particular attempt" might mean that your style requires careful advance study of the specific victim's patterns and habits. While the same pickpocketing ability with the drawback "failure causes harm" would indicate an improvisational approach that can be used on the spur of the moment but could get you caught.

Here's what I can remember of the drawback list:

- Failure causes harm (failure in using the skill leaves you in worse condition than if you hadn't attempted the skill at all)
- Requires extended advance preparation
- Requires trained assistants/accomplices
- Requires the expenditure of a difficult to obtain consumable substance
- Requires obvious bulky (or even non-portable) tools
- Requires total concentration; can do nothing else while performing the ability and fails if the concentration is broken
- Using the ability is extraordinarily fatiguing
- Ability is limited more tightly than its usual scope; e.g. hunting only for a specific kind of game or only within a specific environment, or climbing only trees

The drawback has to be justified by the player as representing how the character goes about performing the ability. If a player can't think of how a rare consumable substance would be of use in pickpocketing, then he has to choose a different drawback.

The drawback list, too, needs some real work, especially in the area of supporting mental skills. Once again the main idea is that it's a list of a dozen or so general categories instead of hundreds of specifics.

- Walt

Nice, but I would only have something like that if someone else wrote it for me. Despite it's consistency in scope, it seems like you run into a similar incompleteness issue that you would with skills.

Over to another issue: As far as I am concerned, the descriptor system is only supposed to be about 2% of the total mechanics. That means it should be easy, quick and have little impact on actual performance.

The latter is especially important: There should never be a need to take a descriptor to improve actions that are in the focus of the game. Combat and magic, for example, are part of the focus and thus can't be in the descriptors. On the other hand, great cooking skill could be with no problem at all.

I could possibly borrow a little from your idea and do something like this:

Rules

There are x kind of descriptors:

* Background (region)
* Background (parent's profession)
* Former Profession
* Unusual Excellence
* Unusual Feebleness
* Studies & Training
* Retcon Training / Riskbreakers

Background

Every character get one (1) background descriptor telling where they grew up and what influenced their early life, namely their parent's profession.

Rokk was born and raised in a small village in Western Greykaal, where his mother was working as a trader and his father being a useless bum.

Name: Rokk
Descriptors:
Home - village, Western Greykaal
Mother - Trader


Former Profession

This is the professional skills the character might have.

Rokk started working as a trader but it didn't suit him, so he apprenticed in the local bakery.

Name: Rokk
Descriptors:
Home - village, Western Greykaal
Mother - Trader
Profession - Trader (1 year), Baker (3 years)


Unusual Excellence/Feebleness

Let's say you get 10 excellences. You can take extra feeblenesses to get more excellences. All these are about minor types of actions. The more specific the skill, the more it is worth. So "great at diving" would be better for diving than "great at everything that has to do with water". This is about skills, nothing else.

Rokk picks Great At Finding Food in the Forrest, Great At Making Pancakes, Great At Sleeping No Matter What and some more. He also picks 2 feeblenesses: Bad At Listening To People Talking About Religion, Bad At Accepting Exotic Food.

Name: Rokk
Descriptors:
Home - village, Western Greykaal
Mother - Trader
Profession - Trader (1 year), Baker (3 years)
Great At Finding Food in the Forrest
Great At Making Pancakes
Great At Sleeping No Matter What
....
Bad At Listening To People Talking About Religion
Bad At Accepting Exotic Food


Studies & Training

This is about training and studies after character creation. Any training or studies can be done and written down.

Later Rokk enters the Library of Aghshnack-na-zool and reads up about Killer Butterflies. Rokk gets "Read about Killer Butterflies (in the Library of Aghshnack-na-zool)"

After that he is taught the method of Abzurian Long Jumping which he trains very hard for a week. "Trained Abzurian Long Jumping for a week" is added to the descriptors.

Name: Rokk
Descriptors:
Home - village, Western Greykaal
Mother - Trader
Profession - Trader (1 year), Baker (3 years)
Great At Finding Food in the Forrest
Great At Making Pancakes
Great At Sleeping No Matter What
....
Bad At Listening To People Talking About Religion
Bad At Accepting Exotic Food
Read about Killer Butterflies (in the Library of Aghshnack-na-zool)
Trained Abzurian Long Jumping for a week


Riskbreakers

The final thing is riskbreakers. It's basically saying "I trained that thing on the off-adventure time, and now I cash in". Unlike the training which you write down when you do it. Riskbreakers are retcon:ed into existence.

You roll and if you succeed that means you actually trained it in off screen time. Write "trained at x " followed by the bonus, which starts at +1. Only actions that could be improved through training can be increased in this way.

Rokk is on a sea journey to the Jagani islands. Unfortunately stuff happens which leads him to fall overboard. Usually his stat wouldn't be up to the task of saving him, so he uses riskbreakers to improve his skill. Succeeding he gets "trained at staying afloat in turbulent waters +1"

Name: Rokk
Descriptors:
Home - village, Western Greykaal
Mother - Trader
Profession - Trader (1 year), Baker (3 years)
Great At Finding Food in the Forrest
Great At Making Pancakes
Great At Sleeping No Matter What
....
Bad At Listening To People Talking About Religion
Bad At Accepting Exotic Food
Read about Killer Butterflies (in the Library of Aghshnack-na-zool)
Trained Abzurian Long Jumping for a week
trained at staying afloat in turbulent waters +1


----

These rules still feel a bit weird. Especially the riskbreakers, done this way, seem way out of place. Putting them together with inspirations might help but I'm not 100% sure. I have to do some more thinking.

Actually rereading what I just typed, I have a feeling that the "excellence/feebleness" descriptors are things that ought to be treated as "sure riskbreakers" so that you don't actually define them as you make your character, but rather afterwards when the situation comes.

In other words, kind of a character creation pool.

Toying with that idea, let's say you have 10 points to start out. You can lose a point by declaring a piece of positive background "I'm great at making pancakes" and you can get a point by stating negative background "I'm bad at standing on one leg".

You could go further but that might be a little more appropriate for a different game. You could build a whole currency around this revealing flaws and skills. There could be "major revelations" a player could declare to get a boost to his character creation pool. This isn't unlike what you would do in a game of Champions to explain boosts of power.

Did we end up with a different subject now? Should I post this in a new thread trying to pick up some more comments on it?