A Compressed Skill List For Your Enjoyment

[Sanctaphrax]

In the recent Homemaking thread, some possible reconstructions of the DFRPG skill list were discussed. I did some thinking about the topic, and I came up with a 10-skill list that could be used in place of the 25-skill canon list.

Basically, I just mashed similar skills together until there were no non-mashed skills left.

If using this revision, divide everyone's number of skill points by 2 to keep things sane.

Anyway, without any further ado, here's the list:

Perception (Includes all of Awareness, all of Investigation, the Tracking trapping of Survival, the Casing trapping of Burglary and the Reading People trapping of Empathy)
Fitness (Includes all of Athletics except Dodging, all of Might except Wrestling, and all of Endurance)
Violence (Includes all of Fists, all of Weapons except Weapon Knowledge, all of Guns except Gun Knowledge and with no penalty for Other Projectile Weapons, Dodging trapping of Athletics and Wrestling trapping of Might)
Background (Includes all of Contacts and all of Resources)
Willpower (Includes all of Conviction and all of Discipline)
Social Skills (Includes all of Deceit except Distraction And Misdirection, all of Empathy except Reading People, all of Rapport, the Playing To An Audience trapping of Performance, and the Provocation trapping of Intimidation)
Charisma (Includes all of Presence, all of Intimidation except Provocation, the public speaking sub-trapping of Performance, and the Social Defence trapping of Rapport)
Intelligence (Includes all of Lore, all of Scholarship, all of Performance except public speaking and Playing To An Audience, the Weapon Knowledge trapping of Weapons, the Gun Knowledge trapping of Guns, and all of Craftsmanship)
Sneaky Stuff (Includes all of Stealth, the Distraction And Misdirection trapping of Deceit, the Camouflage trapping of Survival, and all of Burglary)
Travel (Includes all of Driving and all of Survival except Camouflage and Tracking)

So, people, what do you think?

Would you ever consider using this? Do you think it looks reasonable? And is Travel as lame as I think it is?

[Tallyrand]

I've got a few problems with this, one is dividing the skill points by 2.  That seems like it would really limit the range of skills could have, they would be able to do more but wouldn't be able to do anything quite as well. 

Another issue is the name of some of the skills (which is easily fixed I know, but still an important aspect [no pun intended] of the system).  The most egregious offender is Intelligence, I like the fact that in The Dresden files it is the players intelligence that is used, that's why it isn't a 'stat'.  You can be a smart burglar but when you don't have any ranks in something in the game called Intelligence it would be hard to justify that characterization.  Throughout the book it's stressed that the names of things matter and I think this is a prime example.

Lastly (at first glance) is some of the combinations.  Someone raised by a superstitious parent or in an order of monster hunters may well have a high lore but no scholarship to speak of.  An investigative journalist would likely have a long list of contacts but struggle to find two dimes to rub together (and even Harry is a prime example with his high contacts and complete lack of cash).  And there are a LOT of people out there who are competent with Guns but couldn't handle themselves in a fist fight or vise-verse.

All told I think the cannon system is far superior, I don't really see any problems that this solves and quite a number that it creates.

[MAK]

I have worked on a similar case when making a homebrew FATE based on DFRPG and agree on some of the points, but I think only 10 skills is going too far. If you classify canon DFRPG skills you get something like this (mainly SotC category names):

Physical: Athletics, Endurance, Might
Combat: Fists, Guns, Weapons
Subterfuge: Burglary, Stealth
Mental: Conviction, Discipline
Perception: Alertness, Investigation
Social   : Contacts, Deceit, Empathy, Intimidation, Presence, Rapport
Knowledge: Lore,    Scholarship
Environment: Craftsmanship, Drive, Performance, Resources, Survival

The first thing that sticks out is the number of social skills versus other groups, so combining say Contacts + Presence and Deceit + Rapport would probably make sense. You would have to drop the misdirection trapping and bolt it to Stealth, though. Burglary could be divided among Investigation and Alertness (for the casing trappings) and Craftmanship (security systems and lockpicking). I probably wouldn't go further than that, although combining Fists + Weapons is tempting, as well as getting somehow rid of Performance & Conviction as individual skills.

Number of skill points needs to be scaled of course but I'd do that as a straight fraction of the new number vs old number of skills (i.e. from 25 to 18 would be 0.72 * original point amounts and so on)

[Tallyrand]

I guess an important question to ask here is what problem are you trying to solve by condensing the skill list?

[MAK]

I don't think there is a "problem" per se in the canon skill list, it's more a question of playstyle preferences... Some points I've previously thought up:

Few skills <- vs -> many skills
faster/fluffier <- character creation -> slower/crunchier
more story <- gaming style -> more simulation
simpler <- mechanics -> more complex
more generic/similar <- character niche -> more optimized/individual

These points of preference depend totally on the gaming group and campaign, so there is no correct answer or problem that needs solving. Some like less complexity in rules, some more.

[Tallyrand]

I can see your points in regards to Fast/Slow; Simple/Complex; and Generic/Optimized but I feel that fewer skills would be less fluffy (for example the high Lore low Scholarship concept is a fluffy one) and wouldn't provide a greater story focus since that really comes from how you play not what's written on your paper.  For an example of how this would work could you show us what some of the core DF characters would look like with this system?  I think that Harry, Murphy, Michael, Billy and Thomas are sort of the key "PC" characters, could we see a couple of them as examples?

[MAK]

I get your point and assume that the modeling of canon DF characters is one of the big reasons why the skill list is currently as it is. This is what I mean by "simulation" in my post: simulating the genre/source material as faithfully as possible. By the "story" end of the spectrum I try to say that it is not so important to have an accurate mechanical representation of the world, descriptions are enough ("anti-simulation"?)

[Tallyrand]

Fair enough, I'm not trying to be antagonistic, honestly I'm just trying to see what you're getting at.  I agree that things would be a little faster/more simple by reducing the skill list I just think it would make representation too blunt which would break my immersion.

Ideally of course you would have players who would play everything within the spirit of their concept, but you bump into some major barriers if a player doesn't feel like voluntarily limiting themselves.  For example with the Combat skill one of the characters may be a survivalist gun nut with some martial arts training, justifying most of what the skill could be used for.  But in that game my immersion would be broken if that same character then began fencing proficiently because he managed to get his hands of a magical epee or perhaps began expertly firing a mortar despite his background being strictly non-military.  As a GM I wouldn't feel justified saying no to these uses of the skill, they are after all what he payed for, but I also would feel that in some way the character has made a mockery of the story we as a group were trying to tell.

There is something to be said though for, for example, lessening the number of skills useable in social combat (in my experience an often over complicated situation at the gaming table) or reducing the need to arbitrate the question "Now should I use Lore or Scholarship for that".  I just worry that at a table this solution to those problems would be like killing a fly with a hand grenade.

[MAK]

In my experience, the more a certain area of play is emphasized, the finer the distinctions between skills defining that area need to be. For example in a military campaign with very little in-game social activity you could increase the number of combat skills, while radically reducing social skills. On the other hand, for a campaign that focuses on character interactions the opposite is probably true.

That's why I'm hesitant in accepting such a minimal skill list as originally proposed. When I tried the same, I could not compress the list to less than 18 skills (and that includes throwing out some trappings altogether).

[crusher_bob]

Hmm...

Here's what Harry's character sheet looks like:

5: conviction
4: endurance, intimidation
3: alertness, discipline, lore
2: athletics, contacts, investigation, rapport
1: fists, presence, scholarship, stealth, weapons

--------------------

By category:

5: willpower
4: fitness, charisma
3: perception, willpower, intelligence
2: fitness, background, perception, social
1: violence, charisma, intelligence, sneaky, violence

And the total points:
willpower: 8
Fitness: 6
charisma: 5
perception 5
intelligence 4
background 2
social 2
violence 2
sneaky 1

So skills would be something like
4: willpower
3: charisma, fitness
2: intelligence, Perception
1: background, social, violence

------------------

Assumption: most difficulties in the system are lowered by 1.

-----------------

Old harry has 6 things he's good at and 4 things he can sort of gimp by in.  New harry has 5 things he's good at and 3 things he can sort of gimp by in.  So not a whole lot of change there.

What about stress meters and passive defenses?

Old harry has:
Stress:
Physical 4
mental 4 + consequence
social 3

Passive defenses:
Physical: 2
Social: 2
Mental: 3

New Harry:
Stress:
Physical 4 (assuming fitness)
mental 4 (assuming willpower)
social 4 (asuming charisma)

Passive defenses:
Physical: 1 (assume violence)
Social: 1 (assume social)
Mental: 4 (assume willpower)

------------------------

Now, lets look at one of our sample characters:

Xiao Jing-Wei

5: Lore, Discipline
4: Conviction, Rapport
3: Empathy, Presence
2: Deceit, Resources, Scholarship
1: Alertness, Contacts, Craftsmanship, Endurance, Investigation

Stress:
Mental: 4
physical: 3
social: 4

Passive Defences:
Physical: 5 (using Lore)
Social: 5 (using Lore)
Mental: 5

-------------

To:

4 intelligence
3 social, willpower
2 perception, charisma
1 background, fitness, violence?

Stress:
Mental: 4 (assuming willpower)
physical: 3 (assuming fitness)
social: 3 (assuming charisma)

Passive Defences:
Physical: 4 (using Intelligence)
Social: 4 (using Intelligence)
Mental: 3 (assuming willpower)


----------------------------

1:
At first glance doesn't seem to change things too much.  Still possible to have characters that feel different, despite the lower number of skill points.  Also reduces skill level inflation.  On the other hand, may be much harder to fit in attacks, defenses, and stress related skills all at once.  With generally lower weapon totals, may lead to interesting dynamic of tough vs dodgy characters, but with high weapon bonuses, defense skill wins.

2:
reduced number of skills is easy to fill up the pyramid.  Around 20-25 skills points seems to be the practical maximum.  Would consider making characters explicitly tiered to avoid them having every skill, if you want to play at higher power.

3:
May make trapping switching stunts more powerful, since it's much harder to have two good skills.

4:
Still doesn't seem to change main problem of system, they seems to encourage play at 'scooby gang' power level, rather than 'Harry Dresden' power level.

[admiralducksauce]

Niche protection becomes more of a problem, although I'll admit that Aspects and Stunts work to mitigate this just as they do with the RAW.

Call Intelligence "Knowledge" instead.

You know, you really have condensed it down into what I'd think of as attributes. I worked on a homebrew a while back that, while it did allow for specializations within the main traits, only had 10 main traits. It seems appropriate to post them here, maybe you can refine or rethink your list based on what I did, or maybe my list will just reinforce a feeling NOT to change it:

* the parentheses include the specializations I did for my homebrew - they equate to somewhere between full skills and trappings for DFRPG)

Might (strength, toughness)
Move (athletics, reflexes, stealth)
Fight (all melee combat)
Shoot (all ranged weaponry)
Drive (driving, boating, pilot, riding - I like your name "Travel" for this, actually)
Think (area knowledge, business, culture, medicine, science, tactics)
Talk (entertain, languages, persuasion - I make no differentiation between deceit and truth)
Tech (computers, demolitions, electronics, repair)
Wits (awareness, empathy, streetwise, survival, tracking, B&E)
Will (intimidation, leadership, willpower)

[devonapple]

The thing which stood out the most as a loss was the "Background" skill. You would have to rely on Stunts to differentiate the wealthy guy who can buy anything or anyone from the street rat who "knows a guy." The Violence skill could just as easily be the Damage skill. Conflating Discipline and Conviction would blur the line almost completely between skilled-but-weak casters and strong-but-unsubtle power casters. But there are probably dozens of similar losses of distinction: these are just the ones that stood out.

[Silverblaze]

As much as people say certain parts of the system are core to it working.  Consequences, stresses etc.

I believe the game was designed with a set number of skills and a certain way to build those skills up with game balance in mind.  It was play tested before this draft was presented.  I don't think everything was fixed or made perfect.  I do assume much like even the things I argue against; this skill system (number of skills) was put into the final draft for a reason.

 As much as I am being encouraged to accept the rules in the system I don't care for (consequences/social combat [please do not derail due to this sentence it has been hashed out plenty elsewhere]): I believe people should accept the skill system that exists.

Also, actions per round, but that is for anotehr thread entirely and I seem at odds with many on that issue.  I simply used action economy and my complaints about the system as one of those arguements that follows this logic ----> "If I am to be encouraged to accept X, I shall encourage people to accept X under the same arguement they support."

Hmm...


1:
At first glance doesn't seem to change things too much.  Still possible to have characters that feel different, despite the lower number of skill points.  Also reduces skill level inflation.  On the other hand, may be much harder to fit in attacks, defenses, and stress related skills all at once.  With generally lower weapon totals, may lead to interesting dynamic of tough vs dodgy characters, but with high weapon bonuses, defense skill wins.

2:
reduced number of skills is easy to fill up the pyramid.  Around 20-25 skills points seems to be the practical maximum.  Would consider making characters explicitly tiered to avoid them having every skill, if you want to play at higher power.

3:
May make trapping switching stunts more powerful, since it's much harder to have two good skills.

Good points/concerns.  I agree.

All points to the contrary; the categories would work in a game where the pyramid wasn't so important to how characters interact wit hteh game.

[Sanctaphrax]

@Tallyrand: Not trying to fix anything here. This was just for fun.

Really don't care about the names, sorry. They're insignificant to me.

Honestly, I'd be more interested in opinions on how to compress the skill list then on whether to do it. But I do appreciate the blunt feedback.

@MAK: Looks like we were thinking along similar lines when making a shorter list.

I think that reducing the skill points you get by the ratio that the number of skills has been reduced by is a mistake. By that method, a Feet In The Water character using this skill list would have a grand total of 8 points. Not even enough for 1 Great skill.

@crusher_bob: Good breakdown. Curious what you mean by the main problem of the system, though. I haven't found any real problems playing at Harry Dresden level.

Also, why reduce difficulties using this list?

@devonapple: The problems you mention are the inevitable result of a limited skill list. Even with the 25 canonical skills, you'll often find skills too broad for many characters. For example, all knife throwers are skilled axemen unless the take stunts or Aspects to change that.

Compressing the skill list aggravates those problems, but it also simplifies the game. For whatever that's worth.

@Silverblaze: Sorry, I don't follow.

[devonapple]

@devonapple: The problems you mention are the inevitable result of a limited skill list. Even with the 25 canonical skills, you'll often find skills too broad for many characters. For example, all knife throwers are skilled axemen unless the take stunts or Aspects to change that.
Compressing the skill list aggravates those problems, but it also simplifies the game. For whatever that's worth.

It's true. I certainly have no counter-suggestions - it is a fairly tight list.