Messing With The Skill List

[crusher_bob]

I picked the 'odd' split of ranged and close combat to encourage more attention to movement and range.  The guys with ranged combat want to be one zone away, while the guys with close combat want to be in the same zone. The problem with the regular rules I've seen is that most people don't care a lot about moving because it generally doesn't matter much.

I also am not sure about the (skill -2) thing, but did it that way because I wanted a character with a limited skill selection to not have gaping holes in their capabilities.  Of course, -2 is still not a great compromise.

What I mostly wanted to avoid is characters having large holes in their abilities because they couldn't squeeze in one more skill.  So I tried out the idea that one skill would give you 'some' of the utility of other skills.  The idea should be that taking the other skill to get the 'full' utility of those trappings should still be attractive but you get at least some of the coverage from a related skill.

Also chose the skill breakdown so social characters and combat characters would have require the same number of skill to do either thing.


I picked the 'friendly' and 'unfriendly' distinction because 'ranged combat' and 'close' combat' are both 'good' at resolving combat situations.  So wanted the mirror social skills to be equally useful in most social situations.

[crusher_bob]

Further comments:

Can see plenty of situations where 'friendly' and 'unfriendly' forms of social interaction are both ideal.

Something like:
"The hostile gang of lycanthropes approaches you..."
vs
"The state governor is throwing a posh reception, and many of the people you want to talk to will be there..."

The additional trapping of presence would be there to let you use the different skills in inappropriate situations and in other situations, get people to engage socially with you at all.

example of this stunt at work is Frodo's "I will take the ring to Mordor" from the LotR film and the 'to the pain' stunt from Princess Bride.

[Sanctaphrax]

My experience is that movement matters quite a lot...maybe because of the type of fight I favour as a GM.

My worry about friendly and unfriendly is that they're not that different. No point having multiple skills if the only difference between them is narration.

[Ophidimancer]

Hay Sancta, have you seen the FATE module for Exalted that's been floating around.  I think maybe it was the WW forumite Mouse that made it?  It has a pretty simplified list of skills, based on Exalted.  They also use Mental conflict as trying to change someone's mind and Social conflict being about changing someone's reputation.

As far as I can tell, these are the list of Skills used in Mental or Social combat:  Empathy, Integrity*, Presence, Contacting, Bureaucracy+, Resources+, Socialize*.

*Determines Stress track.
+Kinda edge cases, could be taken off the list.

Now that I look at it more closely, I can't actually find a mental attack trapping in there.  Huh, well it's interesting to see someone else's thought process anyway.  There seems to be complete overlap between Mental and Social skills.

[Sanctaphrax]

I've been meaning to read FATExalted for ages...maybe now I'll actually do it.

[ways and means]

Hay Sancta, have you seen the FATE module for Exalted that's been floating around.  I think maybe it was the WW forumite Mouse that made it?  It has a pretty simplified list of skills, based on Exalted.  They also use Mental conflict as trying to change someone's mind and Social conflict being about changing someone's reputation.

As far as I can tell, these are the list of Skills used in Mental or Social combat:  Empathy, Integrity*, Presence, Contacting, Bureaucracy+, Resources+, Socialize*.

*Determines Stress track.
+Kinda edge cases, could be taken off the list.

Now that I look at it more closely, I can't actually find a mental attack trapping in there.  Huh, well it's interesting to see someone else's thought process anyway.  There seems to be complete overlap between Mental and Social skills.

I don't suppose you could PM me a link please I am interested in the Exalted Hack as well.

[Sanctaphrax]

Yo.

[ways and means]

Yo.

Danka