Help - Essential Skills Collection

[GMMichael]

For a project that might or might not already be posted here, I'd like some community input:

What character skills do you consider essential to RPGs (medieval or generic)?

Since different RPGs use different names, by "skill" I'm referring to anything that a character can learn to do progressively (continuously) better. Some pretty popular examples are fighting, weaponsmithing, and horse riding.

Thanks!

 

[Nellisir]

For a project that might or might not already be posted here, I'd like some community input:
What character skills do you consider essential to RPGs (medieval or generic)?
Since different RPGs use different names, by "skill" I'm referring to anything that a character can learn to do progressively (continuously) better. Some pretty popular examples are fighting, weaponsmithing, and horse riding.
Thanks!

I decided a few years ago that "adventurer" was sufficient of a profession that "craft" skills weren't necessary, so I'd leave out weaponsmithing. I also assume the adventurers come from a culture that is much more "outdoors" than we are, so stuff like "firebuilding" is routine (unless it's not, but you're not likely to practice or improve on lighting fires in monsoons, so....)

Fighting is pretty generic. If you're going that route, then spellcasting and sneaking.

Lore/knowledge. Survival. I'm Ok with it being generic, and not environment based. If you can hunt rabbit in the forest, you can probably hunt it in the mountains too. I have mixed feelings about tracking, since it's potentially very useful in game and is a pivotal class feature for the ranger, but it's hard to rationalize that barbarians (for instance) can't track.

I've shrunk the "interaction" skills (bluff, diplomacy, intimidate) down to "influence".

 

[GMMichael]

I decided a few years ago that "adventurer" was sufficient of a profession that "craft" skills weren't necessary, so I'd leave out weaponsmithing. I also assume the adventurers come from a culture that is much more "outdoors" than we are, so stuff like "firebuilding" is routine (unless it's not, but you're not likely to practice or improve on lighting fires in monsoons, so....)

Fighting is pretty generic. If you're going that route, then spellcasting and sneaking.

Lore/knowledge. Survival. I'm Ok with it being generic, and not environment based. If you can hunt rabbit in the forest, you can probably hunt it in the mountains too. I have mixed feelings about tracking, since it's potentially very useful in game and is a pivotal class feature for the ranger, but it's hard to rationalize that barbarians (for instance) can't track.

I've shrunk the "interaction" skills (bluff, diplomacy, intimidate) down to "influence".

Interesting thing about smithing: if there's not a smith around, you'll need the skill. But if there's not a smith around, there's probably not a forge or raw materials for smithing either, so having the skill won't do you any good. So I think I'm with you there.

Spellcasting and sneaking are definitely going to be included in my list.

Knowledge - a good one. But how often does it come up? I guess it depends on the particular type, say, Survival. Anytime you leave a town you're at the mercy of a character who has the Knowledge/Survival skill. But Knowledge/Architecture...not so much.

I don't see why Tracking should be only the ranger's purview either. If you are really good at Survival (i.e. have lots of points) you've probably had some practice at tracking. But I think that's beyond the scope of my project; I'm not out to say who can do what, I'm out to say "here are some skills you'll likely find interesting."

An interesting thing about the interaction skills - they used to just be "roleplaying" in earlier RPGs. But it makes sense that one's character can be much better at maniuplating than the player. So make it a skill. It's really a grey area, whether you should have bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate, or just influence, or just a Charisma bonus. Or just an ability check.

I just looked at the list of GURPS "lite" skills. Carousing? Hiking? I wonder what skills are in the full-strength version. Since my goal is to make the most stripped-down system possible, the hard part is saying "This skill is essential, but This one you don't really need in a core ruleset."

I'm tempted now to look at skills through the lens of classes. Which skills would the warrior, thief, priest, and wizard use? Hmm...

 

[Nellisir]

Interesting thing about smithing: if there's not a smith around, you'll need the skill. But if there's not a smith around, there's probably not a forge or raw materials for smithing either, so having the skill won't do you any good. So I think I'm with you there.

I honestly didn't think of that. My issues have been PCs that keep a stocked forge at their base, and somehow turn into master craftsmen in their down time. It wasn't a game breaker, just...annoying.

Knowledge - a good one. But how often does it come up? I guess it depends on the particular type, say, Survival. Anytime you leave a town you're at the mercy of a character who has the Knowledge/Survival skill. But Knowledge/Architecture...not so much.

Working off the d20 list, I whittled it down to Ancient, Local, Religion, Magic, Noble, and Nature (which takes over Herbalism, Animal Lore, stuff like that). It's largely a campaign issue - I included Noble Lore because it made sense for knights & aristocracy, and didn't fit easily into other categories.

An interesting thing about the interaction skills - they used to just be "roleplaying" in earlier RPGs. But it makes sense that one's character can be much better at maniuplating than the player. So make it a skill. It's really a grey area, whether you should have bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate, or just influence, or just a Charisma bonus. Or just an ability check.

Intimidate always seemed like a specialization of Bluff, and Diplomacy is pretty much all about lying to people too. Or maybe I'm just cynical. But I am running into the issues of specialization - for my illusionist class variant, I put down "lying, smooth-talking, tall-tale telling, and yarn-spinning". So...can he do "diplomacy" or not?

I've been working skills out more or less on the fly as I redo the classes into a variant "basic" format. Link to the blog in my sig.; all the classes were posted this year.

 

[Razjah]

If you have Burning Wheel or Mouse Guard I would look over those skill lists- especially Mouse Guard. Burning Wheel has a huge list, but it covers race specific skills and non-adventuring skills such as smithing, farming, administration, and lots of more mundane skills. But, this does allow you to actually fill out the character's background with some capability in things the character used to do for a living.

 

[GMMichael]

Yeah...I don't (have access). But, Razjah, if you'd like to throw some suggestions at me, I'm ready!

Nellsir, with the goal of creating a simple, core system, Socialize might actually work as a skill. Same with Knowledge; I can probably draw up abstract rules that fit any specialization a character can dream up. Something like this:

Knowledge (category) - Mental-based skill. Knowledge is the skill used to represent things that your character knows that you, the player, do not. Knowledge can be used untrained (without special education). When you take the Knowledge skill, it applies to a general field, like the topic of a textbook, for example, Nature, Magic, or Society. Skill checks look like these results:
10 - general or common knowledge of the subject.
14 - amateur study.
18 - professional study.
22 - obscure knowledge.
26 - sage only.
30 - godlike sentience.

So with real broad categories, the skill list starts to look like this -
Fight, Parry, Cast Spell (name), Knowledge (type), Profession (type), Sneak, Detect, Concentrate, Spirit, Repel Undead, Movement, Handle Animal, Perform, and Socialize.

And the sub-skills for game-groups wanting more specificity:
Fight: melee attack, ranged attack, wrestle, disarm, trip
Parry: dodge, block
Sneak: move silently, hide, pick pockets, pick locks
Detect: spot, listen, search
Concentrate: used in my system to defend against mental attacks, but includes focusing, maintaining spells, etc.
Spirit: used in my system to defend against metaphysical attacks, but can include anything ether-related
Movement: climb, swim, fly, sprint
Handle Animal: ride, train, calm
Perform: play instrument, act, use bard music, recite
Socialize: diplomacy, intimidate, bluff, gather info

But I'm brushing up against a fine line here: if your skills get too simple, they start to resemble your abilities. So you might as well just add bonuses to your abilities, instead of having skills. So skills must be somewhat specific, just to differentiate them from abilities...

 

[Razjah]

The Mouse Guard Skill list:
-Administrator
-Apiarist
-Archivist
-Armorer
-Baker
-Boatcrafter
-Brewer
-Carpenter
-Cartographer
-Cook
-Deceiver
-Fighter
-Glazier
-Haggler
-Harvester
-Healer
-Hunter
-Insectrist
-Instructor
-Laborer
-Loremouse
-Militarist
-Miler
-Orator
-Pathfinder
-Persuader
-Potter
-Scientist
-Scout
-Smith
-Stonemason
-Survivalist
-Weather Watcher
-Weaver
-Wises (knowledge skills)

The basis for getting skills in character creation for Mouse Guard is a series of questions. What are you naturally talented at, what did your parents do, how do you convince people that your are right or do what you need, with whom did you apprentice, what did your mentor stress in training, what experience do you have in the Guard, what is your specialty, what are you particularly knowledgeable about? Each question has a tailored list. Maxing skills is less important than being well rounded because you can get help from your party and use FoRKs (Field of Related Knowledge) to boost your roll. Mouse Guard uses a die pool, but the list would work pretty well. Also, you could trim a lost of the craftsman skills into a single group. Craftsman (smith) works and keeps the list short. As for Wises, they are generally X-wise. In Mouse guard you can have duck-wise, hidey hole-wise, escort-wise, and lots of things someone can be knowledgeable about. For an adventuring game- cavern-wise, underground-wise, orc-wise, ritual-wise, religion-wise, etc.

This list gives good adventuring skills and plenty of ways to help people in towns. Boatcrafting allows mice to turn some leaves into a boat to cross a stream )(serious problem when you are mouse sized). It works with making rafts in adventuring (see any show like Man vs Wild).

 

[Nellisir]

Glazier? Are there lots of broken windows in Mouse Guard?

 

[Razjah]

Well, the setting is still getting over a war with ferrets. I really have no idea, it's just in the list.

 

[Kalontas]

Are we talking a class-based system or skill-based (or a mix)? Because it makes a lot of difference. Class systems tend to have just a handful of very generic skills that aren't usually covered by class's default abilities. Skill systems (have to) have a heck-load of skills for virtually everything you can think of. Of course, many skills can still roll up together (so there probably isn't a lot of systems with a Glazier skill) but they will have a lot more skills than the other ones. Thus the list on GURPS-lite and why it matters which system is yours.