Quote from: AsenRG;932381Thing is, I can't even discuss it until you answer the question "for what kind of game".

A game with omnicompetent pulp-like characters doesn't gain much by fragmenting the skills much. In it having separate skills for sailing a ship and driving a canoe is problematic...you're better off with something like the Careers system from Barbarians of Lemuria, where both are just "Career: Sailor".

Ah, gotcha.

I am, in fact, working on Occupations for my Pulp game. I like BoL, but I'm going for one notch finer on the granularity meter. So, two to three one-word, generic skills per Occupation.

I like the term "omnicompetent." Not every PC in my game will be Doc Savage, however; there will be nosy reporters and down-on their-luck PIs and light-fingered street urchins. It's like a very pulpy Call of Cthulhu.

My idea with this thread is to probe for any blind spots I might have regarding skills, so any insights are appreciated. Thanks to those who have contributed so far.

I find the skills given in a game to usually be less of a problem than what clever players can and will do with the skills available. Like spells and class or racial abilities some players are very good at finding uses for skills. Other players could be given "Win the Game" at 98% and still would complain that their character couldn't do anything.

As a general rule of thumb I find that the broader the skill is the smaller its mechanical impact on the game should be.
"Wilderness Survival" is a hugely broad skill and could be applied to doing almost anything outside of an urban environment. The same trap you set to catch supper could easily be set to catch the pursuing bad guys. Wilderness Survival here serves as Trap Setting. Next time it might stand in for Tracking, or Construction to build a shelter. Gem cutting on the other hand is going to be useful in far fewer situations, but in those situations no other skill is likely to matter.

There are two ways to go wrong with skills.  Actully only one way with two consequences.  Dont make you skills too gamey.  

First you can make your skills gates behind which the adventure waits.  Fail you track roll, well shit you were supposed to track the kidnapped princess.  
Second you can make them magic spells, persuade the guard, ok you can go talk to the king and keep your weapons.

Role play the skills dont rollplay them and it will be fine.

Quote from: Cave Bear;932092Sense Motive.
You may as well not even bother roleplaying with this skill around.

It's real annoying when you have players trying to make a Sense Motive check in a system that doesn't have it, like 1st edition AD&D. They just take it for granted.

This, a thousand times this.  Sense Motive is a garbage skill and I loathe it.  

Yeah 3e players trying to shoehorn it or any other "RP skill" from 3e into 1e games should be flogged.

And not in the the good way.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;932428Ah, gotcha.

I am, in fact, working on Occupations for my Pulp game. I like BoL, but I'm going for one notch finer on the granularity meter. So, two to three one-word, generic skills per Occupation.

I like the term "omnicompetent." Not every PC in my game will be Doc Savage, however; there will be nosy reporters and down-on their-luck PIs and light-fingered street urchins. It's like a very pulpy Call of Cthulhu.

My idea with this thread is to probe for any blind spots I might have regarding skills, so any insights are appreciated. Thanks to those who have contributed so far.

Aren't nosy reporters just "pulp heroes on lower power level"? Or even "pulp heroes on the same power levels, who invested a whole lot into contacts instead of practical skills"?
It would help if you offered us a provisional skill list to discuss, because I can imagine several ways to make "two or three skills per occupation".

Perception and Influence need to be treated very differently than other abilities for reasons I currently lack the time to get into. In short though, one obfuscates the choices available to the player, while the other makes those choices for them.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;931822Are some skills more trouble than they're worth? In terms of mechanical integration, that is.

I know Perception gives people fits.

Crafting skills have to toe an very fine line between being effectively worthless or campaign-bustingly broken.*

Luck, as a skill, is tricky to implement in a way that isn't metagamey/immersion-breaking.

What skills give you the most trouble and what do you do about it?




*Plus, I want doers, not makers. I'm not too fond of crafting. Maybe in Harn or something.

I'm not sure what you mean by skill, unless it is in name only.  Perception is often treated as an attribute, along the lines of strength or dexterity.   Likewise luck.

On Perception: this one can be those most metagamey IMO, just asking for such a check provides information the character does not have.  Solution, the GM makes the roll instead of the player.

On Crafting: this depends on the kind of game you want to play.  I make it both expensive in time and money to craft things of significance, and use the need to find the "components" to drive adventure and player choices.  For example, using a fireball is contraindicated for any creature you need the hair/fur/feathers from.  Using cutting weapons may be a bad idea on something you need the blood from.   You may also need to obtain components under the correct phase of the moon, position of the planets and stars, just like in real world works on magic form the middle ages, limiting when you may do things.  Also, don't let crafting be uber customizable, with any spell in any thing, make it very restricted.  In addition, you need to control how magic itens stack.  Lastly, there needs to be a chance of failure (losing al your time and money) and a chance of your item actually being "cursed" and not knowing it until it is too late.  These are good balances for getting exactly the item you want when you want it at a cheap price that is the down side of crafting.

On Luck: the metagamey/immersion issue is a nonissue.  It really is all in your head and how easily swayed by grammar you are.  Instead of saying "the orc hits you in the head" you say "absent some amazing move or luck the orc blade is going to bash your head"  The later saves your spoken narrative from the possible saving effects of luck.  If you forget and say the first phrase, so what, you are an adult and just say "your skill and luck saved you, you turned what could have been a crushing blow into a grazing one"  Another common approach is to declare use of luck before knowing the outcome.  Yet another is to make luck an expendable basically non-renewable resource.  Lastly, if luck is a "skill" that you use to avoid things it is more like parry or a saving through, and you handle it that way to avoid metagamey/ immersion breaking.

It's not skills that give me trouble it is how the game system uses them.  When they substitute for or take precedence over player action and thinking.  Find Traps in AD&D I've seen implemented (incorrectly IMHO) in the most immersion breaking way of all the skills I've seen in games.

Oh, I didn't think magic items when I saw "crafting", I though mundane items and wondered how that could be campaign-bustingly broken.
In my campaign creating even the simplest magic item requires special materials and preparation, never just a simple toss of the dice. If a GM is letting players have any magic whatnot they can concieve of in their grimy, little, black hearts just because they rolled well on the dice, well, they have only themselves to blame for making it so easy.

Quote from: DavetheLost;932539Oh, I didn't think magic items when I saw "crafting", I though mundane items and wondered how that could be campaign-bustingly broken.
In my campaign creating even the simplest magic item requires special materials and preparation, never just a simple toss of the dice. If a GM is letting players have any magic whatnot they can concieve of in their grimy, little, black hearts just because they rolled well on the dice, well, they have only themselves to blame for making it so easy.

I actually like crafting on normal items.  I don't put many restrictions on such skills, nor really detail them out.  I've rarely seen players choose such in over 35 years of playing.  The few times I have they have been pretty cool, one player choose fletcher as a background, I think twice in a 6 year campaign he used it to make an emergency resupply of arrows.  Otherwise, it has been brewing or distilling it seems, for color and the players personal background.  The players that choose this often use it to enhance social interaction and value wine.  My view of the history I've read is that alcohol consumption was much more pronounced in pre-industrial societies (even if it is just small beer) so NPCs value the knowledge those who can brew or distill have.  

In my experience though, characters become "wealthy" fairly quickly in the sense that it is so much easier just to buy mundane items than make them.

I personally don't envision much abuse with more mundane crafting skills, maybe because I have had an abiding interest as a kid and know a fair amount of book/TV knowledge about it and have personally done pottery, smithing, fletching, brewing, distilling, basket weaving, brick laying, ditch digging, framing, rock wall building, and glass working and blowing; and a whole bunch of other do-it-yourself experience from living on a farm for a time as a kid.  I'm interested in what abuses you've seen with mundane skills.

Quote from: AsenRG;932500It would help if you offered us a provisional skill list to discuss, because I can imagine several ways to make "two or three skills per occupation".

Sure, check this out:
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35630-Harg-s-Pulp-Homebrew-The-Basics

Quote from: thedungeondelver;932476This, a thousand times this.  Sense Motive is a garbage skill and I loathe it.  

So the skill to read another person's body language doesn't exist to you?

Quote from: thedungeondelver;932476Yeah 3e players trying to shoehorn it or any other "RP skill" from 3e into 1e games should be flogged.

And not in the the good way.

Back in AD&D 2e, we used to use just Wisdom for it, the skill Sense Motive (and now Insight) just codified it for us.

Again, it strikes me as another one of those skills that require a lot of GM work to interpret, which quite a few don't seem to want to put any effort into it.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;932564Sure, check this out:
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35630-Harg-s-Pulp-Homebrew-The-Basics

It's a good start, now cull all but 30 of them and fold them in the existing ones.
Seriously, you have ~90 skills in a pulp game, not counting that 3 of them are "any musical instrument, any language, any sport"? That's way too much.

Quote from: AsenRG;932571Seriously, you have ~90 skills in a pulp game, not counting that 3 of them are "any musical instrument, any language, any sport"? That's way too much.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man. :cool:

I'm working on it. My vision for character creation right now is thus: choose an Occupation, add an optional Talent/Background, go. Simple, simple, simple.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;932585Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man. :cool:

Which you asked for, IIRC. Well, there it is, I didn't promise you're going to like it;).

QuoteI'm working on it. My vision for character creation right now is thus: choose an Occupation, add an optional Talent/Background, go. Simple, simple, simple.

Quick character generation is good, but not really connected to the number of skills and the resulting competence levels, which might be broad or narrow:p.

Quote from: AsenRG;932586Which you asked for, IIRC. Well, there it is, I didn't promise you're going to like it;).

But, of course. Do your worst.