I like open skill systems but I want some examples for guidance in making them up. I prefer a few broad skills to a long list of very specific skills. I think it's a mistake to make all skills equally broad or narrow, though. If I have to choose a limited number of skills, I want them to be equal in usefulness and not in scope.

In a combat-focused medieval fantasy dungeon romp, you could have narrow skills like "two-handed sword" and "one-handed sword" and "short sword" as separate skills, but I wouldn't want to have knowledge skills that are equally narrow such as separate "history" skills for each kingdom and century. Players would end up rolling one specific combat skill dozens of times per session but they would be lucky to get one chance in a campaign to roll a specific knowledge specialty. For a campaign like this, I want to see narrow combat skills and broad knowledge skills like "Short Sword", "Longbow", "Crossbow", "Lance (Mounted)", and "Scholar".

In an investigation-heavy Victorian horror game, you could have constant use for specific dead languages and esoteric fields of study but all the combat stuff could be rolled up into one violent skill that rarely comes up. You can't defeat the elder horrors by stabbing or shooting them, but you might benefit from occasionally punching a cultist to knock him down and run away. So the skill list should include things like "Latin", "Ancient Sumerian Cuneiform", "Egyptian Hieroglyphics of the Middle Kingdom", and "Violence".

Quote from: Tod13;991881For myself, I'm a hunter, handgunner, sporting clay shooter, swordsman, Aikido practitioner, bioinformatician, software developer, Eagle Scout, with some statistical and molecular biology training. I've worked in financial, aerospace, medical, research, information, logistics, and insurance fields. I can pilot the space shuttle in on orbit rendezvous and docking maneuvers. I can sail a sailboat and replace the shear pin on an outboard. I ride motorcycles and know the basics of dog mushing. I can (slowly) butcher and then cook an animal. I can build a 1911 from parts, including fitting the important stuff.

I can tie my shoelaces together.

Quote from: Simon W;991990I can tie my shoelaces together.

LOL So, you're good with knots? Can we get you to sneak into the guards' room and tie their shoes together?

My players usually pick one career as their "real" career--one directly related to adventuring. They pick their second one as either a hobby or their family profession--usually one related more to flavor. I just remembered, since my players' group is now "Cave Catering", I think one of the players is changing her character's secondary career to be "waitress".

Quote from: Simon W;991990I can tie my shoelaces together.

Game Designer 3, Shoelace Bungler 1

Quote from: Vargold;992020Game Designer 3, Shoelace Bungler 1

Thank you Simon and Vargold for giving me a much needed laugh.

Quote from: Biscuitician;991735This practise is really bad game design and a total red flag for me. It broke my interest in Numenera which, ymmv, was otherwise quite decent.

What's to stop one player saying 'ranged weapons' instead of 'bow' or 'pistol' and being able to fire every type of ranged weapon with one skill? Maybe that's an issue for some, not for others, but that's the ambiguity that's the problem.

How difficult is it to craft a simple skill list?

Well, that supposes a couple of things. First, that combat bonuses derive from skills (they don't in most OSR games). Second, that the GM is an easily-manipulated idiot.

The whole point of not having a restrictive skill list is to give the GM freedom, and to allow for creative player choices for their characters within that freedom.

Quote from: jhkim;991821Actually, in medieval times, I think there was less specialization to a narrow career. In a big modern city, someone can make their money as a specialist in a narrow field (neurosurgeon,  interior decorator, etc.), and use their money to buy everything else. In history, there were often less specialists, and people had several different part-time jobs that changed with the time of year and/or demand.

For example, in medieval times, someone might tend a farm in the summer, and in the winter fish and make their own candles and beer. If they weren't good at home-building, they traded beer with a neighbor to fix their house. Another person might be a good blacksmith, and have their own forge, but they also maintain their cow herd and stables for a living. In particular, professional soldiers were a rarity. Most often, someone would be called on to fight in times of conflict - but most of the time tended their lands or had some other living.

Yes and no. There certainly was some of this, and careers back then tended as a rule to be less specialized, particularly when you were talking about peasant farmers or aristocratic land-holders (the "skill set" for an Earl included land management, diplomacy/politics, physical combat, military command, and economics).

But among the middle-classes, there was a significant amount of specializations. Some skills were specifically limited to families through Guild training.  If you were a candle-maker, pretty much all you did work-wise was make candles; you were part of a special organization that had the exclusive monopoly to make candles inside your city, and you became a candle-maker because your dad was a candle-maker.

Quote from: Frey;991940Can you tell us a bit more about this project and when it will be released?

Lion & Dragon is a complete OSR RPG meant for running "Medieval Authentic" campaigns. It is in essence the full version of the rule-set I used for running Dark Albion (a very shortened version of the same was in Appendix P of Dark Albion). It will include mechanics and inherent-setting guidelines for running games in an authentic-medieval society, and the magic system will be completely different from standard D&D, based on (in the sense of directly-borrowing from) real medieval concepts and practices of magic.   Things like magic items and monsters will also be based on real medieval folklore.

The current forecast, as of an email I got from Dominique Crouzet today, is that it should be published sometime around the end of October.

Quote from: Biscuitician;991735This practise is really bad game design and a total red flag for me. It broke my interest in Numenera which, ymmv, was otherwise quite decent.

What's to stop one player saying 'ranged weapons' instead of 'bow' or 'pistol' and being able to fire every type of ranged weapon with one skill? Maybe that's an issue for some, not for others, but that's the ambiguity that's the problem.

How difficult is it to craft a simple skill list?

Well, if you're going with an OSR common sense mentality.

Bowman, Baldy Jim Bojangles finds a nice shiny flintlock. You'd simply say, 'sorry Baldy Jim you can't use a flintlock because you've never used one before. So Baldy then goes off, in a bit of game downtime, and learns to shoot, load and maintain the pistol. Now he can use a bow and a pistol. He still has good hand eye coordination so it's a traferable skill (for the sake of playing an RPG at any rate). No need to get bogged down in technicalities imo.

Personally, I'm a fan of open skill systems (as long as it's adjudicated with a bit of common sense). But whatever floats 'yer boat.