Thread: What skills are needed

Not to be controversial or stir the pot. But for the few last day as I've been reading the book the thought has popped into my mind a few times: do we need so many skills?

Now, now, before anyone here starts lobbing flaming tomatoes at me :shocked:I'm not saying things have to be changed and we now need to include " levels" or "experience points". But it has dawn on me some things might not be needed when already something else in place that works pretty much the same or is even better. Afterall, if you already have an "agility" stat, do you really need a "dodge" skill as well? Or do you need a skill to "bargain" when "pursuade" pretty much works the same way?

Either way, I look foward to your kind:innocent: and honest:thumb: opinions ( as I hide behind my shield :eek:: )

No tomatoes from me; I agree. Although I had positive first impressions of the new book, the more I look at it the more dissatisfied and unhappy I am. It is simply one person's set of homebrew rules pasted on to the BRP chassis, as far as I can tell. I would have to work as hard to modify this as I already worked to modify older versions of BRP to get what I wanted before the new book came out. The skills don't really feel right to me, either, and I am not sure whether it is the multi-genre approach or the 'houserule' feel or what. Not a good sign, though. I suppose it is now the 'official' ruleset, but I am not at all happy with it, and do not intend to use it as is. I will stay with what I was already using.

I've always assumed any list of skills/equipment/creatures... in BRP or GURPS or elsewhere... are only a set of variables to flesh out a setting/character/genre... meaning if I don't have any use for distinguishing bargain/persuade I can just go with one of them... but other people are likely to see distinctions between those things and want them broken down into different skills.

Just seems a matter of taste to me... I don't think the number of skills is unmanageable or a detriment to the book.

Originally Posted by Simlasa

Just seems a matter of taste to me... I don't think the number of skills is unmanageable or a detriment to the book.

I agree with this. It's easy to make the skills fewer or more abundant if you like. So it's most a matter of taste.

I will have to add a couple of skills for my campaign (e.g. Animal Handling),
and I will not use some of the skills listed in the book (e.g. Fly), but I con-
sider it normal to have to adapt a system to my setting.

Well, it all depends on taste, really.

Just because someone can charm the shirt off your back doesn't necessarily mean he can bargain with a merchant. Similarly, a brilliant merchant might not be the best at persuading armed guards to let him past.

But, I am sure that if you wanted to use a generic skill for both tasks then that would be fine.

Similarly, someone could be naturally dextrous and could dodge based on that, or he could have trained in dodge or have bcome very experienced at dodging and would have a higher skill.

Either would probably work, but I prefer many different skills.

Glad to see I'm not coverd in tomato paste .

Although this might be a little to soon, what do you guys feel if you boiled it all down, would be the "core" skills a PC would apsolutely need. So far maybe you could possibly combine bargin and persuade together ( maybe as negotiate?). Another thing I'm thinking about is putting together a new character sheet that allows more room for things that do need a good amount of space like item lists, discriptions, background history and possibly arranging the hit points, san, fatigue and power point boxes just like how the regular stats are listed.

Ok..time to go hide behind my shield again :innocent:

BTW, I just want to say I still very much think Jason and Sam really did a dam good job of putting this thing together. Of course,some things I wish they added, but in all honesty I'm pretty happy with the book and hope the next BRP book will cover running high fantasy type worlds.

NOTES- I've changed my mind about the dodge skill as it seems to be a necessary part of the combat system. However, there is a difference between dodging a giant rolling bolder compared to doging a vikings' axe blade. Maybe an "agility"roll would be in effect?

This is the full skill list I tend to use for most games now...

Acting
Animal Husbandry
Arcane Lore
Athletics
Awareness
Bargain
Climbing
Computer Hacking
Computer Programming
Conversation / Whit
Craft (Specific)
Cryptography
Culture (Own)
Culture (Other)
Disguise
Dodge
Drive (Specific Type)
Electronic Design / Repair
Electronic Security
Film & Television
First Aid
General Knowledge
Gunnery (Specific Type)
High tech (Specific Type)
History
Intimidation
Knowledge (Specific)
Law
Leadership
Lip Reading
Magic (Specific Sphere)
Medicine
Melee Weapons (Specific Type)
Natural World
Navigation (Specific Environment)
Painting
Perform
Persuade / Lie
Philosophy
Pilot (Specific Type)
Play (Specific Instrument)
Poetry
Potions / Poisons
Politics
Public Speaking
Ranged Weapon (Specific Type)
Read (Specific language)
Ride (Specific Animal)
Search
Seduction / Charm
Sense Mood
Sing
Slight of Hand
Social Skills
Speak (Own Language)
Speak (Other Language)
Stealth
Streetwise
Storytelling
Swim
Tactics
Track
Theology
Unarmed Combat - Grappling
Unarmed Combat - Striking

Thats it really.

Originally Posted by mrk

Although this might be a little to soon, what do you guys feel if you boiled it all down, would be the "core" skills a PC would apsolutely need.

This is almost impossible to answer, because it depends on the setting used.
For example, while a character on my Pharos IV world really needs Pilot and
Swim, a desert nomad in an Arabian Nights setting could well do without it.

Originally Posted by rust

This is almost impossible to answer, because it depends on the setting used.
For example, while a character on my Pharos IV world really needs Pilot and
Swim, a desert nomad in an Arabian Nights setting could well do without it.

Swiming is one skill that can't be coverd by anything else and should be listed on a character sheet. Don't matter how strong or fast you are, if you can't swim your gonna drown.