Alternate GURPS: Seeking a minimalistic (25-50) skill list . . .

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by trooper6

"Dang! We both overlooked Filch! I totally would have had that skill based on my character concept!"

Also, you can just save a few CP at creation to fill in the overlooked skills when they come up. After the first few sessions when the concept and character sheet are firmed up, just spend them with the earned xp.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Also, you can just save a few CP at creation to fill in the overlooked skills when they come up. After the first few sessions when the concept and character sheet are firmed up, just spend them with the earned xp.

Yep. I find as long as the players and the GM have really strong senses of the character's concept, these things all work out.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by JMason

I was working on an idea like this by basically looking for skill families and creating a meta-skill that all the others defaulted to. I never got around to building a list of skills, but you can look at my thought process on my blog:

http://diceanddiscourse.blogspot.com/2015/07/skill.html

It's something I've considered - it would be nice to have something between the standard skills and the Wildcard skills. The Power Ups 7 system for creating a Wildcard skill has a systematic methold of combining skills to create Wildcard skills, but it could also be used to consolidate skills at a lower level of difficulty. E.g., using the system suggests a combination of Short Sword, Broadsword and Two Handed Sword should be a DX/H skill. I created a few skills appropriate for a fantasy/low tech campaign. I tried to be consistent with the existing rules (skills are E to VH and can be combined with existing skills.) If this has a whiff of In the Labyrinth, that's deliberate.

Deception IQ/H
Replaces Acting, Fast Talk & Performance

Fencing DX/H
Replaces Main Gauche, Rapier, Saber & Small Sword

Find Per/H
Replaces Observation & Search

Fine Manipulation IQ/H
Replaces Lockpicking & Traps

Flail DX/VH
Replaces Flail & Two Handed Flail

Healer IQ/VH
Replaces Diagnosis, Pharmacy & either Physician or Esoteric
Medicine

Impact Weapons DX/H
Replaces Axe/Mace & Two Handed Axe/Mace

Insight IQ/VH
Replaces Body Language, Detect Lies & Psychology. Use Per based rolls for Detect Lies & Body Language

Ledgermain DX/VH
Replaces Filch, Pickpocket & Sleight of Hand

Outdoorsman IQ/VH
Replaces Naturalist, Navigation (Land),Survival (Any) & Tracking

Pole Weapons DX/H
Replaces Polearm, Spear & Staff

Priest IQ/VH
Replaces Religious Ritual & Theology Must specialize by religion

Sword DX/H
Replaces Broad Sword, Short Sword & Two Handed Sword

Warlord IQ/VH
Replaces Leadership, Tactics & Strategy

[ArchonShiva]

For the issue of characters possessing incomplete umbrellas, I suggest making specialization free, as Ars Magica did:

For each skill¥, pick one aspect that you're especially good at (+1). You can also save o e point on final cost by picking an aspect you're especially bad at (-2).

This could be tweaked, but I recall that having a specialization on every skill greatly improved initial flavor, but also helped players memorize the tasks within each skill.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I wouldn't say it worked OK. I'd call it a constant problem that was improved massively by adding skills to games.

Nah, it did work fine. The thing that tended to be irritating was the fixed values, not what you rolled against. There's no real difference between "Roll vs INT" and "Roll vs Knowledge Skill" or "Charisma" and "Social Skill" The main complaint was there was no way to get better. Note that despite the much finer divisions of AD&D Secondary Skills or Top Secret Areas of Knowledge, nobody thought they were much in the way of improvements because they mostly lacked that too. GURPS attributes can already be bought up.

Another approach, why not just use the skill categories (http://www.warehouse23.com/products/...ill-categories)? There are are already the right number of them, and somebody else already did the sorting work. Yes there is some duplication, but so what? Skills always have the problem of stuff that could be done with more than one of them.

[Yorunkun]

Crakkerjakk pruned the skill list back to about 100 or so a while back: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=70859

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by Infornific

Deception IQ/H
Replaces Acting, Fast Talk & Performance
[...]

Nice builds... :) Though you would probably end up around ~75 Skills that way I guess.

Originally Posted by ArchonShiva

For the issue of characters possessing incomplete umbrellas, I suggest making specialization free, as Ars Magica did: [...]

Cool idea, I would really like that in GURPS! :-)

[ErhnamDJ]

I've done some work on this topic myself. Depending on the genre, you might be able to get down to fifty skills, but I think you would need to do what other games do and cheat by combining what are individual skills in GURPS into skills where you must choose to specialize. We already have that with the Games skill. You could have a Craft skill, a Science skill, etc. Further, you could compress all the melee weapon skills into a single skill.

If handling the different crafting skills in that way counts as reducing the list, then this is definitely possible. I don't think there's any way to shrink the list much more than I have while keeping a separate butchering and sewing skill, and all that entails.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

I'm not disagreeing with you. But note that nearly every RPG that has consolidated skill lists invariably includes some mechanism for customizing a skill. Fate Core uses Stunts, World of Darkness games use Specialties, and so on. Clearly, a raw list of 30ish skills and nothing else is going to be insufficient.

Relating this to the aforementioned customization tools, you'll likely note that the list of Specialties in Exalted brings the effective length of the skill list up into the 200ish range; but most people don't notice because (a) you're rarely looking at double-digit Specialties at a time, (b) they're always thematically grouped by the skill they're associated with, and (c) they're usually optional, in that they make you better at something the skill already lets you do rather than enabling you to do sommething that you wouldn't be able to do without them.

Grouping specialties certainly helps reduce the load, but that's not the only deal. The other big important thing is that Exalted-style Specialities are optional. I you want to be a master of etiquette, you don't need to go through 4-6 specialities of Socialize - you just buy Socialize 5 and are done with it. In Exalted, this is slightly undermined by the fact that specialities (a) are given out at chargen (you get four for free) and (b) allow you to bust the dicepool cap slightly.

Speaking of specialities, in 4e they seem to be something that is rarely worth the bother with the RAW skill narrowness. The +1 is a minor bonus to a very narrow field in exchange for -1 to everything else, and you need to go over possible specialisation for each and every of your eligible skills. That's annoying more than useful.

(Also, in a way, such grouping is why Skill Categories are a thing.)

Originally Posted by dataweaver

This strikes me as a strong argument for breaking out Template Toolkit 1 and referencing its section on Challenges and Niches, where a major purpose is ensuring that a given Niche properly covers the Challenges that it's supposed to cover. Granted, it was written with the standard skill list in mind; but it really could be used to generate a viable consolidated skill list by starting with the list of Challenges and then engaging in somme minor lumping and splitting.

Bringing this around to the customization tools that I’ve been talking about, the section about Splitting Challenges could be referenced when coming up with customizations for a skill when they're not being used to adjust the skill list itself.

While Template Toolkit is interesting, it seems to be too much of a 'make your own campaign-specialised template set' instead of offering a more generic solution.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by trooper6

As a "many skill" GM...these just haven't been a problem for me in my campaigns.

Point 1) No skill will be orphaned. This happens because a) my players will find ways to use their skills. b) I keep note of skills used and make sure than unused skills find opportunities for use.

That seems to me like bending the world to fit the characters. It's appropriate in some campaigns, but not others. E.g. I'm currently running a campaign that is very mildly cinematic, and such scenario-bending seems not very appropriate. I agree that it can be interesting to have it happen, but it often feels disbelief-suspending.

Originally Posted by trooper6

Point 2) My players aren't intimidated by a 200 long list of skills because I do all character creation one on

IME that doesn't always help.

Originally Posted by trooper6

Point 3) Because we have a conversation about concept, the player is not going to have missed any skill in their concept because checking in on that is my job as GM. If for some reason we both miss something and it comes up in play, all the player has to say is..."Dang! We both overlooked Filch! I totally would have had that skill based on my character concept!" Then I say, "You are right, that was my fault for not thinking about it. Take the skill at one point and you can pay for it with your cps later." But I think that has only happened once or twice in all of my GMing.

Some players see the very fact of such a retcon as (a) unpleasant in general and (b) an annoying waste of time during a campaign that could've been spent [re]designing the system before the campaign.

Originally Posted by trooper6

But some people like lots of skills. I am one of them...and players have tended to be as well.

I understand. I'm not saying that the few-skill way is the one true way.