Savage Worlds (or other reduced) skill list?

[DaosusLeghki]

Originally Posted by Maz

A bigger problem is expectation. Most RPG's do not have so many skills or such a fine granularity among it's skill. This can even confuse the GM if they are not very experience:

• Dong an autopsy? Do you use Forensics, Surgery, Diagnosis or Physiology? It's not easy to know right off the bat.
• Want to steal the ID tag on that person to use it as you own. Do you Use Sleigh of Hand, Pick Pocket or Filch?
• I want to make small talk with these guys in order to get some information. Do I use Diplomacy, Savoir Faire or Carousing? Do I need Detect Lies or Body Language to know if they are telling the truth?
• Want to switch your cyberpunk automatic pistol from single to full auto, now you need a new skill?

I agree with this. The fact that people in this thread are discussing which skill should apply to the task means it is not immediately obvious. This will slow down a game.

I also think that the important question is not WHICH of the listed skills would be used, but rather if you are ever going to have a player character that takes one but not the rest. If all the skills are almost always picked as a group, why break them up? I mean, I understand that in real life, someone might have a lot of Surgery and not very much Diagnosis, but in an RPG, that's not likely. At least not with any players I've played with. In my ideal system (from magical fantasy land where all my wishes come true), you would select broad competency but then be able to tweak individual aspects.

Originally Posted by Celjabba

I think this could happen in any but the most basic systems.



Savage World have added quite a few skills along the editions (splitting up knowledge, ...), merged a few ones (Athletics :( - not sure I agree but probably needed) and advise creating new skills for new universes.
They are up to 32 skills in the base book, give it 20 years, and you may end with something like the Gurps list :)

I agree with this sentiment. I actually noticed that they added power modifiers in SWADE and thought that they were trying to get closer to the GURPS Powers system. Savage Worlds has definitely gotten more generic in its newer incarnation. I don't think that's a bad thing, particularly, but the trend is noticeable. I'm also not a fan of the new conditions they added. The first few editions had "up, down (shaken) or off the table."

[Maz]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

I
Myself, I like the possibility for a player to come at a problem from many angles.
You will get the information from Diplomacy, or from Carousing, or Savoir-faire, or a few others. But each approach would give a different feeling, and I think having a single skill would be a loss.

Yea I very much agree with this, and have also kept all of the influence skills in my "pruned list". My point was just that it can be difficult to know, if you are not experienced and know the differences between the skill almost by heart.
I find that, that's a problem.

Originally Posted by DaosusLeghki

I also think that the important question is not WHICH of the listed skills would be used, but rather if you are ever going to have a player character that takes one but not the rest. If all the skills are almost always picked as a group, why break them up? I mean, I understand that in real life, someone might have a lot of Surgery and not very much Diagnosis, but in an RPG, that's not likely. At least not with any players I've played with. In my ideal system (from magical fantasy land where all my wishes come true), you would select broad competency but then be able to tweak individual aspects.

This! But the default answer tends to be "then use Wildcard/Bang! skills". But they are not really designed for "just a group of skills lumped together". They are designed to be Trope-skills. A "one skill to catch them all". This is explicit in DF with skills such as Knight! or Bard! But can also be seen hinted at in Basic. Alternatively they are way way too broad like Science! in Basic.

They are fine for what they are. But not the solution I would want. I want the same thing as DaosusLeghki dreams of.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by Maz

Yea I very much agree with this, and have also kept all of the influence skills in my "pruned list". My point was just that it can be difficult to know, if you are not experienced and know the differences between the skill almost by heart.
I find that, that's a problem.


This! But the default answer tends to be "then use Wildcard/Bang! skills". But they are not really designed for "just a group of skills lumped together". They are designed to be Trope-skills. A "one skill to catch them all". This is explicit in DF with skills such as Knight! or Bard! But can also be seen hinted at in Basic. Alternatively they are way way too broad like Science! in Basic.

They are fine for what they are. But not the solution I would want. I want the same thing as DaosusLeghki dreams of.

There are rules for objectively building wildcard skills by grouping related skills, though that will require work from the GM up front. It can be trope based but doesn't have to be. But yes, the nature of a Wildcard skill is that it has to be broad to be worth the cost.

[Kallatari]

For those who were looking for a different way of running the skills, have you taken a look at Tbone's GURPS Diner. He has an article called ESCARGO (Exponential Skill Costs: A Radical GURPS Option) which takes a different approach to skills, merging skills, specializations, and subspecializations.

It can be summarized as follows:
- Easy skills are now "Ease +1", Average are "Ease +0", Hard are "Ease -1" and Very Hard are "Ease -1"
- All skills follow the Average skill progression, but you can then add the skill's Ease to your skill level (technically, the article gave skills an exponential cost increase at higher levels, but I think that's a 3E legacy... I'm guessing you can safely ignore that for 4E.)

At this point, you're still matching existing rules and merely changing some of the terminology.

What makes ESCARGO different is that you can then specialize skills to a narrower subset by increasing Ease by +1 or more based on how narrow the specialization is. So for example, if Biology is Ease -1, you could have Botany at Ease +0 or +1, and Tree Botany at Ease +1 or +2, and maybe Maple Tree Botany at Ease +3 or +4.

You can also move upwards by decreasing Ease by -1 or more based on how broad the skill is. So perhaps Biology falls under a broader Physical Science (that includes Biology, Chemistry, and Physics) which would maybe be at Ease -3, and then a generic Science (which would be the equivalent of the Science! wildcard skill) at Ease -5.

You're supposed to get an idea of how much a give skills actually covers in terms of knowledge/what you can do, then decide an appropriate Ease value for it. So if you want a generic Medicine skill that will cover the skills effects of Physician, First Aid, Diagnosis, and Surgery... then perhaps it's an Ease -4 or -5 skill.

There are other rule tidbits like how to determine defaults between your skills and defaults for skills with a huge Ease penalty, when you have two skills that overlap, etc.

It's an interesting framework for redesigning skills and lets you simplify the skill list by merely limiting skills with a greater Ease penalty (e.g., only using skills that have Ease -1 or worse, thus limiting the skill list), yet at the same time it has the flexibility that a character can be better at a subset of that skill as well by changing the Ease level. While I've never used it myself, the framework seems solid enough.

The downside is that it is merely a framework. It is not fleshed out. The heavy lifting of actually placing all those skills together and defining what overlaps with what and can thus be combined into a "more difficult ease" skill would all be up to the GM.

So those looking for an immediate list of a smaller skill list won't find it here. This is just a possible way of implementing said list once you have defined it yourself.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by DaosusLeghki

If all the skills are almost always picked as a group, why break them up?

The reason to break them up is that characters are different. A forensic medical examiner is not a hot shot surgeon.

I mean, I understand that in real life, someone might have a lot of Surgery and not very much Diagnosis, but in an RPG, that's not likely.

It's likely in my games, particularly in lower tech settings. For example, physicians in TL4 Europe disdained the notion of even touching patients, and mere surgery was something barbers did.

[dcarson]

In many cases the question isn't which skill but which of several are best in this case (maybe because that's the one they have). If you have a locked door, Lockpicking, Forced Entry, Explosives(Demolitions) all work. If you know who has the key Fast Talk, Administration or Sex Appeal.

[AlexanderHowl]

Subtlety and gentleness matters in many situations though. Lockpicking is usually a lot quieter than Explosives, and the authorities are much less likely to shoot first and ask questions never when facing someone who uses Lockpicking over someone who uses Explosives. Sex Appeal is usually a lot gentler than Intimidation, and people are much less likely to hold a grudge against a successful use of Sex Appeal than a successful use of Intimidation.

[dcarson]

And if there are armed guards on the other side Demolitions works better then Lockpicking because it stuns a few. A variety of ways gives more options.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

For those who were looking for a different way of running the skills, have you taken a look at Tbone's GURPS Diner. He has an article called ESCARGO (Exponential Skill Costs: A Radical GURPS Option) which takes a different approach to skills, merging skills, specializations, and subspecializations.
[...]

This sounds interesting. I am already using a slight variation of it where I allows some skills that usually require specialization to be taken without by stepping up the difficulty (from Hard to Very hard for instance).
But this ESCARGO system makes it more streamlined. I like that.

Originally Posted by dcarson

In many cases the question isn't which skill but which of several are best in this case (maybe because that's the one they have). If you have a locked door, Lockpicking, Forced Entry, Explosives(Demolitions) all work. If you know who has the key Fast Talk, Administration or Sex Appeal.

Noone is saying "there must be only one skill to get through a door". The problem is with too many similar skills covering the same "approach". Not with several skill being used widely differently to achieve the same goal. See my examples earlier in the thread.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

For those who were looking for a different way of running the skills, have you taken a look at Tbone's GURPS Diner. He has an article called ESCARGO (Exponential Skill Costs: A Radical GURPS Option) which takes a different approach to skills, merging skills, specializations, and subspecializations.

It can be summarized as follows:
- Easy skills are now "Ease +1", Average are "Ease +0", Hard are "Ease -1" and Very Hard are "Ease -1"
- All skills follow the Average skill progression, but you can then add the skill's Ease to your skill level (technically, the article gave skills an exponential cost increase at higher levels, but I think that's a 3E legacy... I'm guessing you can safely ignore that for 4E.)

Hey, there's a blast from the past! Thanks for the remembrance. : )

On the last part quoted above, though: Actually, the part about exponential cost increases for skills isn't a side topic; it's what the thing is all about. A big "what if?" article about how things might work if skill costs were set to continually increase per level, whether in 3e or 4e or any version.

There's also discussion of combining or breaking up skills under that framework, as you note. Although that's a side topic in the ESCARGO article, it's the part that would be of interest to this thread (so thanks again for the mention!). That said, though, the article's take on it really just amounts to "combine or break up skills as you like; combine or break up costs to match." Doing this may yield particularly interesting results under the ESCARGO framework, but in the end it's still essentially "you could combine n Average skills into one super-skill if you like; the cost will be the combined costs of n Average skills."

(A note to put this all in context: The article in question is definitely a nerdy "what if we played with things under the hood, for curiosity's sake" deep delve; what I call "game design R&D", and not some "hey, give this a try!" sort of toy. Anyone interested can check it out here.)

So. While all that touches on the topic of combining skills to create a shorter list, I don't think it offers any cost solutions that this thread would find helpful. A more interesting solution would likely take, say, a half dozen skills, combine them into a super-skill, and give them a cost less than the cost of the combined individual skills. Like Wildcard skills, yes, but perhaps adopting some nifty framework with flexible cost, depending on exactly how many skills are being combined.

And if anyone wants to explore that, I have some ideas here. However, that's again a nerdy "laboratory R&D" article for hackers, not a fun toy to drop into your games.

But. Getting away from that and heading back to the OP . . . Whatever the details of costs, and whether or not to use Wildcard skills, and other details, I wonder what people think a good "manageable" number of skills might me. A few dozen, like some of the games mentioned? Are there any good examples out there, on blogs or in other threads, of attempts to pare GURPS' skill list way down like that?