Background Skills [House Rule]

[AlexanderHowl]

In my next game, I am thinking about making a few changes concerning background skills because too few of my players tend to take them. Characters will automatically begin with 5 CP in each of the four groups of background skills (Area Knowledge, Current Affairs, Games, and Hobby Skills). They will be able to distribute the CP within each group as they desire and may improved each group by spending additional CP or all of the groups by taking the Trivia Sponge Talent.

If players want to play a character without any points in one or more of the background skill groups, they will need to take one or more levels in the Isolated Disadvantage [-5 CP/level], with each level removing the 5 CP allocated to a specific background skill group. The Isolated Disadvantage represents an individual who grew up in a sheltered monastery, within a fictional virtual environment, locked in their parents basement since they were six years old, etc.. In addition, characters will have to take one level of Social Stigma (Ignorant) per level of Isolated, to represent the social difficulties represented by being ignorant about such a major part of normal human life.

What do you think? Would you use the above house rule in your games? If not, what problems do you see in having such a house rule?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

What do you think? Would you use the above house rule in your games? If not, what problems do you see in having such a house rule?

I don't quite get the concept. It appears to be "if you don't want to spend the points, you don't have to, and I'll even give a disadvantage that provides you with more point"? That seems to be [encouraging] the PCs to be isolated from normal society, which I assume isn't the intent here.

Seriously I wouldn't try to mechanize this, since I have a feeling almost any actual mechanic will just serve to encourage the players to design "quirky" characters who don't fit the background just because they can, only now with the defense the mechanics say so, so you can't tell them no!

Provide a list or template of stuff you expect all normally socialized characters to have. Tell the players if they don't want to follow the template they need to come up with a story why they don't have any of this stuff, and what they did with the time normal people learn this, and get it approved by the GM. You can then approve (or not) their stories as appropriate without needing any particular new mechanics. You ought to be vetting [every] character for reasonable backstory anyway, and you normally don't generate characters so often this is a such a burden the GM needs to offload some of the work to a game mechanic, so why risk making this an extra problem.

[Jareth Valar]

Personally, I think it would just be easier to say "10% of your starting points must be spent on background skills" or something like that.

[AlexanderHowl]

10% gets to be a little high for cinematic and superhuman characters. The reason for 20 CP is that it represents 16,000 hours of leisure activity (assuming something equivalent to on-the-job training), which is fine for a character 15+ years old. 10% of a 500 CP character would be 40,000 hours of leisure activities, which sounds strange for a costumed crime fighter.

[Pursuivant]

Three things to consider:

1) Allow variations of the Dabbler perk to reduce default penalties for Background Skills. That might suit intensively-trained characters who don't have a lot of free time.

Alternately, allow Dabbler to represent hobby level training in more useful skill variants that aren't likely to be used in the game, like Smith/TL6 in a TL8 campaign.

2) Expand the list of Background Skills to include other skills that don't get much love, like Bicycling, Combat Art, Connoisseur, Gardening, Group Performance, Heraldry, Musical Composition, Savoir Faire (Dojo), or Sewing.

Also, let your players know that Games skill can be defined as knowledge of rules for various forms of ritual or sport combat or the rules of a sport. Any mage or fighter who has duelist training should spend a point on Games skill. Any athlete will have Games skill relating to the rules and strategies for their primary sports.

As a house rule, you can allow the appropriate Games skill variant to substitute for Tactics in any formal, less-than-lethal combat sporting event.

3) Give players the option of choosing a set group of Background Skills based a given origin. For example, all warriors of Clan Maclennan will have Area Knowledge (Clan Lands), Combat Art (Broadsword - Highland Sword Dance), Heraldry, Hobby (Whisky Distilling), and Sport (Caber Toss).

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

10% gets to be a little high for cinematic and superhuman characters. The reason for 20 CP is that it represents 16,000 hours of leisure activity (assuming something equivalent to on-the-job training), which is fine for a character 15+ years old. 10% of a 500 CP character would be 40,000 hours of leisure activities, which sounds strange for a costumed crime fighter.

Agreed. I would tend to suggest somewhere between 5% and 1%, leaning toward the lower end, especially at higher levels.

Personally, I tend to put a few Current Affairs skills in a Dabbler perk when I remember them, and sometimes other Backgroundish skills in another. Also, I'm recommending Pursuivant's ideas, above, as they look good for this.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In addition, characters will have to take one level of Social Stigma (Ignorant) per level of Isolated

This seems excessive. How would I even know if someone I meet lacks training in all Game skills? How would I tell the difference between someone who lacks such skills and someone who is skilled in a game I have never heard of? Further complicating the issue, is that someone without points in those skills might actually be pretty good at them due to high defaults.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

What do you think? Would you use the above house rule in your games? If not, what problems do you see in having such a house rule?

It seems rather prescriptive to me. I'm happy for my players to design characters fairly freely, although I'll warn them about stuff that's obviously missing.

However, it seems from your other postings that you tend to have a fairly clear idea about the kinds of characters you want in your games, so it may well be fine for your style.

[Aldric]

I already have a system of templates in place, so the characters are built with race, background and professional templates, so I don't see the need to add further rules.
Templates are mostly there to help players build their characters, not to restrict their choices, so if someone really doesn't want background skills, they're free to skip them, and suffer the consequences

[ericthered]

I give free points for background skills all the time: I usually use templates or give 10 points of "Flavor" skills. I find that 10 points is usually more than enough, and I think 20 points would be excessive.


I get where you are trying to go with the Ignorant disadvantage, and its a good idea, but it doesn't line up with your categories. Current affairs is irregular enough that we've gotten used to people who don't know what's going on, and games and area knowledge are more for my sanity than that of others.

Originally Posted by malloyd

I don't quite get the concept. It appears to be "if you don't want to spend the points, you don't have to, and I'll even give a disadvantage that provides you with more point"? That seems to be [encouraging] the PCs to be isolated from normal society, which I assume isn't the intent here.

Ehh, its more of "If you spend the points in the expected places, you don't get a reaction penalty for being an odd-ball.