An idea from another game

[Goober4473]

Originally Posted by copeab

Just a thought ... why would a player want a skill they can't actually use to influence events in the game world?

Pure flavor, I'd assume.

Imagine this situation: The characters are sitting around a tavern in a fantasy game. One of them decides to stand up on the table and sing a song, for no mechanical benefit (no one is going to get a reaction bonus, no one is getting paid, etc.). Oh wait, he doesn't have the Singing skill, but the player wants the character to be good at singing. You could say, "you should have paid poitns for that, then," but if it would be an utter waste of points and take away from useful abilities, why would the player want to do that? You could then say, "then don't be good at useless stuff if you don't want to spend points," but that could make characters boring.

I like this idea. Obviously, a skill like Singing could come up and be useful, but the idea of the contract with the GM takes away any problem with that. If you don't pay points, you don't get benefits for it, but you can still claim your character is good at something to preserve realism.