How do you encourage your players to buy more skills

[Dead guy on tab]

As a GM, I would like to balance the players' powers with their skills. Unfortunately, skills often are purchased as an afterthought once the powers are sorted out. This is especially a problem with new characters. How do I emphasize skill use without either having the plot drag (because the character's haven't purchased skills) or having NPC's always showing them up (because the NPC's have skills the player's don't)?

[Supreme Serpent]

Some possibilities:

1 ) Build the characters yourself with player input.

2 ) Reserve part of their points for "noncombat" skills. For example, make the game 175 base + 25 skills + 150 disads instead of 200+150.

3 ) Reserve part of their experience for skills only.

4 ) Reward the use of skills they do have. If Captain Computron gets cool moments out of his Computer Programming, he'll start looking into Security Systems, Cryptography and the like and other players will take note too. This may involve some early tailoring of scenarios to allow particular skills to come into play.

[OddHat]

Generally, I ask players what their characters do for a living, and then have them buy skills accordingly. If you're a soldier, you get the full package every NPC soldier carries; if you're a scientist, you get the science skills. Even the player who says "Stripper" still ends up with at least familiarity with Seduction, Trading, PS:Stripper, and Streetwise.

I tell them that I view a skill on their sheet as a request from the player to me as a GM to add a scene now and then where that skill will come in handy, and where the character will have a chance to shine. No points are wasted; if you spend 1-3 points on KS: Arcane and Occult Lore, you know that your character will occasionally get to advance the plot with his knowledge, getting as much or more screen time as he would have gotten by sinking those points into another multipower slot.

If I need a PC with a particular skill set in the game, I tell the players that a PC with those skills will have a chance at more screen time and ask someone to take them.

I don't bring in NPCs to provide skills unless the player has them as contacts or role plays seeking them out; if you don't have the skills to track down Dr. Impossible, you sit and wait while the character who does takes center stage.

[Sean Waters]

To be honest I don't, not much.

When I build a 350 point character I pretty much always allocate 30 points for non-combat skills but I know that is not everyone's cup of tea.

If I really wanted the players to buy skills I'd include lots of situations int he game that required skills to solve, and I figure that they will eventually get the picture. Sure Mass Driver can tear that door off it's hinges, but that makes a lot of noise, and Sneak Thief can do the same job i.e. getting through the door, in near perfect silence.

Of course this might just encourage one player to buy lots of skills.

Maybe the best way is just to require a certain number of points of non-combat skills in any given build, or a gosh darn good reason why not.

[OddHat]

If I really wanted the players to buy skills I'd include lots of situations int he game that required skills to solve, and I figure that they will eventually get the picture. Sure Mass Driver can tear that door off it's hinges, but that makes a lot of noise, and Sneak Thief can do the same job i.e. getting through the door, in near perfect silence.

Of course this might just encourage one player to buy lots of skills.

Maybe the best way is just to require a certain number of points of non-combat skills in any given build, or a gosh darn good reason why not.

Generally, I don't hint. It works better to directly say "Look, we need someone with some kind of Arcane Lore, someone who speaks Ancient Assyrian, and at least one guy who can drive a stick shift."

The players discuss who's going to take what with me and sometimes with each-other, and the skills get worked out.

And if Captain Bonk ends up with no skills, he gets to stand around looking useless in many non-combat scenes. If there's nothing but combat, that's a different problem.

Of course, a big part of the issue is that many GMs just don't make skills all that useful in the first place. More than a few never bother to learn how they work in HERO at all.

[AliceTheOwl]

It's definitely easier with players you're still teaching. You get to get them in the habit of putting points in skills right after characteristics are bought up. ^ v ^

Another way I've encouraged buying-up of skills as the characters develop is by giving out Hero Points as well as XP. HPs are used on things actively pursued within the game, with a strong encouragement that they be spent on skills rather than powers or characteristics. It helps that I have one experienced player (Josh) who knows the system and understands the utility of skills and so gets to use his all the time, thereby showing them how much of a difference a few points wisely spent can be.

Of course, I make sure I give them plenty of opportunities to use skills. I need to remember to review which skills they have, again, though; it's an ever-growing list, and memorization isn't my strong suit.

[Nekkidcarpenter]

I tend to side with those who try to encourage skill buying rather than mandating it. When a character describes his concept to you make some notes about the skills you think he should have and present them to him as a suggestion.

The same kind of suggestion the GM makes about who gets the last slice of pizza.

Encouraging continued skill buying is harder, IMO. It's particularly hard in certain groups because they think that you won't destroy your own game world just because no one in the group has Computer Programming, and of course they're right. In this case there is no Carrot or Stick, so the players tend to keep the skills they originally had without improving any.

An approach similar to Alice the Owls', and borrowing heavily from another game is to have each player choose a skill they used during the session and roll a check with it. If they fail the check, they get a point in the skill. So a 8- skill is likely to improve for free, a 14- not so much. If they didn't use any skills during the game then other people essentially get free xp and players hate that. Especially the types of players who don't buy noncombat skills.

[BNakagawa]

Whatever you do, never allow anyone to purchase a power pool only for skills.

Ditto for any meta-skill such as universal translator, etc.

[Sean Waters]

Generally, I don't hint. It works better to directly say "Look, we need someone with some kind of Arcane Lore, someone who speaks Ancient Assyrian, and at least one guy who can drive a stick shift."

The players discuss who's going to take what with me and sometimes with each-other, and the skills get worked out.

And if Captain Bonk ends up with no skills, he gets to stand around looking useless in many non-combat scenes. If there's nothing but combat, that's a different problem.

Of course, a big part of the issue is that many GMs just don't make skills all that useful in the first place. More than a few never bother to learn how they work in HERO at all.


It is SO much easier when GM and players understand each other :)

I agree with all you say and I like Alice's idea about Hero Points too, which helps with the continuing development.

One other approach is the order in which you build stuff. I am very bad. To start a character I tend to write STR, DEX, CON....and go from there.

If you shake up the order a little, de-emphasise characteristics by making them the second or third item on the build list - behind skills, you'll probably get more skill based characters. For some time now I've recorded skills like this:

7 Acrobatics +2

That would mean I've spent 3 points on acrobatics and 4 points buying the roll up. This divorces the skill a little from characteristics (and makes the idea of using an unusual characteristic roll more palatable - base the acrobatics roll on CON if you are trying to cover a long distance over the rooftops, or basing it on strength if you want to climb a rope with a heavy load) and makes them feel a little less a specialised extension of characteristics.

[Sean Waters]

As a GM, I would like to balance the players' powers with their skills. Unfortunately, skills often are purchased as an afterthought once the powers are sorted out. This is especially a problem with new characters. How do I emphasize skill use without either having the plot drag (because the character's haven't purchased skills) or having NPC's always showing them up (because the NPC's have skills the player's don't)?

When the NPCs turn up, they could be extremely sarcastic.

That would probably work :D

[Nekkidcarpenter]

How do I emphasize skill use without either having the plot drag (because the character's haven't purchased skills) or having NPC's always showing them up (because the NPC's have skills the player's don't)?


And you also have the issue that you GM the players and characters you have, not necessarily the ones you want. Just finished playing in a game where there were no mystically aware characters and every other plot was some magical thing that none of the pc's had any ability to solve or a good rationale for acquiring said ability. Yet for some reason the sorceror supreme kept showing up and asking us to help. Then the npc's would talk to each other and decide what we should do.

And we weren't short on noncombat skills but none of us were magically based. Bureaucratics and Computer Programming didn't seem real useful in any of our encounters with DEMON.

[archermoo]

Generally I don't have to, as most people I game with have generally taken care of it themselves. :)

That being said, if you would like to make skills more important in your campaign, I'd suggest letting the players know that if they don't buy non-combat related skills they aren't going to have much to do when there isn't a combat going on. And that that will happen regularly. :) I've generally found that people get the hint and either a) decide not to play, or b) buy some skills.

[Cancer]

There are several points to carry away here.

Pushing players to take noncombat skills in character creation, and keep developing those skills as the game progresses, is good unless you've got a pure-combat game, whether you want to admit it or not.

But your players aren't psychic, whether their characters are or not. Are you going to guide their choices on what noncombat skills to take?

If yes, OK. A player who is told someone on the team needs land vehicle build/repair and it makes sense that it ought to be him, but takes KS: ancient Roman coinage instead, is being a willful flake.

If no, now it sort of falls upon the GM to reward those unguided investments. To do otherwise is to tell your players that their choices for noncombat skills are a waste of points ... they never get used, they have no in-game benefit, and it was a scam on the GM's part to make the players build their characters that many points weaker. Instead, what matters is what the GM thought was cool all along (cf. Nekkidcarpenter's arcane knowledge story), and he that held back. And the message in that case is: build a combat god, then later you can buy the random noncombat junk with XPs after the GM lets you know what he really meant you to take in the first place.

[Silbeg]

4 ) Reward the use of skills they do have. If Captain Computron gets cool moments out of his Computer Programming, he'll start looking into Security Systems, Cryptography and the like and other players will take note too. This may involve some early tailoring of scenarios to allow particular skills to come into play.

Gotta agree with you on this one. If the players don't see a value in non-combat skills, they won't buy them. The more value that you give them, the more they will use them, and the more they will buy them.

I have tried to throw in, on occasion, some use of the "extra" skills... and have called for players to make skill rolls on skills they think will come in to play. I just try and have them tell me the skill they are using, and then create a modifier based on how close the skill matches the skill I expected.

[OddHat]

But your players aren't psychic, whether their characters are or not. Are you going to guide their choices on what noncombat skills to take?


Good post, and good point. One of the most important things you as GM can do is sit down and decide what skills you think will be coming into play in the campaign, and then communicate that to the players. If you tell your players that Skill X will give their character some screen time, at least one or two will take it.

As a side note, when I GM convention games I keep a list of key non-combat skills each PC has, and look for chances in the scenario for each of them to be brought into play. I also plan an Investigative phase to most scenarios, and ask the players to tell me what skills their characters are trying to use and how, in case they come up with something I hadn't thought of. It usually pays off.

[Balabanto]

Here's how I encourage players to buy more skills. If you're a technical character/sorcerer/detective, you need to have enough skills to justify whatever it is that your character is SUPPOSED to be able to do.

If you're not a technical character/sorcerer/detective, you should have a few social skills, knowledge skills, etc.

You need to have investigations that require the PC's to go to see NPC's a lot. Make them the same skills over and over.

Eventually, someone does get the bright idea of paying 3 points for it.

If the characters don't have life support, drop them in the arctic. "Hey, guys...wouldn't it be great if one of you had bought Survival: Arctic?"

If the characters have no detective and do everything by reading minds, politely inform the PC that if he continues to mind rape people, eventually someone will notice. You might want to take KS: Human Psychology or SC: Behavioral Psychology before PSI comes to RECRUIT him. Won't his friends be surprised?

[Hugh Neilson]

I agree that skills should not be mandated. Some concepts don't cry out for skills. However, I see nothing wrong with making things tougher on the characters because they don't have skills.

Frequent use of Everyman skills [eg "I try to chat up the secretary" "OK, roll Converstion. You didn't buy it? Well, you get an 8- roll. You know, with your PRE, if you bought the skill, you'd have a 14- roll, and I might even let a COM roll be used a sa complementary roll." "You rolled a 10? Oh, she accidentally spills her coffee on you (or at least it looks like an accident), and rushes off to get a cloth to clean that up."] may encourage some skill purchases.

Put in opportunities to use skills they don't have. You don't have to trash your game to show their use. No one has Pick Locks, so you bash the chest open? OK - but some of the objects inside were fragile, and they're broken now.

[PhilFleischmann]

I would also strongly recommend against mandating the purchase of skills. If you want players to buy skills, run scenarios where those skills would be useful. If PC end a session defeated or humiliated or otherwise with a less than optimal outcome, thinking, "If only I had purchased XYZ Skill." They're likely to spend the next few xp they get on the skill.

How often do your games require some detective work on the part of the PCs? Do they ever face situations requiring finesse, or delicate degotiations? Maybe there's a giant robot rampaging through the city which seems to be immune to anything the PCs throw at it - if only one of them had Electronics, or Mechanics, or some similar skill. Do they ever have to deal with normal people, such as calming a panicking crowd, or an angry mob? Or rescuing them from a natural (or man-made) disaster?

Why do you want the players to buy more skills? There are a number of possible reasons:
1. You want them to flesh out their backgrounds.
2. They'll be useful in the game.
3. They're too powerful in combat - spending all their points on combat abilities.
4. You just feel like they should, but you don't really have a reason why.
5. Something else?

I would say that 1 and 2 are good reasons, but 3 and 4 aren't so much.

[Silbeg]

Encouraging continued skill buying is harder, IMO. It's particularly hard in certain groups because they think that you won't destroy your own game world just because no one in the group has Computer Programming, and of course they're right. In this case there is no Carrot or Stick, so the players tend to keep the skills they originally had without improving any.

Not sure about that. All it takes is one event that they learn that the terrorists attacked [famous landmark] killing [large number], and that they could have avoided it by hacking the terrorists email network, or whatever.

Then, you can even drill it in further by the press asking where the heroes were? How could they have missed such obvious clues? Where were the WMDs??

This won't destroy your game world, but it will make it a bleaker place. This is especially true of a DNPC or something gets killed/injured/kidnapped in the mayhem.

[Peregrine]

Whatever you do, never allow anyone to purchase a power pool only for skills.

Ditto for any meta-skill such as universal translator, etc.

I don't think he wants skills to be a point sink, I think he wants characters with a useful amount of non-combat skills, for non-combat adventuring. Meta-skills would help achieve the desired effect.

(Besides, what kind of micromanaging GM wants to use skills as a points sink?)

[Comic]

Can you come up with an example, or a few, of places where skills need encouraging and what the advantage is to the player, other players, and GM? That might help, since I'm not sure I follow the logic.

[pinecone]

As a GM, I would like to balance the players' powers with their skills. Unfortunately, skills often are purchased as an afterthought once the powers are sorted out. This is especially a problem with new characters. How do I emphasize skill use without either having the plot drag (because the character's haven't purchased skills) or having NPC's always showing them up (because the NPC's have skills the player's don't)?

Unfortunately, the only way to make skills become desirable is to make them usefull...so you'll have to take a little junk as the players discover that having skills makes them more effective, and they only way that happens is for them to be less effective/efficient without them....


I'd try talking to folks..."Hey I'm going to start getting hardnosed about skills, so can you guys/gals work with me here?

I work to Reward skills instead of punish ignorance, but each person responds to differant stimuli. I work hard to put little benefits into the adventure, "easter eggs" that are found through skill use...it works for me.

Plus of course I have a rep for making skills count so most come to the table expecting to use 'em....

[SAVeira]

I have a house rule that covers this:
A minimum amount of Skill Points must be spent, when creating a character. The amount is equal to 10% of the starting character’s overall point total. So in this campaign a character starting with 350 points must have spent at least 35 points on Skills. Martial Arts, Skill Levels or the Power skill do not count towards this total.

[pinecone]

I have a house rule that covers this:
A minimum amount of Skill Points must be spent, when creating a character. The amount is equal to 10% of the starting character’s overall point total. So in this campaign a character starting with 350 points must have spent at least 35 points on Skills. Martial Arts, Skill Levels or the Power skill do not count towards this total.

Find weakness? "Hmmm 35 points....FW(16) with "punch"....."Done!"

[SAVeira]

Find weakness? "Hmmm 35 points....FW(16) with "punch"....."Done!"
Find Weakness is a power and as I have spell out, that cannot count for the 35 points.

[Trebuchet]

I have a house rule that covers this:
A minimum amount of Skill Points must be spent, when creating a character. The amount is equal to 10% of the starting character’s overall point total. So in this campaign a character starting with 350 points must have spent at least 35 points on Skills. Martial Arts, Skill Levels or the Power skill do not count towards this total.While I certainly encourage players to buy non-combat Skills and do everything I can to make purchased Skills useful on occasion, I'm leery of requiring a preset percentage of character points be spent on them. Not all characters are going to have a bunch of Skills any more than real people do. Besides, a required percentage penalizes non-Skill-based characters by making them spend points in an area they may not wish to. Would you require Skill-based characters to spend a minimum amount of CP on innate Powers?

[SAVeira]

While I certainly encourage players to buy non-combat Skills and do everything I can to make purchased Skills useful on occasion, I'm leery of requiring a preset percentage of character points be spent on them. Not all characters are going to have a bunch of Skills any more than real people do. Besides, a required percentage penalizes non-Skill-based characters by making them spend points in an area they may not wish to. Would you require Skill-based characters to spend a minimum amount of CP on innate Powers?
I have found that most players with this minimum requirement, now take more skills then they need to. It seems to get people to really take a look at the skill section and the Ultimate Skill, more closely. I had found that before, PCs would be created without any thought to skills related to the character's day job or anything useful outside of combat. Now, I see PCs with at least 4 or 5 skills.

[Hugh Neilson]

While I certainly encourage players to buy non-combat Skills and do everything I can to make purchased Skills useful on occasion, I'm leery of requiring a preset percentage of character points be spent on them. Not all characters are going to have a bunch of Skills any more than real people do. Besides, a required percentage penalizes non-Skill-based characters by making them spend points in an area they may not wish to. Would you require Skill-based characters to spend a minimum amount of CP on innate Powers?

I agree with Treb on this. Mandating a fixed minimum on skills forces artificiality in a concept which does not logically require (or even permit) skills. I'd rather provide opportunities for skills to be useful so that players perceive value in purchasing them, and let the concepts that logically require few or no skills take a back seat to those characters who have skills when their beneifts become valuable.

[Trebuchet]

I have found that most players with this minimum requirement, now take more skills then they need to. It seems to get people to really take a look at the skill section and the Ultimate Skill, more closely. I had found that before, PCs would be created without any thought to skills related to the character's day job or anything useful outside of combat. Now, I see PCs with at least 4 or 5 skills.All of the PCs in our campaign have that many Skills with no such requirement being laid upon them. Good roleplayers will get there on their own precisely because Skills in a well-run campaign are just so darn useful.

As I said, encouraging Skills is wonderful. Requiring them, not so much. YMMV.

[Nekkidcarpenter]

I hate it when I recognize that I have nothing of any more use to add to a discussion. It makes me consider the possibility that it's happened before and I failed to recognize it, and tried adding something anyway.

[Hugh Neilson]

One reason I dislike "All characters must buy X points of skills" is the slope it creates. What am I really trying to get them to buy? Breakfall, Acrobatics and Stealth, for example, can be very useful in combat. They don't generally flesh out background a lot.

So should I count points in these combat-useful skills? What if the character's background is an Olympic gymnast - do they count now, but not if the character was a high school student bitten by a radioactive spider?

Should I count Lightning Calculator, Absolute Time Sense and Perfect Pitch? They aren't skills, but they have less combat application than the skills noted above.

What about the Power to change the environment to "rain"? Let's say it takes 5 minutes of intense concentration. Maybe he can transform air into edible food. Not a lot of combat potential there.

Did I really want to mandate "35 points of skills", or "35 points of abilities not useful in combat"?

Frankly, if I have to issue an edict from on high to persuade players to invest points in them, I think I wanted to mandate "35 points you will never get any benefit from in play". I prefer follow the corrollary to "If it's not limiting, it saves no points", which is "If it's not beneficial, it costs nothing". Your character has KS: Golden Age Comic Books? If I allow you to spend 3 points on that, I consider myself to be contracting that this skill has at least a reasonable chance at becoming useful in a game (How? Read "Flash of Two Worlds and see if you want to ask the question again...).

[Comic]

Me?

I show blatant favoritism to the characters who buy and use skills that make the campaign more interesting.

They don't have to go to the store for snacks.

I say it aloud, and I point out when I do it. I repeat it, and make emphatic gestures.

Otherwise, I do the same when players buy and use powers that make the campaign more interesting too, so it turns out to be a wash.

[Vondy]

If the players find they need the skills during play they will start incorporating skills into their character concept. If they don't need them during play they won't. If you reduce the emphasis on combat (to some degree) and create situations where the players need the skills to succeed they will suddenly want them - lots of them, even. This is also how you increase attempts at role-play, incidentally. You have to create situations where role-play is the answer. In both cases you have to be forgiving of early failures and adopt a positive and encouraging face. It takes time for the change to occur, but it works. Also, you could mandate a certain number of points be spent in non-combat skills, but keep in mind, if you don't create situations where those skills come into play you won't effect meaningful change. As always, communication is the key - and in this case, the change has to be top down in the sense that the game has to shift gears to the point that players recognize that skills will have value.

[Mike W]

Well, I don't absolutely REQUIRE they have at least 40 point in skills and perks but I make it clear they'll regret it if they don't. The stories require you to use skills and perks(like contacts) to figure out what is going on. And taking down the villain without figuring out what's going on always comes back to haunt you. And that's assuming you can find the villain in the first place.

[Hugh Neilson]

Well, I don't absolutely REQUIRE they have at least 40 point in skills and perks but I make it clear they'll regret it if they don't. The stories require you to use skills and perks(like contacts) to figure out what is going on. And taking down the villain without figuring out what's going on always comes back to haunt you. And that's assuming you can find the villain in the first place.

Does this mean that everyone on the team needs these skills, or that someone on the team needs these skills? It is a team, after all. That means those characters whose abilities are especially germane to the current challenge assist those characters whose abilities are not.

Once one member of the team knows where the villains are, he can either go in alone (and have the opposition sufficient to challenge the team as a whole hand him his head) or he can share that information with his teammates.

Some characters demand investments in skills and perks. Others do not. Should Starfire of the Teen Titans have 40 points in Streetwise, Contacts, etc., when she's been on earth for 2 weeks? Clearly not.

[Hyper-Man]

...

Some characters demand investments in skills and perks. Others do not. Should Starfire of the Teen Titans have 40 points in Streetwise, Contacts, etc., when she's been on earth for 2 weeks? Clearly not.

While I agree with the idea that some concepts like this are valid, Starfire is just new to Earth. She probably has quite a few points invested in Contacts, AK's and other cultural specific skills for her home planet. This even came into play in the animated series when she was summoned home to become the new ruler.

I think if all the characters start the game at the same time they should be pretty close to each other in the range of points invested in skills with the exception of any skill-centric archtypes in the group. If the game is established and all the current PC's have accumulated quite a bit of XP then it makes more sense that any new character's that come in can be a little green (skill lite). This allows them to be built on a few less points and gives the established characters an obvious area of expertise without completely overshadowing the new character's usefulness in critical (combat) situations.

[Sean Waters]

One reason I dislike "All characters must buy X points of skills" is the slope it creates. What am I really trying to get them to buy? Breakfall, Acrobatics and Stealth, for example, can be very useful in combat. They don't generally flesh out background a lot.

So should I count points in these combat-useful skills? What if the character's background is an Olympic gymnast - do they count now, but not if the character was a high school student bitten by a radioactive spider?

Should I count Lightning Calculator, Absolute Time Sense and Perfect Pitch? They aren't skills, but they have less combat application than the skills noted above.

What about the Power to change the environment to "rain"? Let's say it takes 5 minutes of intense concentration. Maybe he can transform air into edible food. Not a lot of combat potential there.

Did I really want to mandate "35 points of skills", or "35 points of abilities not useful in combat"?

Frankly, if I have to issue an edict from on high to persuade players to invest points in them, I think I wanted to mandate "35 points you will never get any benefit from in play". I prefer follow the corrollary to "If it's not limiting, it saves no points", which is "If it's not beneficial, it costs nothing". Your character has KS: Golden Age Comic Books? If I allow you to spend 3 points on that, I consider myself to be contracting that this skill has at least a reasonable chance at becoming useful in a game (How? Read "Flash of Two Worlds and see if you want to ask the question again...).

I like to allocate 30 points for skills in pretty much every character I build these days, because I'm useless at 'skilling out' characters.

Here is the general breakdown, which I feel (assuming some application of thought is applied) tend to flesh out a character...(all knowledge/professional skills etc are considered characteristic based)

3 Area Knowledge: Where you come from 11-
3 Knowledge Skill: People 11-
3 Profession Skill: Your Job 11-
3 Profession Skill: Hobby 11-
3 Interaction Skill
3 Intellect Skill (not Analyse)
3 Science Skill or Knowledge Skill or 3 point Language Skill
3 Agility Skill (not Acrobatics or Breakfall or Fast draw or Stealth) or KS
6 Two more skills for the above list

So Jehosephat Balmer is an English Teacher who plays in a jazz band, and has done some acting and is interested in politics (and is also, incidentally, a magically endowed powerhouse superhero)

3 Area Knowledge: Stratford Upon Avon 11-
3 Knowledge Skill: Authors 11-
3 Profession Skill: Teacher11-
3 Profession Skill: Jazz Guitar 11-
3 Interaction Skill: Persuasion
3 Intellect Skill: Disguise
3 KS: Politics
3 Knowledge Skill: Musicians 11-
6 Acting and Oratory

I mean, you don't NEED to use that structure, and you are not limited to that number of skills, and you don;t HAVE to use that many points if the concept doesn't make sense, but it is a pretty good starting point, a bit of structure.

[tesuji]

IMX...
if none of your players are buying skills,all are spending points for powers, then they are telling you something about what they want to play. Why try and force them to design things differently and play a different game. Run a POWERS focused RPG and let everyone have a blast.

If SOME players are shorting skills but some players are buying appropriate skills, and maybe even some are buying lots of skills, present challenges and situations where the SKILLS the guy with the are the keys to victory, the keys to solving the riddle, and where they play as pivotal a role as the super flight or the desolidification. These might include scenes where, for secret id or due to anti-power fields, the super powers cannot be used. Once the POWERS guys see skills being "as much fun" they may decide to try some more diverse characters, since they have SEEN IN PLAY that you will as Gm be throwing things for them to use them on.

[Mike W]

Does this mean that everyone on the team needs these skills, or that someone on the team needs these skills? It is a team, after all. That means those characters whose abilities are especially germane to the current challenge assist those characters whose abilities are not.

Once one member of the team knows where the villains are, he can either go in alone (and have the opposition sufficient to challenge the team as a whole hand him his head) or he can share that information with his teammates.

Some characters demand investments in skills and perks. Others do not. Should Starfire of the Teen Titans have 40 points in Streetwise, Contacts, etc., when she's been on earth for 2 weeks? Clearly not.

Well, I try to construct a variety of stories and try to make sure that the story is complex enough that one character can't figure it all out by themselves. You might need the techie to figure out what's behind all the tech thefts, another guy with KS: Supers to figure out who might do it and someone with Deduction in order to put it all together. And players are made aware from the get go that if they choose to make a character who is useless outside of combat that they are probably going to be bored for a significant part of the night. Since I don't want players not paying attention for half the night, I tend to discourage a Starfire type build. I don't like player characters who have no reason to associate with the other players and know nothing about anyone or anything in the world. Such characters are more workable in a comic book than a role playing game. And being a comic fan who grew up on 1980s Marvel, I don't really remember many such characters in team books. Hercules, Thor, and She Hulk fit somewhat but even She Hulk had a couple contacts, a law degree, and a basic KS for bad guys.

[casualplayer]

Easiest way to get your players to buy more skills is the same way the world teaches them lessons; have them lose the girl to the guy that did have the skill, the girl being metaphorical. If Cyber-Cypher ducks through a security door and scrambles the electric lock behind him, Security Systems starts looking mighty good. If you have to get to the airport in two minutes or Ilsa is getting on the plane and leaving, Area Knowledge (or Combat Driving!) is just the trick. If your interviews keep getting cropped poorly or misquoted, a few points in KS: Media Savvy may do you a world of good.

Don't be malicious and penalize them but show your players someone reaping the benefits of knowing things. It won't take long for them to come around.

[Peregrine]

IMX...
if none of your players are buying skills,all are spending points for powers, then they are telling you something about what they want to play. Why try and force them to design things differently and play a different game. Run a POWERS focused RPG and let everyone have a blast.

If SOME players are shorting skills but some players are buying appropriate skills, and maybe even some are buying lots of skills, present challenges and situations where the SKILLS the guy with the are the keys to victory, the keys to solving the riddle, and where they play as pivotal a role as the super flight or the desolidification. These might include scenes where, for secret id or due to anti-power fields, the super powers cannot be used. Once the POWERS guys see skills being "as much fun" they may decide to try some more diverse characters, since they have SEEN IN PLAY that you will as Gm be throwing things for them to use them on.

Repped!

[dstarfire]

[QUOTE=Hyper-Man;1377468]While I agree with the idea that some concepts like this are valid, Starfire is just new to Earth. She probably has quite a few points invested in Contacts, AK's and other cultural specific skills for her home planet. This even came into play in the animated series when she was summoned home to become the new ruler. /QUOTE]

I'm currently playing just this sort of character and I gotta tell you, it sucked at first, until I'd managed to get some locally relevant skills.

My suggestion for encouraging characters to buy skills is to let them know what skills, talents, and perks are going to come into play, so they actually get to use their skills to accomplish something.

As a player, that's why I tend to avoid skills that aren't related in one way or another to combat or my power set: without some idea of what's going to be relevant, you're shooting in the dark, and are liable to end up with 10-15 points of dead weight on your sheet.

[Hugh Neilson]

Here is the general breakdown, which I feel (assuming some application of thought is applied) tend to flesh out a character...(all knowledge/professional skills etc are considered characteristic based)

This seems to forget Everyman Skills, as the default level for a typical person.


3 Area Knowledge: Where you come from 11-

All PC's should have better AK than the typical denizen of the region, who gets an 8- AK as an Everyman skill?


3 Knowledge Skill: People 11-

Not sure I get this one.


3 Profession Skill: Your Job 11-

Second job, to go with the first PS 11- you got as an Everyman skill?


3 Profession Skill: Hobby 11-

That makes 3 jobs/hobbies that you're very skilled with...


3 Interaction Skill

All characters should have more than the Everyman FAM with Acting, Persuasion and Conversation?


3 Intellect Skill (not Analyse)

Seems a lot to expect every character will have one of these skills beyond the Everyman concealment, paramedics, shadowing and deduction skill.


3 Science Skill or Knowledge Skill or 3 point Language Skill

I can see a lot of characters having these. For those who would lack 3 point levels, 3 familiarities may be a reasonable substitute.


3 Agility Skill (not Acrobatics or Breakfall or Fast draw or Stealth) or KS

Climbing and Stealth are everyman skills. This seems the toughest group to argue that everyone should have at least one of, which I assume is why the KS option.


6 Two more skills for the above list

I just find this a lot of skills for a typical character. YMMV. I also think Familiarities are vastly underrated as "things my character can do, but is not stellar at". Mainly because GM's tend to start with the assumption even the most basic and mundane task requires a roll at base levels, then pile on the penalties.


IMX...
if none of your players are buying skills,all are spending points for powers, then they are telling you something about what they want to play. Why try and force them to design things differently and play a different game. Run a POWERS focused RPG and let everyone have a blast.

If SOME players are shorting skills but some players are buying appropriate skills, and maybe even some are buying lots of skills, present challenges and situations where the SKILLS the guy with the are the keys to victory, the keys to solving the riddle, and where they play as pivotal a role as the super flight or the desolidification. These might include scenes where, for secret id or due to anti-power fields, the super powers cannot be used. Once the POWERS guys see skills being "as much fun" they may decide to try some more diverse characters, since they have SEEN IN PLAY that you will as Gm be throwing things for them to use them on.

BINGO! and reped. This ENCOURAGES, rather than MANDATES skills. To expand on this, even if NO ONE has paid points for skills, a couple of successes (and a few failures) with Everyman skills may suggest to the characters that they should practice some of thgese skills, and their players that some xp spending is in order. Skills accumulate pretty quick if you shell out some xp. Buy it over a few sessions - basic familiarity, then next time you get xp, an 11- roll (if your GM alows this for the skill in question), then the full 3 point stat based skill.


Well, I try to construct a variety of stories and try to make sure that the story is complex enough that one character can't figure it all out by themselves. You might need the techie to figure out what's behind all the tech thefts, another guy with KS: Supers to figure out who might do it and someone with Deduction in order to put it all together. And players are made aware from the get go that if they choose to make a character who is useless outside of combat that they are probably going to be bored for a significant part of the night. Since I don't want players not paying attention for half the night, I tend to discourage a Starfire type build. I don't like player characters who have no reason to associate with the other players and know nothing about anyone or anything in the world. Such characters are more workable in a comic book than a role playing game. And being a comic fan who grew up on 1980s Marvel, I don't really remember many such characters in team books. Hercules, Thor, and She Hulk fit somewhat but even She Hulk had a couple contacts, a law degree, and a basic KS for bad guys.

I would allow characters some basic knowledge skills for making their way through the real world, which is as far as Shulkie's KS got her. To me, buying a skill represents someone whose knowledge goes above the man on the street. She Hulk had a law degree, to me, = Everyman PS: Lawyer.

Now, I believe she bought that up with XP, given she is now recognized as a very good lawyer with a field of expertise in which she's top of the field. But she didn't start there. Richard Rider (Nova) had, at best, PS: Fry Cook. As a starting character, Scarlet Witch spoke another language. That's about it. Wonder Man might have bought his Acting up a bit (though he wasn't doing much more than making a living at it, which is the Everyman PS), and arguably had at least some familiarity with business (having run his own company...into the ground!) Tigra's skills seemed pretty combat-related. Starting level FF leaves Sue Richards with little or no skills, and Johnny with an Everyman PS in mechanics. A starting level Wasp didn't have a lot in the skills department either. Living Lightning was just a punk kid, and Esperita probably had an Everyman "PS" in religion. Valkyrie and Iceman strike me as being pretty lacking in the Skills department. I don't see Marvel Girl, Rogue or Colossus having a swack of skills either.

Which '80s marvel comics are we talking about?

That's not to say I think that none of them had any skills beyond the Everyman level, but spending 20 or 30 points would be stretching pretty far for a lot of them.

Overall, I dislike the idea of saying "sorry, I don't allow this comic book character type in my Champions game", but then I like the idea that it's a comic book game, and not all characters will be good at all things.

[Hugh Neilson]

Another way many GM's DISCOURAGE skills is allowing players to evade the need for them. For example, if you let your extroverted players use their (NOT their PC's) personal eloquence to enhance their success with interaction skills, they can succeed without shelling out points for the skills. Why should the more introverted player shell out points for a skill that's going to fail because you penalize the roll since the player "doesn't role play the speech" to your satisfaction?

I never see a GM ask the player to "role play out" his character's acrobatics, or deflection of a laser beam, but because we can all talk, it's pretty common to award a bonus to the player who speaks eloquently and a penalty to the player who clams up when the focus of attention is on him.

[sbarron]

So Jehosephat Balmer is an English Teacher who plays in a jazz band, and has done some acting and is interested in politics (and is also, incidentally, a magically endowed powerhouse superhero)

3 Area Knowledge: Stratford Upon Avon 11-
3 Knowledge Skill: Authors 11-
3 Profession Skill: Teacher11-
3 Profession Skill: Jazz Guitar 11-
3 Interaction Skill: Persuasion
3 Intellect Skill: Disguise
3 KS: Politics
3 Knowledge Skill: Musicians 11-
6 Acting and Oratory

I mean, you don't NEED to use that structure, and you are not limited to that number of skills, and you don;t HAVE to use that many points if the concept doesn't make sense, but it is a pretty good starting point, a bit of structure.I don't use this structure, but I do like for characters to have the KS, PS, AK, and other skills that their characters would have given their background. I really feel like this fleshes out the character when these skills are listed on teh character sheet. I realize that many of these points aren't all that useful, and that players are loath to use their precious points fleshing out their characters the way I want. So, to get around this, I give the players an extra 10-30 points for skills, in additional to their standard starting amounts.

I try to be careful with it so these points don't turn into freebee Breakfall and Stealth, but for the most part players seem to understand what I'm trying to do and appreciate the leeway these extra points provide. Generally, I don't tell the players how many I'm going to give them until after their first drafts, so they don't skimp on skills knowing they'll have enough extra to fill in intentional blanks.

I feel like its a fair trade off. I want their characters to have the skills like:

AK: Toledo, Ohio 13-
PS: Toll booth operator 11-
KS: Anime 14-

if that's what fits their characters backstory and concept. So if their starting PCs are actually 375 instead of 350 so I can get this to happen, that's ok by me.

[BNakagawa]

Another way many GM's DISCOURAGE skills is allowing players to evade the need for them. For example, if you let your extroverted players use their (NOT their PC's) personal eloquence to enhance their success with interaction skills, they can succeed without shelling out points for the skills. Why should the more introverted player shell out points for a skill that's going to fail because you penalize the roll since the player "doesn't role play the speech" to your satisfaction?

I never see a GM ask the player to "role play out" his character's acrobatics, or deflection of a laser beam, but because we can all talk, it's pretty common to award a bonus to the player who speaks eloquently and a penalty to the player who clams up when the focus of attention is on him.

It's a tough situation. On one hand, you don't want to penalize roleplaying by not giving out bonuses (where appropriate) to the extrovert players. On the other, you don't want to completely discourage roleplaying out social skills for the introverts.

GMing isn't easy. It's the fundamental flaw of the hobby.

[Sean Waters]

This seems to forget Everyman Skills, as the default level for a typical person.

Not forgetting, no, but most of the everyman skills weigh in at 8-, which is frankly rubbish. Everyman skills exiost so that we don't need to sort stuff out of the character sheet, as a sort of shorthand, and consequently, most people IME tend to, knowing they are there, just ignore them.




All PC's should have better AK than the typical denizen of the region, who gets an 8- AK as an Everyman skill?

Yes, definitely. I mean, the average characteristic is 8, the starting characteristic for PCs is 10 - PCs are better. I mean, 8- is a mere 25% chance to know stuff about the place where the character has lived all their life. That is tosh. If they are itinerant, give them 3xAK familiarities by all means, but the everyman skills simply do not cut it for PCs.




Not sure I get this one.

No? I'd have thought that everyone would be reasonably knowledgeable about SOME group of people - be it related to their hobby or their profession or just an interest. Anyway, it makes for an interesting plot devide and adds considerable colour to the character if the GM knows the sort of people that the character is interested in.




Second job, to go with the first PS 11- you got as an Everyman skill?

Everyman skills are a bit rubbish, generally, but again I'd think a lot of people have held more than one job and would have more thana passing familiarity with what is required.




That makes 3 jobs/hobbies that you're very skilled with...

Not very skilled - unless you have high characteristics you are about 62% knowledgeable. I know at least that much about at least 3 different things.




All characters should have more than the Everyman FAM with Acting, Persuasion and Conversation?

Yes, definitely. 8- is rubbish, and I'm not suggesting THAT list, I'm suggesting interaction skills - some people are reasonable in conversation or persuasion or oratory or animal handling - it helps to define the character, whish is a good thing, isn't it? moreover, using my SUGGESTED template, you only need to take 1 interaction skill as a skill, although you can take more.




Seems a lot to expect every character will have one of these skills beyond the Everyman concealment, paramedics, shadowing and deduction skill.

You are not reading the full list of intellect skills then. I probably have reasonable skill in computer programming, criminology, deduction, forensic medicine, paramedic and survival, so I could easily fill the blanks and I am far from exceptional and nowhere near superhero material. I may or may not warrant an 11- in each of those but I am at very least familiar with them, so filling the points is not a problem. Even 11- is still pretty average.




I can see a lot of characters having these. For those who would lack 3 point levels, 3 familiarities may be a reasonable substitute.

Absolutely - a larger number of familiarities is a fine substitute for a single reasonable skill. the idea of the template is to get people thinking about what their character should really know.




Climbing and Stealth are everyman skills. This seems the toughest group to argue that everyone should have at least one of, which I assume is why the KS option.

Indeed, but even then everyman is 8-, and I'd certainly claima abetter score than that at climbing and riding, and, as you say, you don;t HAVE to take an agility skill if that is not where the character's talents lie.




I just find this a lot of skills for a typical character. YMMV. I also think Familiarities are vastly underrated as "things my character can do, but is not stellar at". Mainly because GM's tend to start with the assumption even the most basic and mundane task requires a roll at base levels, then pile on the penalties.

Mainly, in fact, because the basic system does not encourage a particularly realistic approach to skill use, and even TUS doesn't do all I'd like to see AND because you can't add bonuses for high characteristics or skill levels to familiarities, which makes them a bit rubbish.

I have my own approach to task difficulties, but I wion't derail this thread with it.

Mind you, if you look at the source material, there are not that many characters who do not ahve at least 30 points of skills that have nothing to do with combat, and as this is a template, not a mandatory use of points, I really don't see the problem with providing a basic structure.

[Tech]

Whether I'm player or GM in my group, I always keep an eye out for skills (or powers) that a particular character could use. When I see a need for a skill or when a particular situation comes up where I say 'Y'know, I think so-and-so would have this skill', I mention it to my friends. I don't force players to take skills because I don't have to.

We have players whose characters have lots of skills. I mean, one of my friend's characters has 1/4 of his page with skills and one of my brother's characters has 1/3 of his sheet with skills - double columned!

A correction: I just looked at my brother's character and I did a :eek:. Half of the sheet is skills - double columned! His character is extremely versatile and probably one of the best played characters I've ever seen.

[Hugh Neilson]

Not forgetting, no, but most of the everyman skills weigh in at 8-, which is frankly rubbish. Everyman skills exiost so that we don't need to sort stuff out of the character sheet, as a sort of shorthand, and consequently, most people IME tend to, knowing they are there, just ignore them.

This is the crux of our disagreement, then. I consider the problem to be that the basic fasmiliarity with a skill ought to do much more than allow a roll at 8- for the most simplistic, basic task.


Yes, definitely. I mean, the average characteristic is 8, the starting characteristic for PCs is 10 - PCs are better. I mean, 8- is a mere 25% chance to know stuff about the place where the character has lived all their life. That is tosh. If they are itinerant, give them 3xAK familiarities by all means, but the everyman skills simply do not cut it for PCs.

So the very rare PC should have an 11- for knowing the area he's lived in all his life, but virtually none of the rest of the population of that area should? I find that ludicrous. To me, that Everyman familiarity should allow the character to navigate his local area, know the main routes and be able to find the lesser known routes on a map, or by taking extra time to look around or ask for directions. But then, I wouldn't require a character to invest even 1 point (familiarity) to make his way to work in the morning, to be able to pop out to the bank over lunch, stop at the bar for a drink (just one!) afterwork, pop into the grocery store and then successfully make his way back home.


No? I'd have thought that everyone would be reasonably knowledgeable about SOME group of people - be it related to their hobby or their profession or just an interest. Anyway, it makes for an interesting plot devide and adds considerable colour to the character if the GM knows the sort of people that the character is interested in.

Again, we come down to whether this is subsumed in his Everyman skill, in this case his PS. I'd say an 11- skill in PS: Litigation Lawyer, for example, would mean the character knows the famous lawyers (they worked on famous cases, publish articles and present at conferences, after all), the experienced judges (from case research and appearing before them) and the more prominent members of the legal community in his practice area (he would come in contact with them through his work).


Everyman skills are a bit rubbish, generally, but again I'd think a lot of people have held more than one job and would have more than a passing familiarity with what is required.

Again, the crux is what level of ability is considered adequate to do the job. If an 11- permits someone to practice law, what level of skill is required of, say, an articling student, still under the supervision of a practicing lawyer? I would think an 8- for such an individual, who is knowledgeable and has some experience in the area, would not be unreasonable. Mind you, most of us improve over time, and the jump from 8- to 11- is quite significant. An accountant typically requires a university degree, followed by two to three years' articling, and passing their professional exams. At the end, they would have the PS on an 11-, as they are licensed to practice on their own. At what point do they achieve that 8-? Logically, it should rise to 9 and 10 before hitting 11, but that level of granularity would add little to the game. How much more skilled do they become with experience? Graduating university at age 21-22 and achieving their professional designation at age 25 or so is fairly common. Will they have a 14- (another 3 point jump) by age 30? A 21- at age 35? At what level do they top out, or do they reach a skill of 39- at retirement at age 65?


Not very skilled - unless you have high characteristics you are about 62% knowledgeable. I know at least that much about at least 3 different things.

Again, we get back to the assumption of what tasks are so basic as not to require a roll. I would not require a person with a Familiarity with, say, the Beatles, to know who the Beatles were, when they recorded, or who Brian Epstein, George Martin, Pete Best and Stu Sutcliffe were. If you make them roll for these facts, an 11- is a pretty poor roll. I'd make them roll to know the date A Hard Day's Night was released, perhaps, or that the titlem changed at the last minute, forcing the title cut to be recorded in haste, but not to know that it was their first movie. Given a bit of Extra Time, I'd suggest they could get those answers, since the purchase of the skill implies some source material to look it up with.


Yes, definitely. 8- is rubbish

We MAKE it rubbish by assuming even the most simplistic task requires a skill roll. Do you think everyone who brings a member of the opposite sex home from a bar has Seduction at 11- or more?


and I'm not suggesting THAT list, I'm suggesting interaction skills - some people are reasonable in conversation or persuasion or oratory or animal handling - it helps to define the character, whish is a good thing, isn't it? moreover, using my SUGGESTED template, you only need to take 1 interaction skill as a skill, although you can take more.

I'm suggesting that 11- is better than "reasonable", and that, in fact, a familiarity should be seen as "reasonable" and adjudicated accordingly.


You are not reading the full list of intellect skills then. I probably have reasonable skill in computer programming, criminology, deduction, forensic medicine, paramedic and survival, so I could easily fill the blanks and I am far from exceptional and nowhere near superhero material. I may or may not warrant an 11- in each of those but I am at very least familiar with them, so filling the points is not a problem. Even 11- is still pretty average.

Which of these could you make a living at with your present level of skills? That is the benchmark of 11-. A PS: Lawyer 11- can practice law on their own. Could you make a living as a freelance detective with your Deduction skill, a police detective based on your Criminology, a paramedic with your Paramedic or performing autopsies with your Forensic Medicine?

Watching CSI would not, in my view, even provide someone with a Familiarity in these skills, although I could see a character with great interest in these areas (TV, movies, non-fiction books about the science) developing a familiarity. EVERYONE, based on the Everyman skills, has Familiarity with deduction. Most people can figure out a lot of things given a few facts and a bit of time.


Indeed, but even then everyman is 8-, and I'd certainly claima abetter score than that at climbing and riding, and, as you say, you don;t HAVE to take an agility skill if that is not where the character's talents lie.

Again, it comes down to what we believe Familiarity means. Familiarity with Riding should permit the character to ride the appropriate animal under ordinary conditions. It doesn't mean "You go horseback riding for 15 minutes - roll an 8- 450 times [450 phases at two speed] - each time you fail, you fall off the horse." It means "if you try to do something truly difficult and out of the ordinary, you have a 37.5% chance of success". Remember, if I have PS: Jockey or PS: Showjumping on 11-, I'm good enough to make a living at it. Jockies don't fall off the horse 1 race in 3, but 62.5%, even rolled every race instead of every phase, implies they do!

[tesuji]

Haven't followed all the discussion between hugh and Sean on skill merits... but...

by the book, skill modifiers Do apply to familiarities.

So this means at a simple familiarity level, routine tasks have a roll of not 8- but 11- to 13-. Thats pretty good odds. Easy tasks have a success rate of 9- to 11-. Again, not so bad.

in a modern american city, i would be ruling that finding a place that isn't hiding and such (using phone book, mapquest, etc) to definitely fall into routine and things like knowing neighborhoods and broader trands to be more in the easy... etc.

modifiers include bonuses for extra time and materials, so for example a LAW question asked of a law stundent who has access to a law library and time to go look things up could easily get into the 11- or higher ranges, starting with familiarity.

of course, i dont find it at all uncommon for hero players to basically go "skill modifiers?" :-)

However, i would say its incumbent on the Gm to try and communicate his campaign preferences and presumptions to the players. I often do this by providing a suite of sample characters, both "pc level supers" and simple normals, so they can see whather being a practicing doctor requires medicine at 16- or medicine 11- or somewhere in between, so that their characters can get the appropriate levels of skill for the expectations to be similar.

[Hugh Neilson]

by the book, skill modifiers Do apply to familiarities.

So this means at a simple familiarity level, routine tasks have a roll of not 8- but 11- to 13-. Thats pretty good odds. Easy tasks have a success rate of 9- to 11-. Again, not so bad.

in a modern american city, i would be ruling that finding a place that isn't hiding and such (using phone book, mapquest, etc) to definitely fall into routine and things like knowing neighborhoods and broader trands to be more in the easy... etc.

modifiers include bonuses for extra time and materials, so for example a LAW question asked of a law stundent who has access to a law library and time to go look things up could easily get into the 11- or higher ranges, starting with familiarity.

Extra Time is a key one here. If asked a question of law, and the lawyer with 14- (expert in his field) has a 17- chance to know the answer off the top of his head (one phase; 3 point skill modifier making this a routine to easy task), the articling student with an 8- skill roll has a 62.5% chance (8+3 Modifier = 11) to know the answer off the top of his head as well. With an hour to research (5 steps up the time chart), that's now 16-, so the student should get the right answer.

Yes, it DOES take an hour of research for a raw recruit to find things the expert knows off the top of his head. The expert also knows where to look, so even questions he does not know off the top of his head are quicker to research.


of course, i dont find it at all uncommon for hero players to basically go "skill modifiers?" :-)

IOW, roll 8- to succeed in finding your house with your Everyman AK skill...


However, i would say its incumbent on the Gm to try and communicate his campaign preferences and presumptions to the players. I often do this by providing a suite of sample characters, both "pc level supers" and simple normals, so they can see whather being a practicing doctor requires medicine at 16- or medicine 11- or somewhere in between, so that their characters can get the appropriate levels of skill for the expectations to be similar.

This is key - it's just as critical as everyone being under the same expectations of DC ranges, Speed ranges, Defenses and CV's.

[Nekkidcarpenter]

Well, I've finally found some game related things I definitely disagree with Hugh on.

The truth is most people suck at their job. As someone who has devoted considerable time and thought into becoming a good carpenter, I can tell you that I am in a small minority, and that holds true with every job in the construction field. Since Skill modifiers apply to familiarity's as pointed out earlier, that means that most of the time people are rolling a 10- to 12-. Fifty to 75 % (rough approx) of doing a job correctly? That's just about right.

Now it may well be that in Hugh's field all of the practitioners are skilled, motivated people, and that is also the case for all the people who work at his local grocery store, hardware store, electronics store, beauty salons, etc. but I doubt very much its true on this side of the Never Never land border.

[Nekkidcarpenter]

Hey, I'm an American. We make fun of Canadians. I'm not going to say it's right, it's just what we do.

[Comic]

Well, I've finally found some game related things I definitely disagree with Hugh on..

It's not easy to do, is it?!

I have to look long and hard for nitpicks when trying to find unHugh opinions and points of view, myself.

Fortunately, I put one of my Everyman skills into KS: Contradiction, so I stand a chance some of the time.

(I'll let you guess if it was the 8-, or the 11-, EM skill.)

[Silbeg]

I like to allocate 30 points for skills in pretty much every character I build these days, because I'm useless at 'skilling out' characters.

Here is the general breakdown, which I feel (assuming some application of thought is applied) tend to flesh out a character...(all knowledge/professional skills etc are considered characteristic based)

3 Area Knowledge: Where you come from 11-
3 Knowledge Skill: People 11-
3 Profession Skill: Your Job 11-
3 Profession Skill: Hobby 11-
3 Interaction Skill
3 Intellect Skill (not Analyse)
3 Science Skill or Knowledge Skill or 3 point Language Skill
3 Agility Skill (not Acrobatics or Breakfall or Fast draw or Stealth) or KS
6 Two more skills for the above list


Very interesting idea, Sean. I may have to do something with this!

[Silbeg]

Haven't followed all the discussion between hugh and Sean on skill merits... but...

by the book, skill modifiers Do apply to familiarities.

So this means at a simple familiarity level, routine tasks have a roll of not 8- but 11- to 13-. Thats pretty good odds. Easy tasks have a success rate of 9- to 11-. Again, not so bad.

in a modern american city, i would be ruling that finding a place that isn't hiding and such (using phone book, mapquest, etc) to definitely fall into routine and things like knowing neighborhoods and broader trands to be more in the easy... etc.

modifiers include bonuses for extra time and materials, so for example a LAW question asked of a law stundent who has access to a law library and time to go look things up could easily get into the 11- or higher ranges, starting with familiarity.

of course, i dont find it at all uncommon for hero players to basically go "skill modifiers?" :-)

However, i would say its incumbent on the Gm to try and communicate his campaign preferences and presumptions to the players. I often do this by providing a suite of sample characters, both "pc level supers" and simple normals, so they can see whather being a practicing doctor requires medicine at 16- or medicine 11- or somewhere in between, so that their characters can get the appropriate levels of skill for the expectations to be similar.

interesting... by any chance do you have a rules citation (page number)?

[Hugh Neilson]

Well, I've finally found some game related things I definitely disagree with Hugh on.

It really shouldn't be that hard - I'm pretty opinionated and very stubborn :D


The truth is most people suck at their job. As someone who has devoted considerable time and thought into becoming a good carpenter, I can tell you that I am in a small minority, and that holds true with every job in the construction field. Since Skill modifiers apply to familiarity's as pointed out earlier, that means that most of the time people are rolling a 10- to 12-. Fifty to 75 % (rough approx) of doing a job correctly? That's just about right.

So that would mean most people don't have better than familiarity to do their jobs, since most parts of most jobs are routine. An 8- with +2 (middle of "simple task") to +4 (middle of "routine task") will get you a 10 to 12- get it right the first time without taking Extra Time. That's 50% to 75%. If virtually everyone had an 11- roll, they'd be up to a 13 to 15- roll, and getting those tasks right the first time about 83% to 95% of the time.


Now it may well be that in Hugh's field all of the practitioners are skilled, motivated people, and that is also the case for all the people who work at his local grocery store, hardware store, electronics store, beauty salons, etc. but I doubt very much its true on this side of the Never Never land border.

In general, they're good enough to get the job done, most requiring some supervision to catch/fix any problems.


Hey, I'm an American. We make fun of Canadians. I'm not going to say it's right, it's just what we do.

Based on your comments, and your and my locations, you're saying that it may be that workers in Canada are "skilled, motivated people", but that's definitely not the case in the US - and you're calling that making fun of CANADIANS? :eek:

[Trebuchet]

Jockies don't fall off the horse 1 race in 3, but 62.5%, even rolled every race instead of every phase, implies they do!I'm gonna disagree there. Jockeys are not paid to ride horses (that would be mere Transport Familiarity or at most Riding), they are paid to make racehorses win races. Failure to make a PS: Jockey roll doesn't mean the jockey fell off his horse; it means his horse failed to win even if it was a faster horse. He might even make the roll, but a competing jockey made his roll by a better margin. A crime scene tech may make a successful Criminalistics roll, but that doesn't allow him to simply bypass the rest of the investigation and arrest the perpetrator sight unseen (or CSI would be a pretty dull TV show).

We shouldn't assume Familiarities and Skills allow too much; but let's not go overboard and assume failed rolls represent disasters either. Let's not assume that failure means catastrophic failure; it just means the task wasn't accomplished in a satisfactory or timely fashion. A doctor failing his KS: Diseases 13- may not realize his patient has lymphoma; that doesn't mean the patient croaks in the exam room.

[Wanderer]

Having come late to the discussion, I just have to remark that I'm absolutely adverse to waste even one point on buying skills that I cannot see any discernible use for during play, even if it may flesh out the background.

So absolutely no trivia skills like KS: 70s movies or KS: rap music, even if they are the fanboy hobby interest of the character, KS with too tight a focus (KS: History is nice, KS: Renaissance France History is not), skills that duplicate the character's powers (having a TF is a waste of points if you have 30" Flight or Running, and so WFs if you have a 12d6 EB or 60 STR), PSs (I do not care to give representation to what the character does to earn a living, even provided he is not a professional adventurer/crimefighter. It is either stuff that he always does offcamera, or it is better represented by buying the corresponding mainstream skills with greater gaming applications, such as SS: Biology and Paramedics for a physician instead of PS: Physician, Electronics and Computer for a computer technician instead of PS: computer technician). On a general note, I'm quite wary of buying AKs, too. If the GM wishes to see this kind of useless trivia skills on the character sheet, he'd better gift me the extra points, or declare them free.

Given these limits, generally I'm not adverse on spending a decent amount (say 25-50 points) on skills to better flesh the character out. Provided it makes sense for the character's background (including adventuring/crimefighting experience), however this would also include skills with strong adventuring usefulness like Acrobatics, Breakfall, and Stealth. OTOH, I may prefer and buy the latter as Powers if they come from innate talent or a side effect of powers. I usually do not spend more than 30-50 points of skills because I do not fancy skill-heavy characters much: I may do the occasional magician or power-armored inventor or scientist that gave himself powers, but I totally despise martial artists, weaponmasters, and Batman guys, and do not fancy gadgeteers much.

[Trebuchet]

Having come late to the discussion, I just have to remark that I'm absolutely adverse to waste even one point on buying skills that I cannot see any discernible use for during play, even if it may flesh out the background.Diff'rent strokes for different folks.

While I'm also adverse to wasting points, in general I don't think fleshing out a character's background, personality, or hobbies is a waste. I feel anything that increases the player's insight into his character can increase the enjoyment he gains roleplaying that character. So if spending a few points to flesh out a PC who has some skills beyond combat and crimefighting tools makes a better character, then the points were emphatically not wasted. OTOH, if they don't help a particular player roleplay his PC, then I'm adverse to mandating points being spent on esoteric skills.

I've never felt the points I've spent buying Zl'f Riding and Animal Handler to reflect her hobby of horseback riding were a waste; nor were the points she's spent on idiomatic Norwegian and aircraft piloting. It makes the character seem more "real" to me and that was worth every point I spent. For me, at least, it's not all about the combat. :)

[Wanderer]

Diff'rent strokes for different folks.

While I'm also adverse to wasting points, in general I don't think fleshing out a character's background, personality, or hobbies is a waste. I feel anything that increases the player's insight into his character can increase the enjoyment he gains roleplaying that character. So if spending a few points to flesh out a PC who has some skills beyond combat and crimefighting tools makes a better character, then the points were emphatically not wasted. OTOH, if they don't help a particular player roleplay his PC, then I'm adverse to mandating points being spent on esoteric skills.

I've never felt the points I've spent buying Zl'f Riding and Animal Handler to reflect her hobby of horseback riding were a waste; nor were the points she's spent on idiomatic Norwegian and aircraft piloting. It makes the character seem more "real" to me and that was worth every point I spent. For me, at least, it's not all about the combat. :)

It's not all about the combat, but in order to have points expended for, it must have some discernible usefulness in the typical character's adventuring or crimefighting lifestyle. E.g. I'm not adverse to buying KS: History or SS: Biology or KS: World Politics to show that a brick or energy projector superhero is a voracious reader with good general culture. But I must see some reasonable usefulness for it in order to spend points on. And the more narrow or obscure or un-glamorous the focus of the skill, the more I am wary of it.

I really do not spend points just to highlight useless background bits like hobbies or pre-adventuring menial jobs or odd interests or obscure native languages. If it's really useful to remind myself or other players of that stuff for better RP purposes, it gets written down in the background section only, if it's really some important bit that is going to see some decent RP about, not some colorful trivia stuff you throw the GM at character creation to show how un-munchkinny you are by giving a character a life or a complex background beyond the kewl powerz stuff.

Therefore, with all respect for your differing preferences, IMO Riding, Animal Handling, and Piloting may be useful skills for fantasy or modern action-adventure, but useless trivia unworth of points in superheroics. Likewise for Norwegian, Hungarian, or Zulu, unless the campaign happens to have Norse or Zulu gods as a recurring plot element. If I write it in the background that the character is an ardent fan of classic sci-fi, you can expect me to RP him going at trekkie conventions every so often, but if I buy KS: classic sci-fi, I expect old sci-fi books and movies to be relevant at solving some of of the plot hooks the character faces. Just like a Disadvantage or Limitation that never significantly hinders the character is not worth even a single point, a skill that never significantly helps the character is not worth even a single point.

[OddHat]

More communication and Transactional versus Narrative Control issues here. If a character like Treb's Zl'f were to show up in one of my games, I'd look at the points he sunk into Animal Handling as a request to have that aspect of the character show up at some point in play; now and then, when it made sense, I'd plan a bit in a scenario accordingly. If another GM wouldn't make such an adjustment, then in his campaign those points could be seen as wasted (though the player may feel otherwise, if he just likes the extra detail); in my campaign, they wouldn't be.

The problem of potential "waste" can be handled as simply as saying to the GM "I think my PC should have this skill; if I spend points, will it ever show up in play?" If he says "Probably not", the player can decide if he'll get anything out of having it on the sheet and build accordingly.

I try to remember that other GMs don't run things the way that I do; it makes it easier on those rare occasions I get to be a player.

[Trebuchet]

Just like a Disadvantage or Limitation that never significantly hinders the character is not worth even a single point, a skill that never significantly helps the character is not worth even a single point.If that's your preference, that's cool. I'm not trying to impose any requirement to buy obscure or "useless" Skills onto other players. I just happen to disagree that points spent to better define the character are not, at least to me, a waste of points. All of her "useless" Skills were purchased with XP, not as background skills. (Nor are her obscure Skills entirely useless - since she's blonde, pretty, and lives in Oslo, she can pass as a native Norwegian quite easily; a useful ability for a superheroine who is proudly and publicly Russian.) YMMV.

[Trebuchet]

More communication and Transactional versus Narrative Control issues here. If a character like Treb's Zl'f were to show up in one of my games, I'd look at the points he sunk into Animal Handling as a request to have that aspect of the character show up at some point in play; now and then, when it made sense, I'd plan a bit in a scenario accordingly. If another GM wouldn't make such an adjustment, then in his campaign those points could be seen as wasted (though the player may feel otherwise, if he just likes the extra detail); in my campaign, they wouldn't be.While I certainly always appreciate attempts by the GM to make "useless" skills useful at some point in the campaign, that wasn't why I purchased them. I bought them solely to add depth to the character. The fact that Mentor once found a way for the Riding Skill Zl'f and another teammate bought to be useful in a scenario was pure gravy. :)

[OddHat]

While I certainly always appreciate attempts by the GM to make "useless" skills useful at some point in the campaign, that wasn't why I purchased them. I bought them solely to add depth to the character. The fact that Mentor once found a way for the Riding Skill Zl'f and another teammate bought to be useful in a scenario was pure gravy. :)

Sure, and understood. That's another aspect of the Transactional vs Narrative Control issue I was discussing earlier. If you look at the mechanics of character design as mainly an exercise in accounting, character points spent that never come up in play can be seen as a waste. If you look at the mechanics themselves as having narrative value, then things like non-optimized stats and skills can have value, even if the only value is that it helps you get a picture in your mind of the character.

And I'm glad Mentor found a use for it; color stuff like that is sometimes what makes a character and campaign most memorable. :)

[Trebuchet]

Sure, and understood. That's another aspect of the Transactional vs Narrative Control issue I was discussing earlier. If you look at the mechanics of character design as mainly an exercise in accounting, character points spent that never come up in play can be seen as a waste. If you look at the mechanics themselves as having narrative value, then things like non-optimized stats and skills can have value, even if the only value is that it helps you get a picture in your mind of the character.

And I'm glad Mentor found a use for it; color stuff like that is sometimes what makes a character and campaign most memorable. :)It was actually kind of cool what Mentor did. MidGuard was investigating strange occurrences near the site of a meteor impact in Mongolia, and the only way to get to the location was to ride in on horseback. Zl'f and Thunderbird (a Native American) both had Riding. Not only were our surly Mongolian guides more respectful towards Zl'f and Thunderbird because they were expert riders, but all the other characters unknowingly suffered a -2 OCV penalty from being stiff after two days in the saddle. :)

[Wanderer]

Sure, and understood. That's another aspect of the Transactional vs Narrative Control issue I was discussing earlier. If you look at the mechanics of character design as mainly an exercise in accounting, character points spent that never come up in play can be seen as a waste. If you look at the mechanics themselves as having narrative value, then things like non-optimized stats and skills can have value, even if the only value is that it helps you get a picture in your mind of the character.


Judging from experience, I would reply that you can reap the best of both worlds, optimized point accounting and mnemonic reminder for background bits, just by creating TWO character sheets: the official one, which you hand over to the group, and is optimized like a fighter jet with every point counting, and the "expanded" one, where you write down all kinds of non-optimized trivia purchases that are marked down as Everyman stuff and little more than RP mnemonic aids and notes. Just the same way by which sometimes I explictly write down canon Everyman skills as a mnemonic aid, and sometimes I omit them. Fortunately, handy character creation software like HD can make it very easy to produce slightly different versions of the same character, just a couple keystrokes away.

[Trebuchet]

Judging from experience, I would reply that you can reap the best of both worlds, optimized point accounting and mnemonic reminder for background bits, just by creating TWO character sheets: the official one, which you hand over to the group, and is optimized like a fighter jet with every point counting, and the "expanded" one, where you write down all kinds of non-optimized trivia purchases that are marked down as Everyman stuff and little more than RP mnemonic aids and notes. Just the same way by which sometimes I explictly write down canon Everyman skills as a mnemonic aid, and sometimes I omit them. Fortunately, handy character creation software like HD can make it very easy to produce slightly different versions of the same character, just a couple keystrokes away.Of course that's one way to do it; though I personally prefer to pay points for Skills and Perks (such as licensed pilot) that my character takes.

Another good way is to write a good character background and/or a short story and pass it around. If the GM and other players understand how you see your character, they'll be better able to interact with him in a manner that enhances your concept.

[tesuji]

interesting... by any chance do you have a rules citation (page number)?

hero 5 er

skill modifiers pg 45
modifiers apply to familiarities explicitly stated page 43 right before the section on successful skill checks

further expanded on in iltimate skill but its core 5er

[Wanderer]

Of course that's one way to do it; though I personally prefer to pay points for Skills and Perks (such as licensed pilot) that my character takes.

Ahh, but those aren't Real Skills and Perks in my view, i.e. stuff that I actually use in play. They are just notes for the character background. You don't pay points to make the character have green eyes or talk with a cheerful tone, don't you ? Trivia Skills and Perks are the same kind of thing to me.


Another good way is to write a good character background and/or a short story and pass it around. If the GM and other players understand how you see your character, they'll be better able to interact with him in a manner that enhances your concept.

No short story. Too artsy to my tastes, and my writing style is too dry to be up to such a task. But I definitely make a point never to consider a character really finished until I've written a good character background. Actually, that's just the finishing part, when I make the effort to weave and justify everything in a coherent, seamless whole. But trivia bits are just that, footnotes and highlights to the written background, not really part of the rest of the sheet. And other gamers are most definitely welcome to read it around the table and keep their own copy. It's just one more printout. Actually, I'd say I often write rather lengthy and detailed backgrounds, and enjoy the intellectual challenge of creating them just as much as I relish the other one of point-optimizing the character. I enjoy tinkering with char sheet and written background both (alas, I'm truly terrible at graphics, so character portraits are really not an option, apart from what Heromachine can do).

But I would be quite annoyed if someone would actually ASK me to buy trivia Skills and Perks. To me, it's a basic game balance and fairness issue: if it ain't really useful or hindering, it costs nothing. The principle must work both ways.

[OddHat]

Judging from experience, I would reply that you can reap the best of both worlds, optimized point accounting and mnemonic reminder for background bits, just by creating TWO character sheets: the official one, which you hand over to the group, and is optimized like a fighter jet with every point counting, and the "expanded" one, where you write down all kinds of non-optimized trivia purchases that are marked down as Everyman stuff and little more than RP mnemonic aids and notes. Just the same way by which sometimes I explictly write down canon Everyman skills as a mnemonic aid, and sometimes I omit them. Fortunately, handy character creation software like HD can make it very easy to produce slightly different versions of the same character, just a couple keystrokes away.

An OK method if that's what you'd like, as is mentioning background bits to your GM that you'd like to see, either face to face or in written form. As a GM I'd consider both.

However, in my own games, the player who bothered to put a 2 or 3 point skill on his sheet is considered to have made more of a commitment to that aspect of his character than a player who just mentioned the skill in his background or asked for it as an 8- Everyman skill. I see it as buying control of an aspect of the narrative: The player has asked to invest the points, and if I permit him to do so without explicitly telling him that a given skill/talent/perk/power will not be used in the campaign, I have made a commitment to honor his request for that particular narrative bit to eventually get worked in. If he spent no points, I don't feel obligated to make sure that he gets screen time for that narrative bit (though as the GM I still could do so). And when it finally does come up, if a roll is needed, the character with Riding 15- is certainly going to fare better than the character who just took an 8- Everyman riding skill.

[OddHat]

But I would be quite annoyed if someone would actually ASK me to buy trivia Skills and Perks. To me, it's a basic game balance and fairness issue: if it ain't really useful or hindering, it costs nothing. The principle must work both ways.

To avoid talking past one-another, I'd point out that neither Trebuchet nor I have suggested requiring players to spend points on skills unlikely to come up regularly in play; we've been discussing why a player might, and how a GM might handle it.

[Wanderer]

To avoid talking past one-another, I'd point out that neither Trebuchet nor I have suggested requiring players to spend points on skills unlikely to come up regularly in play; we've been discussing why a player might, and how a GM might handle it.

It was quite clear to me, but truly sorry if it sounded confrontational :( (my "Brash Writing Style", 8- Disadvantage showing up again, I reckon :hush:), it wasn't my intention, I was just making a general comment to no one among the recent thread posters in particular, certainly not you nor Trebuchet, someone may, or may not, have said something similar way upthread. Actually, if I were to see a fellow gamer spending points for IMO useless stuff, I'd just friendly advice against it, b/c IMO bad character design with suboptimal choices too often only leads to frustration, envy, and bad blood down the line.


An OK method if that's what you'd like, as is mentioning background bits to your GM that you'd like to see, either face to face or in written form. As a GM I'd consider both.

and I do use both. :)


However, in my own games, the player who bothered to put a 2 or 3 point skill on his sheet is considered to have made more of a commitment to that aspect of his character than a player who just mentioned the skill in his background or asked for it as an 8- Everyman skill. I see it as buying control of an aspect of the narrative: The player has asked to invest the points, and if I permit him to do so without explicitly telling him that a given skill/talent/perk/power will not be used in the campaign, I have made a commitment to honor his request for that particular narrative bit to eventually get worked in. If he spent no points, I don't feel obligated to make sure that he gets screen time for that narrative bit (though as the GM I still could do so). And when it finally does come up, if a roll is needed, the character with Riding 15- is certainly going to fare better than the character who just took an 8- Everyman riding skill.

All of this is just basic fairness and good GMing :) As long as you don't make too much of a commitment and strain your GM creativity too much, some trivia are rather difficult to justify this kind of plot spotlight, without going too comedic or weird.

[Trebuchet]

Ahh, but those aren't Real Skills and Perks in my view, i.e. stuff that I actually use in play. They are just notes for the character background. You don't pay points to make the character have green eyes or talk with a cheerful tone, don't you ? Trivia Skills and Perks are the same kind of thing to me.But not to me. I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong; I just prefer a different approach. Everyone prefers slightly different things about their roleplaying. It's really nothing more than a matter of style. Now, admittedly, there are some just plain bad roleplayers out there. I don't think you're one of them, because you obviously give a lot of thought to your characters.


No short story. Too artsy to my tastes, and my writing style is too dry to be up to such a task. But I definitely make a point never to consider a character really finished until I've written a good character background. Actually, that's just the finishing part, when I make the effort to weave and justify everything in a coherent, seamless whole. But trivia bits are just that, footnotes and highlights to the written background, not really part of the rest of the sheet. And other gamers are most definitely welcome to read it around the table and keep their own copy. It's just one more printout. Actually, I'd say I often write rather lengthy and detailed backgrounds, and enjoy the intellectual challenge of creating them just as much as I relish the other one of point-optimizing the character. I enjoy tinkering with char sheet and written background both (alas, I'm truly terrible at graphics, so character portraits are really not an option, apart from what Heromachine can do).Short stories aren't for everyone; although I personally enjoy writing them because I feel they can give me better insight into my characters. But a good character background can accomplish that as well. I do tend towards overkill on my backgrounds; the one for my primary Champions character is almost four pages long. :o


But I would be quite annoyed if someone would actually ASK me to buy trivia Skills and Perks. To me, it's a basic game balance and fairness issue: if it ain't really useful or hindering, it costs nothing. The principle must work both ways.Absolutely right. :thumbup:

[Wanderer]

But not to me. I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong; I just prefer a different approach. Everyone prefers slightly different things about their roleplaying. It's really nothing more than a matter of style. Now, admittedly, there are some just plain bad roleplayers out there. I don't think you're one of them, because you obviously give a lot of thought to your characters.

Short stories aren't for everyone; although I personally enjoy writing them because I feel they can give me better insight into my characters. But a good character background can accomplish that as well. I do tend towards overkill on my backgrounds; the one for my primary Champions character is almost four pages long. :o

Absolutely right. :thumbup:

Amen to that, amen to that, brother and :thumbup: to your writing skills. Just to make one final general sidenote consideration, in my experience bad roleplayers can be just as easily under-acting rules-lawyer munchkins or over-acting artsy drama-queen real roleplayers. Either breed may favor different games and gaming cliques, but they both most definely burden the hobby.

[Trebuchet]

In case you're interested, three of my short stories can be found here:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1055086&postcount=4

http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showthread.php?p=979090#post979090

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46582


Just because you don't like to write short stories there's no reason to assume you might not enjoy reading them. I love to read other player's stories. :)

[Nekkidcarpenter]

It's not all about the combat, but in order to have points expended for, it must have some discernible usefulness in the typical character's adventuring or crimefighting

If I write it in the background that the character is an ardent fan of classic sci-fi, you can expect me to RP him going at trekkie conventions every so often, but if I buy KS: classic sci-fi, I expect old sci-fi books and movies to be relevant at solving some of of the plot hooks the character faces. Just like a Disadvantage or Limitation that never significantly hinders the character is not worth even a single point, a skill that never significantly helps the character is not worth even a single point.

It sounds like your 'roleplaying' opportunities are whatever the GM chooses to lead you around the nose by. Personally, I MAKE the skills that I buy useful. My character engages in actions other than combat and is actually capable in those situations. And with a good gm, when characters make interesting characters and attempt to use the skills they've purchased, the plot hooks they face are often tied in with the skills they bought. Watch a few episodes of any crime drama and you'll see someone with a tie in to their 'useless' skills.

And now speaking as a GM, it's a hell of a lot more interesting and fun to make up scenarios for characters with a wide range of interests than ones whose skills are Stealth and Acrobatics. 'Let's see, what kind of adventure would appeal to these specific characters? Oh, I see every pc in the group has Breakfall. Well, that'll be a fun one to design. A Breakfall scenario.'

[Hugh Neilson]

It's not all about the combat, but in order to have points expended for, it must have some discernible usefulness in the typical character's adventuring or crimefighting lifestyle. E.g. I'm not adverse to buying KS: History or SS: Biology or KS: World Politics to show that a brick or energy projector superhero is a voracious reader with good general culture. But I must see some reasonable usefulness for it in order to spend points on. And the more narrow or obscure or un-glamorous the focus of the skill, the more I am wary of it.

I really do not spend points just to highlight useless background bits like hobbies or pre-adventuring menial jobs or odd interests or obscure native languages. If it's really useful to remind myself or other players of that stuff for better RP purposes, it gets written down in the background section only, if it's really some important bit that is going to see some decent RP about, not some colorful trivia stuff you throw the GM at character creation to show how un-munchkinny you are by giving a character a life or a complex background beyond the kewl powerz stuff.

Therefore, with all respect for your differing preferences, IMO Riding, Animal Handling, and Piloting may be useful skills for fantasy or modern action-adventure, but useless trivia unworth of points in superheroics. Likewise for Norwegian, Hungarian, or Zulu, unless the campaign happens to have Norse or Zulu gods as a recurring plot element. If I write it in the background that the character is an ardent fan of classic sci-fi, you can expect me to RP him going at trekkie conventions every so often, but if I buy KS: classic sci-fi, I expect old sci-fi books and movies to be relevant at solving some of of the plot hooks the character faces. Just like a Disadvantage or Limitation that never significantly hinders the character is not worth even a single point, a skill that never significantly helps the character is not worth even a single point.


More communication and Transactional versus Narrative Control issues here. If a character like Treb's Zl'f were to show up in one of my games, I'd look at the points he sunk into Animal Handling as a request to have that aspect of the character show up at some point in play; now and then, when it made sense, I'd plan a bit in a scenario accordingly. If another GM wouldn't make such an adjustment, then in his campaign those points could be seen as wasted (though the player may feel otherwise, if he just likes the extra detail); in my campaign, they wouldn't be.

The problem of potential "waste" can be handled as simply as saying to the GM "I think my PC should have this skill; if I spend points, will it ever show up in play?" If he says "Probably not", the player can decide if he'll get anything out of having it on the sheet and build accordingly.

Emphasis mine. Wanderer hits the nail on the head. The points are there to reflect relative utility. If a Disadvantage creates no disadvantage, or a Limitation does not limit, they should save no points. But the same applies to powers, abilities perks or skills that will not be useful - they should cost no points. Do the characters in your game buy a Vehicle to represent the car they drive to and from work, a limited Mind Link with millions of choices of minds to represent their secret ID's cell phone, or a Base to show they live in a house or apartment, and not in a cardboard box in the street (and shouldn't that carboard box be a base, albeit an inexpensive one?)? Or are there some aspects of the character which, while relevant to role play and there in the background, don't cost or grant any points?

How much did Z'lf pay to be Blonde? It helps her fit in in Norway - why doesn't it cost points? ANSWER: Because some things are just background and don't cost points.

Oddhat, to me, poses the right question above, but I think the GM gives the wrong answer. If he answers "no, probably not", this should be followed with "You can have it for free - if it comes up more than once in the campaign, you can buy it with xp." Or the answer could be "If you pay the points for it, it will come up in play. If not, then it likely won't, and will just be part of your background, like your house, car and cell phone".

[Hugh Neilson]

It's a tough situation. On one hand, you don't want to penalize roleplaying by not giving out bonuses (where appropriate) to the extrovert players. On the other, you don't want to completely discourage roleplaying out social skills for the introverts.

In my view, a player whose character has no social skills paid for, who then plays the character as though he is a great orator, diplomat and conversationalist, should be penalized xp for role playing his character poorly, not rewarded for trying to overide his character's weaknesses by substituting his personal strengths. A character without WF: Handguns does not become an expert marksman because his player is a sharpshooter. Why would a character with 8 PRE and no skills suddenly be a skilled orator because his player is a great speechmaker?

Bonuses for good roleplaying - sure. But they should be just as applicable, and as easy or tough to achieve, whether you are using a social skill, an agility skill, an intellect skill, a combat ability or whatever else.

[Wanderer]

It sounds like your 'roleplaying' opportunities are whatever the GM chooses to lead you around the nose by. Personally, I MAKE the skills that I buy useful. My character engages in actions other than combat and is actually capable in those situations. And with a good gm, when characters make interesting characters and attempt to use the skills they've purchased, the plot hooks they face are often tied in with the skills they bought. Watch a few episodes of any crime drama and you'll see someone with a tie in to their 'useless' skills.

Oh, but I definitely do all the things you describe. As I said, I do definitely add Skills to most characters. It's just that what you describe is worth the effort and manageable without falling into too much comedy or weirdness in some cases only. I.e. when the skills have a discernible usefulness for the character's adventuring lifestyle, to start with.

What I deem useless boils down to obscure languages (Chinese or Russian are nice, Danish or Cambodian are not), hobbies/interests skills like KS: sci-fi or KS: pop music, specialization KS/SS with too tight a focus (KS: History or SS: Medicine are nice, KS: Japan History or SS: Nephrology are not), mainstream skills whose usefulness to most people downgraded to hobby in the setting (Riding is a good example in the modern age), skills that duplicate other skills (this is typically the problem with PS) or the character's powers (typically TFs and WFs for superheroes), and in most cases Area Knowledges and Professional Skills. As it concerns the latter, either it's unglamorous downtime offcamera stuff or typically it can be better represented with the corresponding general-purpose, broad-focus skills. When you have SS: Medicine and Paramedics, PS: Physician is just wasteful duplication.

Note that these restrictions spare most Agility Skills, most Intellect Skills, most Interaction Skills, widespread languages, and all broad-focus KS and SS. These I am most happy to give my characters, and strive to enrich non-combat time with them, as you mention. You will notice that in the crime dramas you describe, the tie in of characters are to "useful" skills according to my guidelines: e.g. the forensic pathologist who is a whiz hacker.

[Trebuchet]

How much did Z'lf pay to be Blonde? It helps her fit in in Norway - why doesn't it cost points? ANSWER: Because some things are just background and don't cost points.Not exactly. Zl'f was designed (and blonde) long before we decided to set the campaign HQ in Norway. She was originally designed and briefly played in a campaign set in San Francisco. She's blonde because she's an ethnic Russian (think Maria Sharapova); not as protective coloration in Norway. Had we decided to set the campaign in Zimbabwe, it would have been a detriment to maintaining her Secret ID but she'd have still been a blonde.

That having been said, some things are just background. :)

[sbarron]

Looking back over this thread, it seems as if most of the characters being discussed are superheroes. One of the very general distictions I think you could make between supers and heroic level characters would be...

Superhero characters are the sum of their characteristics and powers.

Heroic characters are the sum of their characteristics and skills.

Of course there are exeptions, but lets not worry about those. Many supers characters have all of 10 points in skills, right? I can't think of that ever being the case for a heroic level character, regardless of the setting. So, does anyone make a distinction between skills for superheroic characters vs heroic characters? Have you thought about why you do that?

My guess is that most people do make very different skill purchase decisions for the 2 types of characters. Let's face it, in supers, its frequently the Navy seals, special forces, olympic athletes, or geniuses of the world that get super powers. And if you were to stat out one of these characters for a heroic level game, they'd have a ton more skills than the version in the supers game does.

Maybe that makes sense if you think that skills you don't use you shouldn't buy, and the supers game you play doesn't provide a use for those skills. But I've aways build the Navy seal scientist character first, then added the powers he gained from the "accident" onto that character sheet. That way, my 150 pt navy seal has all the same skills and perks of my 350 pt former navy seal turned superheroic crimefighter. It may not be an efficient use of my points in some games, but it carries a certain logic that makes me more comfortable with the character.

YMMV.

[Hugh Neilson]

Not exactly. Zl'f was designed (and blonde) long before we decided to set the campaign HQ in Norway. She was originally designed and briefly played in a campaign set in San Francisco. She's blonde because she's an ethnic Russian (think Maria Sharapova); not as protective coloration in Norway. Had we decided to set the campaign in Zimbabwe, it would have been a detriment to maintaining her Secret ID but she'd have still been a blonde.

So it should cost points (because it helps blend in sometimes) and be a disadvantage (since it will prevent fitting in other times). Or


That having been said, some things are just background.

Ultimately, the only question is which items are which. And that's very campaign-dependent. I agree in a typical modern 20th century game, Blonde is background. In a Fantasy game, where local culture of the setting believes that fair-haired blondes are descended from the Gods, and afforded special rights and privileges, it's a Perk. In a Sci Fi game where blonde hair is viewed as a sign of illegal genetic manipulation, we have a disadvantage.

Similarly, the utility of KS: Andromeda Galaxy may vary between the three settings. Why shouldn't the cost vary? In the Fantasy game, where it's a sure thing this will never come into play, it should be free (assuming it's somehow justified at all). In a Supers game, which will involve starfaring scenarios including the Andromeda Galaxy, it's probably a fair skill, and pretty all-encompassing of the Andromeda Galaxy data the heroes might need to know. In a Sci Fi game that is set in the Andromeda Galaxy, it may be far too broad to provide much in the way of specifics (much like KS: Milky Way Galaxy won't tell you who is the Prime Minister of England in a modern Supers game).

[Hugh Neilson]

It sounds like your 'roleplaying' opportunities are whatever the GM chooses to lead you around the nose by. Personally, I MAKE the skills that I buy useful. My character engages in actions other than combat and is actually capable in those situations. And with a good gm, when characters make interesting characters and attempt to use the skills they've purchased, the plot hooks they face are often tied in with the skills they bought. Watch a few episodes of any crime drama and you'll see someone with a tie in to their 'useless' skills.

And now speaking as a GM, it's a hell of a lot more interesting and fun to make up scenarios for characters with a wide range of interests than ones whose skills are Stealth and Acrobatics. 'Let's see, what kind of adventure would appeal to these specific characters? Oh, I see every pc in the group has Breakfall. Well, that'll be a fun one to design. A Breakfall scenario.'

Your first patagraph sounds like it's the player's sole responsibility to make his skills useful. Your second contradicts that by placing some onus on the GM, albeit onus the GM is happy to comply with. There are, however, some skills that are harder for the GM to reasonably integrate than others, and there are GMing styles that discourage purchase of skills.

Let's take an example. There have been a series of industrial accidents at various high-tech companies. These are reported in the media, so every PC is assumed aware of them. Now they need to investigate.

Possibility #1 PC#1 uses his High Society to try and buttonhole some company owners, key shareholders and Directors to try to see if they have any useful information. PC #2 uses Streetwise to see if there's any word on the street that can point him in the right direction. PC #3 uses his Scientific knowledge to try to determine what all of these high-tech companies may have in common which could lead them to be targeted by the same adversary. PC #4 goes home and reads comic books.

The GM has already decided that the next attack will be interrupted by the PC's, who hear about it in a radio newsflash and happen to be close enough to do something about it. All of their skills come up with "No one you talk to/read about/know about has any useful information". Or they do get information, but before they can use it, the newsflash comes on.

Skills are useless. You can't obtain anything productive with them, or anything you do obtain has no impact whatsoever on the flow of the adventure.

Possibility #2 The PC's are able to locate news reports which identify a few owners/key stockholders/Directors, a couple of street people who witnessed something and some info on what the companies do. Any PC following up these leads can make contact with the individuals in question, or research the companies' projects. Their success in obtaining information depends on the specific questions the players think to have their PC's ask, and the GM's sense of how their personal eloquence and attitude motivates the relevant NPC's to co-operate. Choice of publications to research determines success in locating a common thread in the companies' projects.

Again, skills are useless. Any PC, regardless of his skills, can follow up the various leads and obtain the exact same information.

Possibility #3PC#1 uses his High Society to try and buttonhole some company owners, key shareholders and Directors to try to see if they have any useful information. PC #2 uses Streetwise to see if there's any word on the street that can point him in the right direction. PC #3 uses his Scientific knowledge to try to determine what all of these high-tech companies may have in common which could lead them to be targeted by the same adversary. PC #4 goes home and reads comic books.

PC #1's High Society enables him to make contact with certain key company people without arousing suspicion, and he gains several valuable insights. They point to competition over an upcoming military contract. Only two companies are left able to field a realistic bid. PC #2 is able to track down a few thugs who have been approached (or even hired) to be involved in "industrial accidents". A couple mention logos of a specific company, and one has a conspicuouisly out of place expensive pen with that company's logo (lifted from the guy who hired him). It's one of the two companies left in the running for that military contract. PC #3 is able to use his contacts to assess the kind of projects the various high tech companies might have in common, and form a pretty good guess as to what they may be developing. It could be very dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.

Skills are useful! If no one had one of the three skills (or skill sets) above, they would have missed some opportunities. To nekkidcarpenter's point, however, some skills are still more useful than others. The three PC's above were all able to identify some pretty reasonable uses for their skills. The GM either planned for it, or incorporated their ideas into his plot.

PC #4? "I go home to the Vault of Ages, and pull out my longboxes. I'll use my KS: Golden Age Comic Books to review whether the Justice Society, Seven Soldiers of Victory or All-Winners Squat eer came up against a similar situation. We should be able to benefit greatly from knowing how they handled it!"

Anyone think PC #4 is getting the same value from his skill as the first three? I'm thinking the GM is going to have to plan a lot more to allow PC #4 to get value from his character points invested. Or maybe this particular knowledge area should be chalked up as background, not character ability, and allowed as a free skill - in which case the character can expect to get what he paid for. Or maybe the GM has agreed it will be useful. And one of his circle of collecting contacts just happens to work at the underhanded company, and overheard some useful information...

[Trebuchet]

So it should cost points (because it helps blend in sometimes) and be a disadvantage (since it will prevent fitting in other times). Since I didn't take blonde as either a Perk or a Disadvantage for Zl'f, it's just background. The fact that she's living in one of the few places on Earth where attractive blondes are a dime a dozen was really a happy coincidence. The organization she works for is called the Europa 2000 Foundation because when I was setting up the campaign I wanted to use the word Europa (I like the form "Europa" because that was the original root word) in the title to make the campaign international in scope rather than Amerocentric like most campaigns. Then I looked through some foreign language dictionaries to see which European languages use that form of the word. Norwegian was one; Spanish another, and IIRC there was one other. I decided to go with Norway mostly because it's more off the beaten path than Spain.

Once the campaign got rolling, I saw it would be useful for Zl'f to be able to communicate with Norwegian coworkers and the Norwegian foster-family she was living with so I bought her a couple points of Norwegian with XP. Then I realized that no method of learning a language is as good as immersion, and you don't get much more immersed than living with a family speaking a foreign language. Eventually I decided to buy it up to the idiomatic level to reflect several years of living and working with Norwegians, including her surrogate family (She also taught her foster-sister Russian). Her Norwegian is better than her English.

So now she's a blonde who looks like a native and speaks Norwegian like a native, and it all evolved organically. Now the only clue she's Russian is her name; which casual passersby wouldn't know anyway. I suppose the next logical step would be to buy her an Alternate ID with a Norwegian name; perhaps to reflect her being adopted by her new family.

[Trebuchet]

Your first patagraph sounds like it's the player's sole responsibility to make his skills useful. Your second contradicts that by placing some onus on the GM, albeit onus the GM is happy to comply with. There are, however, some skills that are harder for the GM to reasonably integrate than others, and there are GMing styles that discourage purchase of skills.

Let's take an example. There have been a series of industrial accidents at various high-tech companies. These are reported in the media, so every PC is assumed aware of them. Now they need to investigate.

Possibility #1 PC#1 uses his High Society to try and buttonhole some company owners, key shareholders and Directors to try to see if they have any useful information. PC #2 uses Streetwise to see if there's any word on the street that can point him in the right direction. PC #3 uses his Scientific knowledge to try to determine what all of these high-tech companies may have in common which could lead them to be targeted by the same adversary. PC #4 goes home and reads comic books.

The GM has already decided that the next attack will be interrupted by the PC's, who hear about it in a radio newsflash and happen to be close enough to do something about it. All of their skills come up with "No one you talk to/read about/know about has any useful information". Or they do get information, but before they can use it, the newsflash comes on.

Skills are useless. You can't obtain anything productive with them, or anything you do obtain has no impact whatsoever on the flow of the adventure.

Possibility #2 The PC's are able to locate news reports which identify a few owners/key stockholders/Directors, a couple of street people who witnessed something and some info on what the companies do. Any PC following up these leads can make contact with the individuals in question, or research the companies' projects. Their success in obtaining information depends on the specific questions the players think to have their PC's ask, and the GM's sense of how their personal eloquence and attitude motivates the relevant NPC's to co-operate. Choice of publications to research determines success in locating a common thread in the companies' projects.

Again, skills are useless. Any PC, regardless of his skills, can follow up the various leads and obtain the exact same information.

Possibility #3PC#1 uses his High Society to try and buttonhole some company owners, key shareholders and Directors to try to see if they have any useful information. PC #2 uses Streetwise to see if there's any word on the street that can point him in the right direction. PC #3 uses his Scientific knowledge to try to determine what all of these high-tech companies may have in common which could lead them to be targeted by the same adversary. PC #4 goes home and reads comic books.

PC #1's High Society enables him to make contact with certain key company people without arousing suspicion, and he gains several valuable insights. They point to competition over an upcoming military contract. Only two companies are left able to field a realistic bid. PC #2 is able to track down a few thugs who have been approached (or even hired) to be involved in "industrial accidents". A couple mention logos of a specific company, and one has a conspicuouisly out of place expensive pen with that company's logo (lifted from the guy who hired him). It's one of the two companies left in the running for that military contract. PC #3 is able to use his contacts to assess the kind of projects the various high tech companies might have in common, and form a pretty good guess as to what they may be developing. It could be very dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.

Skills are useful! If no one had one of the three skills (or skill sets) above, they would have missed some opportunities. To nekkidcarpenter's point, however, some skills are still more useful than others. The three PC's above were all able to identify some pretty reasonable uses for their skills. The GM either planned for it, or incorporated their ideas into his plot.

PC #4? "I go home to the Vault of Ages, and pull out my longboxes. I'll use my KS: Golden Age Comic Books to review whether the Justice Society, Seven Soldiers of Victory or All-Winners Squat eer came up against a similar situation. We should be able to benefit greatly from knowing how they handled it!"

Anyone think PC #4 is getting the same value from his skill as the first three? I'm thinking the GM is going to have to plan a lot more to allow PC #4 to get value from his character points invested. Or maybe this particular knowledge area should be chalked up as background, not character ability, and allowed as a free skill - in which case the character can expect to get what he paid for. Or maybe the GM has agreed it will be useful. And one of his circle of collecting contacts just happens to work at the underhanded company, and overheard some useful information...I think this illustrates a fundamental difference between "named" Skills like High Society, Streetwise, or Stealth and generic Knowledge/Professional/Science Skills. Of course, a bit of imagination on the part of the GM also can help.

PC #4 might have got something if he'd taken KS: Defense Contractors instead of comic books. He might also have run into a fellow comic book aficionado at a comic book convention who works at a certain defense contactor and grumbles about the high stakes on his company's latest bid and realize that might be a CLUE.

On the whole I dislike useless trivia KS's like "underwater basketweaving" or "early Gothic primitivism." But KS's that have some real world use like cooking, musical instruments, metallurgy, or volcanology are a different matter. These kinds of things can actually prove useful on odd occasions and can provide plot hooks for the GM.

[Silbeg]

When you have SS: Medicine and Paramedics, PS: Physician is just wasteful duplication.


Actually, I would beg to differ with you.

SS: medicine is the science of medicine. How you diagnose, treat, etc. PS: Physician is the ability to act as a physician. This would help you to know what you need to do to be a practicing doctor. Things like how much malpractice insurance to carry, HMO rules and regulations, how much time to give to any given appointment. A person with PS: Physician, or PS: Family Practice Doctor would have different skills/abilities than someone with PS: Surgeon or PS: Orthopedic Specialist.

And, then, the Paramedic skill I see as being more of a "first aid" type of skill... how do you get someone stabilized, etc... not necessarily the primary skill for treating a patient with severe wounds, diseases, etc.

The Professional Skill is definitely useful to indicate how well the person operates within the profession (pardon the pun)... The same doctor may also have a bunch of other KS or SS skills, or even things like PS: Hospital Administrator, or whatever.

[Wanderer]

Actually, I would beg to differ with you.

SS: medicine is the science of medicine. How you diagnose, treat, etc. PS: Physician is the ability to act as a physician.

I quote from FRED, p. 69:


A Science Skill (SS) functions like a combination of a PS and a KS, since it provides both theoretical knowledge of the subject and the practical skills of working with the equipment associated with a Science.

It follows from this that SS: Medicine already includes all the practical knowledge (how to manage a physical examination, how to work with medical equipment) that a PS might theoretically include to work like a physician, hence PS: Physician is a redundant duplicate.


This would help you to know what you need to do to be a practicing doctor. Things like how much malpractice insurance to carry, HMO rules and regulations, how much time to give to any given appointment.

All of this (and believe me, I speak from everyday job experience), except the right appointment time bit, which is part of good clinical expertise and hence falls under SS: Medicine as well, is just a load of bureaucratic baggage and legal/administrative red tape crap that is not really necessary to be a good physician in the field, is utterly unglamorous and a real pain in the @$$ in RL practice and all physicians I know heartily hate it, and I cannot really imagine how it could be ever useful for an adventuring character, either heroic or superheroic. Therefore, under it would be a utter waste of points to buy, just like PS: basketweaving.


A person with PS: Physician, or PS: Family Practice Doctor would have different skills/abilities than someone with PS: Surgeon or PS: Orthopedic Specialist.

Since USk's very handy breakdown of KS and SS specialization fields, you can just represent a medical specialization by buying the corresponding SS: Surgery or SS: Dermatology skill. I direct you to the tables on pp. 260-266 of USk. With them, PS for scientific fields are even more useless duplication than they were.


And, then, the Paramedic skill I see as being more of a "first aid" type of skill... how do you get someone stabilized, etc... not necessarily the primary skill for treating a patient with severe wounds, diseases, etc.

Agreed with that, Paramedics is the "ER" treatment, while SS: Medicine is the extended treatment stuff, no cocnentst with that, I would buy both for a physician character, my point was that PS is useless.


The Professional Skill is definitely useful to indicate how well the person operates within the profession (pardon the pun)...

Even in RL this is debatable, willful ignorance of the legal-administrative aspects you quoted won't stop you from being an efficient physician at diagnosing and treating, respected by patients and collegues. It just puts him/her at greater risk of getting legal and bureacratic hassles, mainly from hospital administrators and such. You can get by without that stuff. As a fictional example, take Dr. Gregory House: he has very high Deduction, SS: Medicine and Paramedics and several other related KS and SS, but he willfully ignores the PS stuff.


The same doctor may also have a bunch of other KS or SS skills, or even things like PS: Hospital Administrator, or whatever

Yep, this is likely, especially SS: Chemistry, SS: Biology, SS: Social Sciences, (Psychology and Psychiatry are now SS, not KS, since USk), Forensic Medicine, and/or some subfields of such. KS are possible, but less likely. Likewise SS: Physics, Computer Programming, SS: Mathematics. As it concerns the administrative expertise of being a hospital administrator, Bureaucratics covers all the aspects of it that can ever become relevant for RP and adventuring.

[Wanderer]

I think this illustrates a fundamental difference between "named" Skills like High Society, Streetwise, or Stealth and generic Knowledge/Professional/Science Skills. Of course, a bit of imagination on the part of the GM also can help.

More than that, it illustrates the difference between broad-field Knowledge and Science skills (which typically can be as useful as Interaction skills) and their specialized variants that are focused on obscure, very narrow, or trivia fields.


On the whole I dislike useless trivia KS's like "underwater basketweaving" or "early Gothic primitivism." But KS's that have some real world use like cooking, musical instruments, metallurgy, or volcanology are a different matter. These kinds of things can actually prove useful on odd occasions and can provide plot hooks for the GM.

Most of the latter skills you quote, such as cooking or musical instruments, may have some RL use, but it is generally rare that they may be useful in typical modern age heroic or superheroic adventuring. That's why I usually chalk them up with basketweaving and stuff. There may be exceptions (e.g. a world-class chef may be quite affluent and have all kinds of high-society connections and social expertise), but again, generally in my experience it simpler to give the character the related named skill (e.g. High Society and Money for our top-class chef). Likewise for PS: Singing for a world-class singer: sure, it can be the reason for fame, and affluence, but what it is actually useful for, in game ? It made you rich (buy Money), famous (buy Reputation), maybe gave you social connections and expertise (buy Persuasion, Seduction, and High Society).

[Trebuchet]

More than that, it illustrates the difference between broad-field Knowledge and Science skills (which typically can be as useful as Interaction skills) and their specialized variants that are focused on obscure, very narrow, or trivia fields. In our group, true specialists have a number of interrelated Skills to represent that expertise. I don't think a single Skill generally reflects true expertise in a field unless that field is extremely narrow.

Our teams's brick and Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist has SS: Astronomy, SS: Astrophysics, SS: General Science, SS: Mathematics, SS: Physics, SS: Quantum Physics, PS: Scientist, Computer Programming, Systems Operation, Analyse: Technology, Inventor, and Electronics, plus Lightning Calculator and INT 28 to reflect her first class scientific mind.

[Sean Waters]

.....................

Again, the crux is what level of ability is considered adequate to do the job. If an 11- permits someone to practice law, what level of skill is required of, say, an articling student, still under the supervision of a practicing lawyer? I would think an 8- for such an individual, who is knowledgeable and has some experience in the area, would not be unreasonable. Mind you, most of us improve over time, and the jump from 8- to 11- is quite significant. An accountant typically requires a university degree, followed by two to three years' articling, and passing their professional exams. At the end, they would have the PS on an 11-, as they are licensed to practice on their own. At what point do they achieve that 8-? Logically, it should rise to 9 and 10 before hitting 11, but that level of granularity would add little to the game. How much more skilled do they become with experience? Graduating university at age 21-22 and achieving their professional designation at age 25 or so is fairly common. Will they have a 14- (another 3 point jump) by age 30? A 21- at age 35? At what level do they top out, or do they reach a skill of 39- at retirement at age 65?
..................................

I know some people who practice law with an 11- PS.

I would not recommend that you employ them.

I don't think that there is a 'right' skill level for any particular profession, but I'd have thought that it would vary a lot. I mean, litigation law, to use your example, will often be a case of opposed skill rolls, whereas non-contentious law is more a subject of absolute knowledge and, incidentally, it is far easier to take the extra time to increase the roll in non-contentious law than in a Courtroom where you are confronted with something new or unexpected.

For that reason, the 'right' level for a litigation lawyer depends on everyone else, but I doubt that many will stick with the basic 11- PS and make a decent living from it.

Also I would prefer to build a broader range of skills, not to aim for a huge total skill roll, but to improve your skill with complimentary skills: rather than just upping your PS is not as realistic as taking a few KS - case law, for example, or psychology, or whatever. You'll get a nice high roll but without having a ridiculously high skill roll.

[Trebuchet]

Again, the crux is what level of ability is considered adequate to do the job. If an 11- permits someone to practice law, what level of skill is required of, say, an articling student, still under the supervision of a practicing lawyer? I would think an 8- for such an individual, who is knowledgeable and has some experience in the area, would not be unreasonable. Mind you, most of us improve over time, and the jump from 8- to 11- is quite significant. An accountant typically requires a university degree, followed by two to three years' articling, and passing their professional exams. At the end, they would have the PS on an 11-, as they are licensed to practice on their own. At what point do they achieve that 8-? Logically, it should rise to 9 and 10 before hitting 11, but that level of granularity would add little to the game. How much more skilled do they become with experience? Graduating university at age 21-22 and achieving their professional designation at age 25 or so is fairly common. Will they have a 14- (another 3 point jump) by age 30? A 21- at age 35? At what level do they top out, or do they reach a skill of 39- at retirement at age 65?My thought is that most professionals never get to 14- levels of competence. If 11- is good enough to get a job, then smarter ones with 12- or 13- are good enough to be noteworthy and sought after. Lawyers with 14- and better are remarkable; like Johnny Cochran or F. Lee Bailey (and one could argue there that their success is as much due to Oratory and/or Persuasion as legal skill).

[Hugh Neilson]

Most of the latter skills you quote, such as cooking or musical instruments, may have some RL use, but it is generally rare that they may be useful in typical modern age heroic or superheroic adventuring. That's why I usually chalk them up with basketweaving and stuff. There may be exceptions (e.g. a world-class chef may be quite affluent and have all kinds of high-society connections and social expertise), but again, generally in my experience it simpler to give the character the related named skill

There's also the question of what a base level without certain skills is. Does a person who didn't invest a point in FAM: Cooking restruicted to dining out? Are they limited to recipes of the "Peel back foil to reveal tater tots" variety? Can they manage Kraft Dinner and Campbell's Soup? Can they grill a hot dog? A hamburger? A steak? Most of us manage to feed ourselves. Does that make Fam: Coking an everyman skill (the books don't list it as one), or does it imply a certain base level knowledge falls below even the level of Familiarity (much like characters don't buy Math skills, but can still count their change)?

[Hugh Neilson]

I know some people who practice law with an 11- PS.

I would not recommend that you employ them.

I don't think that there is a 'right' skill level for any particular profession, but I'd have thought that it would vary a lot. I mean, litigation law, to use your example, will often be a case of opposed skill rolls, whereas non-contentious law is more a subject of absolute knowledge and, incidentally, it is far easier to take the extra time to increase the roll in non-contentious law than in a Courtroom where you are confronted with something new or unexpected.

For that reason, the 'right' level for a litigation lawyer depends on everyone else, but I doubt that many will stick with the basic 11- PS and make a decent living from it.

Also I would prefer to build a broader range of skills, not to aim for a huge total skill roll, but to improve your skill with complimentary skills: rather than just upping your PS is not as realistic as taking a few KS - case law, for example, or psychology, or whatever. You'll get a nice high roll but without having a ridiculously high skill roll.


My thought is that most professionals never get to 14- levels of competence. If 11- is good enough to get a job, then smarter ones with 12- or 13- are good enough to be noteworthy and sought after. Lawyers with 14- and better are remarkable; like Johnny Cochran or F. Lee Bailey (and one could argue there that their success is as much due to Oratory and/or Persuasion as legal skill).

I have it, but I haven't read The Ultimate Skill. I'm guessing it doesn't resolve the issue of "what does a skill at this level mean in the typical Hero game setting. Mind you, 5er p43 ties to accomplish this. Since we keep talking lawyers, let's use that as an example.

8-: Familiarity. To me, This would be a fresh-faced law school grad looking for real world experience. Over the course of his Articles, he builds to a 9- and 10-

[ASIDE: Possible house rule[/I]: when you but the skill, you add 1 point, and then have a 9-. After some period of time, you get a 10-, and then your 11-; same applies when you sopend a 3rd point to go to full stat-based]

11-: Competent. Can perform routine tasks easily and difficult tasks with little effort. Qualified to get a job using the skill.

A practicing lawyer, likely a junior associate. Probably passed the bar in the past year

12-: Skilled - Routine tasks are easy and dificult tasks well within his abilities. Qualified to manage or assist less skilled workers.

Probably 3 to 5 years oout of the gate, a senior associate or perhaps even junior partner. This may be as skilled as he ever gets in the base skill, though he likely oicks up some compementary ones, including specialties or subspecialties.

14-: Very skilled: A Master. Easy tasks are a breeze. Can perform more difficult or unusual tasks without too much trouble.

The "go to guy" - clearly the best in the office, maybe the best in the city/in the firm nationwide. His name is synonymous with his field among the legal community in his area

16-: Highly skilled: One of the very best in the world. Unusual or difficult takss are a matter of routine. Often works on cutting-edge applications.

Every lawyer knows his name. Litigator would be sought after to argue cases before the Supereme Court. Lucky to have even one in a major city/a major law firm.

18-: Extremely Skilled - one of the greatest masters of the skill in history. Might be one, maybe two, alive in a very large field at any given point in time. If there is one around, he's renowned as the best of the best and likely his name is known to the general public ifhis field has any kind of public recognition. I can't think of one, but I'm no expert in legal history.

Daniel Webster?

20-: Incredibly skilled: Amazes even skilled practitioners. Perhaps the greatest master of the skill in history. The realm of superheroes, gods, heroes of myth and supergeniuses.

Daniel Webster?

[OddHat]

20-: Incredibly skilled: Amazes even skilled practitioners. Perhaps the greatest master of the skill in history. The realm of superheroes, gods, heroes of myth and supergeniuses.

Daniel Webster?

Johnnie Cochran.

He will be missed.

[tesuji]

There's also the question of what a base level without certain skills is. Does a person who didn't invest a point in FAM: Cooking restruicted to dining out? Are they limited to recipes of the "Peel back foil to reveal tater tots" variety? Can they manage Kraft Dinner and Campbell's Soup? Can they grill a hot dog? A hamburger? A steak? Most of us manage to feed ourselves. Does that make Fam: Coking an everyman skill (the books don't list it as one), or does it imply a certain base level knowledge falls below even the level of Familiarity (much like characters don't buy Math skills, but can still count their change)?

the key here again imo lies with skill modifiers to a very large degree.

hero 5er allows the gm to permit untrained skill checks at 6- but to again allow skill modifiers to apply to this roll, as can complimentaary characteristic rolls.

routine tasks are at +3 to +5 which turns your baase 6- into 9- to 11-
eaasy get +1 to 3
good equipment caqn provide more, as could a library of goos befinner cookbooks or clear recipes to follow.

an finally, the book is pretty clear that for routine and easy tasks performed without combat or stress or other undue pressures, a skill roll should not even be needed... "when not to roll"

[Mike W]

This seems to forget Everyman Skills, as the default level for a typical person.



All PC's should have better AK than the typical denizen of the region, who gets an 8- AK as an Everyman skill?



Not sure I get this one.



Second job, to go with the first PS 11- you got as an Everyman skill?



That makes 3 jobs/hobbies that you're very skilled with...



All characters should have more than the Everyman FAM with Acting, Persuasion and Conversation?



Seems a lot to expect every character will have one of these skills beyond the Everyman concealment, paramedics, shadowing and deduction skill.



I can see a lot of characters having these. For those who would lack 3 point levels, 3 familiarities may be a reasonable substitute.



Climbing and Stealth are everyman skills. This seems the toughest group to argue that everyone should have at least one of, which I assume is why the KS option.



I just find this a lot of skills for a typical character. YMMV. I also think Familiarities are vastly underrated as "things my character can do, but is not stellar at". Mainly because GM's tend to start with the assumption even the most basic and mundane task requires a roll at base levels, then pile on the penalties.



BINGO! and reped. This ENCOURAGES, rather than MANDATES skills. To expand on this, even if NO ONE has paid points for skills, a couple of successes (and a few failures) with Everyman skills may suggest to the characters that they should practice some of thgese skills, and their players that some xp spending is in order. Skills accumulate pretty quick if you shell out some xp. Buy it over a few sessions - basic familiarity, then next time you get xp, an 11- roll (if your GM alows this for the skill in question), then the full 3 point stat based skill.



I would allow characters some basic knowledge skills for making their way through the real world, which is as far as Shulkie's KS got her. To me, buying a skill represents someone whose knowledge goes above the man on the street. She Hulk had a law degree, to me, = Everyman PS: Lawyer.

Now, I believe she bought that up with XP, given she is now recognized as a very good lawyer with a field of expertise in which she's top of the field. But she didn't start there. Richard Rider (Nova) had, at best, PS: Fry Cook. As a starting character, Scarlet Witch spoke another language. That's about it. Wonder Man might have bought his Acting up a bit (though he wasn't doing much more than making a living at it, which is the Everyman PS), and arguably had at least some familiarity with business (having run his own company...into the ground!) Tigra's skills seemed pretty combat-related. Starting level FF leaves Sue Richards with little or no skills, and Johnny with an Everyman PS in mechanics. A starting level Wasp didn't have a lot in the skills department either. Living Lightning was just a punk kid, and Esperita probably had an Everyman "PS" in religion. Valkyrie and Iceman strike me as being pretty lacking in the Skills department. I don't see Marvel Girl, Rogue or Colossus having a swack of skills either.

Which '80s marvel comics are we talking about?

That's not to say I think that none of them had any skills beyond the Everyman level, but spending 20 or 30 points would be stretching pretty far for a lot of them.

Overall, I dislike the idea of saying "sorry, I don't allow this comic book character type in my Champions game", but then I like the idea that it's a comic book game, and not all characters will be good at all things.

I generally don't like to do that either, unless it's unbalancing. But I find that if I don't at least strongly encourage people to spend a fair amount of points on non-combat stuff(and there is no set point total but I like to see a handful of things on the sheet that don't have to do with combat) then they spend half the game bored, or worse, disruptive, because their character has nothing to do while the rest of the team is figuring out what's going on.

I think you're underspending a few people too. For example, Wasp still had a lot of money and some contacts, and some interpersonal skills like Conversation and High Society. I could get 20-30 non-combat points easy, especially by the time the mid to late 1980s rolled around.

[Hugh Neilson]

I think you're underspending a few people too. For example, Wasp still had a lot of money and some contacts, and some interpersonal skills like Conversation and High Society. I could get 20-30 non-combat points easy, especially by the time the mid to late 1980s rolled around.

My references are all to "beginning of career" supers, as that seems to be the focus of discussion. By the mid to late '80s, Wasp had been around for 20+ years. She had spent some xp by then. No contacts, wealth or interaction skills seem evident in her 1960's appearances.

I do agree that a bored, disruptive player is no good, but that's a player issue more than a character build issue. A player who is only in the game for the combat isn't going to be excited by investigation, regardless of whether they have the skills to undertake it.

[AliceTheOwl]

Last week, we delayed the session to build an outline for Teen Champions characters. As teens, we'd be starting out low-powered, unskilled, and awkward, just learning to control and use our powers.

Yet, when Josh read off the list of skills for us to jot down, we each had at least five skills written down that we'll be taking at an 11-. Some leaned more toward social skills, whereas others leaned more toward combat-oriented or knowledge skills, but we all managed to find plenty to spend points on.

So when even newbie heroes have no trouble picking that many skills (and Josh's XP system will be strongly encouraging us to build on those and pick up more), it doesn't seem that much of a stretch for established heroes to find a few things they're good at.

[Hugh Neilson]

Last week, we delayed the session to build an outline for Teen Champions characters. As teens, we'd be starting out low-powered, unskilled, and awkward, just learning to control and use our powers.

Yet, when Josh read off the list of skills for us to jot down, we each had at least five skills written down that we'll be taking at an 11-. Some leaned more toward social skills, whereas others leaned more toward combat-oriented or knowledge skills, but we all managed to find plenty to spend points on.

So when even newbie heroes have no trouble picking that many skills (and Josh's XP system will be strongly encouraging us to build on those and pick up more), it doesn't seem that much of a stretch for established heroes to find a few things they're good at.

There's a combination of factors at work here, however. "Can I think of five things my character might be good at?" For most characters, probably.

"How good is 'good at'?" An 11- skill is supposed to be good enough to get a job applying the skill. How many teenagers are sufficiently skilled at five different things that they could obtain gainful employment using any one of them? Five seems like a stretch for most adults, much less Teen Champions, doesn't it? But this comes back to the standard Hero game, where we have to roll every time we want to apply the skill, so an 8- FAM is pretty much useless.

"Will they be useful in-game, justifying spending CP?" is another question. My motivation to look for skills that might be appropriate for my character probably depends to some extent on whether they will be useful. This is just the difference between "part of background writeup" and "a real skill, paid for with points".

Based on your results, I'd say Josh's GM style rewards use of skills, which is the best way to encourage players to look for skills they could spend points on.

[Cancer]

I once provided "KS: Earthworks" to a character I created for someone; the character was a lifer sergeant in a heavy infantry unit in a fantasy campaign. Came in useful when they had to dig their way in a trench up to a fortified position.

[BNakagawa]

My thought is that most professionals never get to 14- levels of competence. If 11- is good enough to get a job, then smarter ones with 12- or 13- are good enough to be noteworthy and sought after. Lawyers with 14- and better are remarkable; like Johnny Cochran or F. Lee Bailey (and one could argue there that their success is as much due to Oratory and/or Persuasion as legal skill).

I think it depends on whether the profession is best modeled by opposing rolls or not.

A lawyer is well served by generating an extremely high roll because they will be actively opposed by their opposition. (at least they ought to be)

A ditch digger doesn't need a high roll. They're not in competition with anyone once their job's been started.

[Ockham's Spoon]

I tried mandating a certain number of points to skills and had two problems. First, almost every character took Acrobatics, Breakfall, Stealth, and as often as not, Acting, which wasn't exactly the rounded background I was going for. Second, some character backgrounds really precluded a lot of skills (a newly created android character or young teen for instance) so a mandatory number of skills didn't make sense in some cases.

What I found worked best to encourage players to pick up skills was to tell them to just look over the skill list and consider which of those skills would be useful for their character's background. Frequently the players would look and say, "Oh yeah, I didn't even think of that skill; sure my character should be able to do that."

Then ask them what "background" skills would be pertinent. To encourage selection of KS, PS, and SS, I would point out that they often could be used as Complimentary skills (which I often give a +1 bonus for just having the skill instead of making them roll), and with a Skill Enhancer like Scholar, they cost just as much on a 9+CHA/5 as it would to raise the standard skill by +1, so might as well take the "background" skill.

Also consider that a character who is a doctor would logically have Paramedic, but probably also has stuff like SS: Anatomy, SS: Pharmacology, and SS: Medical Specialty (neurology, surgery, pediatrics, or whatever), each of which likely boosts the Paramedic roll. Would you go to a doctor that only had the basic familiarity with anatomy that Paramedic would provide? Of course not. The same is true for many professions.

Finally, to encourage skill use, make skills easy to use. In many instances just let the character succeed simply for having the skill; only make them roll in skill contests and under difficult circumstances. And when they do roll, give them the benefit of the doubt for bonuses and go light on the penalties unless they are trying something patently ridiculous or the attempt is really supposed to be hard for some plot reason. If skills fail most of the time, players will tend to buy powers instead; why buy a heavily penalized Lockpicking skill when you can buy the "Open Sesame" spell as a Minor Transform and always succeed? And yes that example is from personal experience.

Otherwise, I whole-heartedly agree with the previous posts about the GM incorporating skills into the game to encourage the player to take them.

[Victim]

Also consider that a character who is a doctor would logically have Paramedic, but probably also has stuff like SS: Anatomy, SS: Pharmacology, and SS: Medical Specialty (neurology, surgery, pediatrics, or whatever), each of which likely boosts the Paramedic roll. Would you go to a doctor that only had the basic familiarity with anatomy that Paramedic would provide? Of course not. The same is true for many professions.


On the other hand, I'm not sure an infinite proliferation of tiny sub-skills is a good way to promote skill purchases. The more you separate functions of science or knowledge skills, the less each one actually does. Thus those sorts of skills as a whole are less valuable, and the purchase of skills is discouraged (and skill heavy concepts).

I think that the perceived value of many skills is why players often avoid buying them. It's easy to get people to buy stuff like Stealth, Breakfall, and Acrobatics since those seem good. Do the 3 points for Pharmacology really match 3 points in Breakfall for value in most games? To use an example from another game: in first edition Mutants and Masterminds, I had players trying to justify having as few skills as possible (zero in some cases). Then we switched to the second edition, which both consolidated the skill list, and vastly increased the bonus per point used to buy skills. Suddenly there was no problem getting people to buy lots of skills. They became worthwhile purchases in their own right, rather than a tax imposed by the GM or by concept.

[Tech]

I have a character who has:

Fam: Breakfall 8-
KS: Robotics 8-
KS: Electronics 8-
PS: Plumbing 8-
KS: Movie stars 12-
KS: Music stars 13-

and of course, the more common skills such as Acrobatics, etc etc.

I think some of the herogames posting here might consider these points wasted but these skills (among others) are a host of fun. Skills, like powers, can't be useful or not so useful - it depends on the GM's ability and the campaign style. :thumbup:

Maybe one day I'll go into the 5 minute game intro I had where this character was called on to fix an ordinary plumbing problem. Years later, I still smile and laugh a little.

[Peregrine]

Having read this thread, I offer the following suggestions:

1. Make a list of the kind of skills you want the PCs to consider. KS, PS, SS, etc. Give them the list and tell them why.

2. Give them bonus points with which to buy skills from that list. That way, the desired "flavor text" skills are not a points sink that detract from the character builds the players are going for.

That way, you can make the skills useful or not without the players feeling like something was "taken away" from them, or that they got no game value for the points allocated to the skills. And you, the GM, get the 'fleshed out' PCs you want to see in your game.

That way, everybody gets what they want. Win-win.

[Thaingar]

I really the idea of divorcing skills from stats! I think I'll start doing the skills in my campaign that way ... simply denoting them by how much they modify the attribute roll. Thanks!

[sbarron]

That way, everybody gets what they want. Win-win.This kind of nonsense has no business on the internet. If you don't lose, I can't win! :thumbdown

[/sarcasm off]

Nice post! :thumbup:

[Ockham's Spoon]

On the other hand, I'm not sure an infinite proliferation of tiny sub-skills is a good way to promote skill purchases. The more you separate functions of science or knowledge skills, the less each one actually does. Thus those sorts of skills as a whole are less valuable, and the purchase of skills is discouraged (and skill heavy concepts).

I think that the perceived value of many skills is why players often avoid buying them. It's easy to get people to buy stuff like Stealth, Breakfall, and Acrobatics since those seem good. Do the 3 points for Pharmacology really match 3 points in Breakfall for value in most games? To use an example from another game: in first edition Mutants and Masterminds, I had players trying to justify having as few skills as possible (zero in some cases). Then we switched to the second edition, which both consolidated the skill list, and vastly increased the bonus per point used to buy skills. Suddenly there was no problem getting people to buy lots of skills. They became worthwhile purchases in their own right, rather than a tax imposed by the GM or by concept.

You are right in that 3 points for Breakfall is usually more useful than 3 points for Pharmacology, although, as previous posts have mentioned, it depends on how the GM runs the game. But that is exactly why you give Complimentary skill bonuses. If my players know they can buy Paramedic (definitely worth 3 points) up +1 for 2 points, or they can buy SS: Pharmacology which will give them the same effect in most cases for 3 points (or only 2 points if they have Scientist), it becomes a lot more worthwhile to take some of those "less valuable" skills. The characters become more well-rounded for nearly the same cost.

[BNakagawa]

Although it creates a nightmare when it comes to moving characters from game to game, I think it is an interesting approach to alter skill costs from game to game.

I think BESM did something like that where the cost for a rank of a skill was determined by the game. So, in a dragonball style game, martial arts related skills were expensive and perform:musical instrument is cheap.

Then you could switch to a game set in another genre and suddenly the reverse is true.

By reducing the costs of skills that are there purely for color or character definition, you make it more palatable than if they were full cost. Skills that are critical to the genre are fine, even with a higher than normal cost because they are going to be used constantly.

[tesuji]

Although it creates a nightmare when it comes to moving characters from game to game, I think it is an interesting approach to alter skill costs from game to game.


one aspect of this is the skill list in use in the campaign.

for example, in a typical supers game, compiters as s single skill is probably good for most computer related tasks, providing a reasonable scope for cost.

in a cyberpunk game, i would have several compiter related skills, not have everything to do with computers and the net and hacking be covered by one skill.

similarly, nuclear engineering would be one skill in many games, but for a game set on a ship powered by nuclear engines, there might need to be several skills or as you suggest, a difference in price between nuclear eng and swimming.

in a modern game set in a city, maybe pilot vs drive is right, but in a scifi bsg game set on the ship where to go nearly anywhere requires piloting, and ground vehicles are rarer, maybe pilot should cost more or ve several skills.

[Mike W]

My references are all to "beginning of career" supers, as that seems to be the focus of discussion. By the mid to late '80s, Wasp had been around for 20+ years. She had spent some xp by then. No contacts, wealth or interaction skills seem evident in her 1960's appearances.

I do agree that a bored, disruptive player is no good, but that's a player issue more than a character build issue. A player who is only in the game for the combat isn't going to be excited by investigation, regardless of whether they have the skills to undertake it.

But I don't think it's always a player issue. Sometimes you get a cool idea for a character because you want to build it around a particular power or origin and then when you start crunching numbers you have a hard time rounding the character out.

And anymore, between the 350 starting point and the fact that characters tend to start out, both in games and in comics, tougher and more well rounded than they used to, I think requiring a few non-combat abilities out of a starting character isn't off base or unreasonable. Granted, when most characters make their first few appearances, you tend to see lots of flash(powers and combat stuff) and not much non-combat stuff like skills and perks, but that has more to do with "catching the reader's eye" than anything else, I think. Characters that hang around you usually see a lot of the other stuff before too long.

[Hugh Neilson]

And anymore, between the 350 starting point and the fact that characters tend to start out, both in games and in comics, tougher and more well rounded than they used to, I think requiring a few non-combat abilities out of a starting character isn't off base or unreasonable. Granted, when most characters make their first few appearances, you tend to see lots of flash(powers and combat stuff) and not much non-combat stuff like skills and perks

So they either don't have or don't use this stuff in their first appearances - ie as starting characters.


but that has more to do with "catching the reader's eye" than anything else, I think. Characters that hang around you usually see a lot of the other stuff before too long.

But then after they're arund for a few adventures and gain some xp, they spend it on rounding the character out with some noncombat skills and perks.

This is an area where RPG's and source literature separate. In the comics, few characters show a steady gain in power over their publishing career. They have the occasional major power up, but just as often a power down. They do, however, seem to pick up skills, perks, etc. over their careers. In RPG's. we tend to expect to gain experience and, with it, more power.

[Mentor]

Our gaming group has been around for a long time so only new players need to be shown the benefits of skils. We do that mostly by making them useful in the campaign every chance we get. Finding creative means to make KS: Chess or KS: Alpine Skiing useful makes players happy they bought them.

[PhilFleischmann]

In my games, I allow players to have a certain amount of Background Skills for free. Not based on the idea that they'll never be used in the game, but based on the fact that "normal" 0-point people in the campaign would have some such skills. I assume that, in a modern setting for example, the average Joe walking around has a job and is reasonably competent at it. He has some body of knowledge. He has some level of education, which may even include an advanced degree. He may know a foreign language (or two). He probably has one or more hobbies about which he is quite knowledgable. He also knows his way around the city he lives in and most likely other areas as well.

Try writing up all the Background Skills you have in real life. There can easily be many points worth, even though you're a "normal".

So I allow a few such skills for free, with the following restrictions:

1. They must be written down on the character sheet.
2. They must be reasonable within the character's concept and other abilities. A 20- roll in SS: Nuclear Physics with only a 10 INT is NOT reasonable.
3. They must be "mundane" skills, accessible to "normal people" within the mileu. AK: Santa Fe is mundane. AK: Area 51 is not. In a fantasy campaign, KS: Horses is mundane; KS: Dragons is not.
4. The total point value of these free skills cannot exceed the character's INT. (I occasionally allow exceptions to this, but only by a few points.
5. And in case it wasn't clear, these must be Background Skills only.

[Peregrine]

In my games, I allow players to have a certain amount of Background Skills for free. Not based on the idea that they'll never be used in the game, but based on the fact that "normal" 0-point people in the campaign would have some such skills. I assume that, in a modern setting for example, the average Joe walking around has a job and is reasonably competent at it. He has some body of knowledge. He has some level of education, which may even include an advanced degree. He may know a foreign language (or two). He probably has one or more hobbies about which he is quite knowledgable. He also knows his way around the city he lives in and most likely other areas as well.

Try writing up all the Background Skills you have in real life. There can easily be many points worth, even though you're a "normal".

So I allow a few such skills for free, with the following restrictions:

1. They must be written down on the character sheet.
2. They must be reasonable within the character's concept and other abilities. A 20- roll in SS: Nuclear Physics with only a 10 INT is NOT reasonable.
3. They must be "mundane" skills, accessible to "normal people" within the mileu. AK: Santa Fe is mundane. AK: Area 51 is not. In a fantasy campaign, KS: Horses is mundane; KS: Dragons is not.
4. The total point value of these free skills cannot exceed the character's INT. (I occasionally allow exceptions to this, but only by a few points.
5. And in case it wasn't clear, these must be Background Skills only.

Excellent implementation! Repped!

[Trebuchet]

In my games, I allow players to have a certain amount of Background Skills for free. Not based on the idea that they'll never be used in the game, but based on the fact that "normal" 0-point people in the campaign would have some such skills. I assume that, in a modern setting for example, the average Joe walking around has a job and is reasonably competent at it. He has some body of knowledge. He has some level of education, which may even include an advanced degree. He may know a foreign language (or two). He probably has one or more hobbies about which he is quite knowledgable. He also knows his way around the city he lives in and most likely other areas as well.

Try writing up all the Background Skills you have in real life. There can easily be many points worth, even though you're a "normal".

So I allow a few such skills for free, with the following restrictions:

1. They must be written down on the character sheet.
2. They must be reasonable within the character's concept and other abilities. A 20- roll in SS: Nuclear Physics with only a 10 INT is NOT reasonable.
3. They must be "mundane" skills, accessible to "normal people" within the mileu. AK: Santa Fe is mundane. AK: Area 51 is not. In a fantasy campaign, KS: Horses is mundane; KS: Dragons is not.
4. The total point value of these free skills cannot exceed the character's INT. (I occasionally allow exceptions to this, but only by a few points.
5. And in case it wasn't clear, these must be Background Skills only.Nicely done.

In our Champions campaign each character gets free, in addition to Everyman Skills:

1 PS 11-
1 PS: 8-
1 KS: 11-
1 KS: 8-

These are intended to represent job and/or hobby-related Skills. If the character wants to purchase the Skills at higher levels (say Characteristic-based) he must pay full price.

[casualplayer]

This is an area where RPG's and source literature separate. In the comics, few characters show a steady gain in power over their publishing career. They have the occasional major power up, but just as often a power down. They do, however, seem to pick up skills, perks, etc. over their careers. In RPG's. we tend to expect to gain experience and, with it, more power.

Oh, I don't know about that. In the early days of the FF Ben could only lift 5 tons, Johnny could only Flame On! for about a minute, Sue could only turn invisible and Reed...well, actually Reed's powers haven't hardly changed at all but he sure has blown a lot of points on vehicles and stuff since then. Spider-Man could only lift about a ton when he started and he had mechanical webshooters then, of all things!

Chaotic creative teams definitely contribute to the wandering power levels, but the examples I used had fairly consistent creative teams throught their first 100 issues. As a result you got to almost watch them accrue and spend their xp.

[Narratio]

Back at the original question - I agree with Mentor and PhilFleishmann. Most of my RPG's are with players who've either never RPG'd before or whose experiences at RPG has been in a basic hack-slash-runaway game.

For those, I start the game easy, telling them how skills would make certain situations easier but letting them do things in the game (search computer databases, apply first aid etc) that should really take skill rolls against knowledge.

After the first two or three sessions I then give the players a lump sum one time 20 XP's to let them buy skills or talents that they hadn't done before. I justify this as a sort of loss in virginity and the PC's suddenly realising how things fit together. Or, because they start a campaign with older, more experienced NPC's they are getting mentoring out of the game.

Gamenight 3 or 4 suddenly sees a flurry of activites as they try out the new found skills on anything and everything. By gamenight 5 or 6 They have a solid understanding of which they want thier characters to go and they use the slowly accruing XP's to fine tune thier characters.

It's a sort of fast track method of Bonsai, but for PC's, not miniature trees.

[Dead guy on tab]

What I have gone to during my game (don't know who suggested this, but I would rep them for it) is the following:

1) I keep track of all the successful skill rolls the players make during a session.

2) At the end of the session I choose 3 skills they successful used

3) The player rolls against each skill starting with the highest skill roll first

4) The first skill roll they FAIL, their character gains a +1 to that skill roll

Example Johnny Adventure managed to sneak past soem guards (Stealth 13-), defeat the electronic lock system (Security Systems 11-) and defuse the bomb (Demolitions 8-). Johnny's player rolls against Stealth first (12 pass), Security Systems (12 fail) second so Johnny obtains a +1 to Security Systems.

This is based upon the old Chaoisum skill improvement rules. I find the players have demonstrated a marked increase in skill use (although not skill purchase yet). In addition, it is biased towards larger skills (to avoid 8- guy), emphasizes skills they already use and demonstrates the increased difficulty as you become more proficient with your skills. Any comments?

[pinecone]

What I have gone to during my game (don't know who suggested this, but I would rep them for it) is the following:

1) I keep track of all the successful skill rolls the players make during a session.

2) At the end of the session I choose 3 skills they successful used

3) The player rolls against each skill starting with the highest skill roll first

4) The first skill roll they FAIL, their character gains a +1 to that skill roll

Example Johnny Adventure managed to sneak past soem guards (Stealth 13-), defeat the electronic lock system (Security Systems 11-) and defuse the bomb (Demolitions 8-). Johnny's player rolls against Stealth first (12 pass), Security Systems (12 fail) second so Johnny obtains a +1 to Security Systems.

This is based upon the old Chaoisum skill improvement rules. I find the players have demonstrated a marked increase in skill use (although not skill purchase yet). In addition, it is biased towards larger skills (to avoid 8- guy), emphasizes skills they already use and demonstrates the increased difficulty as you become more proficient with your skills. Any comments?

Looks cool, it certainly does what you want it to do...but your basicly giving up an extra EP or two a session...so overtime you'll end up with hyper skilled dudes...

[Maur]

Our GM encourages it through the use of skills and skill complements. When you have 150+75 points to spend creating a character and don't pick up many powers you end up with a huge list of skills and complements.