Opal

"You hear some nasty rending noises and gobbling sounds, but they end quickly."

Four Bulettes is a hell of an encounter.  What kind of killer GM are you? 

“I am Kirok!”

Egad! 
 
I went into all that detail, but never bothered mentioning the 'final form' of the House Bushido Skills System. 
 
First, I wish to apologize to anyone who came over here because you got a notification that you were quoted. 
 
If I may explain:
 
Evidently, when you spend a really long time working on a post, it "saves" in your editor.  In that past, that has not been a problem, because the next time you pull the editor up for that thread, there is a "clear editor" button. 
 
To make the first lengthy post via phone, I opted to crawl the various ap stores and downloaded a keyboard with buttons almost large enough that you can only touch one at a time.  Usually.  It also has the unexpected benefit of an autocorrect that speaks English (just not enough English). 
 
Problematically, I havent see the Clear Editor. Button since, nor have I been able to delete quote blocks as I could before.  Not sure why the keyboard makes that kind of difference, and of course, it could be coincidental.  (it is a Microsoft app, so I am pretty sure I am being keyligged the entire time, but her!  If they learn about Champions against their will, who's fault is that, ultimately? 
 
Next:
 
I promise this will be _short_! 
 
All the above about the skills system was in use for years, and still is with my primary group, but I have been testing a simplified version of it with the youth group:
 
When you want a Skill, you define it and buy a Skill level.  Your skill is Characteristic roll plus 1.
 
Rhis was derived as such things as buying +1 to Per (an INT roll at heart) with a skill level, or bonuses to coordinated attack when working with a particular character or maneuver, or even just bonuses to INT rolls when working on a particular item or topic (+1 when repairing antique computer tape drives). 
 
These are at their essence skills.  You get a base characteristic roll and take a bonus because you are doing something with which you are familiar.  Because you have skill in that area. 
 
A specific skill is a three-point skill level (+2 when cracking Defender brand sages or +1 when cracking old-fashioned sages).  It is improved with additional 3 pt skill levels. 
 
A broader but skill that covers closely-related fields (+2 with woodcraft) is a 5pt skill level, and defaults to Characteristic roll +1.  This "broad skill' can be improved with 5 pt skill levels.  Additionally, a player may opt to break out an individual skill or three and raise them independently with 3pt skill levels:  the woodcraft character might decide he is particularly good at tracking, and put an additional skill level in just that aspect of woodcraft. 
 
For an 8 pt skill level, the character can have what conversationally refer to as a broad skill (Science +3, for example).  This skill starts, like the others, at characteristic roll plus 1.
 
The player may opt to use a 5 pt skill level on a tightly-related set of skills (or science field in this case, such as 'chemistry') ) or he may opt to use a 3 pt skill level to break out one particular skill.  (an additional bonus for 'Chemical analysis,' perhaps). 
 
 
I was concerned that it would get pricey quickly, but since the default is Char roll +1, a lot of initial cost is offset (versus what we had been doing) and we are able to mix broad and narrow and "cluster" skills on the same game.  Thus far, it has been working well.  It might not work as well for heroic, abut then I have to wonder how much of my concern there is based on some wish that points be expensive to slow down character progression, which I can just as easily do two other ways:
 
Declare up front that XP will accrue somewhat more slowly than the group is used to
. 
Put a gate between XP and Skills- some sort of rule like 'you must have used this skill for consecutive successes before you may use XP to raise it (woah- I am just spitballing at this point, folks) 
 
Or you must roll a certain number of 3s, or some such thing.  I suspect if I go this route, the gate will depend _a lot_ on the intended length of the campaign. 
 
 
 
There. 
 
I apologize for totally forgetting to mention the current rules being (successfully) playtested at the moment. 
 
 
 
 
 

It's interesting. 
Apparently the first use of "teleportation" only goes back to 1931 and was, indeed, used to describe unexplained or psychic phenomena, like, y'know, your keys moving from where you were sure you left them to a spot you'd just checked a moment before.
It wasn't until the 50s, that is started being used to describe matter transmitters and other nominally  scientific but very unconventional means of transportation. 
 
The closely related words/concepts apportation and dematerialization go back to 19th century mediums, though. 
 
You'd think that something as strongly associated with magic would be much older, but no.

I don't want to revisit the  conspiracy to eliminate all cost breaks, but, yeah, that was the point.  EC and figured characteristics reflected the inherent downside or diminishing returns of a reasonable tight or straightforward concept from the effectiveness pov (and thus also encouraged them, because, yes, they're desirable in a narrative sense, too), but were perceived as powergamey free points.
 
 

Very much so; that is why I suggested it up-thread a bit.  It plays with the very basic rules from the  inception of the game, so there is no new mechanic or thing to wonder about.  The biggest number of skills, at least originally, we're "pay X to gain a characteristic roll that simulates success or failure at this skill.  Pay an additional point to increase that roll by 1."
 
What do you do if someone doesn't have a skill, generally?  "Blastro has disintegrated the observation deck out from beneath your feet!  Do you have Acrobatics?  No?  Do you have Breakfall?  No?   Okay, gimme a DEX roll...." 
 
"can I remember anything more about the mysterious man who handed off this old bottle to me?" 
 
Do you have Eidetic Memory?  No?  Okay, give me an Intelligence roll.... "
 
We studied this a lot when 4e hit. Well, shortly after 4e hit, because at first we were just enamored of this ground-breaking new skills system,  but it didn't take too many campaigns to see lots of the problems with it, chief among them being skills as points sucks.  The three of us that GM'ed in our group were slowly creeping toward mandating that your character didn't know it if you didn't buy it, and we were doing that simply because _it was possible_ to do it.  Every possible knowledge, every possible hobby or trade, could be turned into a skill, for Pete's sake!  And because we could, we too often _did_. 
 
I am sure you have heard me taking the position that just because your Inferno Blast _can_ set things on fire or your Freeze gun _can_ be used to chill a soft drink or your force field _could_ be played so as to serve as a ramp does _not_ automatically mean that a mechanic for this aspect must be paid for in addition to the base power. 
 
This Skills thing, way back when--  that was our own version of that.  The point at which I finally got it to click was when it occurred to me that "I am going to ask for a DEX roll whether he has the Skill or not." Since then, I have been pretty vigilant about watching for instances of pointlessly charging for something. 
 
Getting back on topic, 
 
Anyway, you want a very tight, very specific skill?  An in depth knowledge of the history, spread, and culture of variegated nasturtiums?  Go for it.  It costs one point, and gives you the lower of Characteristic roll or 8 or less.
 
Not only that, but since any book left unattended for more than two weeks through the 1990s turned into a copy of Aaron Alton's Ninja Hero, we were all _very_ familiar with the idea that Skill Levels could be used to _simulate_ something specific, beyond just raw ability. 
 
(don't believe me about that Ninja Hero crack?  Over the years, I have given away well over a dozen copies.  I currently own 2 copies.  I have never bought a copy, nor have I ever received one as a gift, so you tell me....) 
 
So why couldn't we use them as the skills themselves? 
 
Let me take a moment to point out to anyone not familiar with the old editions (pre-4 e) that the three magic numbers were 8, 11, and 14.  They still show up on various things-berserk recoveries, etc, but that is why the skills system we use works this way.
 
Skill points: the bare minimum cost of a skill level was 3pts for just one thing.
 
This worked out great for us, because we decided for that three points, you would get the lower of 14- or Characteristic roll.
 
That left two more of those magic numbers, so for a mere 2 pts, you could get the lower of Characteristic roll (no plus one, because you hadn't actually bought a full skill level).  Similarly, for a mere 1 pt, you could have a field of knowledge on any one thing at  the lower of Characteristics roll or 8 or less. 
 
 
Over the years, I have considered bringing those numbers more in line with the 6 9 11 thing, but at 8 or less, you have roughly a 25-ish percent chance on 3 dice, with 11 or less, call it 63 percent, and with 14 or less, you bump up to something like 90 percent, and I find this feels really 'right' for supers and for pulp. 
 
Given these results, I find it works particularly well for supers and pulp, where those who are good at something are very good at it. 
 
For most Heroic stuff, I drop the numbers down to a more modern 6, 9, or 11.  Most player Characters will at worst match that 11 or less with their characteristics rolls, and a good number of them will beat it. 
 
Skills that don't tie well to a characteristics roll Start at 11 or less for a 3-pt skill level.  If the skill is excessively narrow or non-utilitarian, then maybe two points, and often just one.  Let's face it: while it may come in handy once during a long running campaign, certain overly-obscure and excessively narrow knowledge skills are more quirks of the character than anything actually worth paying a point for. 
 
Right off the bat, improving from a one pt skill to a two pt skill costs 1 point, and adds _up to_ e3 to your roll.  Going from a 2 to a 3 costs one point, and adds _up to_ 3 to your roll.  After that, improve with skill levels as one would improve them via skill levels in the actual written rules.
 
 
A five-point Skill  group is a small group of tightly-related Skills.  Typically, I break the builds down as I would for the 1,2,3, pt skills described above:
 
You have 5 points; buy any combination of tightly-related skills that spends those 5 points.  All done?  Good.  Pick one more tightly-related Skill and take it at the 2 point level. 
 
Why?  Because otherwise you are just buying more of the previous kinds of skills, with the unnecessary requirement that they be related.  This is your reward for working within that limition.
 
These skills may be improved as per the previous category, one at a time, or all at once with another 5 pt skill level.  All skills are improved with a 10 pt skill level. 
 
At the 8 PT level, you may either take the eight points and spend them on tightly-related skills, then take two additional tightly-related skills at the two pt level.  Alternatively, the eight point skill group can take eight points of loosely-related skills and one more loosely-related skill at the one pt level.
 
Because of the way skills are built for one-at-a-time skills, there are no ten-point skill groups; ten point skill levels, as always, can advance all skill rolls by 1.
 
 
 
8 pt skill levels can advance all skills in any one 8-pt group or less by 1, or all loosely-related skills (such as if someone took an 8 pt group and a five pt group for a slew of science skills).   Note that the related skills need not be in the same group. 
 
If one character has a five-point groups of skills with archaic weapons that includes javelins, discus, and darts in the group and another five point (or even an eight point) group that includes bolos and hammers (the stone-on-a-rope kind), they are all nicely related under a skill level for "thrown weapons.". Tightly or loosely will vary from table to table, of course. 
 
Five point skill levels advance any five point group by 1, or all skills in a tightly-related group (which, again, does not have to be contained entirely within one Skill Group, though they generally will be). 
 
Three point skill levels work as described above, save when the current roll exceeds the lower of Characteristic roll or 14-, at which point they will advance one skill by 1.
 
 
Additional notes on Skills: all characters are assumed to have professional skills.  For this reason, I allow up to three no-charge professional skills, one at each level of 8, 11, and 14.
 
All characters are assumed to have background skills, and again: up to three, as above, for no charge. 
 
Everyman skills are still free, and I have a slightly higher tier scammed 'every adventurer skills' that varies from game to game.  Generally, when I notice that either everyone in the game has bought the same skill (hunting, for example) that is not on the everyman list, that skill becomes an every-adventurer skill, and they all get it at the 1 PT level for no charge. 
 
Literacy is determined through disadvantolications, and not skill point spending.  No matter how ignorant the typical person in the campaign is, lacking the ability to read is a disadvantage.  Maybe not much of one, but it is indeed one. 
 
Additional languages are three-point skills as above, with 1, 2, and 3 PT levels.  Mastery is assumed at 14 or less (at the very worst, you come across as low-brow or insulting or uneducated or something, but your point is completely made and understood. Accents are optional after 11-, and literacy is determined more by your background than any points spent. Conan could be literate (and eventually was) if he can explain it. 
Any 'Professional Skill' type skill is assumed to come with a sufficient knowledge base to perform that profession, allowing the roll for PS or KS to be on the same skill. 
 
Any purely academic KS- the character has the education, but no actual experience or perhaps even no idea how to physically do the thing- is 11 or less for three points. If it is a particularly broad field, then it is 8 or less for three points. If it is a narrow or obscure field, then it is 14 or less for one skill level. 
 
Any character who does not have a particular chracterisitcs-based skill may still attempt the skill using a characteristic roll.  In most cases, a GM has already assigned a difficulty penalty to a task.  Increase that penalty up to double (add no more than 4 additional penalties).  A successful INT roll can be a complimentary roll to a physical task, because sometimes you have to stop and think about it) 
 
Why?  Because these are superheroes, where even the impossible has a pretty good chance. 
 
This has allowed characters from all genres to have as many skills as they wanted, not have to pay for mundane things like foraging berries while marching, and with the various skill level options for increasing the characteristics, allows differences in skill levels to grow in ans the character moves through his story. 
 
It also really helps prevent skills becoming points-sucks. 
 
I think.  That may just be a side effect of having done it for a couple of years making me extra-sensitive to it now. 
 
 
Now it is slightly more refined that it sounds-no more complex than martial arts or any other skill level usage, really, but as I am working on a phone, I can't really go back and see what I have or have not said thus far, so I am assuming I screwed it all up. 
 
 
Optional:
 
For pulp, we use 5 point skill levels for very broad skills, and eight point skill levels for stupidly-broad skills, such as "Science!". (exclamation point not optional) 
 
Those are advance with additional skill levels, though the character may break out individual skills to advan e by one point per. 
 
Almost forgot! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Yep.  Always check for eighteens. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Yeah, the way we do it, supers can still buy most of the powers they want and still have a nice assortment of skills.   Heroic characters don't have to be built on what we used to use for supers, either. 
 
 
Well, we didn't do it so much for the pricing (that was just a happy accident) as much as we just had too many arguments about the "new" system and how it worked, _but_ we liked the idea of being able to make anything into a skill. 
 
 
 
Agreed.  I just kind of got tired of the 'you know this is wrong, right?' responses the few things I posted in the past generated.  You can only say "ni; this is _difgerenr_" so many times before you figure out that for some people, it is much more important to point out what isn't rules-legal, in spite of the fact that they are pointing it out to the guy who said 'these rules aren't working for us" then sat down with his group to figure out something different that did work.  Wierd, I know, but there it is. 
 
 
I used to as well, but I have lost them over the years.  Besides, the ones I tried and liked I continued to use, so I think I'm good. 
 
 
 
Well, it is when I met my wife, so you might be on to something there... 
 
 
 
Well, considering how many people loved 5e and still love 6e, I am going to guess it would have bombed horribly, so it is probably just as well DOJ beat me to it. 
 
Also, I would have had little budget after the initial rules run, because I would have withered up and blown away before I sold the rights to the flagship title. 
 
Though honestly, I have been posting here long enough that I think you can reasonably infer what it would have been like, perhaps not perfectly (because we will never know),  UT I am sure you could get a reasonable picture. 
 

 
 
 
Yeah, I forgot to remove that box early on, and now I cant
... 

So you've long since tried using skill levels in place of skills.  And with good results?

I like the idea of setting different base rolls, too.  Like, instead of just the standard 11- or 9+cha/5, also having 8- or 6+CHA/5 for checks requiring some training or familiarity (and 14- or 11+cha/3 for "everybody knows/can do that" but roll because there's a consequence for failure on the first try) or like 5+cha/5 or 2+cha/10 for "well, actually it is rocket surgery."  Not just to calibrate skill as level cost but as a more intuitive, less open ended principle than just penalties. 
 
I'd not thought of taking it that far before.  I'd always circle back to some kind of over-skills, where you just create some 5 point skills as broader, bundling together multiple 3-point skills, and some 10 point skill groups that bundle multiple 5-pt skills, ...And then have a limited number of those that encompass all possible skills.
 
I think part of it is that I calibrated my idea of point totals to the original Champions.  So 100+100Disads seems like a basic superhero, and 0 with maybe a disad and some points shifted around is a normal.
 
And, like, the cost of powers didn't change, and the typical 8-12 DC attack didn't change.... but point totals just kept inflating....
 
So if skills (or whatever) aren't priced to fit into 200-ish supers and 0-50 pt normals (and -25pt incompetent DNPCs) and 75-100 pt adventurers, I find it pretty off-putting.

It's interesting. 
Apparently the first use of "teleportation" only goes back to 1931 and was, indeed, used to describe unexplained or psychic phenomena, like, y'know, your keys moving from where you were sure you left them to a spot you'd just checked a moment before.
It wasn't until the 50s, that is started being used to describe matter transmitters and other nominally  scientific but very unconventional means of transportation. 
 
The closely related words/concepts apportation and dematerialization go back to 19th century mediums, though. 
 
You'd think that something as strongly associated with magic would be much older, but no.

A less badly designed game doesn't require mastery to make up for its failings. 
 
A new player shouldnt be punished for choosing a simple, common, relatable heroic archetype.
A GM shouldn't need to resort to Monty Haul to keep players engaged.

A less badly designed game doesn't require mastery to make up for its failings. 
 
A new player shouldnt be punished for choosing a simple, common, relatable heroic archetype.
A GM shouldn't need to resort to Monty Haul to keep players engaged.

Steve Goodman gave us Bulldozer, amongst other characters.

Ahh the Late Steve Goodman. He was a regular at Hero games and was famous for rules hacks. He played more Fantasy Hero than Champions, but he was a member of The Guardians. Very chill guy and a font of information. I’ll raise a shot glass of Glenlivet in his memory. 

(This isn't a response to anyone, just me continuing to ramble.)
 
I've been going on about skill levels as/vs skills because levels do fit with the rest of the game.  You can define a level as a +1 in almost anything you can roll, its open-ended.  And you can define it broadly or narrowlyAs you buy a broader level, the cost per +1 goes up, but the cost per thing you're able to add to goes down. (And there's an upper bound, the 10pt overall level that has ultimate breadth). From +1 OCV with your EB for 2pts, to +1 with your whole multipower for 3, to 5pt all OCV levels. Why? Free points? No, because you're getting less, you're not going to use every attack every phase, you're really only ever getting two points of benefit.  Call it diminishing returns or redundancy, but, at best, you're not overpaying. 
 
Skills are sorta similar in structure, you can define almost any skill into being, and some are broader or narrower. But, instead of paying more for a very broad skill or a lot for a theoretical upper-bound omniskill, narrow skills are just vaguely expected to give better results, oh, and provide complementary skill checks (which, hey, a bonus, don't skill levels do that) And you just buy more of them. The more skills you have on your sheet the less likely it is you'll use a given one in a given session - and the more likely there'll be some you /never/ use, at all. 
 
And, while a level makes you better at something (1 Skill level say takes you from 13- to 14-), a skill doesn't (defining into being another KS skill means you make your same INT check with it), but it does make everyone else bad at it. 
(Lockout, "creating incompetence")
 
...sorry, I don't have a point or conclusion... just trail'n off...
 

....Yeah?  But instead of skills? Or even just as a thought experiment around how much should skills cost/how many skills there should be?
 
Like Overall Levels at 10 pts for +1 to anything have been a feature, from Champions 1st through Hero 6th, right? A solid benchmark.
If you think of lacking a skill as a penalty to a roll, like an 11- or a normal 10 stat or general skill, taking a -5 or -8 or -11 whatever conveys that, then an upper bound for "character buys every skill," should reasonably be around 50 to 100 points. (And that fits the very old power design maxim that 50 points should be good, a power you can hang your superhero cape on, and 100pts sgould be just wonderful)
 
Now, I know at some point there was an explicit rule that you can't add levels if you don't have the skill - but, like some other rules about skills, and many skills, themselves - it seems like it's there to justify skills, when they don't really fit the game that well. (And it also sounds like an early iteration of the "buy it the most expensive way" maxim.)  Maybe? 
IDK, I'm just noodling around the wrong side of a long-settled issue.
 

A mention of Jack Of All Trades from Traveller Hero probably deserves a mention at this point, since it was just a construct of skill levels. A more limited form of it could be easily constructed to just apply to Science skills or any other grouping of similar skills.
 
I could also see an argument for buying a Skill Enhancer like Linguist and then just buying single points in different languages and calling them full fluency thanks to the enhancer’s effect. For ten points that would mean the character is fully fluent in seven languages, which seems reasonable.

I’m wondering if the comic book age of a setting will affect how skills should be treated. Some of the examples given above are straight out of the Silver Age, which had more of a whiz bang view of science than a modern setting does.
 
For Golden, Atomic or Silver Age settings, a much simpler skill structure seems better, but maybe something more granular fits for more modern settings?

I like to say adding to a skill list "creates incompetence." Your 1st ed character with Detective Work was a competent Detective.  Then the game adds Deduction, well, you're no Sherlock anymore but you can still be Sam Spade.  Then Criminology, Conversation, and Shadowing are added - and what can your Detective even do?
 
And that reminds me that Hero already has Skill Levels, and why couldn't we just use those?
 
 

I like to say adding to a skill list "creates incompetence." Your 1st ed character with Detective Work was a competent Detective.  Then the game adds Deduction, well, you're no Sherlock anymore but you can still be Sam Spade.  Then Criminology, Conversation, and Shadowing are added - and what can your Detective even do?
 
And that reminds me that Hero already has Skill Levels, and why couldn't we just use those?
 
 

I like to say adding to a skill list "creates incompetence." Your 1st ed character with Detective Work was a competent Detective.  Then the game adds Deduction, well, you're no Sherlock anymore but you can still be Sam Spade.  Then Criminology, Conversation, and Shadowing are added - and what can your Detective even do?
 
And that reminds me that Hero already has Skill Levels, and why couldn't we just use those?
 
 

The tiefling was the one for me

If we're casting about for nice things to say about D&D of that era, 2e had nice art and 1e had nice sales numbers.

Actually, I go down lots because I'm a sub....

NPCs I will give you; they were usually detailed enough to play immediately.  I owned the bulk of the Star Frontiers stuff, and I have to tell you, there was diddly / squat for setting.  Individual modules gave you relevant location details, of course, but the closest it got to setting was saying "here's some stuff about the four playable races, and these wormy things are evil. 
 
Various adventures made you space cops or soldiers or something in between, but there was no real explanation of why the war was actually about, either. " The Sathar are at it again! " isn't terribly far from "Somehow, Palpatine is alive."
 
Looking back on my memories of Gamma World, it didn't beyond generic until the middle of the 2e life cycle, then shot itself in the face with 3e and the Marvel Superheroes "here are some charts with colors on them.  Use these to know everything about your character and his abilities."
 
Though that doesn't really point to setting. 
 
I have a sneaking suspicion that the key difference between "here are some factoids" and full-fledged settings is that it was forty years ago, it was new and exciting, and we just let our imaginations and hearts run away with assumed details in a way that for some weird reason we flat out refuse to do today. 
 
Still, I did enjoy both of those games, and to some extent, Boot Hill.  The only game more lethal than Paranoia.  Ha! 
 
 
 
 

If we're casting about for nice things to say about D&D of that era, 2e had nice art and 1e had nice sales numbers.