The first step in coming up with the Skills list for Blood, Sweat & Steel was to determine exactly how they would work in the game, within the rules. One of my initial primary design goals was to create a Skills-based RPG. As this game is a Sword & Sorcery RPG, I drew upon the most popular fiction of the genre in order to capture the essence of it. One common thread in most S&S tales is that the protagonist is, generally speaking, a badass. It never matters whether he's wielding his favorite sword or a mug of ale, he was going to beat you senseless with it. It's most often the skill of the person, not their weapons, armor, etc. that save their butt. In order to reflect this concept in the game, it was important to make Skills an important character trait.
The next step was to identify which Skills would be the most commonly used Skills for this particular game. In keeping aligned with the primary goal of crafting a Skills-based RPG, this would mean the Skills list would be fairly large, and fairly comprehensive. I drew my initial inspiration from the Fudge 10th Anniversary hardcover, and began with their list of Skills divided into 8 categories. In the traditional list, there were several Skills that overlapped into multiple Skill Categories, and there were also an uneven number of Skills in each Category. My idea was to trim down the list to the shortest possible while still "covering all the bases" for the game. Additionally, I wanted to have the same number of Skills in each category in order to facilitate character creation. What I eventually came up with was a list of 48 Skills, evenly divided into 6 Skills for each of the 8 categories.
Once I had a good idea of which Skills I needed to quantify exactly how they would work in the game. This definition would also help add flavor to the Skills, which would in turn help me determine the best names to use for the Skills that would fit with the rest of the game and the overall theme. To me, game terminology is one of the best and easiest ways in which to inject flavor and reinforce the desired genre of the game. Take Attributes, for example. Since the game is a Sword & Sorcery game, I wanted to reflect a more base and gritty feel to it. Intelligence is one of the most common Attributes found in most RPG's, but the term "Intelligence" felt a bit too sophisticated for the genre. So, I went with "Brains" instead. Brains matched up nicely with Brawn to indicate physical strength, and that formed the foundation for naming the rest of the Attributes. I'm now taking the same approach to the Skill names.
This is what I currently have, after doing some minor tweaking to streamline and simplify some of the names:
Athletic/Dexterity
- Acrobatics
- Athletics
- Riding
- Running
- Sleight of Hand
- Swimming
Combat
- Melee
- Mounted
- Ranged
- Read Opponent
- Thrown
- Unarmed
Covert/Urban
- Investigation
- Observation
- Poisons
- Stealth (Urban)
- Survival (Urban)
- Thieving
Knowledge
- Civics
- Geography
- History
- Language
- Nature
- Supernatural
Magic
- Divination
- Hypnotism
- Preparation
- Rituals
- Sense Magic
- Spells
Professional
- Artisan
- Entertainer
- Farmer
- Hunter
- Merchant
- Metalsmith
Scouting/Outdoor
- Boating
- Mountaineering
- Navigation
- Stealth (Nature)
- Survival (Nature)
- Tracking
Social/Manipulative
- Carousing
- Diplomacy
- Haggle
- Intimidate
- Lie
- Seduce
One of the tricky things about Skills in most systems is that the often mean much more than the title of the Skill in regards to the game. My main goal with the Skills is trying to cover as much ground as possible with the given Skills, and name them in a way that is intuitive, yet inherently flexible. I think this list, though not perfect, is one step closer to achieving those goals. :)
Fantastic! Having seen a previous iteration of the skills list (which did a pretty good job of keeping everything covered), this one seems like an even more complete fit.
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