No More Gimmicky Titles...Thinking On Skills

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I know that the subject of skills can be a bit of a sore subject with members of the OSR and I could do away with them altogether by allowing a character to make a Saving Throw (ST) modified by the appropriate Attribute if the task at hand fell within their class' purview. But I feel that too leads to over-capable characters. Besides I like the use of skills in a Sci Fi context. Sci Fi still has it's archetypal characters or else classes wouldn't make much sense. But while Han Solo, Captian Apollo and Luke Skywalker are all considered pilots, but it that their defining trait? I don't believe so. Han is a scoundrel, piloting the Millennium Falcon is something he can do; likewise Apollo is a soldier and Skywalker a Jedi like his father before him. So character class is about who you are, skills are about what you can do. Spock may be a Scientist but he can still get under a console to effect repairs as well as any Engineer (would you believe I couldn't find a single picture of that? Come on, internetz!  Balance of Terror for crying out loud!).

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So, I want skills in my X-PLORERS game; just not the skills defined in the original game (again, not a criticism just my choice). I started out by re-evaluating the skills that the author set up looking for a way to redefine the classes. So I'm looking to simplify the skills while still keeping their numbers down; I've restricted myself to three role-defining skills per class remember? So I started trying to break the skills down into their broadest but simplest components. If a Technician has Computer and Mechanics skill does he also need Robotics as a separate skill? A robot, after all is a mechanical system operated by a computer.

Likewise, are others of these skills needed, like the vehicle skill. I have a hard time rationalizing that only a technician can operate a vehicle. A jet fighter sure, but a motorcycle, ground car or even a big rig? Not so much. So I'm wondering if operating a vehicle  should even be a skill, except in the cases of specialized and usually military vehicles. Of course, this exception would include spacecraft as well. But otherwise make it into an ‘everyman’ ability; just make a Quickness (QKN)-based Saving Throw (ST) to keep a vehicle under control when performing maneuvers at high-speeds, or other risky actions like chases and so on. Computers also are so ubiquitous that usage need not even an issue.  Whether the character is searching for and retrieving files, running existing programs such as spreadsheets or word processors, or even trying to operate avionics or other detectors. We only care about when a character is attempting to do something outside the ordinary, like hacking a system or re-programming a computer and that would need the appropriate skill.

My initial attempts to reduce class skills to their simplest level resulted in a veritable explosion of the same, for example for the Technician class I ended up with Computers, Electronics, Mechanical and Power Systems.  That's too many skills in any case.  Then I started to think about how the engineers at work do their jobs.  Engineers cover a lot more ground than one might suppose, going from circuit board design (electronics) to phosphorus formulations (chemistry) to improvising fixture assemblies (mechanics) and coding spectrometers in Excel using a USB web-cam as their source (programming), building components and assembling them into infrared motion detectors and then using them in applications that can tell the difference between a live person and hot machinery, "presence sensing" they called it (a bit of all of the above).

I realized instead of breaking down the various skill areas by their technical distinctions I needed to be thinking about the functions the class was responsible for. So for the Technician I decided a name change was in order and it became the Engineer and that became their defining skill. Engineering, in this case, is understood to be the ability to design and build (and repair) technological devices to accomplish specific ends; whether it's lifting a load (rope and pulley), damaging an opponent at range (gun), digital information management (computer) or lifting men and equipment into space (rocket) including any required sub-fields of knowledge such as Electronics or Mechanics. Considering I see guys do this in real life all the time, it's not as big of a stretch as it might seem. I broke out two sub-areas to create the three total skills but since their application is different from the design, building or repair of technological devices I felt that their separation made logical sense.

Okay, I'm pretty sure this is getting boring and I'm feeling like if I go on I'll end up walking you through every decision and thought process I had while chasing this particular problem. If you come back later I'll be posting my versions of the base classes plus one.  Once you've seen them, if you have any specific questions about my thinking for a particular class feel free to ask them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them.

Up next: The first of my revised classes, the Engineer.

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Free and Clear to Astrogate...

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I get that the classes in X-PLORERS seek to cram the greatest capability into the least number of classes, but I find the original classes to be too capable in regards to their function and sometimes puzzling in their skill spread. This is why, as mentioned before, I am revising the character classes from X-PLORERS; also I’m looking for my grand sci-fi epic to allow players more choice and a little customization.

Let's start by looking at the basics of each class; every class provides a character with four skills representative of their area of expertise. Each of these four skills also provides a starting target number that the player rolls a d20 against looking to equal or exceed that target number to determine if the character is successful when using that skill. The target numbers are a spread over the four skills, ranked from 13+ (or better) for the best skill to 16+ for the worst; if you're interested in the math that represent a success range of from 40% for the strongest skill down to 25% for the weakest. While one could presume that skills that start at a higher target number represent a more difficult skill, I don’t believe this is the case.

To see what I mean let's compare the two skills that overlap across classes, Pilot and Computers. Pilot is the same (14+) for both Scout and Technician and so doesn't reveal anything useful to us. However, Computers is different for the Scientist (15+) and the Technician (13+) even though the skill for Technicians represent the ability to perform more and, in my mind, more difficult tasks. The rules state: “This is the same as the Scientist Skill, except that the Tech can also repair the computer, install new programs, and modify existing ones.” So, even though a Technician can perform all of the same data manipulation and security (hacking) tasks as a Scientist as well as maintenance or repair tasks, parts swapping and modify existing code (programs) as well, the skill is still easier for them. Why is that?

I believe this suggests that the basis of a skill's target number might be more a measure of the character’s expertise, or proficiency, rather than being based on the perceived difficulty of that skill. Presuming (which I like to think of as a portmanteau for presumptuously assuming!) such is the case, my first step in changing up the classes will be to allow the players to assign one each of the initial scores (13+, 14+, 15+ and 16+) to their class skills to determine their individual levels of expertise. In this way one Scientist can be different from another by being better at a common skill.

Then, while pursuing the train of thought above, I stumbled on a forum post by John Adams of Brave Halfling Publishing from the beginning of last year in which he talks about plans for the conversion of X-PLORERS to Goodman Games’ DUNGEON CRAWL CLASSICS (DCC) RPG engine and in outlining his classes he does something I thought was brilliant, to – in his own words – “help reflect the diversity and adaptability of all core X-plorer Team members” he introduced the concept of a ‘bonus skill’, with which the character gets one free multi-classing option. By ‘free’ I mean that there is no extra experience cost associated with the selection, as there is later in play (see the Multiclassing rules in the X-PLORERS rule book, page 10. John also tightened up the skills a bit so I decided to follow his lead.

Inspired by that, each class now gets three class-related skills (and the player distributes the expertise levels 13+, 14+ and 15+ among them as desired) and an Elective Skill of the player’s choice to increase the team’s flexibility. This Elective skill is part of the character’s class and advances along with their other class skills every time they level. However, this Elective skill starts at an expertise level of 16+ for success representing its nature as cross-training or a hobbyist pursuit. This change lets all classes have role-defining common skills but still allows for individualization of a character.

But now I've reduced the number of skills available to allow a class to get it's job done. Considering I already thought that some of the skills are too all-encompassing I might be in trouble... Guess we'll find out!

Up Next: Thinking about skills

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