A Starting Skill List

Is it too many? For a system like I'm proposing, it's probably not enough?

Here's what I'm going with so far...

• Academics
• Accounts
• Acrobatics
• Alchemy
• Alertness
• Animal Ken
• Arcana
• Athletics
• Awareness
• Beauty
• Brawl
• Charisma
• Chemistry
• Climbing
• Computers
• Cooking
• Crafting
• Deception
• Dream-lore
• Drive
• Empathy
• Engineering
• Etiquette
• Expression
• Finance
• Firearms
• Focus
• Forensics
• Gathering
• Geography
• Hiding
• History
• Hunting
• Instincts
• Intelligence
• Interrogation
• Intimidation
• Investigation
• Jury-Rig
• Larceny
• Law
• Leadership
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Medicine
• Melee
• Metallurgy
• Navigation
• Occult
• Perception
• Performance
• Persuasion
• Pharmacy
• Politics
• Reflexes
• Repairs
• Ride
• Ritual
• Scavenging
• Science
• Smithing
• Sniping
• Stamina
• Stealth
• Strength
• Subterfuge
• Surgery
• Survival
• Technology
• Tinkering
• Tracking
• Wisdom
• Woodworking
• (X)-Lore (Where X might be a type of supernatural creature, a location, a culture, or some specific area of obscure knowledge)

Remember that the basic idea is that characters will be mixing and matching their abilities to address a specific situation, and I'm foreseeing most characters starting with half a dozen from the list and gradually working their way up to 20 or so (probably less if they start picking up magical Arcana words instead). It's a pretty generic list of ability fragments so far, and I'll probably be adding in a few more genre specific ideas as this idea gets refined.

Something else to note about the way I've modified this skill system is that I've pulled the abilities away from specifically relevant attributes. For example, in previous versions of the system I linked "Brawl" to the physical attribute, "Etiquette" was linked to the social attribute, etc. In each of these cases it was envisioned that the ability could only be used to improve actions associated with that attribute, and were like a narrow specialised focus within that attribute category. Now the list is just a list, which allows more freedom. A character might be able to "Jury-Rig" in a delicate manner by rolling it along with a mental attribute die, or maybe they use a brute force method of combining parts if they use a physical die.

For the moment, let's look at a few specific examples of how the ability aspects might be combined into the die type used...

• Characters in a car chase are obviously going to use "Drive", but they'll probably also find "Navigation", "Reflexes", "Instincts", and "Focus" useful. If they're doing stunt moves, they might find "Mathematics" or "Science" beneficial.
• A character forging a sword could do it with simple "Smithing", but they'll improve their die if they have "Metallurgy", "Strength", "Crafting", and "Stamina". If they're intending to make a magical sword they could justify adding in "Alchemy", and if they're playing with material properties maybe "Chemistry" could help, and if adding technological elements to the sword then "Tinkering" or "Technology" might add a bonus.
• A character trying to heal one of their allies while far from home would base their roll on "Medicine" or maybe "Herbalism", and would gain a bonus from having both. Extra benefits could be gained from possessing "Gathering", "Survival", or "Pharmacy" (but probably not that last one if the character doesn't have access to a lab).
• A character is holed up with a few allies in a burnt out house, a zombie apocalypse is unfolding outside. They want a makeshift weapon, and hopefully a couple more to arm their friends with. A start with "Jury Rig", "Scavenging", or "Woodworking" would work (and possessing more of these would add bonuses to the roll). Possessing "Melee" would help with understanding what might make a good implement of damage, "Woodworking" might be applied to make better quality weapons, "Repairs" might allow fixing up an existing (but damaged) weapon, and "Tinkering" might upgrade the damage capacity of something that's been found but isn't necessarily too effective at the moment.
• A character walks into a fey court. Naturally they need either "Etiquette" or "(FEY)-Lore" to avoid making a major instant faux pas. "Awareness", "Empathy", and "Politics" will probably be helpful, so might "Charisna", "Intimidation" or "Law" (depending on how the situation is unfolding around them).   

The whole aim is that a task "can" be attempted with a single ability aspect, but having more that apply to the task make things easier...and there's deliberately a lot of overlap between the aspects. There's also the idea that a task "can" possibly be attempted even if a character doesn't have any aspects associated with the actions being performed. But a character (whether player character or NPC) must have at least two dice if they want to attempt something. By default they can apply an attribute die to a task, but if they don't have any relevant abilities, they'll either need "Agency" or "Advantages" that help their situation otherwise it just won't work. (I'm also considering implementing the rule found in a lot of other games where characters face a higher degree of difficulty if they don't have abilities or benefits relevant to a task.

On the next post, I'll show a few more bits and pieces that I'll be pulling out of my own recent design work to help scaffold the new incarnation of Walkabout.