I like skill based games that have two pools of skills points. One pool is for the important skills that will come into play a lot or define what your character is supposed to be good at. The other are for background or hobby type skills that define who the character is but won't necessarily come into play much.
I had the dump stat problem with Luck in my system. We did a recent rework and decided to try merging Luck and Charisma into a new stat, "Coolness". It worked super well! It does mean a lucky person also has to be charismatic which is a little bit limiting, but both in gameplay and narrative it seemed to work well. Coolness narratively is treated like someone's natural awesomeness and importance to the world, and therefore their general luck and social skills are one combined force that represent, for lack of a better phrase, how much the world likes them.
In my own RPG, there are three attributes: Might, Agility, and Presence. Might represents physical strength and constitution, and melee attacks in combat. Agility represents reflexes and speed, and defense in combat. Presence represents your ability to keep calm under pressure, and aim in combat. I didn't add any intelligence or social stat because I thought it should depend on the players' actions. Skills come from backgrounds and are acquired through play by attempting new skills a number of times. But the skill system is very open-ended and you can turn any phrase into a skill when you level up as long as you've attempted it at least once. You simply get a +1 to that action.
I think Call of cthulu would be a lot better if it decided to be a skilltribute system. It's basically already there, and the attributes are rarely called upon. Really enjoy this series:)
Damn man, i usually watch videos at 2x minimum, some times 3x or more, but with your video i had to slow down to 0.75x and pause constantly to read so i wouldn't miss anything! Awesome video! Although i feel like you tricked me into reading instead of just passively listening to it in the background...
My homebrew has four attributes, Agility, Health, Reflexes, and Wits, with a light but detailed enough block of skills and specialties that provide bonus dice to the check. Depending on the setting, however, these get renamed to things like your four humours of elements. The attributes are the onl;y things that apply a hard bonus do your die rolls everything else affects bonus or penalty dice. Sad drunk winter Tenma when talking about skills made my heart hurt.
I don't understand why skilltributes are scarce. Having experienced it in the Rogue Trader cRPG, I can easily see it being the optimal system. I think the only thing missing is overlap. Granted, I think this might be too complicated for tabletop. But hear me out. Take the military/civilian boat example. It makes absolutely no sense in a purely skills based system. But if you have an "aquatic vehicle" attribute, it can work. The attribute would give you a baseline for all related skills. Then you could overlap with a "tactics" attribute to modify the military boat skill. In other words, I think skilltribute systems would work amazingly if skills were a function of multiple attributes rather than just each attribute effecting multiple skills. With proper planning, you could alott points to attributes and the skills would fill in themselves. Take the military/civilian boat example. Maybe you have a "navigation" attribute that impacts your ability to control a boat. But you also need "dexterity" because operating a vehicle does take some coordination. And the military boat then requires "tactics" as a modifier in combat zones. But "tactics" and "dexterity" both mesh with "melee" to determine how effective you can be with a sword. It would definitely be complicated to manage on a tabletop. But it could really flesh out characters and classes. Even with 1,000 skills, if they were tied to a mix of attributes they would fill themselves out and create unique patterns.
Heh, thought I deleted the first part of that post. I hate typing on a phone. Should have waited til I got to my computer. Anyhow, I think the point still came across.
I like skill based games that have two pools of skills points. One pool is for the important skills that will come into play a lot or define what your character is supposed to be good at. The other are for background or hobby type skills that define who the character is but won't necessarily come into play much.
I had the dump stat problem with Luck in my system. We did a recent rework and decided to try merging Luck and Charisma into a new stat, "Coolness". It worked super well! It does mean a lucky person also has to be charismatic which is a little bit limiting, but both in gameplay and narrative it seemed to work well. Coolness narratively is treated like someone's natural awesomeness and importance to the world, and therefore their general luck and social skills are one combined force that represent, for lack of a better phrase, how much the world likes them.
Radz!
In my own RPG, there are three attributes: Might, Agility, and Presence. Might represents physical strength and constitution, and melee attacks in combat. Agility represents reflexes and speed, and defense in combat. Presence represents your ability to keep calm under pressure, and aim in combat. I didn't add any intelligence or social stat because I thought it should depend on the players' actions.
Skills come from backgrounds and are acquired through play by attempting new skills a number of times. But the skill system is very open-ended and you can turn any phrase into a skill when you level up as long as you've attempted it at least once. You simply get a +1 to that action.
Late to the party but damn I like the idea of the skill based witch knight system
I think Call of cthulu would be a lot better if it decided to be a skilltribute system. It's basically already there, and the attributes are rarely called upon. Really enjoy this series:)
6:30 I am a Soldier. This is a very real thing. They don't even cover pistols in basic training.
Damn man, i usually watch videos at 2x minimum, some times 3x or more, but with your video i had to slow down to 0.75x and pause constantly to read so i wouldn't miss anything! Awesome video! Although i feel like you tricked me into reading instead of just passively listening to it in the background...
My homebrew has four attributes, Agility, Health, Reflexes, and Wits, with a light but detailed enough block of skills and specialties that provide bonus dice to the check. Depending on the setting, however, these get renamed to things like your four humours of elements. The attributes are the onl;y things that apply a hard bonus do your die rolls everything else affects bonus or penalty dice.
Sad drunk winter Tenma when talking about skills made my heart hurt.
Very informative and insightful video! - Subscribed! 😊
he teases me with witch-knights, and now I think that I go ahead and make my own take on it once I finish my current system.
Totally enjoyed this episode! I've been working on my own game/system and this has really helped in thinking about my design 😊
Funnily, Skilltributes are what i end up with when i'm trying to design a system in which you use only one stat in a test
I don't understand why skilltributes are scarce. Having experienced it in the Rogue Trader cRPG, I can easily see it being the optimal system. I think the only thing missing is overlap. Granted, I think this might be too complicated for tabletop. But hear me out.
Take the military/civilian boat example. It makes absolutely no sense in a purely skills based system. But if you have an "aquatic vehicle" attribute, it can work. The attribute would give you a baseline for all related skills. Then you could overlap with a "tactics" attribute to modify the military boat skill.
In other words, I think skilltribute systems would work amazingly if skills were a function of multiple attributes rather than just each attribute effecting multiple skills. With proper planning, you could alott points to attributes and the skills would fill in themselves.
Take the military/civilian boat example. Maybe you have a "navigation" attribute that impacts your ability to control a boat. But you also need "dexterity" because operating a vehicle does take some coordination. And the military boat then requires "tactics" as a modifier in combat zones. But "tactics" and "dexterity" both mesh with "melee" to determine how effective you can be with a sword.
It would definitely be complicated to manage on a tabletop. But it could really flesh out characters and classes. Even with 1,000 skills, if they were tied to a mix of attributes they would fill themselves out and create unique patterns.
Heh, thought I deleted the first part of that post. I hate typing on a phone. Should have waited til I got to my computer.
Anyhow, I think the point still came across.
From what i read, pistol skills barely translated into rifle skills cause it's two very different sets of motions to fire a gun or smth
Subscribed. Your speaking in a way I can understand. Thank you.
yeah she may be str 5 now but man that natsuki buff out to 15
THE SYWMATTRPG!!!!
THE SYWMATTRPG IS REAL!!!!!
(Can we get much hyper?)
the pic at 1:44 is fukken radicool. Sauce?
2:30 what is that UI from?
Also fuckin' hell I'd actually play witchknights(Skill edition)
The art at 1:44 looks like old warhammer fantasy art.
The UI at 2:30 is one of the old PC Baldur's Gate games.
time stamps are borked