Skills

From Tazlure Gaming System Wiki

Introduction: Why Skills?

Character Creation
Skills Wealth Personality Physical Description Background Inventory

Skills are also known as talents or proficiencies and are used in a wide variety of role playing games. They give a rough estimate of what a PC can do, what the PC is capable of accomplishing with a certain ease, and noted with that is the degree of difficulty for each skill. In theory this is objective between one moderator to the next, though there shall always be a grey area.

Used in such a way skills are

a tool of character creation - they paint a picture about the PC and reflect the background
a tool of tracking progress - As PC's track their skill levels and see the number of skills grow they will see how much they have gained in the game
a tool for moderators to reward good play
a tool for moderators to communicate with each other about a PC

However they are not the end all of creative writing in PBP. This is after all not a MMORPG where working up your levels is essential. In fact their use can feel mechanical and restricting, not quite fitting what you want to create, and moderators are inclined to ignore skills if a scene is well written. Moderators do check skills occasionally, in order to determine the success of an action, but more often than not the skills a player has will have less impact on a moderator's decision than the quality of the writing. If a player writes convincingly enough of their success, the chances are a moderator will allow it, and award the skill, or the next level as a result.

Finally it should be noted that having skills that advance beyond a point, means that moderators gain an important task that can be dreary: skilling aka determining what skill advances and what new skills to award after each scene. In other words it is a considerable administrative burden. Experiments have been made with letting players suggest themselves what they think they should have earned and a moderator only checking that and making a summary of the thread for their plotnotes.

Skills in the TGS

Before you create skills (and you may use the ones created for Tazlure as listed below) ask yourself how much detail you want in your skills and what a PC can assume to know how to do without a skill. For instance is literacy normal in your setting? In a sci fi game you might not need it as a skill.

As an alternative to the very broad range of skills that are in the TGS, our affiliated game Age of Intrigue has only created a set of skills that characters are particularly talented or gifted in. PC's can assume to do the rest at a normal level, without epic fails but also without being particularly noteworthy.

Skill Levels

All skills have four levels. At Tazlure these are called:

Basic
Apprentice
Journeyman
Master

Roughly speaking, Basic means that the character is better at his/her skill than Joe Average, Apprentice implies a reasonable degree of proficiency, Journeyman means that the character has a level of skill likely to be widely respected, and Master is just that: mastery, a legendary proficiency.

Skill Advances

Skills are advanced by using them in play. The unit of advancement is the star (*), so Basic+** means that a character has earned two advances in a given skill. Moderators "skill" threads once they are complete and judge how many stars to award. Once five stars have been awarded, the skill level goes up. In other words, you will never see Basic+*****, as this equates to Apprentice.

Note that skill stars become progressively more difficult to obtain as the skill level rises. A character with Manipulation of Energy: Sorcery at Basic would likely earn a skill star from trying to use magic to light a candle, but a character with the same skill at Journeyman would not.

Master is the highest level of skill. Once this is reached, stars are no longer awarded for that skill.

When a thread is skilled, the moderator will post to inform all players in the thread about it. They normally include which skill advances they granted.

Skill Decreases

The subject of Skill Decreases was often debated at Tazlure but never fully implemented, because players were scared to loose something they saw as their right. However, it is quite conceivable that a moderator detracts stars and even levels within the TGS. Circumstances can include:

The skill is not used for a period of time, thus the PC is 'out of practice' and will have to regain terrain
The PC is (temporarily) not capable of performing certain physical or mental tasks and this affects the skills
The perception of the PC by the game environment including NPC's is so negative that it affects the use of skills

By regularly detracting stars the skill system will be more vibrant. It keeps players on their toes and stimulates them to maintain a wide variety of activities to keep up with what they have learned to do. One possible con is that it may stimulate endless training threads, but Summary RP is an excellent tool for PC's to do that without boring or burdening the rest of the game.

Specifications in the title of the Skill

The TGS favours general descriptions of skills, with a designation between brackets [ ] indicating a more specific part of the generalized set. This makes the system highly customizable, which is ideal for the semi-free form environment of a PBP.

Example 1: Native Craft [Type] can be used as Native Craft [Woodwork], Native Craft [Weaving], Native Craft [Beading] etc. without ever needing a new skill description.

Example 2: Soundless Movement [Starting Area] can be used to indicate a specific terrain that the PC is used to, eg Urban or Forest.

Skill or Character Trait?

In the TGS we have specifically banned skills that are considered character traits, as that is part of the PC's freedom to determine personality & physical description, nor can it be trained. Some character traits still remain, but mainly because they can be trained, for instance Resolve. It remains a grey area of debate. Examples that have not made it into skills include Keen Eyesight, Temper and Charm. Note that character traits can be part of a race description.

Gaining Skills at Character Creation

At Character Creation a character can choose 10 skills. This is rather arbitrary. It could be two skills or twenty. Remember though that the less skills a character will start out with, the more defining it will be for that character. A character who starts out with only swordfighting will make that the focus of his entire being. That can be fine if that is the intent, but it doesn't allow for a more broader approach, exploring different kinds of content.

In addition to these basic skills a character can gain bonus skills (or freebies) based on career, social hierarchy, wealth, race and what other factors are important in your game. For instance if you have a nomadic tribe that lives on horseback most of their lives, it stands to reason that all PC's from that tribe get horse riding as a freebie.

Starting at Basic or not?

It is often thought fair for all newbies to start the same level: at the bottom. However veterans may sometimes wish to have a few new challenges and don't want to start all over again at ground level. Their tenure suggests they can be trusted with bigger power. In Tazlure veterans that resigned a character were allowed to take two skill levels with them to use in the same category for a new character. In similar fashion a character of a certain social standing could start out with some skills in a higher level, for instance etiquette.

The same warning applies as regards the number of skills: if you allow one or two skills to be more dominant, they will start to become a very core value for the character, and it will be less likely to develop in different directions.

Keeping Skills Off Limit for Starting Characters

Some skills can be used only in conjunction with other skills, which need to be at a certain level. This makes them not appropriate for starting characters. For instance diplomacy requires persuasion, debate, negotiation and above all conversation at a higher level. Think of skills as building blocks that give access to new skills. This opens up a new area of excitement for veteran players as well as preventing unrealistic, unbalanced skill selection.

Gaining New Skills In the Game

It is pretty simple to gain a skill: a PC tries to use it. The character may fail at first, or only partly succeed, but it will be the basis to at least grant him the new skill at basic. So, it is not necessary to succeed to gain a skill, merely to have a learning experience.

This means that the more daring a character is, the more likely the PC will succeed in gaining many new skills, or advancing old ones. This stimulates pro-activity.

Using Skills in the Game

Having a skill, even at basic means better at it than John Doe. It thus follows people can always attempt skills, but if they don't have them in their list they must work rather hard to make them work. The TGS doesn't work with characterpoints etc. to determine talents and weaknesses that interact with skills, so it is all dependent on the play of a PC.

During the game some PC's, especially if they are going for a specific Career, will want to train for certain skills. These so called training threads are considered a burden for moderators as they are repetitive and often don't add to the overall story, but at the same time they are very important for that specific character and the players enjoyment of the game. Summary RP is an excellent tool to allow PC's to do that.

It is important to have notes on PC's on what they are capable of doing within a skill, what tricks and spells they have managed and what their effect is. This is especially true regarding skills that either don't exist in real life or are not often practised as that creates a very grey area of interpretation. This also implies that moderators regularly check with each other how skills are moderated. Moderators within the same game do not operate in a vacuum and each decision on an application affects the work of other moderators.

Skill List from Tazlure by Group

This is the full list of skills used in the setting of Tazlure. They may be reproduced elsewhere, in whole or in adapted form. The lay out can also be used to create a whole different skill set, for instance one that is appropriate for a sci fi setting.

Skills in italics may not be selected by starting characters.

Combat

Fine Arts & Care

Illicit

Merchant

Social

Nature & Health

Academic

Physical

Weapon

Magick & Spirit