Skills in RP games

[Matt Chatterley <root#mpc,dyn.ml.org>]

Hi again, time for me to stir things up a little more. ;)

I had a fairly interesting discussion with a friend about a particular
RP-orientated game last night (I'll not mention any names), and we both
agreed that the way skills and knowledges that characters had was handled,
was quite clumsy, and not really conducive to RP (more conducive to
players scanning their skill list every time a situation where they could
roll something came up, to see what they could best use). Two points were
made, and I'd like to raise them for discussion here. These are more
opinions (or theories) than anything else. I don't necessarily agree with
them both, either.

1) Having such a system, with a range of skills/talents/and so forth
(similar to the system seen on many WoD games), where some skills are
social, some mental, some physical.. isn't really worthwhile, because you
will probably never roll against your 'conduct' skill to see if you're
polite to someone you meet, or not. (Example skill only), and players who
put a lot of points into a skill like this are at a disadvantage to others
who spent their points on things that will do them more good.

2) A game with such an intense RP focus should have no skills in any way,
shape, or form at all. It should be completely freestyle, with a set of
suggested guidelines for resolving combatative situations. It's important
to note that in this particular scenario there is no combat coded into the
game, and nothing else of the ilk.

Have fun. ;)

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"Fishing is complete and utter madness."  -Spike Milligan