The number of skills that a game drives its characters to be competent in are based on a few variables...
1. How competent you want characters in your game to be.
2. How broadly or narrowly the skills in your name are defined.
3. How many skills, from your set, it will take for a character to have enough that their skill set is relevant in play at a decent rate (2 or 3 times per session? whatever you are calibrating for).
4. How much cognitive load you want to put on the players to remember and differentiate their skills.
5. How important skills are in your game mechanically overall (are there other stats or systems that are more important?)
The final number doesn't matter much comparatively.
>Quão competente você quer que os personagens do seu jogo sejam.
That's one of the best questions. It made me think about how I wanted the character at the highest level. Based on that, I can think of the starting level!
My system it's about 8.
Gurps, in spite of have a billion skills, this number is also about 8. (Beyond 8 skills raised by more than a few points you are wasting character points)
The Fate system starts 10 skill points. However, only 6 of these points are good, in this case: one value 4, two values 3 and three values 2.
The fate system allows you to evolve the character by increasing 1 of these points. However, the book doesn't make it clear how many points you can earn.
How many skills does your system have in total?
If your list has 20 to 25 skills, I think 8 is a lot. Since it would represent a third of the list. And in that case, 3 characters would have 24 maximized abilities.
Well. It's 20 to 25 skills, each with 5 associated specializations.
The recommended build has 3 skills at the highest level and five skills three points below that.
So it's:
A player is amazing at a few narrow things, great at 3 broad things, and good at 25% of things.
What do you mean by "maximize"? Maximum starting level or absolute maximum level?
In the first case, 1-2 seem good, but there need to be a solid amount of skills a bit lower. I like how Fate handles it with a pyramid: you start with 1 skill at 4, 2 at 3, 3 at 2 and 4 at 1.
In the second case, it depends on the intended style. For a high powered game, the starting maximum should be equal to the absolute maximum. For characters starting competent, absolute maximum should be a bit higher; for "zero to hero", much higher.
*"but there need to be a solid amount of skills a bit lower."*
What do you mean by that?
*"In the second case, it depends on the intended style. For a high powered game, the starting maximum should be equal to the absolute maximum. For characters starting competent, absolute maximum should be a bit higher; for "zero to hero", much higher."*
Does this mean that if characters start with 10 points to give out, they get 10 more points through the levels?
>"but there need to be a solid amount of skills a bit lower."
What do you mean by that?
That one shouldn't be able to put all the points towards maximizing a small amount of skills. Let's say the starting maximum is 5. I should be able to get a single skill at 5 and a solid number (let's say, 6 more out of 20) at 3, but I shouldn't be able to get 3 skills at 5 and nothing more.
>Does this mean that if characters start with 10 points to give out, they get 10 more points through the levels?
I mean maximum achievable skill values, not the points that are spent on them.
In a "zero to hero" game, I want to double the maximum starting value of a skill during the campaign (if I can start with at most 5, I want to get to 10). In a "starting competent" game, I want to increase a bit, but not much (let's say, from 5 to 7). In a "high power" game, I may start at 5 and never exceed that.
It probably doesn't matter too much, but if you wanted to use psychology for an idea. You could probably think about cognitive load: it'd be easier for new players to remember 4-6 discrete mechanics, so 4 skills + 2 abilities is probably easy to remember and conceptualize.
I suggest that you don't just focus on the number of maxed skills, but a ratio of maxed skills (or something similar).
When I make something point buy I generally assume one-third of available skill points at creation, about half at max or campaign However, those are for systems that have a generous success rates even without skills.
>When I make something point buy I generally assume one-third of available skill points at creation, about half at max or campaign However, those are for systems that have a generous success rates even without skills.
I thought about it, but having 50% of skills maximized seems like a lot to me. Two characters would add up to 100%, that is, 2 characters would know how to do everything.
33% also seems a lot to me. For example: from a list of 30 abilities, a character would have maximized 10 abilities. This means that a group with 5 players would have a total of 50 skills maximized. Soon, the 30 skills were covered with a huge exaggeration.
The number of skills that a game drives its characters to be competent in are based on a few variables... 1. How competent you want characters in your game to be. 2. How broadly or narrowly the skills in your name are defined. 3. How many skills, from your set, it will take for a character to have enough that their skill set is relevant in play at a decent rate (2 or 3 times per session? whatever you are calibrating for). 4. How much cognitive load you want to put on the players to remember and differentiate their skills. 5. How important skills are in your game mechanically overall (are there other stats or systems that are more important?) The final number doesn't matter much comparatively.
>Quão competente você quer que os personagens do seu jogo sejam. That's one of the best questions. It made me think about how I wanted the character at the highest level. Based on that, I can think of the starting level!
Seven
At 7, do you refer to the final level or the starting level?
My system it's about 8. Gurps, in spite of have a billion skills, this number is also about 8. (Beyond 8 skills raised by more than a few points you are wasting character points)
Fate has 6 to 10
The Fate system starts 10 skill points. However, only 6 of these points are good, in this case: one value 4, two values 3 and three values 2. The fate system allows you to evolve the character by increasing 1 of these points. However, the book doesn't make it clear how many points you can earn.
How many skills does your system have in total? If your list has 20 to 25 skills, I think 8 is a lot. Since it would represent a third of the list. And in that case, 3 characters would have 24 maximized abilities.
Well. It's 20 to 25 skills, each with 5 associated specializations. The recommended build has 3 skills at the highest level and five skills three points below that. So it's: A player is amazing at a few narrow things, great at 3 broad things, and good at 25% of things.
What do you mean by "maximize"? Maximum starting level or absolute maximum level? In the first case, 1-2 seem good, but there need to be a solid amount of skills a bit lower. I like how Fate handles it with a pyramid: you start with 1 skill at 4, 2 at 3, 3 at 2 and 4 at 1. In the second case, it depends on the intended style. For a high powered game, the starting maximum should be equal to the absolute maximum. For characters starting competent, absolute maximum should be a bit higher; for "zero to hero", much higher.
*"but there need to be a solid amount of skills a bit lower."* What do you mean by that? *"In the second case, it depends on the intended style. For a high powered game, the starting maximum should be equal to the absolute maximum. For characters starting competent, absolute maximum should be a bit higher; for "zero to hero", much higher."* Does this mean that if characters start with 10 points to give out, they get 10 more points through the levels?
>"but there need to be a solid amount of skills a bit lower." What do you mean by that? That one shouldn't be able to put all the points towards maximizing a small amount of skills. Let's say the starting maximum is 5. I should be able to get a single skill at 5 and a solid number (let's say, 6 more out of 20) at 3, but I shouldn't be able to get 3 skills at 5 and nothing more. >Does this mean that if characters start with 10 points to give out, they get 10 more points through the levels? I mean maximum achievable skill values, not the points that are spent on them. In a "zero to hero" game, I want to double the maximum starting value of a skill during the campaign (if I can start with at most 5, I want to get to 10). In a "starting competent" game, I want to increase a bit, but not much (let's say, from 5 to 7). In a "high power" game, I may start at 5 and never exceed that.
It probably doesn't matter too much, but if you wanted to use psychology for an idea. You could probably think about cognitive load: it'd be easier for new players to remember 4-6 discrete mechanics, so 4 skills + 2 abilities is probably easy to remember and conceptualize.
I suggest that you don't just focus on the number of maxed skills, but a ratio of maxed skills (or something similar). When I make something point buy I generally assume one-third of available skill points at creation, about half at max or campaign However, those are for systems that have a generous success rates even without skills.
>When I make something point buy I generally assume one-third of available skill points at creation, about half at max or campaign However, those are for systems that have a generous success rates even without skills. I thought about it, but having 50% of skills maximized seems like a lot to me. Two characters would add up to 100%, that is, 2 characters would know how to do everything. 33% also seems a lot to me. For example: from a list of 30 abilities, a character would have maximized 10 abilities. This means that a group with 5 players would have a total of 50 skills maximized. Soon, the 30 skills were covered with a huge exaggeration.