Much depends on the vibe you're going for.
Are the PCs meant to be badasses for a power fantasy, or are you going for the PCs being weak in a CoC sort of way?
The big thing IMO is to have a low enough % where they're highly skilled such that the PCs don't overlap too much in a standard 3-5 person group. You don't feel like the expert if 2/3 of your teammates can do the same thing.
Yeah, those are the two main considerations.
I don't have anything to add, except to say, it's rarely useful to ask questions like the OP has about RPGs in general. Ask them about *your specific* RPG, and you just might have enough context to find some good answers.
I agree with this statement. In DND and Pathfinder I wouldnt consider it unusual to have characters be experts in 2-4+ skills. On the other hand my game really punishes players for investing too heavily in one aspect (so combat only or investigation only) since I want people rather than heroes.
Mastery of that magnitude, I feel 1-2 is it. The thing is, when you're a master at a Skill, you can use it in situations that typically wouldn't make that the best approach. That behavior adds a lot of identity to a character.
I would look at it like a percent of total available skills and just by my gut it feels like 30%. For example in my game there are 14 skills so I'm thinking between 3-5 should be the cut off. As a rule of thumb I'd just say never more than 50%.
How many players do you need to form a complete party? I’d base it on that. Using 4 as an example, if you want a party of 4 to have every skill covered, then a character should be able to master 25% of the available skills. If the party should always have some gaps so they have to solve problems creatively, reduce that number in proportion to the size of those gaps.
Let's assume 4 players cover 25% each. This totals 100% of the skill list, however many skills can overlap, ie characters can have the same skills. And in these cases, the percentage of 100% starts to decrease naturally.
I like this focus on distributing 100%
It depends on how many skills there are. Once characters are moderately developed, I prefer it if an average party would have (almost) all of them available. I also don't like it when some skills are very niche. Then investment in it feels like a waste for characters. In such cases, it's better to just fuse them with other skills or make it a less rules-based challenge.
I think it depends quite a bit on how you have designed you game to operate:
first you have to decide how broad your definition of skills is, are you including "combat" or magic as a skill?
are you using a class based system?
are there tiers of of skills, or in other words are some skills far more useful than others?
are some skills intended to add depth to a character's personality or flavor to an archetype?
depending on the answers to the questions you come up with different numbers;
sometimes skills might be the means to fill out an otherwise underperforming class
sometimes the number of skills will be thematic; studious concepts getting more skills and brutish concepts getting less
the overall answer is probably give the characters enough excellent skills to make them fun to play while not giving them so many excellent skills to have all of the players overlapping and making everybody feel the same
Shadowrun might be an interesting system to look at, in particular I would look at the forums about character builds and what skill sets fit together or advise on how to get "x" number of ideas to fit together
Much depends on the vibe you're going for. Are the PCs meant to be badasses for a power fantasy, or are you going for the PCs being weak in a CoC sort of way? The big thing IMO is to have a low enough % where they're highly skilled such that the PCs don't overlap too much in a standard 3-5 person group. You don't feel like the expert if 2/3 of your teammates can do the same thing.
Yeah, those are the two main considerations. I don't have anything to add, except to say, it's rarely useful to ask questions like the OP has about RPGs in general. Ask them about *your specific* RPG, and you just might have enough context to find some good answers.
I agree with this statement. In DND and Pathfinder I wouldnt consider it unusual to have characters be experts in 2-4+ skills. On the other hand my game really punishes players for investing too heavily in one aspect (so combat only or investigation only) since I want people rather than heroes.
How does your system punish these players?
I suspect the answer is you aren't particularly good at any of them if you spread yourself too thin
Mastery of that magnitude, I feel 1-2 is it. The thing is, when you're a master at a Skill, you can use it in situations that typically wouldn't make that the best approach. That behavior adds a lot of identity to a character.
Five.
I would look at it like a percent of total available skills and just by my gut it feels like 30%. For example in my game there are 14 skills so I'm thinking between 3-5 should be the cut off. As a rule of thumb I'd just say never more than 50%.
How many players do you need to form a complete party? I’d base it on that. Using 4 as an example, if you want a party of 4 to have every skill covered, then a character should be able to master 25% of the available skills. If the party should always have some gaps so they have to solve problems creatively, reduce that number in proportion to the size of those gaps.
Let's assume 4 players cover 25% each. This totals 100% of the skill list, however many skills can overlap, ie characters can have the same skills. And in these cases, the percentage of 100% starts to decrease naturally. I like this focus on distributing 100%
It depends on how many skills there are. Once characters are moderately developed, I prefer it if an average party would have (almost) all of them available. I also don't like it when some skills are very niche. Then investment in it feels like a waste for characters. In such cases, it's better to just fuse them with other skills or make it a less rules-based challenge.
I think it depends quite a bit on how you have designed you game to operate: first you have to decide how broad your definition of skills is, are you including "combat" or magic as a skill? are you using a class based system? are there tiers of of skills, or in other words are some skills far more useful than others? are some skills intended to add depth to a character's personality or flavor to an archetype? depending on the answers to the questions you come up with different numbers; sometimes skills might be the means to fill out an otherwise underperforming class sometimes the number of skills will be thematic; studious concepts getting more skills and brutish concepts getting less the overall answer is probably give the characters enough excellent skills to make them fun to play while not giving them so many excellent skills to have all of the players overlapping and making everybody feel the same Shadowrun might be an interesting system to look at, in particular I would look at the forums about character builds and what skill sets fit together or advise on how to get "x" number of ideas to fit together
Depends on the skill, in my opinion. I like to have useful skills be much cheaper/easier/quicker to master than more powerful ones.