Why are there so many skills?

[DarthMidget]

I have run GURPS, I consolidated the skill list to about 30 different skills. It just worked better from that point on. As I have done with every game I have played. Sorry, but as a GM I can only keep track of about 20 different skills, any more than that means the game breaks on me. I do not care about subtlety I want shit to happen, we will think about the rules later.

So you haven't actually used the BWr skill system in play, but you are assuming that it will cause problems? Is that correct?

I would encourage you to try the system as is. Once you've played with it a bit you'll see how the skills impact play. If you still don't like it where it's at then, by all means, change them. Just try it. You never know...maybe you'll like it.

[wreckage]

Some people have a hard time with the idea that the outcome of a successful Social Manipulation: Seduction play will be different than that of a Social Manipulation: Oratory play. I don't understand that but hey.

Just have players use their primary Social skill, with the others for FoRKs. Once you've decided all social manipulation, from barroom loudmouth arguments through smooth flattery through outright bonking your way to a deal will all have the same outcome (and that itself makes my mind boggle), doesn't that simplify everything anyway?

Also: try starting in the Dwarven sub-setting. That prunes the lists down a lot.

[Odie]

I have run GURPS, I consolidated the skill list to about 30 different skills. It just worked better from that point on. As I have done with every game I have played. Sorry, but as a GM I can only keep track of about 20 different skills, any more than that means the game breaks on me. I do not care about subtlety I want shit to happen, we will think about the rules later.

(Emphasis mine.) The experience that I have had with Burning Wheel has not led me to believe that it is the style of game which responds well to the "action now, rules later" school of thought. I'd point you towards Mouse Guard, but honestly, it sounds like your goals in play are entirely outside the philosophy that BWHQ appears to espouse. Have you taken a look at Spirit of the Century? Maybe Dogs in the Vineyard?

-B

[johnstone]

Thadrine, the reason there are so many skill in BW is simple: skills are an important part of the game, and the setting is very expansive. Hence, many skills, of slightly different flavors.

The non-human lifepath settings are much more focused, with far shorter skill lists. Burning Empires also has fewer and more expansive skills - e.g. just Close Combat and Firearms, instead of Brawling, Boxing, Mace, Hammer; Science is one skill, etc. Mouse Guard has an even shorter list.

If you've already pared down the GURPS skill list, you won't have any trouble collapsing skills in BW. If you want one "Convince" skill, just read any social skill in the LPs as that skill. Just keep in mind that some characters will end up with much higher skill exponents if they have the same number of skill points to spend on skills in character generation.

[Aramis]

Delicious!

Quite... Most of them are at 2, however... He cycles artha like mad. Were it BW, his observe would have epiphanied! (it's at 3... grey 3 is still pretty bad, but it would magnify the artha) But no shades in BE...

And Observe isn't one he started with...

I will say this for the big skill list: even when you find you are missing things, it's easy enough to get the one you missed out on at workable levels by creative play.

[DarthMidget]

I will say this for the big skill list: even when you find you are missing things, it's easy enough to get the one you missed out on at workable levels by creative play.

Heck, getting new skills is half the fun of the game!

[Iain]

I'm a bit confused here. I find that the skills are pretty self explanatory. THe only reason I refer to the book is for a skill I don't know.

I think it might boil down to how the skill is used in game. Skills get things done, and how things get done is up to the player. They player has the awesome ability to reach their goal using whatever path they have available. If the GM is plunking characters into situations where their skills are useless, then He's just punishing them for making the "wrong" choices.

Conflict needs to be character centered. Sending a legion of Orcs against a group of devout priests isn't giving players a challenge, It's steamrolling them for not conforming to what the GM thinks is "right". A more suitable challenge might involve the town falling under demonic possession, or a mysterious outsider bringing seemingly undeniable proof to the townspeople that the church is corrupt and a front for darker forces.

Just like beliefs, instincts and traits guide what will face the character, so do her skills.

[DarthMidget]

so do her skills.

The way that a player allocates their skill points is just another way of saying, "Hey, I want to do stuff like this in-game!"

[Paul B]

Okay, so just to play Devil's Advocate for a bit.

This doesn't directly address the OP's "why so many duplicate skills?" concern but it might be related. When I was learning BW, I noticed there were core skills and peripheral skills. The core skills create a specific in-game effect, but you don't know what effects those are until you know the skill exists. The most troubling example I can think of is Scavenging: state your intent to find something and roll to see if you found it.

Well, the problem with the BW ideal of "you only need to know the skills that are on your lifepaths" isn't always true, and Scavenging is a perfect example of it. Digging around trying to find something on hand is an awfully common in-game situation. The first time this came up in my game, I defaulted to a -wise use since I understood the fundamentals of what a -wise can do; "knowing" there's likely some explosives down in a mine seems like a perfectly good use of mine-wise. Only by randomly going through the skill lists did I discover that that's exactly what Scavenging does! This also has an impact on opening new skills: a player has to know the skill even exists before he can try to open it.

So, that happens sometimes. Scavenging isn't the only example, it's just the freshest in my mind. I consider it a "core" skill because no other skill in the game explicitly produces that outcome, and it's something that happens with regularity. Other core skills are easier to figure out, by looking at the DOW scripting sheet and by understanding the Fight! system.

Then there are peripheral skills, and hopefully those are easier to identify. Shoe making, bread baking, pottery, all the craft stuff -- it's there to help you make money and maybe, sometimes, FoRK in something weird.

I do think there'd be some use in assembling a "skills you need to know about" list. If I were to do it off the top of my head, it'd probably look like:

• Observation, and a clear understanding that using it untrained is an open-ended Perception roll.
• Persuasion/Oratory/Command/Intimidation/Falsehood/Interrogation/Begging/Extortion/Soothing Platitudes/Suasion/Ugly Truth, and all the differences therein (since each does something different and has different fictional requirements)
• Scavenging
• Conspicuous
• Inconspicuous and Stealthy, and the difference between them
• Aura Reading (you have to know the skill exists so you can angle your play toward acquiring the Second Sight trait)
• The whole family of weapon skills + Brawling, with the understanding that Brawling is a nearly-universal FoRKable skill in a fight.
• Orienteering and Streetwise
• The fundamentals of -wises and what they can do (not well described in the book, but thorougly investigated here on the board)

p.

[johnstone]

Yes, I have noticed the same thing.

Knowing your way around the social skills is crucial - if you've only got Soothing Platitudes, that might work good for Versus tests, not so much in DoW.

Also, explicit player authorship via wises (or other skills) isn't actually in the rules. Whether you actually do that in a game or not has a big impact on how useful certain skills are.