Reconsidering Default Skill Levels

I have reached the conclusion that having multiple default skill levels is not desirable in my Fudge games. I had formerly believed that the standard default skill level of Poor (and skill difficulty of Average) was fine for free-form games and creating characters on the fly (with certain exceptions), but I now think it's best for detail-oriented games as well.

The use of multiple default skill levels not only creates unnecessary complexity, it establishes an objective perception of skill difficulty that is frankly unrealistic. The difficulty (or ease) of mastering a skill is relative to the person undertaking its mastery. It is, in a word, subjective. What is easy for one person is hard for another, and the only logical way of reflecting this fact without resorting to mind-boggling complexity is to give all skills the same default level: Poor. A character's natural inclinations, meanwhile, are evident in those skills in which the character excels (namely, by choosing to assign levels to them during character creation or development).

The only other default skill level I would retain would be Nonexistent for those skills that are clearly beyond any possibility of practicing without prior training or research due to their esoteric (and possibly supernormal) nature. For the sake of simplicity, I would make the starting level of all such skills Terrible. Even skills that might be considered mundane in their natural environment (where their default level is Poor) could be exotic and incomprehensible to the denizens of another environment (where their default level would be Nonexistent).

This is a case where simplicity does the best job of simulating reality. Now I need to decide whether to revise my Optimum Skills for Fudge page [Edit: see Ultimate List of Skills instead] to reflect this epiphany... [Edit: I did.]

[Originally posted in Fudgery.net/fudgerylog on 16 March 2011.]

Notes on Skills 2

Exactly two years and a day ago [from when this article was originally posted], I posted my Notes on Skills [reposted here], and quite coincidentally I have been thinking about skills in Fudge again. The most important thing to remember about skills is that they need to be self-explanatory, especially if you desire to comply with one of the major design principles of Fudge, which is not having to look things up during the game. This coincides with another design principle: not being required to translate the information on one's character sheet into one's native language in order to comprehend it. A skill ought to be instantly recognizable for what it is and generally what capabilities it confers.

Some may balk at the notion of skills taken at face value. They want precise rules governing the use of any skill. They want rules about range, duration, frequency, extent, effort, efficiency, etc. They want to know precisely how well a skill is executed upon a Fair result, or a Good result, or any other result. They want to know exactly what their characters can and cannot do when they use that skill. It all misses the point.

What is the point of trying to pin down the "objective" nature of a Great result when one doesn't even possess that skill in reality? What game designer can claim to be an expert on every skill or area of knowledge? With the exception of very few games (early The Morrow Project is the only one that comes to mind), no player is expected to know a character's skill well enough that he or she can describe every action accurately and in detail. (One of my favorite Call of Cthulhu experiences certainly would not have been possible. I played a motion picture director/producer, one friend played my character's doctor and longtime chum, and another friend played a jazz trumpet player from New Orleans. I'm not a filmmaker, my first friend isn't a doctor, and my second friend plays piano, not trumpet — and he isn't from New Orleans.) If we all had to be qualified in reality to play the characters we portray in a game, then role-playing would have died swiftly and quietly in the night a long time ago.

This, then, is my defense of a list of skills with real world definitions that the casual reader can understand, rather than an itemization of bonuses, penalties, timetables, restrictions, and prerequisites. If the skill is listed on a character sheet, the player should know instantly what it means unless the player doesn't know what the word means in the real world. That is why my skill list has brief definitions. (And the Big Chart has no definitions.) There are a few exceptions, but they are infrequent and brief enough to be easily memorized, and they are entirely logical.

That being said, I still haven't defined the martial arts skills, but rest assured they will be easy to understand, easy to remember, and they will make sense — as soon as I can get around to it...

[Originally posted in Fudgery.net/fudgerylog on 18 February 2009.]

Notes on Skills

Skills are a major component in defining many role-playing games. They usually tell the player not only about the limitations of his character, but about the limitations of his entire species. If a game doesn't have an existing skill for Multidimensional Bungee-Jumping, generally you can't attempt it. Games like Fudge, however, have the benefit of default skill levels. Unless it is explicitly stated that the skill cannot be performed except by characters who have purchased the skill or otherwise acquired it (i.e. it has a default of Nonexistent), then any character can attempt to use that skill at its default level (usually Poor).

This is wonderful for free-form games where there is no set skill list or where the skills are broadly defined. The Fudge rule of thumb is that all skills default to Poor. There is no need to worry about the relative complexity of a skill given the culture and technology of one's world or whatnot. If you purchase a skill, you have it at the purchased level; if you didn't purchase a skill, you can always attempt it as if you possessed it at the skill level of Poor.

I enjoy playing free-form Fudge, but on some occasions I like to play detail-oriented Fudge. For this reason, and also because some players prefer to choose their skills from lists rather than allow them to spring Athena-like from their own heads, I have compiled the Optimum Skills for Fudge (Original) list, a universal list of skills including default skill levels, skill difficulty, and skill descriptions. This information (sans the descriptions) can also be found at the Big Chart of Optimum Skills for Fudge. [Edit: The aforementioned list and chart have been replaced by the Ultimate List of Skills.]

Free-form games without skill lists are fun because they encourage players and GMs to create skills that would never be found on any list. Games with broad skills are fun because character generation is a faster process and many capabilities can be encapsulated by a single concept. Games with professions as skills are perfect examples of this. My own skill list, because it is intended to serve a different purpose (the desire for greater detail), necessarily concentrates on somewhat narrower skills. Technically, I would classify them as medium skills. Most, if not all, of the skills can be defined more narrowly by applying Areas of Specialization or Areas of Further Specialization. These are entirely optional, and GMs are free to specify that certain skills must be taken with an Area of Specialization, other skills must be taken with an Area of Further Specialization, and still others may be taken as is whether they have Areas of Specialization or not. Furthermore, GMs (and players) may invent their own Areas of Specialization or Further Specialization, or they may, of course, invent entirely new skills (something of which I highly approve).

The thorniest problem in creating a skill list is determining the default level and difficulty of each skill. How does one measure the difficulty of Chemistry compared to Skiing, Painting, or Fluency in Navajo? "Apples and oranges" is an understatement. There is simply no truly objective way of doing it. I have two solutions for detail-oriented Fudge. The first solution is that any skill created on the fly has a default level of Poor and a difficulty of Average unless it is a highly unusual and/or unnaturally powerful skill, in which case it has a default level of Nonexistent (unless the GM really wants the player characters to have a chance to try them).

The second solution is my skill design rule of thumb:

• Basic survival and labor skills have a default level of Mediocre and a difficulty of Easy.
• Physical and trade skills have a default level of Poor and a difficulty of Average.
• Academic skills have a default level of Terrible and a difficulty of Hard.
• Highly unusual and/or powerful skills have a default level of Nonexistent and a difficulty of Very Hard.
• Skills that no one without special training or previous study could possibly perform have a default level of Nonexistent, but their difficulty may vary.
• Most unarmed combat skills (except Brawling and Wrestling) have a default level of Nonexistent, but their difficulty may vary.

Obviously, there are some inconsistencies (I wouldn't consider Bicycling to be a basic survival skill nor a typical labor skill, but I think it could be considered Easy by most people who have grown up with them). I know there are people who would consider any physical skill to be Hard or Very Hard, and there are others who would consider almost any academic skill to be Average, but as an admittedly sweeping generalization about the world's population, it works for me, and I hope it might work for you, too (if you need it).

In the end, you can always fudge it.

[Originally posted in Fudgery.net/fudgerylog on 17 February 2007.]

Re-Linking Notes on Skills

In the next several days, I will be reposting some articles about my skill lists for Fudge. This will seem to be a contradiction to what I have been posting lately as well as the way I now prefer to play (see Exceptional Traits for Fudge), but some prefer a style of play closer to GURPS or Basic Role-Playing, which entails extensive lists of skills. In the future, the lists will link to the articles in Creative Reckoning instead of Fudgerylog.