Arthur Lives! Fate Edition Dev Blog: Skill List

 

With Fate Core in my hands and school out for the semester, I’m up to my elbows in Arthur Lives! Fate Edition. I’d like to use this blog as a place to show how the game is developing, to generate some interest, and to think out loud. Thinking out loud helps me figure out what I want to do, and how to do it better. So, thank you for participating.

Let’s start with the Skill list. Fate Core outlines, on page 100, that the ability list is one of the most important ways to make a new setting come to life, and it encourages us to make our own list for our game. I have taken this to heart, with a few things in mind: First, we don’t want to make the list too long. Fate Core is not GURPS and a certain level of “omni-competency,” in which a person who is good at, say, “Science!” is good in every scientific field at the same time, is not out of place in AL. Secondly, the ability list needs to preserve those moments in which a character who is good at something in the 21st century (driving a car) is unfamiliar with something from the myth (riding a horse), and vice versa. In many cases, this gap is meant to be bridged over time, often with stunts, so an Incarnation learns to use his skills from one era in the context of another. But sometimes these gaps remain in the name of niche protection, so that the shooter does not steal the limelight from the archer. Finally, while creating the skill list, we have to look ahead to magic and other non-normal powers.

With that preamble, here is the working AL skill list. Detailed comments follow.

• Archery
• Athletics
• Brawl
• Burglary
• Confidence
• Contacts
• Deceit
• Drive
• Education
• Empathy
• Firearms
• Intimidation
• Investigation
• Melee
• Notice
• Occult
• Performance
• Physique
• Rapport
• Resources
• Stealth
• Survival
• Technology
• Willpower

Archery: The use of bows and crossbows, broken out from Shooting to reinforce the split between the modern age and myth. The skill is most appropriate for specialists; players who want to do a “Robin Hood” type and have a lot of archery-based Stunts. Otherwise, hunters can stunt archery off of Survival, and a knight who decides he wants to be good with a bow can stunt it off of Firearms or something.

Athletics: Replicated from Core and key to Knights. Stunts include Equestrian (use Athletics to ride a horse), Knight of the Road (use Athletics to drive a motorcycle), Joust (use Athletics to attack with a lance), Good Arm (use Athletics to attack with thrown weapons).

Brawl: The ability to fight with your bare hands or with simple weapons such as knives, clubs, or improvised weapons such as chairs and bottles. Most action hero types will have this skill.

Burglary: Carried over from Core.

Confidence: How firmly you believe whatever it is you believe. Confidence is the active, offensive side of Willpower and similar to Dresden’s “Conviction,” (but I have always found Dresden’s use of Conviction vs. Discipline to be rather slippery and confusing so I am starting over here). A character with high Confidence and low Willpower is the classic fanatic, throwing himself into a battle but breaking quickly once captured. Conversely, a character with low Confidence and high Willpower may not believe in much of anything, but is hard to break under torture. One of three abilities used by enchanters, Confidence determines how much magic you can successfully invoke from the Other Side. Religious characters use Confidence for faith-based stunts like Armor of Faith. Action heroes can use Confidence for stunts like Playing Chicken (you may use Confidence to make intimidation attacks when both you and the target are threatening to hurt each other).

Contacts: Carried over from Core, and an important skill for Damosels. Because this is essentially the skill of your social network, I am thinking it will also cover administration, running your estate. This is important to Kings and characters like Kay.

Deceit: Brought over from Core. The “Blank Shield” Stunt makes it harder for others to Recognize you with Empathy. “Myth-taken” allows you to fool someone into Recognizing you for a specific Arthurian character other than the one you really are!

Drive: Riding horses is not covered by this skill, but piloting and boats still are. The stunt “Iron Stallions” allows you to use Drive to ride a horse. “Full Tilting” allows you to use Drive to attack with a lance or spear from a vehicle.

Education: All mundane knowledge; arcane lore, secret society stuff, the metaphysical and paranormal are covered by Occult. Because I’m myself an academic, I’m keenly aware of how much education has become specialized, and it is hard for me to rationalize a skill that could make a person good at every field of knowledge from molecular biology to psychology to history, but there are plenty of characters in fiction who are exactly like this (hello, Sherlock) so — despite the voice of my inner demon — I think it is best not to tinker with the skill to force specializations and, instead, simply allow a person who wants to know everything to do so. Nevertheless, some specialized applications of knowledge — Doctor is a great example because everyone loves the healer — still require Stunts to access.

Empathy: Brought over from Core. As the ability used to read others, this covers Recognizing other Incarnations, a quality which can be improved in various ways through stunts. It is key for Damosels, who always seem to know knights when they see them on the road. Stunts might give you a bonus to Recognize objects (“Treasure Seeker”) or people you associated with in the past (“I never forget a face”).

Firearms: This ability governs the use of guns of all sorts. Athletics and Archery cover most other ranged combat.

Intimidation: Brought over from Core.

Investigation: A Core skill.

Occult: Hidden knowledge and of obvious use to Magicians; this specifically includes not just arcane or magical lore, but also knowledge of the many secret societies and conspiracies working in the world, and pretty much anything else which is kept secret or hidden. (That’s why it’s called “occult”.) Occult is used in the performance of ritual magic and some time-intensive effects of enchantment, such as Summoning and Weather.

Technology: Renamed from Crafts, largely for clarity. Crafts is “the skill for working with machines,” not the skill of making stuff, which is what I always think of when I hear the word “crafting.” In any case, I needed the skill to embrace mechanical know-how, electronics, and computers, so … Technology.

Melee: Proficiency with all knightly combat weapons, including swords, axes, maces, flails, spears and lances. Almost all knights will have this ability, as it more or less defines them. Unusual weapons which are neither Brawling nor Melee (example: whips, quarter staff) would be represented with stunts.

Notice: The Core skill.

Performance: Artistic skill, including not only performance art such as music, dancing, and acting, but also the creation of art objects such as painting, writing, and sculpting. Some of this, especially the live performance aspects, could have been done as Stunts on Rapport. But I’m going to blame Denise Jones for adding Performance to the skill list, since her art has burned the idea of PCs-as-band in my head. Making it a skill of its own allows us to Stunt off of it without a middle-man (“Enchanting Music” allows you to use Performance to cast enchantments) and handily embraces the creation of art objects (rings, swords) which are then enchanted. A key skill for Damosels.

Physique: Brought over from Core and a key skill for Knights. I considered breaking Physique up into Might (offense) and Endurance (defense), but James Dawsey helped me see that my argument was based on something of a false premise. And, besides, it is rare to find a character in the myth who is strong but not tough or vice versa.

Rapport: Brought over from Core. Because this is the skill that covers courtesy and courtly behavior, it is key to Damsels and Kings.

Resources: Ported from Core and a key skill for Kings. I’ve seen Diaspora’s use of a financial stress and damage track, and I think it’s really interesting, but I don’t want to get into that level of, well, stress over money in AL. Money is a useful tool in AL, but it’s not the point of the game, and if we make it a skill that means rich characters can occasionally solve problems by rolling a ton of dice and throwing money at it, which is always nice.

Stealth: The Core skill.

Survival: Wilderness skill and the handling of animals, a key skill for Knights. Survival includes a lot of the stuff knights do in their time off, including tracking, riding, handling dogs and falcons, and living off the land. This is a great example of a skill which could be duplicated with a variety of stunts; after all, a guy with Investigate could take a Track stunt, and a guy with Athletics could take Ride as a stunt, and so on. But a classic “Ranger” character would need to have so many skills and stunts just to duplicate a simple wilderness skill, that creating a “Survival” skill actually makes his life easier, not harder.

Willpower: Willpower is the defensive aspect of your mental strength. This includes all the qualities for Will outlined in Core, including determining your mental stress track and resisting Intimidation and so on, with the sole exception of the idea that psychics or someone else might make mental attacks using Will and a Stunt. Instead, that should be done with Confidence, which is expressly the offensive, active application of Will. There are a couple of good reasons to split Will in this way; first, knights basically need three skills to fight: Athletics, Physique, and an attack skill (Firearms, Melee or Brawl). But magicians only need Occult and Will, and I wanted to equalize that. More importantly, I want to create a choice for enchanters between the magician who has a lot of juice but lousy control vs. the guy who has a ton of control but less raw power.

Some final notes: This list is longer than the Core list by six, so instead of new characters having 10 of the 18 skills (56%) they have 10 of 24 (42%). Thus, I am considering ways to get player characters some additional skills/skill points. I will get a better feel about this as I make more characters. If the sample characters don’t have enough skills to fit their concepts, that will be a good indication we need more skill points/slots.