My Rules Mod

[Mage]

Hello, I would like some input on my own pet project, which is basically a semi-modern runequest game. The basic thing is that I feel some skills are not needed in a modern setting, while some are. I feel the following would not be very useful, and would like you guys to help me make up my mind what to replace them with:

Boating - replace with computer use
Sing - seduce possibly
Lore Animal - Lore something
Lore Plant - Lore something
Riding -
Dance -
Play instrument -
Shiphandling -

Thanks in advance!

Edit: New Thread name

 

[Mongoose Gar]

Off the top of my head, I'd replace Sing with Socialise or Rapport.
Lore (plant) and Lore (animal)... maybe Lore (local) and Lore (general knowledge).
Riding I'd move to being an Advanced skill.
Shiphandling becomes Pilot.

 

[Mage]

Thanks!

 

[Mongoose Pete]

An obvious one would be Ride->Drive. Considering the nightclub culture of the young I'd leave Dancing in... especially for female characters!

As for a couple of Lores, you could chose from Lore Politics, Lore Culture, Lore TV shows, Lore Illegal Downloading...

Growing more cynical, you could have Shopping, MMORPG playing, and Debt Rating as new skills too...

 

[Swampy]

Considering the nightclub culture of the young I'd leave Dancing in... especially for female characters!

Why is it women look good dancing but every man looks like a total twat, no matter how good they are at dancing :?

 

[Quire]

Why is it women look good dancing but every man looks like a total twat, no matter how good they are at dancing :?

Your honour, the defence would like to present Mr Joachim Cortez.

We would also like to have Tobey Maguire as witnessed in Spiderman 3 struck from the record.

- Q

 

[Mage]

Swampy, its usually because everyman dancing is pissed out of their brains. That and the fact that men are genetically bad dancers is also a factor.

 

[CthulhuFnord]

Have you thought of checking out the skill sets for another RPG? There's no reason you couldn't go with a simplified CoC skill set.

 

[Mage]

I was thinking CoC alright, but there are sop many of those that could be lumped into one skill, such as science: antrhopology, biology, chemistry, while there could be a few engineering ones andcomputer skills. Some stuff like listen, spot hidden, and other notice are already covered by Perception. I tried another rules mod with my own transformers but there was just a ridiculous amount of skills and not enough points to go around. I could have used Cthulhu's system but it would take too much hastle to sort out.

 

[soltakss]

The way I'd do it is to look at modern people and see what skills they actually use.

So, you'd have Profession () as a generic skill, similar to Craft () for normal RQ.

Boating - replace with computer use
Sing - seduce possibly
Lore Animal - Lore something
Lore Plant - Lore something
Riding -
Dance -
Play instrument -
Shiphandling -

Sing is still uselful nowadays - look at Karaoke bars or Pop/American Idol.
Dance is socailly useful.
Play Instrument is still useful for those who actually do it.
Riding - Drive/Ride[Vehicle] is a no-brainer, although do you drive a motorcycle/bicycle or ride one?
Boating - fine for coastal cultures or people who mess around on the water.
Lore Animal - Technology (not just computers, but general knowledge about how machines operate)
Lore Plant - General Knowledge


I'd expand the skills again, but that's because I like more skills.

So, you want to play an accountant (shudder), you take Profession (Accountant), Technology, Computer Use, Educated, give him/her a background of Western (Drive Car/Ride Bike, Technology, Literate) and so on.

 

[sidkfjjteidlkkf]

Those are kind of cool...

 

[sidkfjjteidlkkf]

Why replace any of them in the book. Just apply them to modern terms. And add a few...

Like ALL ADVANCED SKILLS

Pilot
Hacking

Chemistry

Basic Skill

Library or research
Computers
Etc....

 

[duncan_disorderly]

...

So, you'd have Profession () as a generic skill, similar to Craft () for normal RQ.

...

I'd expand the skills again, but that's because I like more skills.

and, in a nutshell there are the two approaches.
One is to have a long and detailed skill list, which will involve giving characters more points to spend during character generation in order to create "realistic" characters. The other is to use broad catagories and maybe give a bonus or penalty to a roll depending on exactly how appropriate the broad skill is to the task in hand (Profession- Software Engineer and Profession - Accountant will both include "Computer Use", but the former may well be more useful if you are trying to hack into an evil corporations security system and reprogram the alarms...)

 

[Mage]

Thanks for the help guys, nearyl there!

 

[Mage]

Update for people with interest in this:

Just finished cultural backgrounds for my side project, skills, advanced skills and explanations/rules.

Still to do:

Armoury
Professions
Character Creation expansion
Scenarios
NPCs

When I finish I hope to make it S&P stuff, but I will not post rules until I get a green or red light, just in case!