Star Gazer
SOC-5
From a GMs perspective, skills are awesome. They allow differentiation and customization and specialization. GMs see skills as 'things you're good at'. Under this idea, lockout mechanisms make a certain kind of sense - bailiwick protection as it were.
But, (and isn't there ALWAYS a 'but'?) players perceive skills as 'permission to'. And lockout conditions limit their imaginations and constrain the players, and the more skills there are, the more self-limiting their behavior.
Skill lists reduce player agency in direct proportion to the length of the list.
Example: CT has the Electronics skill and no standard lockout mechanism. Electronics lets you work on and operate electronic systems. When the comms gear breaks (pulled out of ship's stores on a tramp trader and it's FUBAR? Say it ain't so!), they'll break out their imaginations and raid the toolbox and use Electronics1 to go ahead and fix the problem. Laid out a sensor grid? Great! Electronics1 means you can get results quickly and accurately. Not having Electronics1 means very little, you just don't get the positive DM for having the skill.
MgT on the other hand has Electronics divided into separate skills - Comms, Remote Ops, Sensors &ct and ad nauseum. This sets up an expectation and renders PCs 'helpless'. The Player may well not even try to grab a stationary sensor pack from the next trade stop because they don't have the Sensors skill! Why? Because there's a -3DM unskilled lockout penalty. A standard roll goes from 8+ to 11+!!
Seriously, going from 42% to 8% isn't just a change in probability, it's a STRONG signal that if you don't have Sensors skill, you can't read sensors. Humans create heuristics, they don't keep percentages in their heads.
There are 'rules' in place that partially cover these events - Engineering (J-Drive)2 is Engineering(Everything Else)0, JoAT reduces modifiers or turns dangerous situations into "I have Required Skill0". But there's still a hole - these are cludgy fixes and can cause problems (JoAT being the center of a LOT of controversy).
At the same time, differentiation is a good - A 2-term Marine and a 4-term Scout (yeah, right!), should be capably different. My argument is that it's easy enough to create that differentiation with just a FEW skills and a minimal lockout penalty, and not a plethora of increasingly specialized minutia.
Also to take under consideration, there should be some skills that the players can NEVER have, this encourages them to seek out people (roleplaying!) and hire them (resource management!). Stuff like sages with esoteric science knowledge, starship construction experts, colony management specialists, imperial bureaucratics, manufacturing moguls and code-jockeys (yup, even CT has something I would cull).
Here's how I would address the issue:
Boom. Done. The unskilled are slow. The skilled are fast and can get faster, nobody is locked out because 'they don't have the skill', and players have their all-important agency returned to them - because that's what this game is all about - Player Agency. We should be working towards maximizing it in interesting ways.
But, (and isn't there ALWAYS a 'but'?) players perceive skills as 'permission to'. And lockout conditions limit their imaginations and constrain the players, and the more skills there are, the more self-limiting their behavior.
Skill lists reduce player agency in direct proportion to the length of the list.
Example: CT has the Electronics skill and no standard lockout mechanism. Electronics lets you work on and operate electronic systems. When the comms gear breaks (pulled out of ship's stores on a tramp trader and it's FUBAR? Say it ain't so!), they'll break out their imaginations and raid the toolbox and use Electronics1 to go ahead and fix the problem. Laid out a sensor grid? Great! Electronics1 means you can get results quickly and accurately. Not having Electronics1 means very little, you just don't get the positive DM for having the skill.
MgT on the other hand has Electronics divided into separate skills - Comms, Remote Ops, Sensors &ct and ad nauseum. This sets up an expectation and renders PCs 'helpless'. The Player may well not even try to grab a stationary sensor pack from the next trade stop because they don't have the Sensors skill! Why? Because there's a -3DM unskilled lockout penalty. A standard roll goes from 8+ to 11+!!
Seriously, going from 42% to 8% isn't just a change in probability, it's a STRONG signal that if you don't have Sensors skill, you can't read sensors. Humans create heuristics, they don't keep percentages in their heads.
There are 'rules' in place that partially cover these events - Engineering (J-Drive)2 is Engineering(Everything Else)0, JoAT reduces modifiers or turns dangerous situations into "I have Required Skill0". But there's still a hole - these are cludgy fixes and can cause problems (JoAT being the center of a LOT of controversy).
At the same time, differentiation is a good - A 2-term Marine and a 4-term Scout (yeah, right!), should be capably different. My argument is that it's easy enough to create that differentiation with just a FEW skills and a minimal lockout penalty, and not a plethora of increasingly specialized minutia.
Also to take under consideration, there should be some skills that the players can NEVER have, this encourages them to seek out people (roleplaying!) and hire them (resource management!). Stuff like sages with esoteric science knowledge, starship construction experts, colony management specialists, imperial bureaucratics, manufacturing moguls and code-jockeys (yup, even CT has something I would cull).
Here's how I would address the issue:
- Reduce skills to no more than 20. No cascades. All skills are very broad in application.
- Everyone gets EveryWeapon0 and EveryLandVehicle0
- Unskilled Penalty: -1DM. Hand out a couple Level0 skills according to HW and TL.
- Moving up the time chart (taking longer): +1DM. (MgT has a clever little time chart) E.g. Going from 1-6 seconds to 1-6 minutes eliminates the "I don't have the skill" penalty. Now, skilled people are faster at their stuff and can be even faster when time is an issue, whereas the unskilled are slow and plodding.
- JoAT becomes: Pick any skill you like and don't already have, get it at Skill1
Boom. Done. The unskilled are slow. The skilled are fast and can get faster, nobody is locked out because 'they don't have the skill', and players have their all-important agency returned to them - because that's what this game is all about - Player Agency. We should be working towards maximizing it in interesting ways.