Skills in TTRPGs
I had a revelation last night, as I was trying to go to sleep. It was sparked by a conversation with Jared Rascher on social media (@whatdoiknowjr.bsky.social). It's a pretty simple realization: most tabletop roleplaying games have too many skills. Let me explain.
In many ttrpgs, there are skills for most of the things you might want to do in a game. Sometimes , they are separate from combat ability (D&D and its many emulators) and sometimes, combat abilities are also skills (FATE, GURPS, World of Darkness). Either way, there can be a bewildering array of skills, even when the basic skill list looks simple.
In D&D 5th edition, for instance, there are: Athletics ,Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, Religion, Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Perception, Survival, Deception, Intimidation, Performance, and Persuasion. Pretty simple, covers the bases. But there are also a staggering array of other 'proficiencies' with separate ones for every possible kind of tool, musical instrument, vehicle, you name it.
Other games with 'simplified' skill lists also suffer from this profusion of hidden skills in some way. Current world of Darkness, which has it combat skills right in with the others, has this skill list:
Athletics, Brawl, Craft, Drive, Firearms, Larceny, Melee, Stealth, Survival, Animal Ken, Etiquette, Insight, Intimidation, Leadership, Performance, Persuasion, Streetwise, Subterfuge, Academics, Awareness, Finance, Investigation, Medicine, Occult, Politics, Science, and Technology. Looks a little more complex, still workable. But. Academics, Craft, Science, Tech, all have required specialties to do specific things. It's realistic, to an extent, but I'll cover why that's not as important as one might think in a bit.
You'll note that both games, and many others, separate Perception from Investigation. The idea is one is just looking and the other is careful searching. The number of times there has been confusion at a table over which one to use when is very high. Both games also allow you to use each skill with any stat that makes sense, baked right into the rules. So why not just have Wisdom (Perception) for just noticing, and Intelligence (Perception) for searching? Wit+ Awareness in World of Darkness, or Int +Awareness? Seems easier to me.
The other thing is, all these skills, in both games, have the same cost. The same opportunity cost, the same weight in character creation. But the skills are not equal in play. In D&D, you roll Perception constantly. Athletics, acrobatics, stealth. The social skills come up less, most of the time. The mental skills pretty often. But even with bards in the game, how often do you roll Performance and have the outcome actually matter in the game? It costs just as much as Athletics. Is it worth as much? Especially when you also need a proficiency in the specific instrument you are playing?
Another example is Craft in WoD, tools in D&D. How often does making things come up in the regular course of the game? Often enough that each kind of making things is separate? Often enough that you need smith's tools, tinker's tools, and woodcarver's tools as separate proficiencies? I'm not saying don't have the Craft skill. In fact, I'm saying do have it, in D&D , instead of 'tool' proficiencies. Likewise things like Science. Do I really need a separate spec in Biology vs Physics? Realistically, yes. But we're usually not trying to simulate reality. We're simulating, if anything, the fiction of our fantay and sci fi worlds. And in the fiction, Spock, for instance, knows all the sciences. McCoy can tend wounds on a silicon based sludge. Uhura can translate nearly any language. For Scotty and Geordi, engineering is engineering, whether it's a warp core or a trebuchet. And for the level of impact these skills have in TTRPG compared to the other skills, that's perfectly reasonable. If I'm paying the same points for craft that I am for Melee, I want it to be just as valuable.
Performance, in most cases, should cover it all. The instruments, etc are fluff, unless the skill suddenly becomes way more valuable in these games.
In short, all I'm saying is that you should curate your skill lists so that the skills have the same value in your game if they have the same costs, and especially if, like in D&D, you don't get very many of them.
