Closed Raise the Maximum "Skill Areas" to 10

[Wes]

For a long time, the minimum skill areas has been seven. This is kind of restrictive, and not necessarily in a good way. I think because the skill section is now optional, and most people just link to the list of common skills, this point of friction has been largely ignored for years. Yet today I saw a member get tripped up by it and I want to make an idea suggestion while it's on my mind.

If the skill section is optional, why are we uptight about the number of skill areas?​

In order to reduce this potential choke point of Skill Area selection, one easy solution is to be more permissive with the amount of skill areas.

This is a proposal to edit the Creating a Character guide's rather ancient CCG Skills Page to allow for 10 skill areas instead of 7. This should be substantially easier for people to cram in what they want or need.

 

[Sunny D]

I feel like as long as there is a story behind their acquisition (and it doesn't need to be terribly complicated, just x amount of time learning y skill where x is reasonable for y). Not all skills are created equal and it gets more granular when it comes to levels of competency.

 

[raz]

You know, to be an officer ranked character in the Star Army, you need all seven of those skills dedicated to basic + history, law, and speaking? Not even enough room in seven skills to have specific occupational skills from the get-go. I've never really minded because you can pick up skills for your character through experience pretty quickly and no one cares anyway.

I had to do this with my first non-mustang character and, though she has gained more "fun" skills in RP, her wiki page does look a little sparse. For a subsequent character, I just didn't list any skills at all and included a few hobbies in her personality/history.

Your proposal is a fine fix, but another alternative might be: "All occupational skills are free then you get to have 3 personal skills not tied to your character's military profession."

At the end of the day I don't think anyone really holds anyone else to the "seven skills" standard unless some new player is dumping like 20 deep knowledge areas into their Santo Hei.

 

[Ametheliana]

I've always felt it was smaller so that new player characters would have room to grow. If they've got too much going for them, it can also be hard for a GM or even the player to hone in on what the PC can have tailored for them or what they might do in a situation. Plus it limits a problem [albeit one that doesn't normally come with characters we play and keep growing consistently] of potentially being over-powered for the context of their plot.

But if people are tripping up over it, I can see it better to change it.

 

[Soban]

If the skill system is optional, why have any limit or max?

 

[Wes]

Suggestion trashed due to not being popular.