As Rafe suggested, here’s a separate thread for discussing skills for the Star Wars hack.
First, I quote myself (since it is always about Me!):
The full skill list (thus far) will be in a follow-up post.
Here’s the list so far. There aren’t enough skills to replace everything that I don’t feel would fit the futuristic setting.
(EDIT: Updated list on following pages.)
Administrator - Unchanged
Archivist - Unchanged. Jedi have a big library.
Artillerist - Big soldierly weapons & ship’s guns
Artisan - Maker of any non-tech stuff, from sculpture to tailoring
Battle Meditation - the Star Wars hack version of Weather Watcher
Deceiver - Unchanged
Droidsmith - Droid makers, and also the Star Wars version of the Loremouse skill
Engineer - fixing tech
Farmer - from Moisture Farmers to whatever
Fighter - Unchanged
Force Sensitive - using the Force, can be used as an alternate skill in various Contests, can be used as a Base for Disposition in various Contests (think Simahanda/Prana Bindu in Burning Sands)
Herder - Mostly nerf herders, but any animal handler
Instructor - Unchanged
Laborer - Unchanged
Medic - the Star Wars version of Healer
Commander - (per Luke’s suggestion, which seems like a better term for the hack)
Musician - musical performance arts, perhaps to be exchanged for “Performer”
Navigator - plotting a course through hyperspace
Orator - Unchanged
Persuader - Unchanged
Pilot - Piloting anything from pod racers to starfighters, primary skill for dogfights
Programmer - computer & droid skills, not related to the physical tech. If you want to rewrite code, and make tech do something else
Scientist - Similar, but maybe more “Researcher” than “crazy Sprucetuck mouse”, following Luke’s admonition
Scoundrel - sneaky thief-y, anti-security stuff
Scout - pretty much unchanged, plus some Pathfinder applicability, maybe Cartographer in other senses
Survivalist - pretty much unchanged, maybe some of the Pathfinder spillover? Physical survival skills, like cutting upon a Taun taun or building a shelter to survive on Hoth
Trader - the Star Wars version of Haggler
…
Skill concepts on the fence…
Banker - added below, because you need financiers!
Dancer - as separate from Musician. Think: Cook is different from Baker in Mouse Guard.
Scavenger - tech-y version of Survivalist? Do we even need Survivalist if nature/weather is not an obstacle?
Guerilla/Saboteur - mostly for demolitions & physically breaking stuff
…
All these ideas are not set in stone.
Also, for reference & a framework for considering skills, a sample set of Hazard/Obstacles for the Clone Wars would be:
Separatists, Diplomacy, Space, Technology
(Fight the Separatists. Spread positive feelings for the Republic. Navigate through Space. Deal with tech problems.)
Nature/Wheater is an obstacle when you go down to planets. I think Survavilist and Pathfinder are required Skills.
Nature in planets: Snow, forest, swamps, water…
Nature in space: Asteroid fields!
These are what I came up with over lunch. I have used “engineer” here in the same sense that we refer to the garbage man as an “urban refuse engineer”. On reading the skills of Mouse Guard it struck me that each skill is really a cluster of skills. Each representing a broad field of capability. I have consciously not split them out and specialised them.
Administrator => Administrator
Apiarist => pick some economically important exotic beast that is different from the rest of the beasts. This skill covers that one. Maybe people extract some medically important drug from the beast. Something that slows down aging?
Archivist => Archivist, in the information age what happened last week is already forgotten. The archivist knows what happened in the past.
Armourer => Blaster and Body armour Engineer
Baker => Food Technologist
Boatcrafter => Starship Engineering and Operation. This is used to operate starships and vehicles in a non combat situation.
Brewer => Brewer, beer is eternal.
Carpenter => Droid Mechanic
Cartographer => Astrographer and Planetary Surveyor
Cook => Nutritionist and Home Economist
Deceiver => Deceiver
Fighter => This skill is used for all hand-to-hand, blasters and ship to ship combat. All of the fighty types in the movie can shoot and pilot. As far as the movies go there is not any need to split them, those who were combat pilots were also good with blasters. About the only thing that I could see splitting out would be light sabre. That only because it was seen to be so strange and different. But fighting with a light sabre should probably be subsumed in what ever skill/attribute that defines Jedi Knight.
Glazier => Sensor and Hologram Engineer
Haggler => Haggler
Harvester => Exotic Environment Miner – like cloud or asteroid mining. Also Vapour Farming.
Healer => Medic
Hunter => Bounty Hunter
Insectrist => Exotic Beast Handler (Taun Tauns, Banthas and Gladiatorial Arena Beasts)
Instructor => Instructor
Labourer => Service Worker or Petty Bureaucrat
Loremouse => Loremouse, applied to exotic beasts instead of animals.
Militarist => Militarist
Miller => Metallurgist or Industrial Chemist
Orator => Orator
Pathfinder => Hyperspace Astrogator
Persuader => Persuader
Potter => Plastics Engineer – Tupperware Salesperson? Your call.
Scientist => Scientist
Scout => Spy/Saboteur/Guerilla
Smith => Computer Engineer
Stonemason => Construction Worker
Survivalist => Apply to Exotic Environments
Weather Watcher => The Force
Weaver => Fashion Designer
Wises => Whatever-wise.
I don’t like “Force Sensitive” as a term.
Militarist should just be Commander in SW.
Scientist cannot stay the same. There are no natural philosophers in the SW universe.
See, when I say “Service”, I mean non-industrial & non-labor. “Service” includes C-suite executive officers (CEO, COO, CFO)… but maybe the “service” word is something lost in translation.
America is post-industrial, for better or worse. This is why I don’t find tradeskills to be very modern. I don’t believe the setting supports makers of things in the way that Mouse Guard must have mice making things. It’s a combination of automation (droids & robotics) along with complexity (hyperdrive manufacture is a different order of complexity compared to fletching an arrow).
What we need are Bankers & Financiers, Accountants, Politicians, Lawyers, Nurses, Entertainers, and so on… not Smiths, Carpenters, Masons.
(So… ideas for new skills:
Banker - because there’s a Banking Clan! Maybe a way to regenerate Resources.)
However, this is my opinion… others will have other opinions. I’ll make comments as things come to mind.
Bacta? We haven’t touched it yet… but Bacta manufacture is perhaps even more rare than Jedi.
Bacta is the most movie-ish thing that I can think of. Kolto is history by the time of the Clone Wars, I think. There may be other, more obscure EU things, though. I wouldn’t be able to come up with one.
Blasters are something you acquire in the setting, not create. Blas-Tec weapon designers aren’t the focus of this hack.
If you’re saying that there should be a skill to maintain these weapons, it might be adequate… but you’re still talking service industry rather than manufacture/industry.
And if that’s the case, why can’t there be Financiers & Accountants? Those are much closer to the halls of power than the Ugnauts in the pits.
These two skills are another area where I think they need to be dumped or lumped in a Star Wars hack in order to make room for service jobs, especially Dancer & Music since those are a part of the movies.
Yes, but you just acquire it. You don’t make it in the setting. Princess Leia or Queen Amidala… they don’t have a moonshine still. I agree that beer is important, but I don’t like craft skills in the Star Wars context… but this is the ongoing argument on my part.
Now that’s an interesting thought… I like separating them (and I’d point to Leia & Amidala again), but others must have opinions about this.
The more I think about Fighter as including the pilot idea, the more I like it…
Another skill needs to incorporate the Scout part in Chase conflicts for Mouse Guard, though. Do we need a “Smuggler” skill, or “Blockade Runner”? Those might be a bit specialized, but I’d have to think about it.
Sensor ops & Crypto/comms were areas I was considering when I made up “Crewmate” in an earlier incarnation. I don’t know if Engineer/maintainer is what I was after, though.
I think this could work… especially since it’s such a defined role in the movies.
Is this the source of the “service” as base of the pyramid thing? Maybe it’s an Aussie English interpretation of the word that we don’t have here in America.
And I think we need Slaves, as in physical Laborers. IMO, Laborer has to stay.
See, Beast hunting is relatively small in the movies. There’s the Rancor & the thing on Geonosis, but the concept isn’t the same for Star Wars.
I’d rather make it Droid-based for the Clone Wars.
Again, I believe there are these individuals in the setting… but not in terms of who the players would be running, and what skills they’d have.
…
In general, I think the ideas are not off… but the term “Service” must be lost in translation.
I’d rather lose the differentiation in Engineer, and then build up what I call “service” functions. From Banking & Legal work, to Dancers & Musicians.
Force Sensitive is admittedly a carryover from various other Star Wars RPGs. I was thinking “Jedi” as a skill name, just to keep it simple… and “Force User” or “Midichlorian Mogul” or something like that - they are all just too goofy.
If “Jedi” is a skill, though, then Sith would have to have a “Sith” skill that does what Jedi does… except it’s called Sith for Sith.
…
Commander makes sense. It has a better feeling for the setting. Militarist did have a touch of an archaic feeling, like Sun Tzu or something (in a way that Sun Tzu doesn’t make sense in all of something more modern, unless you are Gordon Gekko)… and Militarist has that logistics/“une armée marche à son estomac” thing in it, and maybe that logistics part belongs elsewhere.
I think I get what you’re saying about Scientist as well. Scientist includes making crazy explode-y things to scare away huge, nasty Bears in Mouse Guard. Scientist, as in a Xenobiologist or some other research-driven discipline, is less of a Skill and more of a Wise. Scientist might not even work at all in Star Wars, as written for Mouse Guard… although the “Scavenger” hack might be a semi-analog.
So, maybe Scientist just goes away in favor of specific Skills that mean what we expect them to mean in a Star Wars setting. Scientist is cool, but kind of setting-specific in the way that Weather Watcher is.
…
Thinking of Logistics… maybe Administrator should be “Bureaucrat”, and then we can add “Banker” (because Bankers are the eeevvilll today, or something)… although maybe “Banker” just falls under the Resources umbrella.
Okay, last thing before I pass out…
I know skills need to be built with Tests in mind. Otherwise, a skill with no prospect of Testing is pretty much dead weight.
BUT, my view of Star Wars skills is colored by my concepts of Star Wars, and through my education & experience in the work force. I see more singing & dancing in Star Wars than specific craft/repairs, but I can also see how others would argue for specific repairs & less singing…
It is what it is, and while I do get grumpy, I also do try to listen.
…
Also, remember that these types of skills have to go into what the Younglings & Jedi Initiates learn in Recruitment. If you replace Apiarist & Stonemason apprenticeships in Mouse Guard, then there’s another thing that goes in place of those for the Younglings. So there has to be enough skills that make some sense for Younglings in the Jedi Academy.
Won’t somebody think of the Younglings?!!
Why not just “Force”?
The word choices of the other skills (points at Luke or whomever chose that naming pattern). Apiarist, Fighter, Stonemason - these are all people who practice an art or craft.
“Force” would be the medium of the art, where “Jedi” or “Sith” would be a practitioner (completely ignoring the Expanded Universe with variant Force traditions).
I tried to get at it through “Force Sensitive”, implying that a “Sensitive” is a kind of person who senses the Force… but it also was a carryover from other Star Wars RPGs.
Forcer!
Seriously, though… this might be a toughie. Might just want to go with Force User, as bland as that is, or something similar. Maybe Disciple of the Force?
Disciple, Knight, Jedi, Sith.
You could split force into Jedi and Sith skills, each with their own factors.
That. Each could advance on their own, seperate ways. Also, the thought of using the Force for defense, would be perfectly acceptable. Sith Skills being used could be used for offensive maneuvers, in that regard. Using either might affect your Nature, with what you’ve been discussing on light vs dark for Star Wars Nature.
Fighter would be appropriate for Attack or def, correct? and Commander would likely be useful for maneuver or Feint?
(Ooooh, Jedi skill for Maneuver and Sith skill for Feint? that way both have more than one option in a combat situation)
That sounds great, actually.
Okay, I can see Jedi and Sith skills being separate.
To riff off of Silvros’ post, maybe make Jedi universally replaceable for Defend and Maneuver, and Sith for Attack & Feint? (Except for Commander. So we’re only talking individuals, not group affecting skills)
If this is the method, then I’d want more divisions in other Contest skills. So Fighter and Pilot need to be separate skills, for instance. This potentially elevates the Jedi & Sith skills through repetitive use & advancement.
Okay, to reset & recap, as I see it.
Archivist - Unchanged. Jedi have a big library.
Artillerist - Big soldierly weapons & ship’s guns
Artisan - Maker of any non-tech stuff, from sculpture to tailoring
Battle Meditation - the Star Wars hack version of Weather Watcher (Q: we’re still going this route?)
Bureaucrat - replacing administrator
Commander - (per Luke’s suggestion, which seems like a better term for the hack)
Deceiver - Unchanged
Droidsmith - Droid makers, and also the Star Wars version of the Loremouse skill (Q: still doing this, or ditching it?)
Engineer - fixing tech (Q: do we want specific engineer skills?)
Farmer - from Moisture Farmers to whatever
Fighter - Unchanged
Herder - Mostly nerf herders, but any animal handler
Instructor - Unchanged
Jedi - Light-side Force abilities. Universally usable in most Contests for Defend & Maneuver
Laborer - Unchanged
Medic - the Star Wars version of Healer
Musician - musical performance arts, perhaps to be exchanged for “Performer”
Navigator - plotting a course through hyperspace
Orator - Unchanged
Persuader - Unchanged
Pilot - Piloting anything from pod racers to starfighters, primary skill for dogfights
Programmer - computer & droid skills, not related to the physical tech. If you want to rewrite code, and make tech do something else
Sith - Dark Side Force stuff. Can be used in most Contests for Attack & Feint
Scoundrel - sneaky thief-y, anti-security stuff
Scout - pretty much unchanged, plus some Pathfinder applicability, maybe Cartographer in other senses
Survivalist - pretty much unchanged, maybe some of the Pathfinder spillover? Physical survival skills, like cutting upon a Taun taun or building a shelter to survive on Hoth
Trader - the Star Wars version of Haggler
…
Skill concepts on the fence…
Banker - because you need financiers! And the Banking Clan in the Clone Wars
Lightsaber or Duelist or Uruwashii or something - the art of swordsmanship, lost due to the invention of the blaster. This may necessitate…
Soldier - replacing Fighter, covering Blasters & perhaps the aspects of Guerilla (see below)
Dancer - as separate from Musician. Think: Cook is different from Baker in Mouse Guard.
Scavenger - tech-y version of Survivalist? Do we even need Survivalist if nature/weather is not an obstacle?
Guerilla/Saboteur - mostly for demolitions & physically breaking stuff
Bounty Hunter - I like the idea, but maybe it should be Bounty-wise? It could be like another Loremouse-style skill, however.
Sensor/Crypto/Comms - not sure what to name it, but it is sometimes an important skill
…
All these ideas are not set in stone.
I can’t stay away!
Are you sure you’re not looking for a Technician skill rather than Droidsmith and Engineer? I mean Luke can fix droids and X-Wings apparently without much formal training.
I like the idea that Jedi and Sith are used for lightsaber fights/actions.
I like Soldier better than Fighter.
I like Performer encompassing Musician and Dancer. Come on, man. The game is about pulp action. It’s not the same survivalist feel as MG.
Saboteur sounds more Star Warsy.
Why would Sensors be different than Pilot? What role do you see this skill filling in the game?
<whistles innocently>
Admittedly, some of those are hangover concepts from the BSG hack. Engineer & Sensor/DRaDis ops being big there. Technician sounds better than Engineer in the Star Wars context. Sensors don’t really need to be in.
Comms (especially scrambled) might be important in a Rebellion-era thing, and also in eras where Jedi Council oversight is important.
Dancer & Musician. Sometimes, life gives you Ewoks, and you can’t always turn them into Ewok lemonade? I was going to suggest that Dancer could be used for physical grace to overcome various obstacles (balancing on ledges, skipping through minefields, etc)… But that can work with Scout or something. As a sometimes musician who can’t dance a lick, it’s hard to combine them (unlike Baker & Cook).
Okay, gotta finish cooking lunch for the kids.
Sorry. When I use the Force, I want to use THE FORCE. I don’t want to use Jedi or Sith. I want to Obi-One say me: “Use the Force, Anakin.” And use it. Maybe is only me, but this what I think about this. xD