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Friday, February 20, 2009

Spirit of the Code - Skill List

My skill list for Spirit of the Code is currently as follows. There are currently 23 different skills. I'm still working through them so this is not a final list and any feedback (If anyone reads this) would be welcome.

Academics [Knowledge]
Alertness
Art [Knowledge]
Athletics [Physical]
Contacting
Deceit [Social]
Digital Warfare [Digital]
Empathy [Social]
Endurance [Physical]
Engineering [Knowledge]
Hacking [Digital]
Intimidation [Social]
Investigation
Leadership
Might [Physical]
Programming [Digital]
Rapport [Social]
Resolve [Social]
Resources [General]
Science [Knowledge]
Self Defense [Physical]
Stealth
Systems Operation [Digital]

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Since hacking is the knowledge of systems and their holes, thus hackers are by default system administrators, arent the skills:

Digital Warfare
Hacking
System Operation

rather redundant?

Dusty said...

I feel that they aren't redundant because of the setting. Since the story is about the digital world the normal "Computer" skill that most modern games have is subdivided into 4 different skills.

Since computer skills are very important to the setting it seems silly to only have one skill for it. Therefor by having multiple different computer skills it stresses the importance of those sorts of skills.

Mike Olson said...

As long as they don't all do the same thing, they aren't redundant.

Look at physical conflicts. Three skills (Guns, Weapons, Fists) actually deal stress, three (Weapons, Fist, Athletics) are used defensively, and others (Athletics, yes, but also things like Might and Intimidation) can be used to maneuver new aspects on your opponent.

Every skill that's going to be involved in a conflict should fit into one of those three categories: Offense, Defense, Maneuver. Ideally, Offense should only be one or two skills, Defense should be two or three, and Maneuver should be... well, most numerous, because maneuvering ought to be a flexible and attractive thing. This is all IMO, obviously.

Dusty said...

Thanks for your feedback.

Hacking, System Operation, and Programming definitely do different things. I do feel that Digital Warfare is sort of hazily defined though.

Hacking and Programming are fairly definite skills which are fairly easy to tell where the begin and end. System Operations seems to be a catch-all general computer use skills, and Digital Warfare is computer skills applied to digital conflicts that isn't Hacking...

I do feel that I should redefine System Operation and Digital Warfare but it is difficult what to turn them into.

Currently my Conflict breakdown is divided into...

Offense
Hacking
Digital Warfare

Defense
Digital Warfare
System Operations
Athletics*

Maneuver
Hacking, System Operations, other

Programming is not typically a conflict skill and is more similar to Engineering.

*Because of Digital Rule 11 most actions in the augmented reality can be physically dodged.
(http://dustinswede.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-digital-world-works-part-1.html)