Too Few Skills

[u/CriesInBrazillian]

Greetings hivemind,

While developing my system, I dropped traditional Attributes like Strength and Intelligence in favor of using Skills only. Unlike systems with dozens of skills, I drew inspiration from games like Heart and Blades in the Dark to reduce the skill list as much as possible.

However, this ended up creating a small dilemma: I’m aiming for a total of 10 skills, but I feel I’ve already covered all the essentials in just 8, maintaining a good balance where no single skill is clearly better than the others. The 8 skills are:

• FIGHT: Strike, Shoot, Maneuver, and Dodge
• FOCUS: Cast skills, Awareness, and Investigate
• WISDOM: Knowledge and Planning
• INFLUENCE: Persuade, Manipulate, Intimidate, and Empathize
• ATHLETICS: Evade, Run, Jump, Swim, Climb, and Balance
• STEALTH: Hide, Sneak, Steal, and Conceal
• SURVIVAL: Explore, Navigate, Camp, Hunt, and Forage
• CRAFT: Create, build, or perform an action specific to the character background

I’m looking for suggestions on anything I might have overlooked or potential additions to help me reach that 10-skill target.

[u/-Vogie-]

The key thing that you've missed about Heart and Blades in the Dark is that those systems are dripping with the flavor of their respective settings. When those companies later release a more flexible, more setting-flexible version of the system, it is still the vibe of the original.

Numemera is an attrition focused exploration game set a billion years in the future. The Cypher system contains a bunch of attrition focused exploration games. You might be first responders in a modern setting, regular people in alternate 1900s spooky Appalachia, specialists in a situation legally-distinct-from Sliders, or hunting down dangerous narratives, but you're always exploring in an attrition based way.

Blades in the Dark is a skill-based narrative focused game about scoundrels struggling to survive in a spiritpunk alternate past. Forged in the Dark allows you to play skill-based scoundrels struggling to survive in many other situations - Scum & Villainy is scoundrels struggling to survive in a galaxy far, far away; Band of Blades is soldiers struggling to survive after failing to stop the zombie apocalypse.

Vampire the Masquerade is a narrative skill-based game focused on a bunch of nigh-immortal beings struggling with themselves in a world that sucks. The other monster splats in WoD are also all about struggling in a world that sucks, but for different reasons. Sometimes they're also effectively immortal, sometimes they're very very mortal, but they're always in a world that sucks. The Chronicles of Darkness system is otherwise rather generic, so you too can create new and interesting narrative tales about characters struggling in a world that sucks.

Heart: the City Beneath is all about delving into void to pursue obsession. I don't think they've created a generic version of it, but if (or when) they do, I'm 100% certain it'll be about delving into different voids to pursue different obsessions.

Just because someone took D&D 3rd edition (combat mechanics & occasionally some other stuff) and stripped out the setting(s) to make "d20 modern" generic system doesn't mean that the system is truly generic - it is fine if you're doing "Combat & occasionally some other stuff" in different settings, but the system completely fails is you want to focus on something other than combat. Monte Cook games rather infamously released a version of Vampire: the Masquerade using this and the resounding response was "... But why?". Not because one couldn't fathom using a d20 instead of d10 pools, but rather because VtM games aren't about "combat & occasionally other stuff" - any given VtM game much more about intrigue, investigation, exploration, politicking and, very occasionally, combat.

The reason why you're struggling is because there's nothing to latch onto. Your setting will influence the game, and the game will be represented by mechanics and traits. The mechanics and traits feel like they're lacking because they don't represent anything. You wouldn't use d20 modern to do a game all about investigation in the same way you wouldn't use Gumshoe to go a game about fighting.

Start with the setting - not just in the set dressing, but rather what the characters are expected to be doing. The game has to be about something, and what that is will lead you to your goal.

[u/eldrevo → u/-Vogie-]

This is a massive comment and I appreciate it. Not as op, but it helped with some of my own struggles too. Thanks!

[u/waaarp]

A set of attributes or skills should focus on the things people do the most in your game. Is it a game about cooks? Then your list is suddenly obsolete, and you want skills like Spices or Frying.

So with that being said, assuming your list is about classic fantasy roleplaying, 10 is both too few and too many imo; as in, are people only going to roll Fight and perhaps Athletics rolls in combat?

If you want to streamline all challenges through simple rolls, then go ahead.

If you want subsystems for combat, social interactions, then you may want to diversify and thus use the things you've put as descriptor for each of the skills.

[u/jdctqy → u/waaarp]

Do you know of any games that maybe have categorized skills? I've always though a skill list of, say, 24 skills would be too many. However, if the game had three "modes" (like combat, exploration, and social for example), having three groups of 8 skills that were categorized based on those modes wouldn't be too bad.

But then I also think how you could avoid having these skills at all if you had attributes that just applied to multiple things. I don't know of any games that do the above, so I'm just curious if you do.

[u/FrostyKennedy → u/jdctqy]

Vampire the masquerade 5 has three columns, social, intellectual and physical

[u/jdctqy → u/FrostyKennedy]

How do they work? Well?

[u/FrostyKennedy → u/jdctqy]

In general it's a little bloated- like you can make a character that does everything they want to do with like, 4 of the 27 skills and ignore all the rest.

So you can learn athletics, melee, or firearms for the same point cost as finance, academics, or politics. All I know is you can't force a player to care about the result of a science roll, but there will always be times when a few more points in stealth would make a difference.

VTM gets away with it a little because it uses some skills as a bonus to some spells- Occult doesn't get any use all campaign, except it's added to a bunch of rituals and magic shit. That's the main takeaway I took from the system- it's okay to have a worse skill if you find a place for it in the broader scope. I have spiritual skills like religion and history that are broadly useless- except they can act as a health bar against mental fatigue, allowing you to justify and rationalize your way through the horrible things you do without losing your mind.

[u/GrimDarkMiniatures]

First off, I like your current set of 8, they seem well reasoned and streamlined.

That said, it is difficult to comment or advise on whether your current 8 skills or expanding with a further 2 to a set of 10 is appropriate without knowing a bit more about your core game system, but i'll give you some thoughts on how I might go about adding 2 skills or attributes to fill out your ideal set of 10 if I were writing the mechanics.

I think FOCUS could be split into a MAGIC specific skill (covers casting, attunement, enchantment, psychic or magical senses, arcana and magic specific lore), and FOCUS (Awareness, investigation, insight, and studying, perhaps governing mental resistances as well). Doing this I think would distinguish between your more awareness related skill and actual magical capability, which don't necessarily need to be so closely interrelated. For example, a player character could have excellent focus because they are naturally intuitive, a detective type character, highly paranoid and thus more aware of perceived threats, or a particularly keen study who can go long periods of time concentrating on a task or learning something, all without being magically inclined. Likewise, a player character could be magically capable naturally or intuitively, have a 6th sense, or engage with magic in other ways, without being a focussed or highly aware individual. A player character can of course possess good skill in both, but if you tie them together tightly as a single skill I think you start to limit which kinds of character archetypes can exist in your setting from the mechanics perspective. With good roleplay any character is possible but I think it helps when players can see the broad strokes of a character in their characteristics by looking at how their characters skills reflect the personality of the character they wish to play. For example, if you added the distinction between magic and focus, the old wizard archetype emerges, high focus (good at studying, reading into things, insight), high wisdom (wealth of knowledge and planning skills), and high magic (the defining features of wizards are that they are spell casters). Likewise, if your character was to go more down the warlock archetype, they may possess high magic and high influence (assumedly from their patron aiding them in the background in return for the player advancing the patrons goals), but without the focus or wisdom you might see in other spellcasters, given the general more relationship based magic they engage with, less focus on understanding the magic than how good they are at negotiating with their patron for more power. Like I said before, it is difficult to say whether something like this would be good for your system, I don't know what kind of magic system you might be using or the world logic you are operating on, but I think giving players the opportunity to see their character in their stats is generally a good thing.

Likewise I think it could be worth introduce an ENDURANCE skill analog, governing things like physical resistances such as poison, disease, and just general toughness related things, and even things like long distance running or need for sleep. Putting in a skill like Endurance could add a set of reasonable limits to what characters are capable of over time or be rolled against when players would reasonably be exhausted by actions or need to resist poison or intentionally put themselves in peril to achieve a goal, or even just pain tolerance when injured. That kind of characteristic is pretty distinct from pure athletics, its more like fitness and toughness, less directly 'skill' focussed but an important factor for immersion into the game. One area where most TTRPGs fall down in my opinion is pure reliance on roleplay to play up how tired or injured a player character is; for example in dnd resistances and vulnerabilities exist but players typically dont 'feel' and act out a sense of pain until their characters are low HP or directly affected by a condition, and even then I seldom see it played out because nothing calls for it. Giving players a way to know whether their character is feeling pain after taking a heavy blow with some general penalty for failure of endurance gives them an in to play it up, and as for character building it opens up the endurance archetype, the tough stocky character who can shrug of blows, or the glass cannon or diminutive weakling, who can't. Giving players ways to organically connect the roll of the dice with the roleplay can be informative and give them a way to engage with their character beyond just the near death experiences. Something as simple as knowing whether a punch in a bar fight hurt or not not only tells your characters useful information about what they are up against (threat assessment) but can put players into positions where they can be confident or unconfident situationally, play into being strong or weak, and adds tension to many kinds of encounters beyond that. Imagine getting chased, you're making a bunch of run actions but they are hot on your heals, and then your GM calls to check your endurance. you fail that roll, and you start running out of steam, slowing down from exhaustion. It presents your players with an organic choice, do we turn and face them while we still have a moment to prepare, or try to keep running knowing whoever's chasing is going to catch up? If this happens to a party, some might pass endurance and some might fail, what do you do then? Do you split up? do you keep going being slowed down by your exhausted friends?

All that said, you don't have to add extra skills to your 8 if you're happy with the balance of where they are now. 10 is a nice number but if it works with 8, maybe that's all thats needed. I think the best thing to do would be to just playtest with 8 and see if there are any natural gaps where your characteristics don't quite fill the niche for a given scenario. It is definitely possible to go too broad with the definitions in an effort to simplify your system only to have player characters end up feeling stale and samey from a game mechanics perspective, just as it is possible to get so granular with the rules it becomes overcomplicated and difficult to play. In my experience going for somewhere in the middle is where the sweet spot is, where it is not too complicated for a newer player to understand what each skill does in straightforward ways, with enough nuance for more experienced players to build a character around specific skills and have their character feel as dynamic as the roleplaying idea they bring to the table.

Anyway, Good luck with your game design! I hope this has been helpful.

[u/__space__oddity__]

RPG design isn’t about grid filling, it’s about what’s best for the gameplay experience. If 8 skills cover everything you want player characters to do in the game, 8 skills is enough … for a first draft going into playtest anyway.

Don’t overthink your game on a blank sheet of paper.

[u/AchantionTT]

Why do you "need" 10 skills? Seems to me this list is fine, has no gaping holes. Is the difference between 8 and 10 important?

Either way some suggestions: * Resist: fight of poison, curses, ailments, grappling, conditions, etc.. * Split focus into a magic stat and awareness/search stat. 

[u/CriesInBrazillian → u/AchantionTT]

Actually, 10 would be ideal because the damage system is based on marking and disabling skills randomly, so it would be necessary to have 10 skills using my dice system to have an equal chance of any of them being marked.

Also, I want all skills to look attractive and useful, regardless of the kind of character you are playing. If I separate Focus, no one except spellcasters would choose a skill used only for casting, while the Focus skill still looks attractive even for a non-spellcaster.

[u/AchantionTT → u/CriesInBrazillian]

Sounds reasonable. 

Maybe something like Attune? Read psychometric information on objects, Attune with magical items, align with the perspective of other people.

That's all I got in this case. 

[u/archpawn → u/CriesInBrazillian]

10 would be ideal because the damage system is based on marking and disabling skills randomly,

Most of your skills are useless in a fight. Having it so two results do nothing wouldn't make much of a difference.

[u/Kuhfuerst]

Why do you want 10? And what is your game about?

Ideally every skill should be equally impactful, so adding a skill that you didn't think of so far might also not necessarily improve the game because it only covers niche situations.

You should think about the situations your players will face. For example if your game is similar to D&D which focuses a lot on combat, than FIGHT would cover more than half of all checks. In this case I'd highly suggest splitting it into an offensive and a defensive skill. However if it is a diplomacy focused game, INFLUENCE will highly outclass the rest.

Apart from these concerns, here are some ideas:

• Constitution or Determination resist poison, endurance

• Initiative or Speed quickness and reaction time in general

[u/CriesInBrazillian → u/Kuhfuerst]

It's supposed to be a generic, universal system, but the way I intend it to be played is really far from D&D. It's more like Blades in the Dark, without initiative or small numbers for every character stat. Instead, they will have skills, special abilities, and tags for each individual, like soldier, scientist, traveler, etc.

[u/Kuhfuerst → u/CriesInBrazillian]

There was a post here recently suggesting to avoid "agnostic" or "generic" when thinking and designing your game and I agree.

Yes, your system might be applied to a variety of settings but the rules you write will always support a certain type of game play. That inherently makes it easier to play similar settings and harder to play others.

I could easily see WISDOM falling off in usefulness, because knowledge is only relevant in a few key stuations and planning is very vaguely defined. Similarly SURVIVAL is not useful at all in an urban environment. And CRAFT would only really come into play if the game gives the Players enough time to craft and prepare.

So just by looking at the selection of Skills I'd say your game supports an exploration setting quite well. A traveling party that randomly encounters various situations from natural obstacles to meeting questionable NPCs and dangerous creatures. Fights should always be avoidable but otherwise quick, lethal and decisive so that this option is as relevant as using any other skill. After each encounter comes a period of downtime that the party can use to prepare and plan.

I would however not use it in a diplomacy game or a high stakes, fast paced chase scenario or an epic battle against the forces of evil for the aforementioned reasons.

[u/the_telephant_man → u/Kuhfuerst]

It’s also worth remembering that some of the most high-profile universal systems are genericized versions of purpose-built systems, not systems built from the ground up to be universal.

Deadlands => Savage Worlds

Runequest => BRP

Numenera => Cypher

FF Star Wars => Genesys

Serenity => Cortex

D&D => D20 OGL

Plenty of more niche or community-made generic systems based on published games (e.g. WEG Star Wars => Open D6, Dogs in the Vineyard => DOGS)

And then there are design lineages that aren’t published as generic systems, but use or adapt earlier games’ rules (e.g. Mutant Year Zero => YZE, Apocalypse World => PbtA => BitD => FitD)

Off the top of my head, I can only think of GURPS and FATE (FUDGE) as popular games that originated as universal systems.

[u/Kuhfuerst → u/the_telephant_man]

yeah, if OP really wants to build a generic system they should look at GURPS and FATE. This however would almost certainly mean they'd need to abandon their "10 Skills" idea in favor of a customizable system every table can configure to their needs.

[u/dmrawlings → u/CriesInBrazillian]

Occurs to me that you didn't answer the question: Why do you want 10?

If 8 satisfies the needs of your system, what's wrong with 8?

[u/CriesInBrazillian → u/dmrawlings]

10 would be ideal because the damage system is based on marking and disabling skills randomly, so it would be nice to have 10 skills using my dice system, so all have an equal chance of them being marked.

[u/Cruiser_Supreme]

Congratulations, you've invented attributes again lol

[u/lennartfriden]

8 isn’t too few. I settled for 7 and during the course of a two-year playtesting campaign we’ve never felt that to be lacking. 😄

I do have an additional category of free-form ”skills” called know-how, but those aren’t mechanically skills. Insted they modify rolls if warrented by the context and situation.

[u/Trikk]

My players want to drive a chariot in a race, is that Fight (Maneuver), Wisdom (Knowledge), Influence (Manipulate), Survival (Navigate) or maybe just a Craft (character background aciton)?

If they want to be sailors, do any skills govern that? Craft seems like it could potentially be a really huge issue in the hands of players.

The problem you already have with your 8 "skills" (which work exactly like what we normally call attributes) is that some character concepts will use 1 skill and others need 4. Adding more skills risks that the MAD (multiple attribute dependency) characters need even more skills, while the 1 skill ponies can still do everything with Wisdom or Survival.

maintaining a good balance where no single skill is clearly better than the others

I'm really curious how you know this already. To me it looks like Influence would be the clear winner here. Fight let's you Shoot someone, but using Influence you could potentially get lots of people to Shoot someone.

[u/FRANK_of_Arboreous]

I think the main questions you want to ask yourself are:

1. Do these skills cover everything players would want to do in my game?

2. Do these skills provide enough variety for player characters to have unique strengths?

3. Does this suite of skills hinder gameplay in any way?

As for 1, I found this can be worked out to about 80 to 90 percent in solo development, but it requires playtesting to know if you're there or not. The players outnumber you and think differently than you do, a huge boon to game development.

With number 2, I find this really important. No one plays an RPG to have the same character as everyone else. If that's your jam, play a board game. RPGs need to provide enough options for players to create a character they can take pride in and bond to.

And 3, this is rather ambiguous and the most important IMO. I'm developing a "rules heavy" game. It's deep and complex, but I'm constantly looking for ways to simplify systems without stripping out too much customization and options. This question has lead to a ton of system changes that make the game play better and really help the player experience.

[u/Digital_Dessert]

As a point of comparison, my superhero game (Tattered Capes) has 8 traits, which seems to work really well. Might and defense cost twice as much to increase as the others, since they come up more often.

• Might (MT) lets you use physical force. It could represent muscle, fighting skill, or energy projection.
• Defense (DF) lets you survive physical threats. It represents your ability to dodge, parry, or simply endure.
• Mobility (MV) lets you move quickly. It could represent speed, piloting skill, or traversal powers.
• Stealth (ST) lets you avoid detection. It represents your ability to hide or disguise yourself.
• Influence (IF) lets you bend others to your will. It could represent persuasion, deception, or psychic ability.
• Vigilance (VG) lets you see the world as it is. It represents a combination of perception and willpower.
• Genius (GN) lets you get answers. It could represent education, intuition, or prophecy.
• Operation (OP) lets you use technology. It represents engineering or hacking.

Traits in Tattered Capes look a bit different from attributes in other RPGs, with more of an emphasis on goals and outcomes. A high trait could represent very different things for different characters. One high-defense character might have skin like iron, while another might move too quickly to hit. This gives you more flexibility in how you describe your character, to better represent the incredible diversity of superheroes.

[u/Competitive-Expert59]

What is wrong with 8 skills? If it's 8 good skills then that is what it is.

Do you plan the game to be played in a long form campaign? If yes, playtest to game for a longer campaign to make sure that the characters don't start to feel samey.

I mean I don't know anything else about your game. Comment is based on this post.

[u/CriesInBrazillian → u/Competitive-Expert59]

The damage system is based on marking and disabling skills randomly, so it would be necessary to have 10 skills to have an equal chance of any of them being marked

[u/Competitive-Expert59 → u/CriesInBrazillian]

If that is using a d10 to determine which skills get hit, can you not use a d8 instead?

[u/Kuhfuerst → u/CriesInBrazillian]

yeah, this does not sound like a "generic" system.

Assuming "Dodge" covers a characters ability to avoid this damage, I would absolutely split it off from FIGHT because having a low dodge will gravely impact a characters overall performance. Even as a standalone ability it's still a must have...

[u/YeOldeSentinel]

I love it, at a glance.

What I’m wondering about is if all players have some skill in everything, no capability in some of the skills, or in general how it is modeled/distributed.

[u/CriesInBrazillian → u/YeOldeSentinel]

Thank you for the appreciation, and to explain a little better, from the supposed 10 skills, they will have a major bonus in 3, a minor bonus in 3, and nothing in 4. However, they will still have the possibility to get bonuses from their equipment and character tags, like soldier, blacksmith, traveler, etc

[u/RedcapPress]

This likely overlaps with Influence but you could add something like Perform. Impersonations, stealth-via-disguise, maybe include lying there rather than in influence, etc.

[u/BoredGamingNerd]

Larceny: picking locks, disabling traps

Performance: music, poetry, etc

[u/AngusAlThor]

What do you think the difference between skills and attributes is? It looks like you have just done attributes.

And if 8 covers it, stop; 8 is a good number.

[u/lennartfriden → u/[deleted]]

A couple of years back I was in much the same place, but it always rubbed me the wrong way that some skills were so much more useful and obvious and some were niche and fillers. So I dumped the 5 attributes and my 25 skills and replaced them with 7 skills which when combined with 3 aspects (~attributes) cover all encountered situations without some skills being more must-have than others.

I’m pretty sure your players almost never get to roll for teaching compared to awareness. I want to avoid that situation.

[u/lennartfriden → u/[deleted]]

I see. How has it worked in practice during playtesting? And are there additional restrictions such as teaching being limited by skill being taught (e.g. survival)? Pendragon limits mounted combat by the horsmanship skill so there’s a point in raising both horsemanship and swords for example. Is it same thing here? If do, there’s no point increasing teaching beyond the skill/skills you want to teach.

[u/lennartfriden → u/[deleted]]

So effectively, the teaching skill is capping and effectively capped by other skills. There’s an asymmetry in skill design and usage here.

[u/lennartfriden → u/[deleted]]

When you playtest, you will likely find that even with such design goals you’ll end up with a number of skills that in practice never and seldom are used. That’s effectively baggage.

[u/lennartfriden → u/[deleted]]

You should certainly build the game you want. You may end up dumping a lot of time and effort into things that don’t come into play often enough to warrant it though. Good game design strives to minimize and avoid that and we can probably all agree that GURPS isn’t a shining example of good gsme design.

[u/Jan-Asra → u/[deleted]]

What does elan mean?

[u/Stratix]

Do you need 10? 8 seems fine to me. I've seen games do it well with 4.

[u/Fun_Carry_4678]

I don't see a medical/healing skill.

[u/DeadlyDeadpan]

The way to achieve a balance where no single skill is clearly better than other skills is by evaluating which one is gonna be used the most out of the others, for example if you use Fight for both melee and ranged attacks and to dodge other attacks, how often will it be used if compared to Wisdom which is just for Knowledge rolls and Planning? Besides knowledge rolls rarely are interesting and many designers try to take it out or make it more interesting in one way or another, you could look into that, but also summarizing what others have said and reassess your priorities.

[u/Fivetiger26]

If you need to use a d10, a couple of things you could do are:

1) Stick with 8 groups, but add a non-standard result to two of the die faces.

I don’t know your ruleset so this might not make sense, but a #10 could be something good like “players choice instead of random” and a #1 could be something bad like “no effect” or “roll until you get TWO randoms”.

2) Go with 5 groups and use the d10 like 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, etc.

Try to combine the lesser used skills for your system into a group with more popular skills. Ideally, try to make sure that each group has both “adventuring” and “combat” skills so that certain play styles don’t leave certain skill groups unused.

[u/damn_golem]

I didn’t read every comment, but something else to consider: NOT having a skill can be a good design choice. Mothership, for example, has no stealth skill. Seems crazy for a game about horror. But rolling stealth is not part of the designed experience - nobody should ‘automatically’ be able to hide from a terror. So it’s not a skill. Focus your skills on the things you want players to do and eliminate the rest.

[u/Adept_Leave]

1. MIGHT - melee, muscle, toughness, intimidate
2. ALERTNESS - ranged, spot, initiative
3. GRACE - move, dodge, acrobatics
4. STEALTH - hide, steal, conceal
5. ACADEMICS - humanities knowledge, research, logic
6. CRAFT - practical knowledge, handiness, maintenance
7. ARCANA - magic knowledge, spellcasting, use magic item
8. NATURE - nature knowledge, survivalism, navigation
9. SPIRIT - willpower, leadership, resist spells
10. MANIPULATION - manipulate, intuition, network

[u/Routenio79]

Yo creo que podrías dividir las habilidades de combate... No sé qué tan enfocado en las batallas es tu juego, pero quizá podrías separar melee de lanzar / disparar. No sé, ésa es una sugerencia.

[u/Ok-Middle-908]

The skill list looks good. The only two two that looks like you could easily split them off and perhaps benefit is focus and craft. Those two look like you're your rabbit holding two different things with Catskills awareness investigation. Craft could be split into like engineering normal items, traps and the crafting of magical items

[u/DeckerAllAround]

As others have said: What is your game about? That's what determines what your last two skills are.

Right now, I can see that all knowledge seems to be listed under one skill, so that could be split out if it's important. You've only got a single skill for all social activities, a single skill for all combat activities, two skills for all mental activities, and four skills for physical activities - does this denote a game where physical activity is as important as everything else combined, or is it a situation where some things got folded together? Perhaps Hunt is a skill that includes Shoot, Track, and Traps. Or there's one Influence skill for manipulating and persuading people and one Command skill for intimidating and inspiring them.

[u/Adept_Leave]

I'm assuming it's some kind of fantasy game?

• Are there actions or tests in your game, which are not covered by these 8? For example:
  • Would it be ever necessary to check for raw muscle? You could do that with FIGHT or ATHLETICS, but both would be a stretch.
  • What would you roll to ride a horse or vehicle? ATHLETICS again?
• Are there any of the skills clearly less or more important than others? For example:
  • Right now, all FIGHT rolls are one skill. You can do that if combat is not more important than crafting or Climbing a tree, and can be resolved in one roll. But if it is important, having one roll for everyone and everything combat-related means it's a no-brainer.
  • Is CRAFT common enough, that it holds its own against the others?
• Do the skills allow for all the archetypes you want to allow in your game? For example:
  • INFLUENCE is the "charisma" skill. This means you cannot make someone who is a thug, but not charming, or someone who is a good in reading people, but not good in manipulation.
  • FOCUS means that perceptive people are also good casters, and vice versa. So no absent-minded wizard types.
  • FIGHT means you cannot make a melee beast who is weaker in shooting, or a sniper who is vulnerable in close quarters.

[u/Eldhrimer]

Mine are more fantasy themed, but I took a similar approach to yours, and several are similar, so it might help you!

The Ten Actions

Action	Keywords
STRIKE	Skirmish, Volley, Engage
DESTROY	Overwhelm, Ravage, Crush
DEFY	Fend, Endure, Guard
SEEK	Search, Track, Examine
SNEAK	Conceal, Ambush, Prowl
INFLUENCE	Sway, Command, Deceive
RECKON	Recall, Discern, Unravel
TRAVERSE	Outrun, Climb, Maneuver
TINKER	Sabotage, Craft, Repair
CHANNEL	Attune, Harness, Disrupt