A lot of my current work is focused on getting the trainers just right. The monsters will probably be easy, but striking the correct balance on the trainers is going to be tricky. The goal is to make character creation as flexible as it is in the other DGS games, with a fun balance of trainer/monster mechanics to enforce the idea and feel of the game.
So, I’ve discussed Attributes a bit, going in line with what the other DGS titles have had. For Skills, I’m looking at consolidating in an attempt to simplify the skill selection process. API had 20 Standard Skills and then 12 Fight Skills, with 6 Spectral Skills. Wu Xing followed suit with 20 Standard Skills and then 11 Fighting Skills. With the introduction of Part-Time Gods and the DGS-Lite system, which Sinister is borrowing from a little bit, we were 24 Standard Skills and then 8 Manifestation skills.
For Sinister, I’m looking at cutting it down to a solid 15 skills. Not planning on any secondary (or tertiary) skills at this point. Here’s what I have so far for skills:
- Athletics (running, jumping, climbing)
- Command (persuasion, leadership, intimidation)
- Crafts (sculpting, repair, creating)
- Empathy (sense emotion, sense lying)
- Fighting (punching, kicking, weapons)
- Integrity (physical or mental resistance)
- Knowledge (languages, general/specific)
- Marksman (shooting, throwing)
- Medicine (heal, bandage, diagnose)
- Perception (see, hear, search)
- Performance (act, sing, instruments)
- Sneak (stealth, pickpockets, lying)
- Survival (tracking, wilderness)
- Technology (computers, security, hacking)
- Travel (drive, pilot, riding)
So far, I’m pretty happy with the list. Narrowing it down this much has been a lot of fun, but hard as hell. I’m thinking that monsters will sometimes give bonuses to these skills, but most of the time the trainer will have to rely on their own skill to do them. Just think of it, sending the monster to fight while the trainer hot-wires a jeep (Crafts) or a dual performance from a trainer and their monster for the rest of their group. Fun things come when you add in skills.
Working, working, working. If anyone has ideas on skills, I’d love to hear them.
Until next time.
My only thought is that you’ve set up a fairly standard method for your skills and I can think of one way you can (sort of) stick with it. That is to have your 20 (or fewer) standard skills for your character and then a separate set of ‘monster skills’ for the monster; most likely these would translate to your ~10 fighting/manifestation skills. Just an idea, though.