If they are going this way (and it sounds like they may not be) I would prefer them to go "all the way", as it were. So rather than your background giving you a list of skills at +3, your background is your background, and you get a +3 to any ability check in which your background comes into play.The Heroquest stuff sounds interesting. That is what I am hoping for. More advice for the DM on how to adjudicate the skills.
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Without Skills being so much as a system on their own, there is the chance to really diversify here and make some interesting backgrounds...and characters with different skills
So if your background is "Trained in the grand army of Karameikos", then any time that is relevant - pitching a tent, palling it up with Karmeikian NCOs, etc - you get to add +3. If your background is "Apprenticed as a wizard of the Spiral Tower", then you have a different backstory to draw on to get your +3.
One advantage of going this way, I think, is that players who push hard to broaden their skills will also have to give the GM the necessary backstory narrative to hang that on - which then gives the GM new material on the basis of which to introduce complications or challenges for that PC, and the group more generally. So it is at least a bit more self-regulating as far as balance is concerned.
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