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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8963146" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think this is a very good argument for there being no Platonic ideal skill list.In a Cthulhu Dark session that I ran, one PC was a journalist and another was a legal secretary. These both seem to fall under Academics, but played reasonably differently at the table.A different example: In our Classic Traveller game, we've had multiple PCs with high EDU, and one of the interesting things is working out what that represents. One of those characters has a PhD in XenoArchaeology. The other two, both of whom had quite low INT and had spent time in military service, were extremely familiar with various service manuals. These differences, which we extrapolated from the way those PCs and their backstories emerged out of the Traveller PC-gen minigame, support interesting differences in action declaration and action resolution.I can think of at least three PCs where Cooking skill has been important to them: one of the PCs in my first Rolemaster campaign (the PC was a Mystic, so many of his spells were similar to AD&D PHB Appendix I psionics - eg he could heat material, create fire, etc, and would use this to support his cooking); my Burning Wheel PC, a knight errant who can cook while camping; the Dwarven Outcast in my Torchbearer game, who can use his skill while camping or journeying to make provisions go further, a big deal in Torchbearer.One of the other PCs in that first RM campaign had skill both in skiing and in long-distance running. The player was (and remains) very athletic, and his PC reflected that. The character could travel overland, even in winter, better than anyone else. (The character also had excellent juggling skill.)None of this is an argument that anyone else should break up Academics skill, introduce Cooking or Skiing, etc. But I think it's an argument that there is no "ideal" skill list. If you add Skiing to your list, you're inviting someone to make a PC where being able to ski is an interesting element of that PC. As it was in our game.</blockquote>

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