Another short RPG system, based on a conversation with Jota and some other folks the other night.

The idea is, any action you try is covered by both a specific skill and one (or occasionally more) broad traits. If you have a relevant trait, you can roll that, otherwise you can roll the skill. If you don't have either, then you can, if you want, try to spontaneously acquire the skill. This might succeed or it might not.

Traits: Which traits exist in the game depend on the setting, but for a 7th-Sea-like game, here's a good set:

• Dueling - swordsmanship, acrobatics in combat
• Seamanship - sailing, fighting at sea, maintaining ships
• Intrigue - politics, spying, assassination
• Courtier - politics, etiquette, fashion, dancing
• Criminal - stealth, lockpicking, blackjacking
• Wilderness - hunting, trapping, herbs
• Explorer - ruins, scholarship, bullwhips
• Military - heavy weapons, tactics, contacts among soldiers
• Streetwise - finding your way around the city, street contacts
• (Some more for magic -- probably two traits per magic type to keep them slightly expensive)

Skills: Probably at character creation, everyone can assign four or five points to skills outside their traits (or inside, but there's little point in doing so).

Spontaneously acquiring skills: As mentioned above, if you want to do something in play that you don't have a relevant trait or skill for, you can try to acquire it. I think the rough deal is you have like five acquire points to start. If you want to spontaneously acquire a skill, you pay a point and flip a coin. Heads means you can use the skill just this once as if you had two points in it. If you want to pay a second point, you can keep it at the 2-point level permanently. If the coin flip comes up tails, write it down on your sheet as a -1-point skill -- this turns out to be something you're particularly bad at.

Advantages and Disadvantages: I'm not really sure what the deal is here, but it seems like you ought to be able to pick up Dueling but say "but I don't actually know how to use a sword" or something. I guess you probably get a couple advantages and disadvantages that you can use for that kind of thing.

Raising skills and traits: Probably it costs the new value you want to raise it to, in points, to raise a skill or a trait. Yes, this means traits are much more cost-effective. Skills that are currently -1 cost three points to raise to 1. Note that there's no provision for gaining new skills or traits out of play -- you can get new skills in-play by flipping, and you don't get new traits.

Actually making checks: I dunno, you end up with a range 1-5 or so for the things people are rolling with, so probably you just roll that many d6s and count how many 5s or 6s the people get, and that gives you some successes, and you try and get more successes. You can probably get a few bonus dice for being clever about your action.