Noodling/Permissions RPG

Observation: when you're designing a system and thinking about what characters can do, there are a couple axes to consider on. For instance:

• Is this something that requires specialized training or is it something that anyone can do?
• Is this something where being good at it (and maybe being the only one who is good) is core to someone's character concept?
• Is this something that comes up frequently or infrequently?
• Is this something where every PC who can do it is good at it, and/or where everyone with the skill is roughly as good as each other?

To be more concrete, some rpgs have a driving skill. Usually the way it works is the driver character types all have this really high, and nobody else has it at all (and further, in practice there are very few driving scenes). Sorcery is similar in terms of how the skills get bought, but it gets used more frequently than driving does since it's essentially a replacement for various other skills at different times. Finally, fighting is something that almost everyone has and in, say, FATE, the expectation is everyone is roughly equivalent skill-wise (or some people are "broader" but not "deeper") (whereas in dungeons and dragons it's ok to have people at different skill levels in combat because they're making it up with magic or whatever).

So one thought here is to get rid of all of these as skills and replace them with permissions. Skills can be only for cases where they get checked relatively frequently and where it's practical for different PCs to have them at different levels, and where they don't require specialized training (which is to say it makes sense for all PCs to have the skill at some level). In a sense this is exactly arguing for attributes over skills, which I guess I'm ok with, but these attributes would include stuff like "stealth" that traditionally gets slotted more on the skill side. Looking at my usual list (Academics, Athletics, Brawn, Community, Fingersmithery, Nature, Reflexes, Resolve, Riding, Sailing, Science, Stealth, Weapons), I think it would ditch Community, Riding, Sailing, and Weapons. Since Community was the only real social one, I think it would need to add something else there.

Then the deal is if there's no driving skill, if you're driving in a chase with somebody else (implied: you and they both have driving permission), you pull in your other skills instead. If you're trying to, I dunno, zoom by them, that's a reflexes roll, whereas if you're trying to slip onto the back roads and bypass them, maybe that's stealth.

I don't know how permissions get defined. One possibility is this system has aspects, and aspects give permission if you can argue they do (I think this is exactly how standard FATE works, although it it still has a bunch of "permission skills"). You can further add a thing where the GM says "hmm, I dunno, I think that costs you a fate point if you want to do it" for tangential stuff, so then you have "yes permission", "no permission", "permission if you pay". This is potentially broken with aspects like "jack of all trades", though. I don't know what to do about that - maybe instead each aspect has N slots that you can write permissions in, no questions asked. Or this could be a thing where the setting actually defines what stuff needs permissions, and you buy it out of a separate pool. On consideration, I'd probably do a mix of the two - list things in the setting that need permission (although it's probably not an exhaustive list), and you pick up permissions with aspects. This might slant things too much towards "background" type aspects (like, Hot-Headed is unlikely to pick up any permissions) but probably it doesn't matter much in practice if people decide to have 3 background-type aspects or 5 or whatever, as long as they have some.

Sample permission list for swashbuckling game:

No permissions needed:

• Fighting with any weapon, except firearms
• Any athletic-type moves
• Basic horse riding
• Knowing the customs of different places
• Basic language comprehension

Easy permissions (ok to use aspects as justification even if the permission is fairly tangential, like an aspect of Noble could give advanced horse riding):

• Advanced horse riding skills
• Using firearms
• Picking locks
• Sailing/navigating/firing cannons on ships
• Sailing boats
• Using war weaponry (cannons and other siege engines)
• Speaking/writing a language fluently

Hard permissions (the link between aspect and permission should be pretty tight; a single aspect probably can't justify more than one of these)

• Knowing a specialized dueling schools and its associated techniques
• Being able to do a particular kind of sorcery