Let's talk about skills in RPGs. I think skills are interesting

I think making a game built around the skills would make skills a tad more useful. I'm trying to make a game like that, though it's slow going.

But what games have skills that you feel are done as an afterthought?

Easier to list games in which they don't feel like an afterthought. I think the trouble for me is that most RPGs can have a bunch of skills but the combat section out is almost always longer and more complex by a wide margin.

Two notable RPGs that I think have good skill systems are Basic Role Playing and unironically GURPS.

>>54810890

What makes them both good though?

Skills are godlike tools that help make a character feel more real.

I have yet to find a system that fucked up skills.

>>54809845

Arbitrary skill lists are a toxic idea that needs to be eliminated from the industry. It applies to stats too, but it's often way, way worse with skills.

Looking at an RPG's skill list should tell you what that RPG cares about. It should convey its priorities through which skills are specific and which are broad. A game about spies might have a dozen different skills for aspects of the craft, but a pulp game might have all that condensed into two or three.

A skill list should be fundamentally rooted in the tone, theme and genre of the game. If you do so, it's basically always going to be an asset.

The problem is lazy or ignorant devs who fill their games with pointlessly long and expansive skill lists, covering things their system clearly doesn't care about but putting them on par with things which are nigh on necessary to function. That's a real way to fuck up a skill system.