Skill System Primer

The following materials based on FUDGE, entitled the Otherspace Skills System, were originally created by Andy Laugel and made available by Andy Laugel, rewritten by the players/staff of Otherspace: Millennium/Otherspace: The Farthest Star in 2008 and Jenna Clark (Dice), coded by Sean Sabbage (Ifrit) and are not authorized or endorsed in any way by Steffan O'Sullivan or any publisher of other FUDGE materials. Neither Steffan O'Sullivan or any publisher of other FUDGE material is in any way responsible for the content of these materials. Original FUDGE materials (c) Copyright 1992-1995 Steffan O'Sullivan, All Rights Reserved.

The skill system on OtherSpace was created for one major purpose: to serve as impartial, fair arbitration for conflicts that naturally arise in the course of RP. That said, several guiding principles drove the creation of this system. It was written to be flexible and balanced without permitting characters to excel in every area, letting newbies be competitive with older characters while still allowing room for growth and rewarding long-time players for their investment in the game. In order to achieve a balance between these competing goals, this system was dreamed up- taking the best aspects of our two former games, Otherspace: Millennium and Otherspace: The Farthest Star- and incorporating them into something in-between.

The skill system on OtherSpace, like most MUSHes, is more similar to a tabletop-style experience than a Mud. Instead of having a lot of specific coded commands that automatically roll your skills, OtherSpace lets characters choose when to roll their skills and what to roll. There are still rules, but this results in a great deal of flexibility. A locked door can be picked, broken down, gone around- or the key can be stolen off a guard.

In that vein, instead of a score system like MUDs, OS uses a +sheet command that displays your character sheet. This sheet sums up everything that your character can do, providing a snapshot of his/her/its strengths, weaknesses and abilities. The following document will tell you what everything on a character's +sheet means, how to build one, and how to use the +sheet once it's created.

Now, on to an explanation of the system itself...

Characters in the Otherspace Skills System are largely defined by three coded types of traits; attributes, skills, and GFQs (gifts/faults/quirks). These three factors, acting in conjunction, describe most of the aspects of your character and what he/she/it can do.

Attributes and skills are described by eight main levels in decreasing order of excellence: Legendary (8), Superb (7), Great(6), Good(5), Fair(4), Mediocre(3), Poor(2), and Terrible(1). Due to the inherent variability in the dice, rolls above Legendary or below Terrible may be seen at times- these are represented as Legendary+1 or Terrible-1 (or Non-existent), and etc.

For skills, a Fair can be considered about the rank of a beginning professional in a field, and Good the mark of someone able to comfortably make a living. Great is someone with a marked talent and special training, Superb represents both innate talent and years of dedicated practice, and someone with a Legendary in a skill might be known across planets for their talent in that area. PCs are supposed to be exceptional, but please try and keep your skills in line with your characters' backstory and accomplishments.

For attributes, a Fair before scaling is considered average for a member of your race. One can consider the distribution of attributes around Fair to probably be something of a bell curve- the vast majority of people would be close to the average, with ever-dwindling numbers at the high and low poles. Once again, PCs are supposed to be exceptional- so don't feel too bad if your character has a few higher attributes than the norm.

GFQs do not have levels- they are binary, either being on your character or not.

Now, let's look at these three types of traits in greater detail...

Attributes represent your character's basic competency in eight different domains; largely mental domains (Intelligence, Willpower, Charisma, Perception and Psi) and largely physical domains (Brawn, Dexterity and Reaction). Attributes are tied to skills; the list below details the purposes and domains of each. The specific mechanism by which attributes tie to skills will be explained in Skills and How to Build a Sheet.

Intelligence: Basic raw thinking ability/speed of mental processing and learning. Intelligence helps with scientific skills, computer-based skills, and many engineering skills. It may be rolled on its own for rolls involving memory and thought not governed by an already-defined skill.

Willpower: Strength of mind over body. Willpower helps with skills such as psionic resistance and pain resistance. It may also be rolled for general tests of mental strength that are not governed by an already-defined skill.

Charisma: Innate ability to command respect/affection from others- in short, people skills. Charisma helps with social skills of any sort, from singing to lying. It may also be rolled for attempts to charm NPCs that are not governed by an already-defined skill.

Perception: Attention to detail, both in terms of physically sharp senses and mentally sharp insight. Perception helps with a wide variety of skills that depend on keen senses, such as firing guns, some medical skills, and others. Perception should very rarely be rolled by itself; the skill Observation covers many things plain Perception would be useful for.

Brawn: Sheer physical prowess; this attribute represents both strength and constitution. Brawn governs damage done in melee combat, amount of damage a character can take, and is tied to a few skills that require hardiness of body. Brawn may be rolled for feats of strength or endurance that are not governed by an already-defined skill.

Dexterity: Physical coordination and grace, both full-body and with one's hands. Dexterity helps with many combat skills, musical instruments and several other skills that require talented hands. Dexterity may occasionally be rolled for miscellaneous physical trials that are not governed by an already-defined skill; however, many of those will fall under the skill Athletics.

Reaction: Speed of one's reflexes and movement. Reaction helps with piloting, evading bullets and emergency medical care. Reaction is rolled by players to determine who acts first in combat.

Psi: Basic innate psionic potential. Many races will not get this attribute at a usable level. Psi governs all psionic skills, and at least a Fair is required to use psionic powers. Psi will very rarely be rolled by itself.

Skills represent the trained abilities, rather than natural potentials, of your character. Every skill is tied to an attribute to represent the effect of your natural potential on your ability. Your default level of a skill will be based off the relevant attribute; to determine the default level, the tied attribute is divided by 2 and rounded down.

Starting Attribute-----Default Skill Level

Terrible Non-Existent

Poor Terrible

Mediocre Terrible

Fair Poor

Good Poor

Great Mediocre

Superb Mediocre

Legendary Fair


Skills can be scaled by other things on your sheet, mainly GFQs. When a skill is scaled, a number will appear beside it on your character sheet; green for a positive scale, red for a negative one. What this means is an effective boost for that skill; a Good(+1) skill rolls like a Great skill, but only costs as much as a Good skill to improve to the next level, and is treated like a Good skill in terms of all skill limits.

Otherspace has over 150 skills, divided into multiple categories. These allow you to build nearly any sort of character you would desire; the +skills command in-game will allow you to see the full list. +skills may be divided up for easier reading by three methods; by the category of the skill, the attribute the skill is tied to, or the cost of the skill. +skills medical will show you all medical skills, +skills brawn will show you all skills tied to Brawn, and +skills tier three will show you all skills of middle cost. Costs are represented by tiers; tier 5 is the cheapest and tier 1 the most expensive. More in-depth information about costs and raising skills will be included in section 6.

Gifts, Faults and Quirks, or GFQs for short, are various positive, negative or simply unusual facets of a character that don't fit into traditional Fudge levels. Gifts have positive coded effects on characters, faults have negative coded effects, and quirks are not coded, but simply represent some fact about the character. GFQs can cover anything from psionic powers to personality aspects to physical disabilities. A full list can be found on the game by typing +sinfo list gifts, +sinfo list quirks, and +sinfo list faults- or simply +sinfo list gfqs.

This section concerns the nuts and bolts of the skills system- your actual +sheet as a character.

To create a new character, one can either use the web-based chargen (more details later) or go through the character generation, or chargen, exit from the location in which one starts. This is accomplished by typing 'cg'. Once in chargen, you'll have to answer a series of 20 questions that indicate you're a mature roleplayer who understands the inevitable pitfalls of playing in a world with in-character consequences for in-character actions.

After that, a character will have to choose their race. Information on races can be found elsewhere in this wiki, along with the coded implications of each racial choice. Races come with different default skills, scaled attributes and starting GFQs.

Once race, gender and other such beginning details are selected, it's time for the biography! The bio needs to be at least 250 words long, describing the character's origin, background and life story in a third-person format. Consider including details such as home planet, age, childhood/family, first romantic interest, and any formative events. Also in the bio, you'll need to think about two issues- the starting RPP you want and your GFQs.

RPP, or roleplaying points, serve as OS's 'xp'- the currency that buys you skills and gfqs. All new characters will start with at least 1000 RPP; people who wish to play older or more experienced characters should detail both the desired amount of RPP and their justification for it. Characters cannot have more than 4000 RPP's worth of skills on their sheet; it is unlikely that any starting character will get a full 4000, but the award will be based on what your character's life story justifies.

GFQs are received at chargen, and any requests for them should be included in the biography you submit. Future GFQs may be added to your +sheet through the course of play as logical consequences of your roleplay. However, the sum total of GFQs you request beyond your starting ones should equal no more than 180 RPP and no less than -180 RPP.

There are several basic kinds of GFQs worth noting. Improved/Impaired gifts/faults will scale your attributes; this works the same way as scaling a skill. A number appears by the attribute, and that attribute's effective level is altered by that number, both for rolls and for calculating default levels. Cost is still based off the unscaled level, however.

The Training GFQs are also likely to be of interest to most characters. Combat/Computer/Engineering/Medical/Pilot Training are five mutually exclusive GFQs that represent your character's main area of competency. Taking a skill that falls into one of these five groups without the proper GFQ will cost double for all ranks beyond Fair. This keeps characters from being a doctor/pilot/ninja, or possessing any other combination of skills that would in real life take far too much time in training to attain at high competency.

Most other GFQs that don't fall into the two above categories will scale skills, and should be considered based on issues of backstory and practicality alike. Asking for a ridiculous number of gifts and a ridiculous number of faults may cause your application to need revising- the GFQs you request should be clearly grounded in your character's backstory.

Once your bio is approved and you've been awarded your starting RPP/GFQs, it's time to go ahead and build the character. The first step to take should be raising your attributes, as the levels of your attributes will determine the cost of your skills. Raising skills first will greatly increase their cost and get you much less bang for the buck.

Attributes default to Mediocre, with most races having at least one attribute scaled. Every character receives 64 points to raise their attributes, with currently no additional points available after chargen. Remember, attributes are very important to your character, both in roleplay and in terms of code capacity, so please think carefully when you set them in creation! When you're out of attribute points, that's it- you won't get any more later, unlike RPP. Costs can be checked by typing +sinfo (any attribute) while in-game, but a basic rubric is as follows:

Terrible-Poor: 4
Poor-Med: 2
Med-Fair: 2
Fair-Good: 4
Good-Great: 6
Great-Superb: 8


Attributes cannot be raised higher than Superb before scaling; to lower them below your character's starting level requires a +str to the admins with justification of your reasons. Psi cannot be lowered beyond Mediocre, and must be at least Fair after scaling to allow a character to use the psionic gifts that they have.

Now that you have GFQs and attributes set up, you can finish off by buying the meat of your +sheet- the skills.

Skill Synergies/Default Ranks:
You'll have several skills above the level of Non-existent that won't show on your +sheet until you +raise them. This is because there are three different ways to obtain levels in a skill; default levels, synergy levels, or raised levels. Default levels are the levels derived from your attributes; synergy levels are derived based off skills you already have. You may notice some +sinfos have an "Affects:" or "Affected By:" field; skills that "Affect" other skills give you a default rank in the skills they affect that is two levels lower.

An example would be Engineering; Engineering affects Mechanic, so any character who purchases a Great level in Engineering will find that their Mechanic skill will roll at Fair. Looking at the +sinfo of a skill will always tell you your effective rank; the "Your Level" field displays the highest value among default ranks, synergy ranks, and ranks you have bought with XP.

Costs:
As mentioned before, skills fall into five tiers, with base costs of 5/10/15/20/25. The progression of these costs from Terrible to Legendary is as follows: 1x/2x/3x/4x/5x/10x/15x/20x. This means that Greats, Superbs and Legendaries are all much more expensive than lower-level skills, with a Legendary in a tier one (or base 25 cost) skill costing over 1000 RPP to reach from its default level! An example set of costs per level would be, for a base 15 cost skill: 15/30/45/60/75/150/225/300. Remember, these costs are doubled beyond Fair if you lack the appropriate Training quirk... so specializing heavily outside of your character's training will cost you.

A maximum of 4000 RPP can be put onto a character's sheet; this is the only restriction on skills, other than that a character may have only one effective Legendary skill once scaling is taken into account. Ranks that are given to you by a synergy or by default through the attribute tie do not cost anything to raise; if you have a Great attribute and you raise a skill tied to it from Non-existent to Fair, you will only pay for the raise from Mediocre-Fair, as your attribute automatically gives you the skill at Mediocre for no cost.

Several basic skills are recommended for everyone: Dodging allows one to avoid attacks, Observation allows one to notice hidden facets of their surroundings, and Mental Discipline allows one to resist psionic assaults. None of these are required, but they may help face some of the challenges of OS's world. Make sure you look fully through the skills before you finish your +sheet!

+sheet: Displays your character's skills, attributes, GFQs, and other values.
+sinfo (attribute), +sinfo (skill), or +sinfo (gfq): Displays information on an attribute, skill, or GFQ.
+skills | +skills (attribute), +skills (tier number), +skills (category): Displays all skills/skills broken down into groups.
+raise (skill or attribute) to (level): Raises a skill or attribute to the desired Fudge level.
+lower (skill) to (level): Lowers a skill to the desired Fudge level for a 1/2 RPP point refund.

Once your character is fully created, you're able to go out and join the roleplay world!

Eventually, a situation will likely arise where you'll need to roll the skills on your sheet. The command to do so is +taskroll skill or attribute at modifier. The modifier is a number that will be added to your roll; +1 makes a Fair roll like it's a Good, for example. You can also use +roll if you wish to simply roll for a level, such as +roll Great at 0- this will roll as if you're rolling a trait you had Great in. This command is very useful for @emitting NPCs.

The math behind +taskroll is fairly straightforward. Let's say that your character has that Great in Engineering used as an example under synergies in the last section. When you type +taskroll Engineering at 0, the system rolls 3dF- three Fudge dice- and adds the result to your skill to give you a final result in Fudge levels. Fudge dice are three-sided dice, the sides equalling +1, 0, -1. This means that any +taskroll can range from -3 to +3 below/above your skill level- for a Great skill, anywhere between Mediocre and Legendary+1- but that results closer to +0 are much more common.

Here is a table of the relative probabilities of certain rolls in the Otherspace Skill System:

+3=3.7%
+2=11.1%
+1=22.2%
+0=25.9%
+1=22.2%
+2=11.1%
+3=3.7%

There are two types of rolls; unopposed and opposed rolls. Unopposed rolls need only meet a certain threshold to succeed; opposed rolls are rolled against another PC or NPC and need to beat their result. Specific rules for rolling skills, often including modifier tables, tend to be found in the skill's +sinfo, but there are some general precepts that guide all rolls.

With unopposed rolls, the basic modifier is 0, and a result of Mediocre or above is counted as a success. Examples might be fixing a broken spaceship, hitting a stationary target with a weapon, or generally acting on/against something without its own will or volition. Harder tasks may have negative modifiers, and easier tasks may have positive modifiers, representing the relative ease of success.

With opposed rolls, the basic modifier is 0, and success is defined by beating the roll of your opponent. Examples might be hacking a system defended by a network admin, winning a footrace, or engaging in combat. Ties always go to the defender, so if both an attacker and a target in combat roll the same level, the victim is considered unharmed. This also applies to skills such as Stealth and Observation; however, in the case of Stealth, the one rolling Stealth is considered the defender. Opposed rolls should always be skill vs skill, except in very rare situations where no relevant skill exists for what the character is trying to do; in this case, characters can roll attribute versus attribute. Most skills have at least one counterskill defined in their +sinfo, however, and other logical counterskills can be used pending supporting RP.

The new Otherspace game should be considered a beta; anything in this skill system that doesn't work in play may be liable to change. However, this page will always contain the most up-to-date breakdown of what we're using on the game. If you have any questions or comments, log on to the game or visit our forums at http://www.jointhesaga.com/ovforums to speak to the staff- and we will listen!