Skulls Without Number: Skill List

29 Dec, 2024

I recently played Forbidden Bounty, the intro starter adventure for Fantasy Flight Games’ Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader TTRPG (RT for short). I wanted to evaluate the system and what I recalled about it before I committed to a full game in the system and setting.

After much hemming and hawing, I decided I do not like the system as is.

This is a problem, because I’ve been itching to play a Rogue Trader game for some time now. (Maybe I’ll go into why at some other point.) So I am left with two options: either accept the system as is and try to tweak it, or just use something I already like and am familiar with. I’ve opted for the latter. I’ve decided to take the chassis, combat system, and resolution mechanics of Stars Without Number and use it as my base. From this, I will modify it to capture elements of the FFG game that I like, while retaining the simpler, low-modifier resolution systems and combat mechanics. I call this project Skulls Without Number.

As my first step, I took a look at was the two games skill lists. RT stands in the tradition of games like Traveller or Call of Cthulhu with long, very specific skill lists. SWN, on the other hand, has a shorter skill list with broader skills. In RT, each skill is paired with a specific characteristic¹, while in SWN, each skill can be used with any characteristic as long as it’s reasonable for the test.

One of the things I do like about RT is the large amount of customization your character can have, and having a long list of skills certainly helps that. A character who is good at Sleight of Hand can be different than a character skilled in Silent Move and Concealment, despite both of those being sneaky actions. The increased number of skills also means that character creation can have a lot of meaningful choices, without the characters starting the game trained in every single skill. So from the start, I knew I wanted to expand on the list of skills in SWN to a point closer to vanilla RT.

On the other hand, the RT skills are very specific, and divided broadly into “basic” or “advanced” skills.² For example, the Dodge skill is primarily use for a single combat action (negating a hit); Contortionist is separate from other athletic-type skills and is only used for escaping bonds or grappling in combat; and Logic is a “give me answers GM” skill that I don’t really like in my games. Beyond that, certain skills (like the Lore skills, Pilot/Drive/Navigate skills, Trade, etc.), are actually anywhere from three to sixteen individual skills packed into a trenchcoat.³ I knew I was going to have to consolidate the skill list here.

To aid me, I mapped RT’s skills with their closest equivalents in Stars Without Number:⁴

There were a couple of insights I gleaned right off the bat:

• Some of the skill divisions are just different from how SWN decides to divide up its skills. For example, Tech-Use is used for most mechanical/technical/computer stuff, which makes it overlap with SWN’s Program. However, it is also used to repair gear or do things like rewire circuits, actions that fall under SWN’s Fix. But other elements like explosives and item crafting that are handled with Fix in SWN are handled by the skills Demolitions and Trade, respectively.
• There are a lot of skills that do just one thing. Security is just “lockpicking”. Invocation just gives a bonus to Psy Rating on a successful test. Swim, Climb, Contortionist, and Acrobatics each have a very specific combat and non-combat use case. Barter is very specifically for helping with Acquisition Tests. There’s nothing saying a GM couldn't expand the uses of these skills (and maybe some adventures do), but these are very easy to consolidate into other skills like Exert or Sneak.
• The language/code skills (Ciphers, Secret Tongue, Speak Language) are things that are usual handled outside of skill systems in OSR/B/X games like SWN. I know these were probably easy drops as well. I will probably add some separate sections on the character sheet for them, though, because I like them and I think I want languages/codes/etc. to matter in my Rogue Trader game.
• On the flip side, SWN handles psychic powers as part of its skill system, something that RT doesn’t really do.
• For my purposes, Skill Groups don’t need to exist. I think it’s fine enough to consolidate all or most of the sub-skills into one skill and let GMs determine when the character has sufficient or insufficient background or circumstantial skill to handle the specific interaction.
• The only two skills that don’t really have an equivalent in SWN are Navigation and Gamble. Gamble just doesn’t show up in SWN, but I think it fits the setting and especially the milieu of the Rogue Trader, with their high-stakes risk taking. I could definitely see Rogue Traders winning planets over a hand of Tarot Poker. It’s specific, but it’s so evocative. I also think it’s more flexible than e.g. “lockpicking”.
  Navigation is kind of covered by the Survival skill, which I’ve used for planetary navigation and wilderness navigation before. However, I think Navigation is specifically important to call out as a separate skill. Most of a Rogue Trader’s time will be travelling in unknown, dangerous, and possibly even physically hostile locations. Specifically, in RT Navigators have a whole specific sub-system for navigating through the Warp for interstellar travel, with huge consequences for the ship if they screw up. Navigation also means I can elide some challenges I’d be less interested in, like “find a good landing zone” or “find a path through this random city you guys are chasing your quarry through after I thought you’d give up”.

After reviewing this list, I quickly decided on what I wanted for skills. This is the preliminary skill list for Skulls Without Number:

As you can see, it’s not actually that different from the SWN list. There are a few key additions, but after looking at all the things I could drop from RT’s skills, and all the overlap in the two skill lists, I realized I didn’t need to make sweeping changes. However, some changes did need to be made to fit with my vision for my Rogue Trader campaign, and the 40k setting:

• I’ve renamed Program “Cogitomancy”. Aside from being a much more appropriate name in the setting, I think this better distinguishes it from Fix, and from what Program means in a non-40k context.
  I like SWN’s division of Fix and Program. It fits the genre, because it distinguishes between the grease-covered starship mechanic that works with coolant and fuel like and wrenches, and the hacker/computer person manning the sensors and cracking the mainframe. I think it also works in a 40k context. In (my vision of) the Imperium, there are a lot of people that interact with technology and perhaps even have some dim understanding of it. This is the Fix skill, where they can interact on a basic, mechanical level with most technology (if it’s understandable in that context.) On the other hand, actual knowledge and understanding of high technology is the domain of specialists (the Mechanicus and its Tech-Priests), and the domain of the Cogitomancy skill. Cogitomancy is used to interact with high technology (like cogitators, complex electronic devices, sensors, etc.), but also as an alternative route to interact with anything that’s sufficiently “computery” and technological. In the 40k universe, that’s more common than you might think.
• I added Pray as a skill, straight from Worlds Without Number, SWN’s fantasy counterpart. 40k takes a lot from fantasy, in tone if nothing else, and so I looked to WWN to help guide my choices in the skill list. In this case, having a general skill that covers religious rites, mystic intuition, and ecclesiastical dick-measuring is very cromulent for 40k. I can imagine it can be used by psykers to help protect them from the Warp, to conduct proper rites of the Imperial Creed, and to impress followers with your piety. Mechanicus-aligned characters might be able to even use it to bolster their interactions with thinking machines – err, I mean machine-spirits.
• I split SWN’s Pilot into Pilot and Drive. WWN separates Sail from Ride, making ocean vessels and ground vehicles/mounts two separate skills. Here, Pilot deals with flying starships, starfighters, and even aerial vehicles – anything that moves in three dimensions. Drive instead deals with ground vehicles (including water vehicles).⁵ This mirrors the division in RT, where Drive and Pilot are separate skills (though I’ve not included their sub-skills separately.)
• As mentioned above, Navigation and Gamble didn’t really have any good equivalents in SWN, so I’ve added them as skills. I think they fit the setting and gameplay I have in mind.
• I decided to split Know into three skills along the lines of the Lore skills in RT. This was the only case where I actually felt having more skills, and more specific skills, was actually helpful for my objectives. In vanilla SWN, Know is used for scientific understanding and academic knowledge. There’s a clear overlap with the Scholastic Lore skill. I didn’t want to consolidate Forbidden Lore and Common Lore in there, so those became two separate “Know” skills.
  As I was developing this list, I was asked why I didn’t just lock forbidden/scholastic knowledge behind Foci, higher skill levels, or backgrounds, instead of making them separate skills. My main reason is that I actually think each of these three skills not only interacts with different aspects of the setting, but have a different relationship with the character. Scholastic Lore is easy – it’s the knowledge of the bookworm, the nerd, the scholar, naturally. A character with Know Scholastic knows all the scientific theories, philosophical inquiries, and deep history that would be expected of someone library-bound. Common Lore is a little different. The Imperium is provincial. Most people never leave their planet (or starship underbelly), and may only have a dim idea that “Holy Terra” could be a real physical place. Imperial institutions are complicated enough that even the public knowledge isn’t necessarily widespread. Someone with Know Common skill is well versed in the actual functioning of the Imperium and the universe: the major players, the institutions, and broad, practical topics like “Tech” and “War”. An adventurer who specialized in Know Common would be able to quickly know the day-to-day actions of major institutions, common stories or recent events in the Koronus Expanse, or devise a battle-strategy. This would be a key skill for a Seneschal or a politically-minded Missionary. Finally, in the Imperium, whether lore is forbidden matters. The Imperium is not totalitarian but it’s not for lack of trying. Every major Imperial organization has knowledge it suppresses or hides. In 40k, unlike a lot of other cosmic horror/fantasy settings, the forbidden knowledge doesn’t need to instantly fry your brain or corrupt your will to be dangerous (though there is plenty of that.) It can just be things powerful people don’t want getting out, and that can include up to entire otherwise-benign worldviews that might undermine the existence of the Imperial state. In the 40k universe, for those from the Imperium, interacting with forbidden knowledge is not something one can do casually, it is an active decision. It is a path that inevitably leads to conflict with authority. Those raised under the fanatical thumb of the Ministorum or the rigid enforcement of the Mechanicus (i.e. pretty much everybody) know that by simply reading a forbidden text, their very soul is in danger. Forbidden knowledge is also a mix of scholastic and practical, both and neither. Forbidden lore opens up dangerous paths to discover new things and solve problems. A character well-versed in forbidden lore does not need to be someone who is a scholar; it only needs to be someone who has rejected hierarchical control of their mind.

Alright, that’s a heck of a lot of words for one little thing. Feedback is appreciated, of course, but I’ve got something to work off of now. I feel like a marriage between what I like about RT and SWN is possible, and I can move forward. Up next, I might make a list of things I’m adapting wholesale from each game.

#rogue-trader #rpg #skulls-without-number #swn #wh40k