Why does a SciFi RPG "need" skills?

[Finarvyn]

I've been putting a lot of thought into SciFi RPGs recently. What is it about SciFi RPGs where they feel the need to insert a skill system?

In other words, why can't we have "OD&D in Space" or "C&C in Space" or "AD&D in Space" with just a simple class system? Each character class would have a short list of things it could do, much the same way that fighters or clerics or magic-users or thieves each have a short list of things it can do.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me like there are certain things in a SciFi setting which could be universal, like piloting a ship. Kind of like in a modern setting where one can drive a car or use a computer or use a microwave oven, do we need a special skill for this?

I'll be interested in other's views on this. What am I missing?

[James Maliszewski]

Feb 5, 2011 6:01:57 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

What am I missing?

Nothing, from my perspective anyway. So far as I can tell, the perceived need for skills in SF is solely a function of RPG history. Every successful SF RPG has had skills, so therefore most people simply assume that they're required for proper genre emulation.

Absent skills, character classes seem the most obvious way to differentiate character abilities/proficiencies and that's where it gets tricky. Science fiction is a very broad genre, so finding similarly broad archetypes on which to build classes isn't easy. That's why I think a skill-less, class-based SF RPG needs to be a bit more narrow and focused on a particular type of SF to accommodate the mechanics of classes better.

But I see no good reason why a SF RPG needs skills other than creative inertia: Traveller had skills in 1977, so all SF RPGs need them too.

[18 Spears]

It seems to me one could take Traveller (for instance) and make the various professions analogous to D&D classes. Scout, Soldier, Pilot, Mech' Driver, etc.

[coffee]

The first thing I thought of when I read this post was Star Trek.

Think about the characters. What exactly is Kirk's score in, say, Navigation? Is he really that much better than Chekov? Either one gets the Enterprise where it needs to go.

And Scotty can fix anything. Sure, he's better than other engineers, but that's because he's higher level.

Now Star Trek wasn't written as a game. It was written as drama. So the things it concerned itself with were dramatic. A game needs to concern itself with things that are playable. Skills offer designers a way to do this. It gives the player a distinct "succeed or fail" point that can affect their play session. Plus, players like to roll dice. It gives them the illusion of fairness (much more so than a referee simply saying "no, that doesn't work").

It probably isn't necessary. But you'd have to come up with some other way to adjudicate success or failure. Comparing levels might work, comparing attributes. A variation on the Amber Diceless system (which I've never played or read but have always heard good things about).



Another thought: Skills give a measurable rating to one's abilities. And science is all about quantifying things, so it seems to fit. That may be a factor in people's decisions.

[geoffrey]

Imagine if D&D put more focus on swords, armor, wagons, horses, lanterns, etc. than it did on the player characters.

Well, that's what I see all too many sci-fi RPGs do. They put the focus on the high-tech stuff, and the PCs are merely percentage chances to make the high-tech stuff save the day.

Bah.

If I were to referee a sci-fi campaign, I'd do something similar (but not identical) to what Castles & Crusades does:

1. Roll your six abilities, and then arrange them to taste.

2. No character classes. Everyone is a human being.

3. I'm too lazy to track experience points. Thus every character would gain a level after X number of sessions.

4. You want to try to do something? Then I as referee would make a judgment call as to what ability that fell under, whether strength, intelligence, or etc. Then you would subtract your character's level. Then I'd apply a penalty or bonus depending on how hard I judged the task to be. Then the player would have to roll that number or lower on a 20-sider. For example:

"I'm going to pilot the one-man-speeder between those two trees standing close together."

"Um, they are so close together you'd scrape the paint off even if you succeeded."

"I'm going for it."

"OK. What's your dexterity?"

"15."

"You're level 6, so that brings your target number down to 9. This is a tricky move, especially since you're going so fast. You have a +4 penalty to that. Thus, you need to roll a 13 or higher."

<<rolls>> "18! No problem."

This basic procedure could be used to cover anything that a character attempts.

5. I'd basically use D&D's combat system.

[Falconer]

The thing is that OD&D classes (except the Thief) don’t bother measuring the relative probability of a character to perform a mundane task. Each class writeup lists magical/supernatural things the character can do above and beyond all the day-to-day things that every character is assumed to be able to do (light a fire, climb a rope, swim, read their language). Only the fighter has no supernatural abilities beyond just being the best fighter.

Which is why I think to construct spacefaring classes you have to pay close attention to your source material and gather a list of “uncanny” abilities possessed by the characters upon which you are modeling classes. You can have one “fighter” class (soldier/security) that is just better at combat than everyone, but you can’t design all the classes that way (this guy is slightly better at x). Spock, McCoy, and Scott from Star Trek are “miracle workers” at their respective specialties (science, med, tech). Which is why I’ve proposed a mechanic similar to “spells” in D&D.

[bluskreem]

have you read X-plorers? It's technically got a skill system (which is handled simular to most games' saving throws,) but in practice it works much like you are describing. A scientist can do X, while a Soldier can do Y.

[eris]

Feb 5, 2011 6:01:57 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I've been putting a lot of thought into SciFi RPGs recently. What is it about SciFi RPGs where they feel the need to insert a skill system?

I don't think you HAVE to have a skill system for an SF game. Traveller did, I think because Marc Miller and Frank Chadwick wanted their RPG to be different from D&D...and going with skills was an easy way to make it very different.

In other words, why can't we have "OD&D in Space" or "C&C in Space" or "AD&D in Space" with just a simple class system? Each character class would have a short list of things it could do, much the same way that fighters or clerics or magic-users or thieves each have a short list of things it can do.

Sure you can! Call them Careers, rather than classes and you can come pretty close to Traveller without the skills. The main Careers in Classic Traveller are: Navy, Marine, Army, Merchant, Scout, and Other (Rogue), but those aren't what is really happening in game. What is important are the roles, and the main roles generally break down as: Pilot/Navigator, Engineer/Technician, Merchant/Steward, Security/Gunner, and Medic.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me like there are certain things in a SciFi setting which could be universal, like piloting a ship. Kind of like in a modern setting where one can drive a car or use a computer or use a microwave oven, do we need a special skill for this?

Well, maybe not everyone can pilot a starship, that's part of the "Pilot/Navigator" role, but working a computer or microwave oven, flying an air/raft and such would be pretty universal...unless you include "barbarians" in the mix. So, leave them out.

You know, if you want to keep it simple and I'd want to keep it simple. Have the players pick a Career and a role within it.

Career	Roles
Navy	Pilot/Navigator, Engineer, Medic, Gunner
Marines	Gunner, Trooper, Technician
Army	Gunner, Rifleman, Airman, Technician
Merchant	Trader, Pilot/Navigator, Engineer, Steward
Scouts	Pilot/Navigator, Explorer, Security, Engineer

The PC's use their Attributes + Career Level + a DM to perform tasks where:

1. They have a large DM for tasks within their Role.
2. They have a smaller DM for tasks within their Career, but not Role.
3. They have DM's, like everyone else, for "universal" tasks.
4. They have no, or negative, DM's for specialized tasks outside their Career/role.

Maybe, something like: a +0DM for common tasks, a +3DM for tasks within the Career and a +6DM for tasks within the Role.


You might not even need Attributes. Do it like SotU...

For example, meet the crew of a Suleiman Scout on detached service:

Nick Knight, Scout-6(Pilot/Navigator).
Janet Daye, Merchant-5(Engineer).
Roy Pluckett, Marine-5(Gunner).

Captain Knight gets a +9DM for all Scout type activities, and a +12 for Piloting and Navigating the ship. He gets a +6DM for all common tasks.

Janet, the ship's Engineer is also its Trader. She gets a +8DM for all Merchant type activities, a +11DM for Engineering and repairing equipment, and a +5DM for all common tasks.

Sgt. Pluckett, ret. handles the ship's lone laser cannon and provides the muscle if the crew gets into a tight spot...and they always do! Roy gets a +8DM for anything a Marine can do, like fire a rifle or fight with a cutlass, but because he was trained to be gunner he gets a +11DM to operate the ship's laser, and a +5 for other common tasks.

In practice, the DM and the players might decide that the PC's have their own shtick (special piece of business) as well. Nick is a natural diplomat who can charm the pants off Customs officials and other folk that might oppose the party. Janet was on a pirate ship for several years and became a real expert with both cutlass and shotgun, she's every bit as good as Roy with those two weapons. Roy, otoh, was a master scrounge in the Marines and although it wasn't in his MOS, if the crew needs something...anything!...if it can be found he'll find it for them.

Just given this little bit, I'm *sure* I could run a fun game. I'm tempted to do it, too!

[coffee]

Feb 5, 2011 19:56:50 GMT -6 eris said:

Just given this little bit, I'm *sure* I could run a fun game. I'm tempted to do it, too!

Do it, then report back and tell us how it went.

[Finarvyn]

This is neat feedback. Part of why I asked is because in the 1970's a friend and I ran what we cleverly called "Space Wars" (in the years between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back) and it was basically "OD&D in Space" with Jedi and phasers and just a general blend of scifi settings all smooshed together. We didn't use skills in OD&D and I'm sure we didn't in "Space Wars" either. (Later, my friend moved on to GM Traveller, which is heavily skill-based. He always liked more complex games than I did, and he always added "Landspeeder" to the skill list. His dad covered Indy racing and it was somehow in the family, and he always wanted his characters to be Landspeeder racers. This was years before the SW movie with podracing in it.)

I've been looking for my old notebooks but I have so much junk it's hard to find any of the really old stuff, so I thought I'd look at the retro D&D space games again and I was surprised at how many advertise the "OD&D feel" but are loaded up with skills.

I forgot about X-Plorers. I'll go look at it again.

[talysman]

I thought your suggestions were interesting, Eris, and I'd like to discuss them... but first, I had to point out this:

Feb 5, 2011 19:56:50 GMT -6 eris said:

The PC's use their Attributes + Career Level + a DM to perform tasks where:

1. They have a large DM for tasks within their Role.
2. They have a smaller DM for tasks within their Career, but not Role.
3. They have DM's, like everyone else, for "universal" tasks.
4. They have no, or negative, DM's for specialized tasks outside their Career/role.

Maybe, something like: a +0DM for common tasks, a +3DM for tasks within the Career and a +6DM for tasks within the Role.

To me, this sounds like a skill system; you're just calling them "tasks" and maybe leaving them a bit open-ended. Nothing wrong with that, but "OD&D in space, without skills" sounds to me more like:

• if you know how to do something (either because it's a universally known task or one you were trained in for your career or role,) then you do it (no roll);
  
• if you can't do something unless you have special training/equipment, you can't do it until you get both;
  
• if you do something to save your butt or attack someone, having an appropriate career or role gives you some kind of bonus;
  
• if there's a risk of something bad (4 in 6 chance rusty docking station is stuck, 1 in 6 chance your jump drive is disabled after a rushed jump,) an appropriate career or role may give a bonus.
  

[Finarvyn]

I'm not sure, but "tasks" and "role" might or might not refer to a skill system.

For example, C&C has a number of special things that each class can do. I don't think of this as a "skill system" because not everyone can pick those things -- either they are a part of your class or they aren't.

If you have a list of things that anyone can pick from, and you let them determine how good they are/aren't at those things, that would be a skill system. If each "role" (I assume "class") has certain things (I assume "tasks") then it's more of a class system than a skill system.

I think...

[sinenomine]

Feb 5, 2011 6:01:57 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I've been putting a lot of thought into SciFi RPGs recently. What is it about SciFi RPGs where they feel the need to insert a skill system?

In my experience, it's because it sci-fi PCs lack the automatic role distinction hardwired into old-school classes, and require some sort of clear metric to distinguish their particular metier.

In OD&D, the magic-user is never going to tie on plate armor and the fighter is never going to be hurling fireballs. But when all PCs have the same plausible access to all skill sets, there has to be some way of distinguishing the aptitudes of each. You can assign careers or establish backgrounds to give that distinction, but then you have to either work out points of overlap or just accept that characters will never get good at any activity outside their career's purview. In my case, I prefer to take the guesswork out of things and just establish a skill system.

I certainly wouldn't say that such a system is mandatory, but it's a very quick and easy solution to character distinction. As with most of my own old-school habits, I'd need to be convinced that doing it a new way gives me more benefit than it costs.

[eris]

Feb 6, 2011 17:10:36 GMT -6 talysman said:

I thought your suggestions were interesting, Eris, and I'd like to discuss them... but first, I had to point out this:

<snip>

To me, this sounds like a skill system; you're just calling them "tasks" and maybe leaving them a bit open-ended. Nothing wrong with that, but "OD&D in space, without skills" sounds to me more like:

• if you know how to do something (either because it's a universally known task or one you were trained in for your career or role,) then you do it (no roll);
  
• if you can't do something unless you have special training/equipment, you can't do it until you get both;
  
• if you do something to save your butt or attack someone, having an appropriate career or role gives you some kind of bonus;
  
• if there's a risk of something bad (4 in 6 chance rusty docking station is stuck, 1 in 6 chance your jump drive is disabled after a rushed jump,) an appropriate career or role may give a bonus.
  

Hum, okay...you might be right. I suppose you could see what I'm proposing as a set of very broad skills.

However, the class Fighter has an implied, very broad, set of skills that come with it, as does Cleric, and Magic-User. Thief seems to have always been more skill focused. As I see it, the Fighting Man Class is better at certain skills (weapons, avoiding/absorbing damage, etc) than other Classes at the same level. The Cleric has access to certain "skills" (healing, divine magic) to which other classes don't have access. So, I do see broadly defined skills as being part of ODD. Where Traveller (and other "skill based" RPG's) differ...IMO...is that they specify the skills and give them levels. Enumerating skills and their levels adds complexity...for better or for worse.

I did add the Role to the Career. You could look at the Role as a skill, but I think of the Career/Role combination as being analogous to the D&D class...with a bit of added specialization.

I'd propose looking at Fantasy the same way. Perhaps, Fighting Man the Class, with the possible Roles: Barbarian, Swordsman, Archer, Knight, or Swashbuckler. All Fighting Men can use all weapons as normal, but a Fighter/Swordsman is better with a sword than otherwise, a Fighter/Archer is your master bowman, etc.

[Falconer]

But in fantasy literature, there are definitely much less strictly-defined types. Gandalf uses a sword; Cugel uses spells. It works well for the game, though, to make the classes more exclusive in their range of activity, in order to create the sort of game that requires a team to work in tandem and each member to feel valued. You could do the same thing with Sci-Fi. Just select the disciplines/types you want and make their abilities exclusive.

[aldarron]

You can do OD&D in space or even in a present day setting, pretty much as is, except magic users are psionicists. Thing is though, you will run into the fact that we now live in highly specialized and technologically complex society. Specialization can be handled by "backstory" which is an informal skill system (my character can do A, B, C, and D, because of X), or a formalized skill system (my character can do A, B, C, and D, at X level of ability) or you can invent all sorts of prepackaged skill bundles and call it a "class" or a "career" or what have you(my character can do A, B, C, and D, at because they are class X).

I'm saying there is simply no way to escape some kind of skill recognition because of the nature of the setting. One of the beauties of low tech fantasy settings is that specialized knowledge is far less important.

"Backstory" skills, unless you have a real tight knit, mature group of players, are just asking for trouble if they are constantly being invented on the spot by the players. Otherwise, if you are keeping close track of backstory skills how good a character is at them you will end up with a regular skill system when all is said and done.

As for class inflation, to me, that gets very old very fast and becomes really hard to keep track of.

So, a simple list of things a character knows how to do and how good they are at it seems like a pretty good solution to me.

[Finarvyn]

I keep thinking about Star Wars and how everyone has a basic clue about how to fly a ship like the Millinium Falcon. Flying is more like our driving a car than our flying an airplane. (How many of us have ever actually piloted a plane?)

In many SciFi RPGs, the skill becomes significant -- you can do it or you can't -- but in most SciFi literature it seems like most folks can do all of the basics but only experts can do really tricky stuff like fix the warp drive.

[Deleted]

Jul 6, 2011 7:59:07 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

How many of us have ever actually piloted a plane?

(raises hand) Flying is easy, landing is the tricky part ...

[jjarvis]

Feb 5, 2011 7:44:53 GMT -6 James Maliszewski said:

... I see no good reason why a SF RPG needs skills other than creative inertia: Traveller had skills in 1977, so all SF RPGs need them too.

I think it's more then creative inertia it's becasue of the kitchen sink approach and RPGs. Many RPGs try to cover a lot of ground. Who's a better pilot: a star- smuggler, a space marine assault-shuttle pilot or a guild steersman? Sci-fi RPGs often try to cover a heck of a lot of territory and in doing so developing skills instead of classes can be a lot more useful to allow people to develop a wide range of characters.

Skills let one develop a sci-fi setting without working up separate classes for StarLaw agents, Bounty-Hunters and Guild Assassins.

Skills can also be shoved into the territory of ability scores.
If virtually everyone in your game universe can fly a spaceship why not have a Piloting ability score?

The approach depends on how much territory the sci-fi game is going to cover.

[premmy]

I think there are several factors at play here:

I. - Common ground. In short, fantasy largely has one; sci-fi does not. In detail: there's a wide set of background readings, assumptions and conventions that most fantasy RPGs share (or at least in D&D-s neighborhood), and which players are familiar with from the get-go. They have a basic grounding in western mythologies, history, and are probably familiar with some subset of fantasy literature: Conan, CAS and other early 20th century authors; Tolkien and/or C.S. Lewis; post-Tolkien epigons, what have you. They sit down to the gaming table already knowing what sort of things the different sorts of characters can and will do.

Not so for sci-fi. SF does not have a set of "gestalt SF" assumptions like D&D does. If trapped on a derelict spaceship with oxygen escaping, would Rick Deckard be able to don a spacesuit in 2 minutes? Would Roy Batty? Han Solo? Captain Kirk? The Mule (Foundation)? A superchimp (Rendezvouz with Rama)? Bernard (Brave New World)?
All works of sci-fi, all characters representing a different and reasonably clear "class", and we have no f*ckin' idea if they could do it. Or reprogram a relatively simple robot. Or give first aid to an alien.

And that's because there's no sci-fi common ground. Five soldiers / warriors / mercenaries from five different works would probably have vastly different abilities vis-a-vis weapons and armour handling, vehicle operation, or first aid. So you can't just say "he's a Fighter, so he knows the sort of things usual Fighters can do. There are no "usual" Fighters (or Pilots or Scientists) in sci-fi. So you need skills to give the players and the GM a mutual understanding of what's possible.

II. - Versimilitude and stupid levels of niche protection. D&D has that (stupid levels of niche protection, that is). A wizard cannot use a sword or wear armour at all. (Even though Gandalf...) A fighter is not able to memorise the simplest arcane spell, at all. (Even though Conan in Beyond the Black River...). In fact, not even the Cleric can do it, despite using a magic system with the same pre-memorization routine, so common sense would say they're at least somewhat compatible.

In D&D that's okay, because it's all silly make-up. There's no real magic to experience in our real lives, so it's easy to suspend disbelief and accept that it doesn't work with armour.

Sci-fi, however, cuts too close to real life. Sure, not everyone flies his own spaceship or fires his own laser rifle, but people do drive around their cars and shoot their shotguns. So when a game tries to cram a similarly silly amount of class-based niche protection down players's throats, they won't accept it. It won't be accepted without questions that only trained soldiers can fire a plasma gun or only pilots can fly a simple ship (assuming a setting with a relative ubiquity of spaceships), and that other characters' hands would be pushed away from the trigger or the control stick by the same magnetic field that keeps swords away from the D&D M.U.. So, since questions of technology and utility will be expected to comform to real life experience closer then D&D magic does (and that's not say much), you'll need a system that allows a reasonably wide range of different people to perform a reasonably wide range of actions. And a skill system can do that while hard class niche protection can't.

[Falconer]

I. It’s hard to tell if that fantasy common ground was there before D&D, or if D&D defined that common ground. On the other hand, the character choices in the 3lbbs are basically Tolkien + Clerics, right? (Arguably Anderson + Hobbits, but honestly, 99% of my new players have read little to no fantasy, so relating it to Middle-earth is a safe bet.)

II. Oh, I think niche protection is easy enough to buy into for the purposes of a game. I doubt any of us here is a Miracle-working Doctor AND an Miracle-working Engineer AND an Esper! So my instinct is just to apply the “You play Conan, I play Gandalf, we team up to fight Dracula” logic, only with, say, Star Trek + Jedis?

[premmy]

Jul 15, 2011 20:37:25 GMT -6 Falconer said:

I. It’s hard to tell if that fantasy common ground was there before D&D, or if D&D defined that common ground.

That's a moot point, because we'll never live in the 1970-ies ever again. Now there is a common ground, and we're talking about why SF games need skills (or don't) now.

On the other hand, the character choices in the 3lbbs are basically Tolkien + Clerics, right? (Arguably Anderson + Hobbits, but honestly, 99% of my new players have read little to no fantasy, so relating it to Middle-earth is a safe bet.)

Could be argued, possibly, but then that's what the common ground was at the time.

II. Oh, I think niche protection is easy enough to buy into for the purposes of a game. I doubt any of us here is a Miracle-working Doctor AND an Miracle-working Engineer AND an Esper!

Yes, but that's not the level of niche protection D&D employs. D&D's niche protection applied to sci-fi would be "You can't be a miracle-working doctor AND a passably decent, or even basic-level competent engineer or Esper." That's the sort of thing D&D-style strict class protection does, and that people wouldn't buy.

So my instinct is just to apply the “You play Conan, I play Gandalf, we team up to fight Dracula” logic, only with, say, Star Trek + Jedis?

But see, to take that example, movie Jedi are not only good at using the Force but also at fighting (infringing on the Fighter's territory), and some of them are even excellent pilots (infringing on the Pilot's niche).

[Falconer]

Jul 16, 2011 13:37:42 GMT -6 premmy said:

Yes, but that's not the level of niche protection D&D employs. D&D's niche protection applied to sci-fi would be "You can't be a miracle-working doctor AND a passably decent, or even basic-level competent engineer or Esper."

Do you know any miracle-working doctors who are also competent engineers? Over time, professions become more specialized, not less.

Jul 16, 2011 13:37:42 GMT -6 premmy said:

But see, to take that example, movie Jedi are not only good at using the Force but also at fighting (infringing on the Fighter's territory), and some of them are even excellent pilots (infringing on the Pilot's niche).

Well, that's the real trick, isn’t it? Jedi are seemingly better than everybody else at everything, no downsides. That’s something that has to be dealt with in any game with Jedi, class-based or not. Let’s break it down.

First of all, we’re not talking about the canonical Star Wars universe (I don’t think), just like D&D doesn’t use the canonical Middle-earth.

Second, everyone can Fight in D&D, so that’s not “the Fighter’s territory” there, nor need it be in a Sci-fi RPG. That said, it’s no stretch that Han the Fighter is better with a blaster than Luke the Jedi is. But Luke would be better with a lightsabre (obviously).

Third, we all seem to agree that Piloting (at least of small ships) is a universal skill in Sci-fi, so I wouldn’t make Pilot a class, end of story. I don’t think the class concept comes crashing down on piloting. All characters can drive a boat just like all characters can fight. Maybe Doctors do it worse than others. Maybe it’s not tied to class at all.

Fourth, one thing that D&D does well is making some classes (Magic-User and Monk) suck at low levels and rock at high levels. Luke would definitely fall into this category, at least with regard to Jedi powers.

Well, that’s probably getting too deep into a side-topic. What it comes down to for me is this: Even if a class system is less than ideal, I still don’t want to “default” to a skill system. I f**king hate the skill mechanic.

[harami2000]

Jul 15, 2011 15:26:11 GMT -6 premmy said:

I. - Common ground. In short, fantasy largely has one; sci-fi does not.

Titus Groan and the Cowardly Lion venturing into the Dreamlands stumbling upon a rather out-of-place King Gorice?

D&D's appearance was timed nicely in the context of the fantasy's "revival" whereas SF was in decline at that point, in book form, and about to be redefined by Star Wars.
It was easier for D&D to be selective when it came to older sources since fantasy was at a low ebb in the space age and people weren't looking across a broader fantasy heritage (despite the best efforts of Lin Carter, say).

[premmy]

Jul 16, 2011 20:10:13 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Jul 16, 2011 13:37:42 GMT -6 premmy said:

Yes, but that's not the level of niche protection D&D employs. D&D's niche protection applied to sci-fi would be "You can't be a miracle-working doctor AND a passably decent, or even basic-level competent engineer or Esper."

Do you know any miracle-working doctors who are also competent engineers? Over time, professions become more specialized, not less.

If it doesn't literally have to be an engineer, then yes. Guy's a doctor, mathematician, business administrator, chemist, doctor of medicine, physiologist, biophysiscist and literature expert. And an astronaut.

But it's kind of a moot point, because if you reread the thread, you'll see the issue goes back to the idea of "Why can't a sci-fi character pick up a laser rifle, point it towards the enemy and pull the trigger unless he's a trained Soldier?" Strict sci-fi class protection breaks down on the level of such basic considerations, not on the level of character munchkinism.

Well, that’s probably getting too deep into a side-topic. What it comes down to for me is this: Even if a class system is less than ideal, I still don’t want to “default” to a skill system. I f**king hate the skill mechanic.

That's a perfectly valid viewpoint, but I think you're arguments went a bit overboard (probably not deliberately) from "skill systems shouldn't be a forced default" into "I want to avoid skill systems completely without even considering whether they'd be appropriate to the specific game". At least that's how it came across in reading.

[crusssdaddy]

One of the great things about Terminal Space is that Tech Level is an ability score - roll 3d6 just like STR, DEX, etc. Gives you a caveman on the low end, star child at the top, barbarian, modern man, or advanced in the middle.

I wish TS had stopped there, but it added tech skills and classes like Pilot, Technician... I don't think you need those skills or those classes, just use your Tech Level as a basis for interacting with technology. Then you can have a wizard piloting a flying saucer, a fighter flying a battlecruiser, etc. Rationalize it however you want - anybody can use most technology because it has built-in AIs that do all the work, but maybe if you get a bonus for high INT, WIS, Tech Level, whatever.

I've been wanting to do D&D in space lately and I've been stuck on choosing a system - TS never caught on, Stars Without Number has skills and too many moving parts (most of which are outstanding)... This thread has convinced me to just do 'D&D in Space' a la CARCOSA, with a couple customized classes, some house rules, and a lot of flavor, but the basis is D&D.