No Spy/Rogue/Criminal skills?

[SpaceBadger]

I think I read somewhere that one of Marc's goals for T5 was to cut down on the number of player teams who turn to illegal action as their first choice for problem-solving or making money. I have to think that has something to do with the lack of Spy, Rogue, or Criminal skills/knowledges.

Unless I have just missed them somehow, we no longer have Forgery, Bribery, Lockpicking, Security/Intrusion, or any of their ilk. I'm almost amazed that the venerable Streetwise skill even survived.

Does make it somewhat difficult to make a believable spy, however, unless he is expected to rely on gadgets to do all of his breaking and entering...

 

[OjnoTheRed]

In my reading of the rules there are substitutes, though.

Forgery is done by someone with Artist skill (or another relevant Art depending on what is being forged); this can be combined with an appropriate Trade as needed.

Bribery is now under Personals (Purpose: Persuade, Strategy: Appeal To, Tactic: Payment).

Lockpicking would be good ol' Mechanic or Electronics depending on the nature of the lock.

Security/Intrusion is Stealth. In my campaign so far I've made "moving stealthily" to be a check Dex with Stealth optional. But under the definition of Stealth skill the character has the ability to evaluate security difficulty in detail, e.g. to move into camera blind spots and so on. Actually defeating electronic surveillance takes other skills (computer, programmer, electronics as appropriate).

I was not aware that Marc wanted players to get away from law breaking as the first option - that's interesting! My group was they did break the law to obtain the brooch (see my blog, I've put up a description of our session from yesterday), but did so via a lot of relationship building and planning. Our session was more like Ocean's 11 than Star Vikings.

 

[DonM]

That's his evolution on skills... I think I made some notes somewhere during a discussion with Marc on this subject...

Disguise (Mega/T4/TNE) = Actor (T5)
Demolition (CT/Mega/T4) = Explosives (T5)
Intrusion (Mega/TNE/T4) = Stealth (T5)

Forgery = Artist task
Bribery = Personal or Soc task

 

[yamsi3467]

A skill isn't "good" or "bad". It is how it is used by someone that makes it so. Akin to the old "guns don't kill people..." adage.

Any of the skills could possibly be used for nefarious purposes. Chemistry = explosives, Robotics = killer war machine, Photonics = Death Ray, etc.

Yamsi

 

[robject]

That's his evolution on skills... I think I made some notes somewhere during a discussion with Marc on this subject...

Disguise (Mega/T4/TNE) = Actor (T5)
Demolition (CT/Mega/T4) = Explosives (T5)
Intrusion (Mega/TNE/T4) = Stealth (T5)

Forgery = Artist task
Bribery = Personal or Soc task

Deception (MgT) = Actor (T5).

 

[SpaceBadger]

Unfortunately, neither Actor, Explosives, nor Artist are in the skill tables for Agents.

BUT I just noticed one possibility that I never rolled in making my guys: "Any Knowledge" - Wow! Although that is only one entry on one of the skill columns, it's a doozy. The problem would be managing to roll it enough to be useful would be hard, but I suppose if you really wanted to concentrate all your skill rolls on the Vocation column you could do it, and there is some other good stuff in that column as well, such as Forensics and Starship(cascade). In fact, I think I hit every other entry in that column, just never got a 1.

Plus I'm sure I could have gotten Actor when my guy was undercover as an Entertainer, but I was trying to build his Admin skill so chose that as soon as I saw it on the Entertainer list.