1001 Nights variant: skills

Game rules - homebrew

Checking on the Coriolis Discord, I read that the publishers are OK with players recreating tables, figures and data from the RPG source material where the only purpose is the facilitation of playing their game and I hereby promise this is my only intent with this article. Here I've taken the Year Zero Engine to modify the Coriolis rules for my own games - Doctor Weather

For information on my purposes and guiding principles behind these rules, please see my 1001 Nights variant summary and analysis: '1001 Nights' system variant.

Attributes

Power	Not just raw, physical strength but the power of the body extended to the ascetics' ability to sit for hours out in the snow, the courtiers' ability to draw attention to themselves and the gymnasts' feats of controlled strength
Co-ordination	The ability of the mind to direct the body anywhere from full-body movement through hand-eye co-ordination to the fine skills of artistry
Wits	Unchanged but reduced to 4 skills to balance the attributes
Empathy	Unchanged but with mystic powers separated out

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Power skills

SKILL	DESCRIPTION	SPECIALISATION EXAMPLES
Athletics	Incorporates track and field sports, exercise and the original force skill	Force; speed; zero-g
Endurance	Accounts for the different hardships across many different environments across the Horizon	By hardship: marathon running; holding your breath; extreme heat
Melee	Unaltered	By weapon type: blades; unarmed
Presence	Being physically impressive without having to use an empathy skill - the ability to make yourself felt in a situation, for example: getting noticed at court with your bearing and fashion; intimidating people to prevent a bar-room brawl; being skilled at showing the body in its best light	Intimidation, body-building, beautification, drawing attention

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Co-ordination skills

SKILL	DESCRIPTION	SPECIALISATION EXAMPLES
Agility	Covering the full-body co-ordination, incorporating the dexterity-equivalents and infiltration as specialisations	Tumbling, balancing, infiltration
Craft	Hand-eye co-ordination, such as arts and crafts but also sleight of hand magic and thievery	Painting; carpentry; lock-picking; sleight of hand
Pilot	Unaltered	By vehicle type
Ranged	Unaltered	By weapon type or circumstance: ship; mounted-vehicle; sniper ranges; close quarters

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Wits skills

SKILL	DESCRIPTION	SPECIALISATION EXAMPLES
Observation	Unaltered	Eye for details; third eye
Science	This is the academia that privileged and lucky stationary have access to that the plebeians do not and I'm assuming here that children at this level get a full rounded education Medicurgy here is the full medical training of a doctor	Physical sciences; mathematics; human sciences; medicurgy; history/archaeology; religious studies
Survival	This affords people all the skills they need to survive across the many biomes of the Horizon	First aid; resource gather; flora and fauna
Tech	All forms of the practical use and repair of equipment	Data djinn; mechanics; power sources

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Empathy skills

SKILL	DESCRIPTION	SPECIALISATION EXAMPLES
Culture	Unchanged	Etiquette; first contact
Influence	Replacing manipulation but largely leaving it unchanged - just a less-negaitve name A skill for influencing people, to change their minds and behaviours	Command; persuade; seduce
Insight	A skill for reading people and situations to gain information	Reading emotions; detect lie
Performance	Performance allows characters to show how story, song and dance are part of their life: privileged use poetry as a language of meetings and court; plebeians share their history through story and song On combining performance and other skills: agility might make you a great technical ballerina but performance lets you make them cry	Story, song, poetry, dance, teaching

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Advanced skills

Remove strict adherence to advanced skills lockout
No skill is now completely blocked from use untrained. Instead, the GM and player agree whether the character's background would have given them any familiarity with the situation at hand. Generally, plebeians would not have access to the science skill but what if you grew up on an abandoned First-come starship? A culture that has cars requires characters have pilot to be an advanced driver. However, if that culture is planet-bound then the GM could rule that the character with pilot can't use it to fly a plane or pilot a space craft.
Character familiarity can be updated by experiences gained in play
Once a character has been in a situation long enough or been educated by a local, the GM might rule they have gained the familiarity needed. Equally, the GM might ask for an XP spend, if the knowledge gap is considerable (sand buggy to star destroyer, for example).
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Initiative

Initiative is based on an appropriate stat
This extends the use of the dexterity skill in house rule for initiative to a natural end point where a relevant skill can be used depending on the nature of the conflict: Agility would be used for martial combat; culture or insight would be more appropriate for getting the first word in court.
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Mystic Powers

Untrained Mystic Powers work on adjusted Fortitude or Resilience
Mystic powers are still purchased as a talent but now start out a little less in control than in Core Rules as written to reflect the effort put in by Seeker masters and the idea that they are a scary affliction to some at first. The player and GM can agree which stat to use, along the lines of anything that affects the physical world (e.g., telekinesis, clairvoyance) is of the physical and anything that affects the mind or spirit (e.g., exorcism and stop) is of the mind. Any roll needed uses the stat but reduced by any Stress or Shock taken respectively. Each untrained use of a mystic power also does a point of Stress or Shock damage, respectively. Becoming broken by mystic powers use should be a bad thing too...
Improved by talents
When players meet a Seeker or other skilled user, they can learn to gain better control of their powers.
A bit more out of control to reflect the feel of the Mercy of the Icons campaign
Until the character gains control, the GM can spend DP to activate the character's mystic powers - spending 1 to 3 DP, in proportion to the trouble caused. Clearly the GM should only do this to make the plot more interesting and not to straight penalise the player but this could be said of any DP spend, could it not?

TALENT	EFFECT	PREREQUISITE
An initiate's control	You always use a minimum of half your Foritutde or Resilience (rounded up), despite any Stress and Shock taken	Mystic powers
A Seeker's control	You always use your total Fortitude or Resilience, unaffected by Stress and Shock, and mystic powers no longer cause you Stress or Shock to use	An initiate's control
Shut out the Dark	The GM can no longer activate your mystic power with DP	Mystic powers

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Main: 1001 Nights variant overview

Contents

• Attributes
• Power skills
• Co-ordination skills
• Wits skills
• Empathy skills
• Advanced skills
• Initiative
• Mystic Powers

Related

• 1001 Nights variant overview
• 1001 Nights variant: character backgrounds
• 1001 Nights variant: character stories
• 1001 Nights variant: combat
• 1001 Nights variant: birr and resources
• 1001 Nights variant: the ship as a character
• 1001 Nights variant: re-rolls
• Analysis: '1001 Nights' system variant
• GM style: Darkness Points
• GM style: Narrative games and rolling dice
• House rules summary