The Default Skill List
Here is a basic list of example skills for you to use in your Steamfunkateers games along with example feats tied to each. They should give you a good foundation from which to tweak your own lists, adding and subtracting skills as best fits the needs of the players and the GM.
Each skill description contains a list of actions that you can use the skill for.
Athletics: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Defend
The Athletics skill represents your character’s general level of physical fitness, whether through training, natural gifts, or genre-specific means (like magic or genetic alteration). It’s how good you are at moving your body. As such, it is a popular choice for nearly any action-oriented character.
Includes the ability to dance, ride, and otherwise engage in vigorous outdoor sporting activities, including archery.
Surmount: Athletics allows you to surmount any impediment that requires physical movement—jumping, running, climbing, swimming, etc. If it resembles something you’d do in the decathlon, you roll your dice for Athletics. You use surmount actions with Athletics to move between zones in a conflict if there’s a situation descriptor or other obstacle in your way. You also roll Athletics to chase or race in any contests or challenges that rely on these types of activities.
Get the Upper Hand: When you’re getting the upper hand with Athletics, you’re jumping to high ground, running faster than the opponent can keep up with, or performing dazzling acrobatic maneuvers in order to confound your foes.
Defend: Athletics is a catch-all skill to roll the dice for defense in a physical conflict, against close-quarters and ranged attacks. You can also use it to defend against characters trying to move past you, if you’re in a position to physically interfere with whoever’s making the attempt.
Athletics Feats
Sprinter. You move two zones for free in a conflict without rolling the dice, instead of one, provided there are no situation descriptors restricting movement.
Ya makási. Ya makási is taken from the Lingala language, which is spoken in the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Ya makási means “strong in body, spirit, and person.” You add +2d to surmount actions with Athletics if you are in a chase across rooftops or a similarly precarious environment.
Dazing Counter. When you get Four Successes or more on a defend action against an opponent’s Melee roll, you automatically counter with some sort of nerve punch or stunning blow. You get to attach the Dazed situation descriptor to your opponent with a free invoke, instead of just a boost.
Burglary: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand
The Burglary skill covers your character’s aptitude for stealing things and getting into places that are off-limits.
This skill also includes a proficiency in the related tech, allowing the character to disable alarm systems and whatnot.
Surmount: As stated above, Burglary allows you to surmount any impediment related to theft or infiltration. Bypassing locks and traps, pickpocketing and pilfering, covering your tracks, and other such activities all fall under the purview of this skill.
Get the Upper Hand: You can case a location with Burglary, to determine how hard it will be to break into and what kind of security you’re dealing with, as well as discover any vulnerabilities you can exploit. You can also examine the work of other burglars to determine how a particular heist was done, and create or discover descriptors related to whatever evidence they may have left behind.
Burglary Feats
Always a Way Out. +2d on Burglary checks made to get the upper hand whenever you’re trying to escape from a location.
Security Specialist. You don’t have to be present to provide active opposition to someone trying to surmount security measures you put in place or worked on. Normally, a character would roll against passive opposition for that.
Underworld Affiliated. You can use Burglary in place of Contacts whenever you’re dealing specifically with other thieves and burglars.
Business: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand
This is practical knowledge of the world of business. It includes the ability to make money by means of investments, lending at interest, issuing stock or other certificates of ownership, and similar financial maneuvering, as well as by running a shop or other commercial enterprise. While it includes the conduct of business dealings, negotiations, and sales pitches, it only applies to professional or commercial transactions, not interpersonal or social encounters, which are the province of Converse, Contacts, and similar skills.
Surmount: Business can be used to surmount obstacles related to running a business, such as finding suppliers or sources of raw materials, dealing with labor problems or recalcitrant workers, handling business-related legal issues, and so forth. You can use Business to reduce your wealth condition against passive opposition equal to the value of the condition to be recovered.
Get the Upper Hand: Business advantages usually reflect profitable commercial ventures coming to fruition, so descriptors such as Return on Investment or Got in on the Ground Floor are reasonable.
Extra: Wealth
Permissions: A descriptor related to wealth or economic status.
Costs: Skill ranks, if you want permanent financial condition marks
Most characters don’t have much disposable income, regardless of rank or status. They are more or less secure in their living—either from inherited or acquired wealth or by virtue of their employment, unless they have a descriptor or consequence indicating otherwise—but they are typically without large reserves of liquidity. However, in the world of Steamfunkateers, characters of great wealth do exist. White people are either old-money nobility or nouveau riche arrivistes. Wealthy Black characters in/from Africa might be old money nobility; however, wealthy characters from the Diaspora almost always acquired wealth through hard work and resourcefulness (e.g. setting up a lucrative business at the Atlanta Curb Market), or through taking it from someone else (e.g. robbing a bank).
To represent wealth, a PC can gain ranks in Wealth. However, Wealth is not used as a normal skill. Instead, each rank in Wealth is 10 times that of the rank below it. The amount of dollars (in coin or paper note) a character possesses is based on his or her Wealth rank, as follows:
0: $1
1: $10
2: $100
3: $1000
4: $10,000
5: $100,000
6: $1,000,000
7: $10,000,000
8: $100,000,000
9: $1,000,000,000
10: $10,000,000,000
Even a character without Wealth can try to raise money by taking an action to gain some temporary wealth: a descriptor reflecting the nature of the financial resource (such as Selling the Family Jewels). Four Successes provides Rank 2 money, while succeeding with Five Successes or more provides Rank 3 money. The passive opposition to this roll should be at least 3d, possibly higher, since making money is hard.
Characters without Wealth are more vulnerable to economic pressure or financial adversity than characters with Wealth. In such cases, the pressure or adversity will be experienced as either disadvantageous descriptors or as attacks inflicting mental condition.
Business Feats
Let’s Make a Deal: You can use Business in place of Converse or Contacts to interact with others as long as you frame the encounter as some quid pro quo exchange.
Collateral: Absorb a level of mental or financial condition from economic adversity.
Contacts: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Defend
Contacts is the skill of knowing and making connections with people. It presumes proficiency with all means of networking available in the setting.
Surmount: You use Contacts to surmount any impediment related to finding someone you need to find. Whether that’s old-fashioned “man on the street” type of work, polling your information network, or searching archives, you’re able to hunt down people or somehow get access to them.
Get the Upp
er Hand: Contacts allow you to know who the perfect person to talk to is for anything you might need, or to decide that you know the perfect person already. It’s likely that you’ll create story details with this skill, represented by descriptors. (“My contacts tell me that Joe Gans is the Best Boxer in Baltimore—we should manage him.”)
You can also get the upper hand to represent what the word on the street is about a particular individual, object, or location, based on what your contacts tell you. These descriptors almost always deal with reputation more than fact, such as Baddest Man in the Whole Damn Town or Notorious Swindler. Whether that person lives up to their reputation is anybody’s guess, though that doesn’t invalidate the descriptor—people often have misleading reputations that complicate their lives.
Contacts could also be used to create descriptors that represent using your information network to plant or acquire information.
Defend: Contacts can be used to defend against people getting the social upper hand against you, provided your information network can be brought to bear in the situation. You might also use it to keep someone from using Deceive or Contacts to go “off the grid,” or to interfere with Investigate attempts to find you.
Contacts Feats
Ear to the Ground. Whenever someone initiates a conflict against you in an area where you’ve built a network of contacts, you use Contacts instead of Spot to determine turn order, because you got tipped off in time.
Rumormonger. +2d to get the upper hand when you plant vicious rumors about someone else.
The Weight of Reputation. You can use Contacts instead of Provoke to get the upper hand based on the fear generated by the sinister reputation you’ve cultivated for yourself and all the shady associates you have. You should have an appropriate descriptor to pair with this feat.
A Wonderful Correspondent. Because of your extensive letter-writing, you have a far-flung network of friends and acquaintances. You can spend a point of Vigor to introduce such an NPC into the scene where appropriate, or to declare that a newly introduced NPC is one of your correspondents.
Honored Stranger. Under normal circumstances, your foreign origin marks you as an outsider. However, you are treated as an honored guest by one circle, social group, or class—such as diplomats, artists, businessmen, musicians, or scientists. Among that group, you gain +2d Contacts.
Converse: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand
This is your ability to “be agreeable in company”—to come across as personable, affable, and even charming when interacting with social acquaintances. It’s also how effective you are at self-expression and social interaction more generally.
Strictly speaking, interaction across lines of class and status is governed by Contacts, while the ability to lead and inspire is governed by Leadership.
Surmount: You can use agreeable conversation to smooth over difficulties related to the standoffishness of your interlocutors or the awkwardness of your social position. You can also use Converse to woo someone.
Get the Upper Hand: You can use Converse to get the upper hand related to leaving favorable impressions upon acquaintances or to extract information from conversation. You can also impart information to an acquaintance and expect it to become common knowledge after a short time—a few days at worst to a few hours under ideal conditions. Depending on the sort of information—gossip, rumors, or slanderous accusations, for example—this may create a descriptor or just establish a disadvantageous fictional situation for the character.
Converse Feats
Vicious Gossip. You can use Converse to attack someone in your social circle by spreading malicious gossip about them, as long as the rumor you are spreading is true insofar as you can determine. If you succeed, you inflict a mental condition. If you want to lie about them, use Deceive instead.
Deceive: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Defend
Deceive is the skill of lying to and misdirecting people.
Surmount: Use Deceive to bluff your way past someone, or to get someone to believe a lie, or to get something out of someone because they believe in one of your lies. For nameless NPCs, this is just a surmount roll, but for PCs or named NPCs, it requires a contest, and the target opposes with Empathy. Winning this contest could justify placing a situation descriptor on your target, if buying into your lie could help you in a future scene.
Deceive is the skill you use for determining if a disguise works, whether on yourself or others. You’ll need to have the time and supplies to create the desired effect.
You can also use Deceive to do small tricks of sleight-of-hand and misdirection.
Get the Upper Hand: Use Deceive to create momentary distractions, cover stories, or false impressions. You could feint in a swordfight, putting an opponent Off-Balance and setting you up for an attack. You could do the whole, “What’s that over there?” trick to give you a Head Start when you run away. You could establish a Wealthy Noble Cover Story for when you attend a royal ball. You could trick someone into revealing one of their descriptors or other information.
Attack: Deceive is an indirect skill that creates a lot of opportunities you can capitalize on, but it doesn’t do direct harm to an individual.
Defend: You can use Deceive to throw off Investigation attempts with false information and to defend against efforts made to discern your true motives with the Empathy skill.
Deceive Feats
Lies upon Lies. +2d to create a Deceive advantage against someone who has believed one of your lies already during this session.
Mind Games. You can use Deceive in place of Provoke to make mental attacks, as long as you can make up a clever lie as part of the attack.
One Person, Many Faces. Whenever you meet someone new, you can spend a point of Vigor to declare that you’ve met that person before, but under a different name and identity. Create a situation descriptor to represent your cover story, and you can use Deceive in place of Rapport whenever interacting with that person.
Drive: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Defend
The Drive skill is all about operating ground, air and water vehicles and things that go fast, like horses, camels and dire lions.
Like Tinkering, how the Drive skill appears in your games is going to depend a lot on how much action you intend to have inside of vehicles or other forms of transportation, and what kind of technology is available in your setting.
Surmount: Drive is the equivalent of Athletics when you’re in a vehicle—you use it to successfully accomplish movement in the face of difficult circumstances, like rough terrain, small amounts of clearance, or feat driving. Obviously, Drive is also ripe for contests, especially chases and races.
Get the Upper Hand: You can use Drive to determine the best way to get somewhere in a vehicle and a good enough roll might allow you to learn descriptors of the route that get expressed as Landmarks, or declare that you know a Convenient Shortcut or something similar.
You can also just read the Athletics description, and then make it about a vehicle. Advantages created using Drive often revolve around getting good positioning, doing a fancy maneuver, or putting your opponent in a bad spot.
Attack: Drive isn’t usually used as an attack skill, but feats can certainly alter this. If you want to ram a vehicle, you can attack with Drive, but you take the same condition you inflict.
Defend: Avoiding damage to a vehicle in a physical conflict is one of the most common uses of Drive. You can also use Drive to defend against upper hands being gained against you or to surmount actions of someone trying to move past you in a vehicle.
Drive Feats
Hard to Shake. +2d to Drive whenever you’re pursuing another vehicle in a chase scene.
Pedal to the Metal. You can coax more speed out of your vehicle than seems possible. Whenever you’re engaged in any contest where speed is the primary factor (such as a chase or race of some kind), consider your vehicle one tier higher in the hierarchy of speed (see below).
Ramming Speed. When ramming another vehicle, yo
u ignore two steps of conditions—severity, duration, or a combination of the two. So if you ram and cause a severe, lasting condition to your opponent’s vehicle, you only take minor, lasting damage (or moderate, sticky damage; or severe, fleeting damage—YOU choose the steps).
Combat Pilot. You can use Drive in place of Marksman to attack in air combat when flying an air vehicle—an airship, helicopter, aeroplane or the like.
Fancy Flyer. +2d to Drive when surmounting obstacles related to close-quarters maneuvering in an air vehicle, such as flying nap-of-the-earth, threading among looming airships, or zigzagging along a narrow valley.
Vehicle Rules
The hierarchy of speed (from fastest to slowest) goes as follows:
Aeroplane/airship
Steam-powered Helicopter
Steam-Car/Monowheel/Motorcycle
Horse
Velocipede/Penny-Farthing
Foot
When a chase involves a speed mismatch, the faster driver gets a number of free invocations of vehicle descriptors equal to the difference between the tiers. This can be mitigated by circumstances—feet can outpace a steam-car in a dense forest, and a steam-car might help you catch up with an aeroplane before it is airborne.
Empathy: Surmount/Get the Upper Hand/Defend
Empathy involves knowing and being able to spot changes in a person’s mood or bearing. It’s basically the emotional Spot skill.
Surmount: You don’t really use Empathy to surmount obstacles directly—normally, you find out some information with it, and then use another skill to act. In some cases, though, you might use Empathy like you would Spot, to see if you catch a change in someone’s attitude or intent.
Get the Upper Hand: You can use Empathy to read a person’s emotional state and get a general sense of who they are, presuming you have some kind of interpersonal contact with them. Most often, you’ll use this to assess the descriptors on another character’s sheet, but sometimes you’ll also be able to create new descriptors, especially on NPCs. If the target has some reason to be aware that you’re trying to read them, they can defend with Deceive or Rapport.
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