I still haven't had much chance to play under Genesys rules since the game was released, but I'll be GMing a magepunk sky-pirate setting beginning in February (after some false starts of other settings). Having a look at the skill list, I'm wondering how useful it really is to have differentiated skills for the following. I understand the rulebook definition of each, but I also keep hearing that players can usually make a good case for rolling a different skill than what the GM had in mind, so I'd like to hear some actual play observations.

• Cool and Discipline
• Charm and Negotiation
• Differentiated melee and ranged skills vs simply "Ranged" and "Melee". How often is it functionally useful to make them granular? I'm asking since it seems like your choice of weapons, particularly melee ones, will come down to how strong you are and whether or not you want the extra defense of a shield.

Asking the above a different way: how often do players typically put multiple points into two similar skills vs trying to make a case for using the one they've trained? It seems like this would be especially true for similarly skills like the first two pairs above.

In the case of combat skills, it seems like having the differentiation really only comes down to being able to punish the PCs if they don't have the right weapon type at hand. What I like about a simple "Melee" and "Range" skill is each one is more about the wielder than the item wielded, and their overall combat knowledge.

Its useful mostly for game balance. Sometimes you can make a cool narrative that fits a different skill but as free form as this game is there still is some game balance and mechanics in place.

The other aspect of game balance is not making one stat way more useful then the other.

Cool vs discipline. In social encounters cool is often overlooked stat but it also used for initiative. While Discipline is among other things used for fear checks. If you could do all things with cool presence would become to good a stat same with willpower. Narrative cool is all about the pokerface even though your peeing your pants while discipline is your steely nerves. Cool could be used to mask your true intentions or convince someone that your a though son of a gun. But so could deception. But how that is describe and told would be different.

Charm vs. negotiation is same story balance wise. But you asked for some actual play observations. My only real advise is not to have a particular skill in mind when you make the encounter. Say its a social encounter or investigation PC should be able to use any skill. The narrative will change though depending on which skill. So a Charm vs. negotiation if they say i want to use negotiation then ask maybe are you offering them a bribe ? If you do think a particular skill is more suited allow alternative use just with higher difficulty.

During my first campaign there was a bit confusion from the players i think most of it was from understanding what the interpretation was of the different skills. Once everyone was on the same page things worked smoothly. I have no problem with a pc using deception if thats their best skill as long as they descripe the deception narrative. One advise to practise this is sometimes make the order in revers. Make the roll then the narrative it helped one player of mine better narrate.

On the different combat skills the core book suggest that you decide if most combat is going to be ranged or melee. If most of your combat is ranged then make it range light, ranged heavy and just plain melee. This is again for game balance same way you dont want more then 4 knowledge skills usually. I played a similar setting to what you describe and decided that most was going to be ranged so had light, heavy and just melee for the rest.

Last advise or argument for keeping the social skills as they are is group dynamic. I did have pc that where spread out in skills like having both charm, negotiation, deception but it worked well that different pc had different skills they where especially good at. Having to many skills makes it hard to be good. Having to few makes skill choise to narrow. With that said i dont think anything would brake in this system if you tried otherwise

I second a lot of what Achellus says. For Cool vs. Discipline, there have been lots of threads discussing this in both this forum and the various Star Wars forums. I'd encourage you to search the boards for those, as lots of really good advice has already been dispensed. (Please don't take this as a curt "do a search," but rather as an apology for why I won't be going into those two.)

Charm vs. Negotiation: I've never seen these as being too overlapped. If anything, I often have a harder time distinguishing Negotiation from Coercion. Using Charm is trying to get your way through sincere flattery, pleasantries, social graces, seduction, chumminess, or appeals to your target's better nature. I kid begging for bread is using Charm, but so is a socialite trying to impress a dignitary. It's the character saying, "Hey, I'm likable and friendly, and I like you. Now could I bother you to do me a favor?" It overlaps with Deception in that you wouldn't use Charm to seduce someone you found repulsive; you'd have to fake it with Deception. Or if you were just dressed as a beggar and trying to get spare coins, that'd be Deception. The key here is that Charm is using sincere appeals to the target and not offering them anything in return beyond a sense of camaraderie or the satisfaction that they helped you.

Negotiation is always a ***-for-tat exchange. It's deal-making. It's bargain-hunting. It's "I scratch your back, you scratch mine." When using Negotiation, the goal is always to get as much as you can while giving up as little as you can, but you go in expecting to have to give something up. Negotiation is used to haggle a used-car dealer down on the price of a used car, but it would also be used to trade your dish-washing services to the innkeeper when you're too broke to pay for a room. Where it can get fuzzy with Charm is when bribery is concerned. "Oh, Duke Wilhelm, your wife is so stunning! She'd look wonderful in this broach! Give it to her with my regards. Now, about those tariffs..." Is that Charm or Negotiation? I'd say Charm with a boost for giving the broach (so long as it was sincere; if not Deception). But slipping the maître d' $100 to seat you when you don't have a reservation? That's arguably either skill. But most of the time, I think they're pretty different.

I mentioned that Coercion can actually overlap with Negotiation more. That's because if you're using strong-arm tactics, it becomes hard to distinguish them sometimes (for me at least). "Duke Wilhelm, if you don't release our political prisoners, my father will send his armies north to meet you at the Black Rock!" Is that Coercion? Or Negotiation? Probably either depending on whether your side is open to the duke proposing a counter offer or not. Might even be Charm in another register: "Oh, dear Willy! Won't you release your prisoners? I'd hate for my silly father to send his troops north to fight one of his daft little battles against you at Black Rock..."

But my final paragraph there is the exception rather than the rule. Most of the time, the skills are differentiated quite easily by the sincerity and intentions of the user. In the marginal cases, you might let PCs make a pitch for more than one. And if you're using the full Social Encounter rules, that's actually a good thing, as it allows more PCs to potentially contribute.

I actually participated in one such discussion, SavageBob. I was just hoping for any additional insights now that players and GMs had a little more experience with the system. But it seems the overwhelming consensus elsewhere (and 2 for 2 here so far) is to keep both skills in each pairing. I think I'll do so, and just keep the grumbling voice in my head locked behind an oak door.

The melee and ranged question still has me thinking though. It seems like a fairly arbitrary way to funnel particular weapon loot to subsets of PC's. Oh, it's a longsword! Well Biff the ogre has a good Melee-Heavy skill, so we'll give it to Whipple the Elf, who has a better Melee-Light skill. Thing is, if Biff the ogre is focusing on brawn, he'd likely prefer cumbersome two-handed weapons for their greater damage, so having a common "Melee" skill wouldn't make it more likely for him to take the lighter weapon anyway. Likewise Whipple the elf is likely using finesse and doesn't have much brawn, so he can't swing any of Biff's favorite skull crushers anyway. So basically neither of them is likely to want to "ninja the other's loot". It seems that having multiple Melee skills just imposes a restriction the PC's would have effectively self-imposed through other choices.

For my custom setting (Pirate Fantasy) I just used Brawl, Melee, Ranged, and Gunnery for my combat skills. But weapons are still broken up as 1 handed or 2 handed. So a player can still use finesse with a cutlass, but not a great sword.

I mainly did this because my system has a pretty even distribution of both melee and ranged combat (with gunnery filling the niche if siege combat). But I also made sure to add more skills in place of the ones I removed. That's what you really have to be careful of. If you start removing and combining skills then your characters will become too powerful way too quickly.