Configuring FS3 - Skills List

To configure the FS3 Skills List:

1. Select Admin -> Setup.
2. Edit fs3skills_action.yml, fs3skills_attrs.yml, fs3skills_bg.yml, fs3skills_langs.yml and fs3skills_advantages.yml.

Before You Start

You should read the article Customizing FS3, which contains important information to help guide you in customizing your game.

Attributes

You can configure the list of Attributes, specifying a name and description for each.

- name: Reflexes
  desc: 'Reflexes, dexterity, and hand-eye coordination.'
- name: Brawn
  desc: Physical strength and toughness.

default_linked_attr

This is the Attribute used by default when someone rolls a Background or Language skill and doesn’t specify an Attribute. For example, if you set this to ‘Wits’ then someone rolling Basketweaving will really be rolling ‘Basketweaving+Wits’.

attributes_blurb

This is the instructional blurb used in the abilities screen and in chargen help. It supports markdown text.

Action Skills

You can configure the list of Action Skills, specifying a name, description and linked Attribute for each.

- name: Alertness
  desc: Noticing things and being aware of your surroundings.
  linked_attr: Perception
- name: Athletics
  desc: General running, jumping, climbing, etc.
  linked_attr: Brawn

You may optionally specify a list of specialties for a skill.

- name: Medicine
  desc: Tending to the ill and injured.
  linked_attr: Wits
  specialties:
  - Doctor
  - Surgeon

action_skills_blurb

This is the instructional blurb used in the abilities screen and in chargen help. It supports markdown text.

Languages

You can configure the list of Languages, specifying a name and description for each.

- name: Standard
  desc: Spoken across the colonies.
- name: Gemenese
  desc: Dead language known by academics and religious scholars.

language_blurb

This is the instructional blurb used in the abilities screen and in chargen help. It supports markdown text.

Advantages

Advantages are an optional part of the system. You can use them for things that aren’t skills, but that you want people to pay points for in chargen - rank, resources, powers, etc.

You can configure the list of Advantages, specifying a name and description for each.

- name: Resources
  desc: Wealth and other tangible possessions.
- name: Rank
  desc: Rank or social status.

use_advantages

You can disable Advantages entirely by setting use_advantages to false. This is the default setting.

advantages_blurb

This is the instructional blurb used in the abilities screen and in chargen help. It supports markdown text.

Removing an Ability

If you remove an Action Skill, Attribute or Language from the game configuration while people have that ability, you’ll get errors or weird results.

Error: "Error in skills configuration -- action skill Archery not found."

If your game is still in development and you’ve just got characters in chargen, having them do a ‘reset’ to wipe their abilities will fix this.

Otherwise, before removing an ability from the game configuration, you must first run a Tinker snippet to remove that ability everyone’s character sheet. You can also do special handling, like refunding them some XP or transferring it to a background skill or something.

For example, if we wanted to remove the Archery action skill, we would modify the tinker command to do:

  def handle
    FS3ActionSkill.all.each do |a|
       if (a.name == 'Archery')
         client.emit "Deleting Archery from #{a.character.name} -- was at rating #{a.rating}."
         a.delete
       end
    end
  end

After you have successfully removed the ability from everyone’s sheet, then it is safe to remove the ability from the config file.