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Question, what are the rules for building a skeleton?

The rules for this are very very sketchy. What a skeleton is, and how its used is described, but there are no existing skeletons (save for 1 I found) and there are NO instructions on how to build your own skeleton....

This is the sample I found:

Sample Skeletons
Skill listing: pg.120


Scavenger Colony Technician
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Language
Law
History
Biological
Physical
Chemical
Gaia Know
Colony Know
Colony Systems
Colony Design
Vehicle Know
Macromechanics
Mechasys Know
Mechasys Systems

14 skills
All Epoch 1 except for the Systems & Design skills...

So how does this work?

Well I did one up as Streetfighter

I have to agree with viziel, I wish there could be more rules on how to built skeletons. What are the limitations? How many skills are good? Can any skill be in any skeleton? Any advice on building skeletons?

I know that ICAR is a bast universe and a list of skeletons would be short and limitating, but how can we, the players, built new skeletons so they fit in our campaing?

Well, maybe when we get the New Fleet Book, we will see how a "Fleet guy, does vrs a Scav"

and at least from the Scav we all had 7 skills that seemed fixed from schooling and then 7 or that seemed define the Concept.

How about for a Pilot Skeleton
This PC, could pilot anything from Team's Van up to that Star Destroyer in orbit. Depending on where the combat training is, you are looking at a shuttle/fighter/cargo pilot or a Ship Bridge Crew member.
Language
Law
History
Biology
Physical
Chemical
Gaia Know
Pilot Grav (5 x Wit) + D10
Pilot Heavy Grav (5 x Wit) + D10
Pilot Cruiser (5 x Wit) + D10
Combat Pilot [player choice: Heavy Grav or Cruiser] (5 x Wit) + D10
Heavy Weapons (5 x Wit) + D10
Space Craft Know (5 x Wit) + D10
Space Craft System (5 x Wit) + D10
Mechasys Know (2 x Wit) + D10
I will admit I just threw it together tonight

Thanks for the replies guys... I'm not alone!

The only other game system I've played that had this kind of mechanic was Cyberpunk. In that game, you picked a core skill that defined your class and then you could choose 7 other skills. After that, you got pick-up skills and those came at the cost of your attributes but the initial 7 were free and were apart of your class "package".

Package in this game is a "Skeleton"...

So by reading the book, if I wanted to make a crazy Gaia hacking, Android Building, Mech designing scientist...whats to stop me from picking up every KNOW,SYSTEMS,DESIGN skill out there? Currently, there are no limits.

Seems like your character skeleton and the scav skeleton provided both share a basic education package...that could be 1/2 of the puzzle. You either get that, OR you get other core packages, and the rest are actually class defining skills....


But the rhyme and reason behind what Epoch you can choose is beyond me.

I can certainly put a Skeleton-building mechanic together but I am not 100% sold on how useful it is (because every setting is very different yes yes yes blah blah blah). I could not put a mechanic together that would build both a Fleet Trooper and a Streetpunk setting Meshrat as the lives they would have lead would have been entirely different.

I could build one for middle-of-the-road characters but... I'm still not convinced that's very interesting! Perhaps some guidelines.

Of course, if you can convince a GM that swapping like-for-like skills in an existing Skeleton would make your new character type then go for it.

As for pilot - I used to always have a pilot skeleton but if your team gets planetbound, you become not very useful.

Well this is a real problem...because as a player I start at page 1 and march through instructions and hope to create a character.

Now, if this system is intended to be a free-for-all in the skeleton business then it needs to be written as such. That the player chooses whatever skills they feel fit their character concept within the confines of the GMs galactic vision and then has to approve that skeleton with the GM. OR the GM can prepare some ahead of time. Either way this must be detailed.


I personally dont like this system because I like to know what my limits are ahead of time, and as a GM I like players to come to a game with characters and not spend a session just making characters up. I find when I do this, players tend to leech and min/max their characters based upon their team. Which is good for them, but unrealistic and dosn't give them as much challenge for creative thinking.

OR

A clearly defined system is written where the player can choose X skills from Epoch 1, X skills from Epoch 2 etc. For a STARTING character.

I find it really annoying not being able to make a character by reading the rules.