Are Abilities Necessary?

[Nomadic]

What you could do is make abilities much closer to the skill dynamic. Like I said with the guild school example, have abilities give bonuses to how fast related skills level. I have good strength, I am going to get better faster at things that require strength, etc...

[Polycarp]

What you could do is make abilities much closer to the skill dynamic. Like I said with the guild school example, have abilities give bonuses to how fast related skills level. I have good strength, I am going to get better faster at things that require strength, etc...

I don't think it's ever a good idea to introduce a mechanic that could cause some characters to advance faster than others.  It forces players to min/max just to keep up with fellow players.

[LordVreeg]

What you could do is make abilities much closer to the skill dynamic. Like I said with the guild school example, have abilities give bonuses to how fast related skills level. I have good strength, I am going to get better faster at things that require strength, etc...

I don't think it's ever a good idea to introduce a mechanic that could cause some characters to advance faster than others.  It forces players to min/max just to keep up with fellow players.

well, it might not be a good idea, but it has been the primary mechanic for advancement for the Guildschool system for decades, and for over a hundred PCs.  It seems to work well, in practise.
I think you are still thinking of classes and levels.
Guildschool keeps experience in every skill, and the mechanism Nomad refers to is the experience modifier of a skill.  The origin of the skill, in terms of who taught it, has the most determinate of the EXPMOD, but the attributes come into play quite a bit as well.  And this allows us to have players get experience only in skills they use.
Generally, each PC has different skills they have very advantageous EXPMODS in, so there is none of this min/maxing you worry about.
 :-p
 

[Nomadic]

What vreeg said.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Because it seems relevant, I want to point out that how the Riddle of Steel (the core rules) handled skills seemed a neat innovation to me. That is, your skill determined the DC, while your attribute determined the number of dice you rolled. Use of a skill automatically improved it (lowering the DC, to a point).

The Seneschal could increase/decrease the challenge by modifying the number of dice you had, but your skill always determined the target number.

This methodology meant the player could choose what attributes to improve, while skills improved based on what they actually did. Further, skills were not linked to specific attributes, but could vary based on how the skill was being used. So some climbs might test endurance, while some might test agility, or even perception (that's a stretch, but it could happen).

[Pellanor]

Speaking of the Riddle of Steel, I still need to find a way to track down a copy of that game.


Anyway, on the topic at hand. Since I don't follow football, I'm going to use a hockey analogy instead.
Compare Alex Tanguay and Dion Phaneuf. Two of the top line players for the Calgary flames last season, each making roughly the same salary.
Tanguay is a play maker with soft hands, who prefers to pass rather than shoot.
Paneuf is a heavy hitting defenceman with a killer slap shot.

Both would have very high levels in the Hockey skill, yet how do you represent their huge differences in style? An ability system does a decent job of this, giving Paneuf a higher Str score, and Tangauy a higher Dex.

Some people have said that having this kind of separation in the mechanics is not necessary, as it can be covered simply through roleplaying. However I feel that having a more complete system which is able to reflect a character concept is important and adds enjoyment to the game.

Sure you could just give the characters traits like "Heavy hitter" or "Soft hands", but how many traits are you going to put together in order to represent all the different approaches to different skills?


By the way, if you're looking for a system where physical skills boost your physical attributes, I suggest taking a look at RIFTS. It does just that, and at first glance seems like a quite simple way to implement this kind of feature. However if you spend any time making characters you will soon see how cumbersome this system really is.
I'm not saying it can't be done well, just that RIFTS can be a good example of how not to do it.

[Superfluous Crow]

If you ever come by Copenhagen, i saw a copy of TROS in a shop not that long ago...
I'm not sure whether it would help, but the mechanics for the Unhallowed Metropolis game implemented something called "stunts" for some of their skills; essentially, every time you went up a level in that skill you got a stunt in addition to the skill point. A stunt was an ability that fleshed out the skill somewhat more, giving you some sort of "special ability". It was mostly done for combat skills, but can't see why you couldn't do it for hockey as well. Also, the skills that didn't have stunts had specializations for each skill level; they essentially gave you an extra skill point in any case where the specialization applied.
It should be noted that UM does have ability scores, but don't add them to skills.