In XWN games, the skill list is one of the most important parts. It sets the vibes for the entire game. With only about 25-30 base skills available, and characters having limited skill points to spend, what those skills are and what they cover matter a lot.
When debating what skills to have in a Western Without Numbers game, there were a few things I wanted to do for sure. The most important was a skill for gun, explosives, and general gunpowder shenanigans. Most XWN games have the Shoot skill, which covers everything from guns to bows to cannons to Death Star lasers. This mostly works in those games because the exceptions to the norm are not very common.
If you’re playing fantasy, most of your Shoot weapons are bows, crossbows, and the like. On the rare chance you find some sort of sci-fi laser gun, it’s not worth having a skill solely for that. Likewise in a science fiction game, most Shoot will be done with guns, and you just kind of handwave it if you want to shoot a bow and arrow for some reason.
As originally designed, my Frontier game was meant to be able to run games in the 18th and 19th centuries. So while guns were on the rise and bows were on the way out, there was more mix than usual. Then when we get to later in the 1800’s and we have cannons and dynamite and things of that nature, the Shoot skill just seems to cover too much for my liking.
Enter the Blast skill. Blast covers all gunpowder-related activities. Both Blast and Shoot can be used for firing guns, but Blast is exclusive for explosives and artillery. This allows a lot of character concepts to be able to use guns, a core component in a Western, while not allowing someone to be equally as skilled with a bow as they are with a gatling gun.
The other new skill is Create. Weird Science is a common fantasy western trope, but I’ve gone back and forth on how to include it. When settling on running a Deadlands campaign, it felt necessary for it to be there as a main option, though nothing except the Mad Scientist Edge gives it for free. But still, if a character wants to be good at using “New Science” devices, the skill is there to invest in.
Finally, the last major skill change is folding Punch into the Melee skill. Blast creates another combat skill, and Punch has always felt a little redundant anyways. There are reasonable concerns about combining the skills, mostly dealing with grappling, but in this game about guns and magic, I don’t think it will come up enough to have a skill tax.
Next, I’ll try to explain my overly convoluted way to evaluate how useful skills are.