What if players want to start with different skills

[yfr]

Suppose a group of players wants to deal with a world where there are professional catapult-makers, professional builders, etc.

Page 140:

Even the Gutenberg press does not exist! This is a medieval, feudal society without bookbinding technology.

That seems a little over-stated.

I would venture to guess that it means "without Renaissance-era bookbinding."

Even Bronze Age cultures had primitive books - sometimes made from bark-based cloth, as with the Mayans.

While book tech is primitive (and non-unified), there are such things as thieves' tools and locksmiths, herbalists, alchemists, wainwrights, and gongfarmers (Table 1-3, page 15). (Presumably the gongfarmers sell the muck from privies to tanners and alchemists.) And there are grave-diggers, who will have a lot of work cut out for them, what with all the 0-level characters returning on their shields, not with them.

So all this looks like a fairly specialized economy, with a considerable level of engineering and urbanization.

All skill checks seem to refer to Table 1-3, if I am interpreting page 52 aright: "If your character’s background supports his knowing such a skill, you may attempt a skill check."

It would probably be difficult for individual judges to amend Table 1-3 if the group decides that "tanner" is a separate occupation and needs to be treated as such. Possibly occupations such as "Trapper" and "Weaver" might be interpreted to include tanners. In other words, if the group wants a new profession, possibly the judge can just look at the closest fit in Table 1-3.

Thus the catapult-maker might be classed as a blacksmith, the professional builder might be classed as a ditch digger (because well-planned buildings require foundations, drainage, etc.). Alternatively, the judge might rule that player-characters must always come from humble skill-sets, and must never have catapult-building skill or the like.

[finarvyn]

Not a problem.

I know that one of the rules versions (I'd have to look at the Beta again) had a statement about allowing player choice rather than random rolls if the GM allows it.

Each GM gets to design his own campaign to match whatever technological level, racial choices, and so on, that they like. The rulebook is designed to give a guideline for a "traditional" Appendix N campaign.