Confused about skills

[Desert Rat]

I'm DMing a N&SS game soonish, but the skill system confuses me. Does everyone have base skill in every skill? The fact that skill packages all have you gain +% to the skills makes it seem like they're simply more skilled than the average person at X skill. Or does one -only- have a skill if it is part of their OCC/skill package or martial art?

No, you only get the skills which are selected by the players through the allocated skill programs. The additional bonuses are to appropriately compensate for different "life experiences". I.e. at 1st level a thief is going to be more skilled at safe cracking, palming, pick locks, etc... then a Mercenary.

[Overlord Rikonius]

I'm DMing a N&SS game soonish, but the skill system confuses me. Does everyone have base skill in every skill? The fact that skill packages all have you gain +% to the skills makes it seem like they're simply more skilled than the average person at X skill. Or does one -only- have a skill if it is part of their OCC/skill package or martial art?

No, people don't have the base in every skill. You only get a skill if if it's part of a OCC or skill package (or a bonus from another ability), or you choose it as a secondary skill.
Think of it like someone who decides to learn to play guitar one day and he's really good right off. He had an inate talent, but he still couldn't play guitar until he set out to learn it. Or to put it in game terms: He got a +x% bonus to guitar, but it didn't kick in until he took play musical instrument: guitar as a secondary skill.

[drewkitty ~..~]

The chars only get their skills through there skill packages, 2ndary skills and If available to the class: the MA Form

The Only skill that Everyone get is their Native Language.

[Desert Rat]

My opinion, just because one has taken Jui Jitsu, does not necessarily mean your character took it in Japan. The purpose for the higher score with the Oriental Studies Program is to compensate for a level of professional education the character has undertaken prior to beginning the game.

I would caution you from trying to make all your skills perfect so to speak for a first level character. This is an RPG and that kind of takes the fun out of character development.

[Library Ogre]

Innosin, you might be interested in some optional skill rules I developed:

http://rpg-crank.livejournal.com/26640.html

[Overlord Rikonius]

What about skills that come with a martial art? For example, someone who takes Jujutsu gets "Japanese". Does this mean they get Japanese at the base score without any sort of bonus? Does this mean they're fluent in it?

Also, are there any ways that you guys handle buying a single language? The closest that I see are the language packages, which means the best a foreigner could hope to be in English is 70% at level one, whereas someone could start out at 80% Chinese by taking the Oriental Studies program. I'm curious if anyone has 'house rules' on starting off better skilled, like trading in multiple secondary-skills, or sacrificing variety in the language program (maybe take 3 instead of 5) to be better at one..

If the martial art gives you a bonus, it'll say so.
Now if one martial gives you "Japanese" and another gives you "+10% to Japanese" or "Japanese: +10%" then you have the base skill rating, + 10% + the 5% per level*

*ok, there's some controversy over whether you get the +n% per level at level one, but I say you do because otherwise it'd be worded "+n% per additional level"