Big Skills

[MGuy]

Stating that dice are meaningless if they can't result in GAME OVER is very much a point of contention. As it stands, Search should already meet the litmus test of approval from the anti-dice crowd; the Take 10/20 rules applicable to large swaths of the skill system already take out dice from most situations unless time is a significant factor.

So you're agreeing that Search doesn't really need a roll? Fantastic. I'm not sure why you want to hold anything else in contention. I don't see the point of quibbling over PL's use of hyperbole to get his main point across. You've already admitted you're stuck with his two options and can't come up with a third thing.

[virgil]

There are dice involved in Search. Learn to read.

[deaddmwalking]

I think the reason the thread hasn't been more productive is that Phonelobster and Mguy insist that A -> B -> C -> D is not and cannot be substantively different from A -> K -> L ->D or even A -> K -> L -> Z. Essentially, they're in full on crazy mode. If we can't agree that it's the journey, not the destination, it makes it hard to talk about how to improve the journey. Phonelobster is insisting that if you don't give the players everything they need for an optimal solution it's GAME OVER and he's hardly walked back that hyperbolic explanation.

But I agree with Kaelik that a discussion of when to roll dice is probably more interesting in regards to skills.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I would love it if Frank and deaddm backed down from their "dice grant agency with magic powers" argument and just admitted that random elements don't grant agency and exist to provide an adjudication of actions when you want them to both be able to succeed and to fail on a single identical task, and then we could talk about which skills should have a failure and success state both be possible on the same action, you know, like that huge post I made that then everyone decided they couldn't read. I would really love to have an actually productive conversation.

I actually agree that the dice don't have magic agency granting powers. Let me try to express a nuanced view that everyone is going to disregard.

As I explained earlier in the thread, I don't really have a preference for whether the PCs succeed or fail on any particular task. If I'm doing things right, I'm prepared for both possibilities and the game continues incorporating the decisions, successes, and failures they've made. While I might think the game is 'better' if they make an alliance with 'Red Team' and go on a rampage and kill 'Green Team', I'm not going to force that on them. If they instead attack 'Red Team' and make an alliance with 'Green Team', the game continues and it reflects their choices. Now, when there is no roll, I've decided in advance whether they will succeed or the will fail - I've made a decision about the direction of the game. Instead of choices, successes and failures all leading to a variety of stories, I've limited it only to choices. Further, when I've decided they will not succeed, I've disregarded whatever investment they've made in that ability. The 'what if the rule says they always succeed full stop fails to account for the possibility of situations where more investment should be required. It's not hard to come up with examples of these types of situations. As one such example, take this investigative trope: the PCs are called in to investigate a crime. They investigate the crime scene and they discover a clue that was overlooked by the town guard.

I think that those types of stories have value; as a result, having search as an ability where some people can 'do better' than others is important to me. Further, I value PC/NPC symmetry. I don't want NPC necromancers to have access to 'super secret cool death magic' that PCs don't get; and I don't want PCs to have access to 'we actually search the room perfectly every time while NPCs don't'. Not only does it take more space in the rules, it really messes with Han Solo and friends smuggling themselves in the Millenium Falcon.

For those types of reasons, I usually prefer a chance of success (which requires a chance of failure). It isn't that rolling automagically grants agency; it is simply that if there is a roll and I've communicated what value succeeds prior to the roll, I absolutely must be willing to recognize player agency - that is, if they attempt something I am willing to let it succeed, even if I think it is better for the game if they fail. And let's be honest - what I think is best for the game may differ from what the players think is best for the game. If dice are involved (with chance of success and failure), player agency is almost certainly visible. If the dice are not allowed and it is simply DM fiat, player agency is almost certainly an illusion maintained by the DM - because despite those who say 'this always works full stop', the DM can always introduce reasons why it doesn't. Since this is an important point, I'd like to go into this in more detail using flight as an example.

If a character has a fly speed, you would typically expect that 'they can fly - full stop'. But the GM can offer reasons why it doesn't work. 'You're in an anti-magic zone'. 'The ceiling is too low - you can't take off'. 'The tunnel is too tight - you need to be able to spread your wings to fly'. This is cops and robbers - 'I shot you'. 'I have a bullet proof vest'. 'I have armor piercing bullets'.

Taken further, blanket immunity is bad for the game. What happens when an unstoppable force encounters an immovable object? If you have an ability that lets you do something 'full stop' and someone has an ability that counters your ability 'full stop', what happens?

When we have rolls and relative abilities, we can resolve those types of situations. Player agency is maintained because the GM is not forced to make a decision that either supports the players wishes or counters them; instead the dice take the position of arbiter.

So how would a standard "Dungeon crawl with some traps, ancient lore to give clues on things inside, ruined sections that need to be worked around, and monsters" use yer ideal vision of a skill system?

When would dice be rolled, when wouldn't they be rolled.

To expand upon myself three years ago:

1) Things that should be things everyone should do, and not fucking graduated skills with rolls: Appraise, Gather Information, Heal, Perform, Profession, Use Rope.

I actually agree with you that Appraise and Heal don't need rolls. I think that they're probably best represented as abilities that do require training (like Speak Language), but I don't think the game is improved when players don't know the value of a particular gem. As a GM, I don't want to have to track the 'secret value' for weeks or months - I want them to write it down on their sheet so I don't have to remember it. Profession, too. Perform is tied to some abilities which makes adjustments to it somewhat more difficult, but I think that gaining a new instrument, for instance, should be like learning another language - once you've learned it you should be able to perform with it as well as other instruments you've learned.

I'm inclined to think that Gather Information (like Search) should be something you invest in. There are a lot of things about 3.x skills that I don't like, and tracking ranks is one of them; I think 'untrained/trained/expert' is usually enough. I think that Gather Information could be connected to some larger networks - if you have enough Gather Information you have reliable sources of information. Sherlock Holmes used the homeless as his eyes and ears; that's something that can be done in an RPG and investing a resource is probably better than fellating your GM.

Use Rope is tricky - sometimes the PCs are going to be tied up and sometimes they're going to be the ones doing the tying. Personal preference - I'd like being able to take and keep prisoners to be EASIER than it currently is in D&D. In every version of D&D, killing your enemies is just the safest way - but I think that having reasons to let enemies live makes for a better game. Some of it can be social - killing sentient creatures in a city makes you an outlaw - but being sure your prisoners are secure could help. I'd probably be fine with making it an 'everyone has this ability' and when you use Escape Artist that becomes a question of time required. Again, personally, I think having a variable amount of time required to escape is both best and best represented by a die roll. If a 'decent' check allows you to escape in 24 hours but a 'critical success' allows you escape immediately, you could have some stories of immediately slipping your bonds, but if the captors check your bonds every 10 minutes you're usually stuck... Rules about how long a check takes and retries would matter a lot for making this work in a satisfying way for both sides (captives and captors).

2) Things that should be class features, or racial features, or feats, and not fucking graduated skills with rolls: Balance, Decipher Script, Forgery, Escape Artist, Handle Animal, Open Lock, Ride, Sleight of Hand.

I don't think any of these abilities should be class or racial features - if you want to decipher script, you shouldn't have to be an elf. If it's something you want to be able to do, than locking it to a choice you don't want is bad - at least without a compelling reason. As for feats, you get so very few that most of these aren't worth that. Again, tracking ranks is probably not worth it.

For Balance and Ride, I could see them just being Attribute Checks. There is no reason the RNG has to go so high that it requires the same level of check that a skill does. Still, since some people might want to be the best at those things, there's really no harm in making it a skill. It's certainly better to have the resource used to learn these things come from skill points and not from a resource that can provide you a potentially more powerful (and character defining) ability.

3) Movement modes, which would have some other method of increasing them that might be a pool of points be level, or might be feats/class features. Jump, Climb, Swim, Fly.

I don't think that Fly is improved by Pathfinder allowing you to put ranks into it. Improving your flight maneuverability I could see as some type of feat (or possibly skill training) but tracking ranks is not a good solution. I can see Swim and Climb working that way, too. It's still probably important to know whether you can climb a particular surface (a roach might be fine on your wall but can't climb glass). Again, I'd rather see it come from skills rather than a more significant resource, but I think that '1 rank' of Climb should give you a climb speed equal to half your normal speed (or similar) and potentially allow upgrades. The 'climb speed = +8 to climb checks' isn't a terrible way to decide what you can climb. I'm not sure it needs to be any type of graduated skill, but I don't really see the harm in it, either.

So mostly I'm of the opinion that Skills represent 'attribute checks' that allow 'special training' to be really competent at them. Tracking ranks is a poor mechanic; some type of untrained/trained/expert is probably sufficient. Since some people will want to be an 'expert' in something, it's usually NOT a problem to let them do so. Making sure that 'expert' offers meaningful benefits is probably important. If you want to be an 'expert' in appraise, maybe it gives you the ability to get more cash for your loot.

Generally, people will want a chance to succeed on a 'very difficult task' and a roll is a very easy way to simulate that, so it generally provides a good resolution mechanic for most skills. Since campaigns will differ, the relative value of skills may differ as well. Even for skills that 'you just have' like speak language, it may be important to know how well you do in a particular task. I remember a spy movie set in World War II where an American woman was allowed to infiltrate a high-ranking Nazi household because she had learned German from her grandmother so had a peasant accent. For most campaigns 'speaking' the language is probably enough; but if you're playing Tale of Genji and your writing and poetry ability is a major facet of your character you might want to be able to invest additional resources in that ability; and you may need a resolution mechanic that determines who does better on a particular task instead of the 'higher rank' always winning.

I fully admit that some of this is personal preference - a fully deterministic system might be preferable to some people - I just don't play with any of them.

[MGuy]

There are dice involved in Search. Learn to read.

Where did I say that the current search skill didn't have a roll involved? Why do people not read what I post then tell me to learn how to read?

[MGuy]

I think the reason the thread hasn't been more productive is that Phonelobster and Mguy insist that A -> B -> C -> D is not and cannot be substantively different from A -> K -> L ->D or even A -> K -> L -> Z. Essentially, they're in full on crazy mode. If we can't agree that it's the journey, not the destination, it makes it hard to talk about how to improve the journey. Phonelobster is insisting that if you don't give the players everything they need for an optimal solution it's GAME OVER and he's hardly walked back that hyperbolic explanation.

But I agree with Kaelik that a discussion of when to roll dice is probably more interesting in regards to skills.

Boy oh boy, I sure enjoy people not reading my replies to them and then misrepresenting my position.

[Kaelik]

The 'what if the rule says they always succeed full stop fails to account for the possibility of situations where more investment should be required. It's not hard to come up with examples of these types of situations. As one such example, take this investigative trope: the PCs are called in to investigate a crime. They investigate the crime scene and they discover a clue that was overlooked by the town guard.

Wholly shit this is amazing. You made the exact same stupid as fuck lie that you make every time again. Every fucking time you post, you use this exact same stupid lie. Every single time, I point out that this is a piece of shit lie that you keep repeating, and every single fucking time you bring it up as if no one has ever presented an argument about it ever.

Either you are the biggest fucking idiot that has ever existed, or you the most pathological liar that has ever existed, and there is no fucking middle ground.

For what has to be the 4 billionth time, HEY DEADDM, STOP BEING AN IDIOT LIAR. NOTHING ABOUT NOT HAVING A ROLL PREVENTS YOU FROM HAVING DIFFERENT LEVELS OF ABILITIES. IT DIDN'T THE LAST FUCKING 12 TIMES YOU SAID IT DOES, IT STILL DOESN'T. AT LEAST IF YOU ARE GOING TO KEEP STICKING TO THIS SAME STUPID AS FUCK LIE, ADDRESS ANY OF THE 500 TIMES PEOPLE HAVE TOLD YOU THAT YOU ARE A FUCKING IDIOT, AND THAT IS NOT HOW CHARACTER INVESTMENT WORKS.

We don't need to have a stone magic skill, because otherwise there can never be a difference between the guy who can shape stone a little bit and the guy who can summon an entire castle in an instant. BECAUSE YOU CAN HAVE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF CHARACTER INVESTMENT WITHOUT ROLLS.

If a character has a fly speed, you would typically expect that 'they can fly - full stop'. But the GM can offer reasons why it doesn't work. 'You're in an anti-magic zone'. 'The ceiling is too low - you can't take off'. 'The tunnel is too tight - you need to be able to spread your wings to fly'. This is cops and robbers - 'I shot you'. 'I have a bullet proof vest'. 'I have armor piercing bullets'.

The DM can do all the same stupid bullshit with dice rules too. This is like a literal reverse Oberini.

"You can't have good rules, because the DM can always light the book on fire, lock you in the room, and beat you with a Tire Iron until you play by the rules he made up instead! But if you have dice, I guess you can throw them in his eyes when he's trying to swing the tire iron and escape, and he knows that, so if you have dice, you can totally have good rules!"

Taken further, blanket immunity is bad for the game. What happens when an unstoppable force encounters an immovable object? If you have an ability that lets you do something 'full stop' and someone has an ability that counters your ability 'full stop', what happens?

The same thing that happens when a character with a fly speed runs into a literal wall of stone? The same thing that happens when a character with a fly speed and the Earthglide spell runs into a literal wall of stone?

In neither case is the adjudication "Magic Tea Party" in both cases you just follow the actual rules in the actual game.

I actually agree with you that Appraise and Heal don't need rolls. I think that they're probably best represented as abilities that do require training (like Speak Language), but I don't think the game is improved when players don't know the value of a particular gem. As a GM, I don't want to have to track the 'secret value' for weeks or months - I want them to write it down on their sheet so I don't have to remember it. Profession, too. Perform is tied to some abilities which makes adjustments to it somewhat more difficult, but I think that gaining a new instrument, for instance, should be like learning another language - once you've learned it you should be able to perform with it as well as other instruments you've learned.

I'm inclined to think that Gather Information (like Search) should be something you invest in. There are a lot of things about 3.x skills that I don't like, and tracking ranks is one of them; I think 'untrained/trained/expert' is usually enough. I think that Gather Information could be connected to some larger networks - if you have enough Gather Information you have reliable sources of information. Sherlock Holmes used the homeless as his eyes and ears; that's something that can be done in an RPG and investing a resource is probably better than fellating your GM.

Use Rope is tricky - sometimes the PCs are going to be tied up and sometimes they're going to be the ones doing the tying. Personal preference - I'd like being able to take and keep prisoners to be EASIER than it currently is in D&D. In every version of D&D, killing your enemies is just the safest way - but I think that having reasons to let enemies live makes for a better game. Some of it can be social - killing sentient creatures in a city makes you an outlaw - but being sure your prisoners are secure could help. I'd probably be fine with making it an 'everyone has this ability' and when you use Escape Artist that becomes a question of time required. Again, personally, I think having a variable amount of time required to escape is both best and best represented by a die roll. If a 'decent' check allows you to escape in 24 hours but a 'critical success' allows you escape immediately, you could have some stories of immediately slipping your bonds, but if the captors check your bonds every 10 minutes you're usually stuck... Rules about how long a check takes and retries would matter a lot for making this work in a satisfying way for both sides (captives and captors).

2) Things that should be class features, or racial features, or feats, and not fucking graduated skills with rolls: Balance, Decipher Script, Forgery, Escape Artist, Handle Animal, Open Lock, Ride, Sleight of Hand.

I don't think any of these abilities should be class or racial features - if you want to decipher script, you shouldn't have to be an elf. If it's something you want to be able to do, than locking it to a choice you don't want is bad - at least without a compelling reason. As for feats, you get so very few that most of these aren't worth that. Again, tracking ranks is probably not worth it.

For Balance and Ride, I could see them just being Attribute Checks. There is no reason the RNG has to go so high that it requires the same level of check that a skill does. Still, since some people might want to be the best at those things, there's really no harm in making it a skill. It's certainly better to have the resource used to learn these things come from skill points and not from a resource that can provide you a potentially more powerful (and character defining) ability.

3) Movement modes, which would have some other method of increasing them that might be a pool of points be level, or might be feats/class features. Jump, Climb, Swim, Fly.

I don't think that Fly is improved by Pathfinder allowing you to put ranks into it. Improving your flight maneuverability I could see as some type of feat (or possibly skill training) but tracking ranks is not a good solution. I can see Swim and Climb working that way, too. It's still probably important to know whether you can climb a particular surface (a roach might be fine on your wall but can't climb glass). Again, I'd rather see it come from skills rather than a more significant resource, but I think that '1 rank' of Climb should give you a climb speed equal to half your normal speed (or similar) and potentially allow upgrades. The 'climb speed = +8 to climb checks' isn't a terrible way to decide what you can climb. I'm not sure it needs to be any type of graduated skill, but I don't really see the harm in it, either.

So mostly I'm of the opinion that Skills represent 'attribute checks' that allow 'special training' to be really competent at them. Tracking ranks is a poor mechanic; some type of untrained/trained/expert is probably sufficient. Since some people will want to be an 'expert' in something, it's usually NOT a problem to let them do so. Making sure that 'expert' offers meaningful benefits is probably important. If you want to be an 'expert' in appraise, maybe it gives you the ability to get more cash for your loot.

Generally, people will want a chance to succeed on a 'very difficult task' and a roll is a very easy way to simulate that, so it generally provides a good resolution mechanic for most skills. Since campaigns will differ, the relative value of skills may differ as well. Even for skills that 'you just have' like speak language, it may be important to know how well you do in a particular task. I remember a spy movie set in World War II where an American woman was allowed to infiltrate a high-ranking Nazi household because she had learned German from her grandmother so had a peasant accent. For most campaigns 'speaking' the language is probably enough; but if you're playing Tale of Genji and your writing and poetry ability is a major facet of your character you might want to be able to invest additional resources in that ability; and you may need a resolution mechanic that determines who does better on a particular task instead of the 'higher rank' always winning.

I fully admit that some of this is personal preference - a fully deterministic system might be preferable to some people - I just don't play with any of them.

Everything you have said here is literally worthless. First off, just like every single post you make, you have here completely failed to understand that there are two different completely fucking unrelated things going on.

1) Rolling dice.

2) Investing resources, and the kinds of resources invested.

THESE ARE DIFFERENT THINGS, YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

So for example, you literally quoted a post that said that Gather Information and Appraise should not be character investments at the cost of other things, but should probably have rolls, (and after deleting the part about rolls, to whit: "I would imagine Gather Information and Appraise have rolls that don't scale with level") you then took me to task for not having gather information be a roll.

Almost like you are a complete fucking idiot, who does not understand that saying gather information should not involve differing levels of character investment does not magically mean it can't have a roll.

Basically all your argument boils down to is "I can't possibly imagine a universe without balance rolls, so I don't want people to have people choose a different class because they want to be better at not falling down!" Which is a really weird thing to say, because in actual fucking 3.5, the thing that determines whether you fall into a pit trap, or fall over on a slippery surface, is already a fucking REFLEX SAVE. So yes, contending that balance as a skill isn't doing much actual work, and should be replaced with the kinds of characters that should be better at balance having modifications to their reflex saves in the relevant situation should be literally the most comprehensible possible thing. It is literally asserting that there doesn't need to be Resist Fear Skill.

Fear is also a good counter example to your "I shouldn't have to be an elf to Decipher Script" bullshit. There doesn't have to be one way of getting an ability. Goblins can be good at riding Wargs, and Paladins can be good at riding Paladin Mounts, and people who take a feat can do whatever the feat lets them do with riding animals. And saying this is not saying if you want to be good at riding, you have to be an X, or give up spell levels to be good at riding, it is saying that certain kinds of abilities are just not that fucking important, and that the riding abilities are great example of that, and as such, can all totally be afterthoughts to other parts of the character that are more important, and therefore don't deserve specific investment tradeoffs.

TL;DR: 1) Character investment and rolling dice are different things, and literally nothing about not having dice rolls requires all characters to be the same, still, again, times infinity.

2) You are a fucking cockbag.

[momothefiddler]

Since this is an important point, I'd like to go into this in more detail using flight as an example.

If a character has a fly speed, you would typically expect that 'they can fly - full stop'. But the GM can offer reasons why it doesn't work. 'You're in an anti-magic zone'. 'The ceiling is too low - you can't take off'. 'The tunnel is too tight - you need to be able to spread your wings to fly'. This is cops and robbers - 'I shot you'. 'I have a bullet proof vest'. 'I have armor piercing bullets'.

[...]When we have rolls and relative abilities, we can resolve those types of situations. Player agency is maintained because the GM is not forced to make a decision that either supports the players wishes or counters them; instead the dice take the position of arbiter.

I don't think that Fly is improved by Pathfinder allowing you to put ranks into it. Improving your flight maneuverability I could see as some type of feat (or possibly skill training) but tracking ranks is not a good solution.

So you're arguing that it's important for skills to have random rolls to adjudicate things that don't always work, and your example is a thing with non-skill levels of character investment (that you think should continue to stay non-skill levels of investment) with complications that literally have non-roll rules to adjudicate them (at no point in D&D as far as I'm aware is a roll made to determine whether something can fly in an anti-magic zone - some things Just Can and some things Just Can't, the end. Are... are you arguing that people should roll to see if they can fly in an AMF? This is the weirdest example.)

---

That said, you do realize that "people just succeed" is a simple refutation of "diceless rules can't have agency", not the only possible form of diceless resolution? Like, there are more complex things that also get resolved without dice.

Such as whether you can fly in an AMF.

[PhoneLobster]

I think the reason the thread hasn't been more productive is that Phonelobster and Mguy insist that A -> B -> C -> D is not and cannot be substantively different from A -> K -> L ->D or even A -> K -> L -> Z. Essentially, they're in full on crazy mode. If we can't agree that it's the journey, not the destination

Oh look, letters why? Probably because if you ACTUALLY used I don't know, examples, it would be pretty fucking obvious it falls exactly within the bounds of rolls not mattering or results not mattering like it has every fucking time someone has attempted that in this thread.

But lets also NOT agree that the journey is what matters, because that isn't what you are arguing and you rather clearly don't agree with that. You are arguing that it is the star trek trivia roll that does and should matter. And as has been demonstrated repeatedly to you and others in this thread if you make it matter the star trek trivia roll is detrimental to the journey.

[Kaelik]

You are arguing that it is the star trek trivia roll that does and should matter.

PL, I've mostly been ignoring you because, well, because you are you. But can you stop this?

We are basically talking about D&D, or some hypothetical version thereof. You are calling it a "Star Trek Trivia" roll because "HAHA, Star Trek Trivia in D&D would totally be fucking useless! Why should that ever matter, and who would ever have it!" Which is basically a strawman, since D&D has explicitly listed knowledges and no module or GM is ever going to use Star Trek Trivia, because they are going to use one of the specifically listed knowledges.

Just write "Knowledge (Nobility and royalty)" instead. You get to make 100% of your point, even the part about how it's a totally fucking useless skill that no one would ever have, with zero percent of the strawman, and god forbid, your evil enemies might just totally chime in that they would never put anything meaningful on a Knowledge (Nobility and royalty) check, because no one ever has it, because it is a shit skill, and then you could even talk about the search skill that people actually use in their actual games!

[MGuy]

I wouldn't be too sure. You've been repeating yourself for a dozen pages or so and that doesn't seem make the people you're arguing against deviate too far. Save for ser. But that's about it.

[Kaelik]

I wouldn't be too sure. You've been repeating yourself for a dozen pages or so and that doesn't seem make the people you're arguing against deviate too far. Save for ser. But that's about it.

Let me be clear, the idea that anyone would at any point actually admit to anything that might even sound like something the other side would use as a gatcha is at this point, purely a sarcastic suggestion.

I mean, for fucks sake, my very first post on this subject was calling for a discussion of which actions should have rolls and which shouldn't, and every time I say that anything might have a roll, someone quotes it as proof that Frank was right all along that everything needs a roll because the only options are everything or nothing. This conversation is dead as dead can be, because everyone locked their stupid side down.

At this point, victory comes from making arguments so strong that some marginal poster on one side literally drops out of the thread, and next thread shows up with a different position after having thought about it for a month or a year.

So far, team, "Some things don't need rolls" is up 1-0 on the basis of specifically you changing your mind from the last thread.

But the point is that if PL replaces every Star Trek Trivia with Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty) people will totally compare their actual D&D experience to this thread, and realize they have never once had a Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty) check that ever mattered, and next time, they might even be willing to discuss search after realizing that at least some skills have zero benefit from rolling because they are so minor and shitstain unimportant, and then they can actually discuss whether search should or shouldn't be that (or if part of it should and part of it shouldn't).

Boy, it sure is depressing to realize that this entire conversation is now just a set up to have a real conversation in what might be three years.

[tussock]

So early in D&D 5's dev cycle, Monte talked about tiered skills. With names and shit instead of numbers, because there's only 5 steps and they want to make it clear there's no #6, even though there usually is somewhere down the line with a new word in an expansion.

Anyway.

That had skill 2 automatically beating skill 1, or being 15+ against skill 2, or automatically losing against skill 3. And how you might situationally change your ranking rather than modify the roll.

You can see how that's different to just having +10 to your skill now and then, mostly in that the numbers are smaller and easier to conceptualise. Ninja are excellent stealth and always stealth past good spotters, but never stealth past amazing spotters. If someone throws down a daylight spell (because the one excellent spotter said to), everyone's stealth drops a rank and the good spotters have a shot to see (and target) Ninja anyway.

And for me, that's an interesting generalised mini-game and stuff, depending how the rank-changes stack or counter each other, there's still some uncertainty, but you can invest enough to win if you burn your resources on it.


And the thing is, they tried that result with Thieves in 2nd edition, where you could jack up a couple skills until they worked all the time, and the rest just sucked. And it wasn't good compared to what 3e did. Letting players choose to auto-succeed or never bother trying is ultimately quite disempowering. It stops it being an interesting choice to use the good skills (because you always use them) and also stops you trying anything else.


4th edition D&D was also bad, because the walls got harder to climb as you got better at climbing them, and that is impossibly bad game design.

Characters are both supposed to get better at things by investing in them, and also supposed to retain some chance of failing so that the decision to try those things remains a worthy one. Which gets into that whole thing where you don't roll dice to drive to work in the morning, because our odds of failing are far too high to support that, and defining for each thing when the dice matter (which is probably in contested situations like searching for stuff, or combat).

Discuss.

[Sergarr]

Discuss.

I think that in a 5 tiered system, where Tiier 5 represent the absolute top, and without invoking the "harder to jump obstacles" D&D 4e garbage, the typical Jump skill challenges (for example) should probably look like this:

Tier 1 jump - jump 5 feet from normal surface
Tier 2 jump - jump 50 feet from small/slippery surface
Tier 3 jump - jump 500 feet from an extremely small and very slippery surface
Tier 4 jump - jump an arbitrarily large distance from flying debris
Tier 5 jump - jump into another dimension from air

i.e. with higher tier, you not only gain the numbers exponentially (or even faster), you also gain additional qualities to your ability that ultimately make it reach the divine levels of power. Tier 5 Search would allow you to instantly see every hidden object in your plane, Tier 5 Knowledge (animals) would have you knowing literally everything about the animals, including precise location of every animal that exists in the multiverse, and so on. High level skills should be basically stronger than most or even all non-epic spells by a mile, because wizards can have all these spells at the same time, which isn't the case for skills.

I do not think that there should be an "interesting choice" between using good skills and bad skills, for the same reason that Wizards should not attack their enemies in melee (at least, without putting some buffs on). There should be a difference between different characters, if we make all skills viable enough to be worth using for every character, no matter how well they've trained in them, how would they then feel any different?

[violence in the media]

For your hypothetical tiered system, I'd suggest you have 2 columns for that table. The one you presented could be "Normal D&D", and they you could have "Weaksauce D&D" for the people that want to play their Lord of the Rings fanfiction. They get the 5 tier differentiation for their characters, but their tier 5 is probably lower powered than even tier 2 of "Normal D&D". Just to make it obvious that they're playing a different game.

[ishy]

As I explained earlier in the thread, I don't really have a preference for whether the PCs succeed or fail on any particular task. If I'm doing things right, I'm prepared for both possibilities and the game continues incorporating the decisions, successes, and failures they've made. While I might think the game is 'better' if they make an alliance with 'Red Team' and go on a rampage and kill 'Green Team', I'm not going to force that on them. If they instead attack 'Red Team' and make an alliance with 'Green Team', the game continues and it reflects their choices. Now, when there is no roll, I've decided in advance whether they will succeed or the will fail - I've made a decision about the direction of the game. Instead of choices, successes and failures all leading to a variety of stories, I've limited it only to choices. Further, when I've decided they will not succeed, I've disregarded whatever investment they've made in that ability. The 'what if the rule says they always succeed full stop fails to account for the possibility of situations where more investment should be required. It's not hard to come up with examples of these types of situations. As one such example, take this investigative trope: the PCs are called in to investigate a crime. They investigate the crime scene and they discover a clue that was overlooked by the town guard.

I think that those types of stories have value; as a result, having search as an ability where some people can 'do better' than others is important to me. Further, I value PC/NPC symmetry. I don't want NPC necromancers to have access to 'super secret cool death magic' that PCs don't get; and I don't want PCs to have access to 'we actually search the room perfectly every time while NPCs don't'. Not only does it take more space in the rules, it really messes with Han Solo and friends smuggling themselves in the Millenium Falcon.

For those types of reasons, I usually prefer a chance of success (which requires a chance of failure). It isn't that rolling automagically grants agency; it is simply that if there is a roll and I've communicated what value succeeds prior to the roll, I absolutely must be willing to recognize player agency - that is, if they attempt something I am willing to let it succeed, even if I think it is better for the game if they fail. And let's be honest - what I think is best for the game may differ from what the players think is best for the game. If dice are involved (with chance of success and failure), player agency is almost certainly visible. If the dice are not allowed and it is simply DM fiat, player agency is almost certainly an illusion maintained by the DM - because despite those who say 'this always works full stop', the DM can always introduce reasons why it doesn't. Since this is an important point, I'd like to go into this in more detail using flight as an example.

So you don't have a preference whether PCs fail or succeed on any particular tasks, but on some particular tasks you think it'll be better if they failed? That sounds like a contradiction.

But more to the point, if you tell me to a roll a dice to see if I join the red or the green team, it feels like I don't have any influence over the story. I'm not playing a cooperative storytelling, I'm playing a see where the dice take you through the DMs railroad game, where the only agency I have is true DM fellatio.
And if you give me the choice to join red or green, that doesn't mean I automatically succeed. They might still require initiation rituals or payment or <insert anything you want here>.

You also don't have to be willing to recognize player agency when die rolling is involved, BearWorld is living proof of that. And yeah, the DM can always introduce player disempowerment whether you use dice or not.

A question for you, do you think there is more player agency when people roll 3d6 in order than if you allow them to use point buy?

[MGuy]

In some cases he wouldn't tell you if you were joining team red or green. You would roll and if you failed you wouldn't even know team green existed. THAT is the kind of "player empowerment" deaddm is specifically for.

[Sergarr]

For your hypothetical tiered system, I'd suggest you have 2 columns for that table. The one you presented could be "Normal D&D", and they you could have "Weaksauce D&D" for the people that want to play their Lord of the Rings fanfiction. They get the 5 tier differentiation for their characters, but their tier 5 is probably lower powered than even tier 2 of "Normal D&D". Just to make it obvious that they're playing a different game.

That could be much more easily handled by extending Tier 1 to a "Tier 1 +bonus" one, where the "+bonus" part only affects your rolls against Tier 1 level challenges (like climbing on a tree, or jumping no more than 5 feet from a non-slippery surface) and opponents. So basically, Lord of the Rings character would be mundane as fuck (since that's what Tier 1 is all about), while still being able to, theoretically, be superior to other people at same Tier 1 in some undefined (but still totally mundane) way. Of course, no matter how large your bonus gets, a LotR character is still going to auto-fail against anything Tier 2 and above.

Alternatively, we can just let the LotR lovers invent their own house-rules for that stuff. You can even write it as a "compliment", with the justification being "the fans of Lord of the Ring are so inventive and creative that we don't need to actually write any rules for a LotR-like gameplay". They'll totally eat this up.

[tussock]

2-axis systems are useful if you have different ways to change the numbers.

So a D&D-like might run on, say, ...

Mundane
Heroic
Champion
Legendary
Epic

tiers for skills, but a Mundane (1st level) Rogue might have +15 stealth, while a Champion (8th level) spell caster can cast up some stealth (improved invisibility) in tier 3 but still only have +2 because they're not good at stealth, just very invisible at the moment.

So your stats and gear and skill points and other fixed things give you your +15, while circumstances and spells and actions and class features give you your tier.

But a system like that is really quite a lot of head space to deal with, and does need big skills to go along with it. No one at all is going to give a shit if you have Legendary Rope Use, or Knowledge(Local), or Jumping, or Survival.



Probably limit it to Stealth vs Awareness, Social vs Knowledge, Engineer vs Thievery, something else I can't think of right now. At least for tiers, if you really want to differentiate Rope Use or Sailing or whatever other level of detail you want, just use the +15 bit. Champion Engineer +5 (rope use +9, locksmith +12, whatever).

But then, eh, the 5e playtest said automatic successes on skills were not liked, because it didn't feel interactive when the DM just listed off your continuing success for you. Which is probably right. People do like rolling dice for stuff.

[Sergarr]

But a system like that is really quite a lot of head space to deal with, and does need big skills to go along with it. No one at all is going to give a shit if you have Legendary Rope Use, or Knowledge(Local), or Jumping, or Survival.

Legendary Jumping is very much not in the "no one is going to give a shit" category. For instance, Sun Wukong from the Journey to the West was able to leap 13 468 miles in a single somersault. That's what I imagine Legendary Jumping looks like.

Legendary Survival is also something I'd imagine to be a very strong skill. Survival actually has a lot of different applications going by SRD; it can provide you with food and water, protect you against weather, keep you going straight through natural hazards, identify tracks of other people, and even predict the weather. Extending this into Legendary territory, we get: being able to feed an army on five pieces of bread in desert, being able to go straight through the ocean, mountains, and fortified walls without slowing down and without suffering any damage at all while also bringing along said army, and also be able to learn people's exact life story up to 10 years in the past by looking at a slight patch of dirt their boot has accidentally left on the floor.

Likewise, Legendary Knowledge(local) would be able to tell you the exact location, gear, skills, and character levels of every single person in the local surrounding, and tell you what they're currently doing, as well.

And, hell, even Legendary Rope Use could be a seriously powerful skill. One of the given effects of Rope Use is being able to animate rope. Extend this into Legendary zone, and you can instantly animate every rope and rope-looking object within 10 miles around you while also turning them into snake-like Vorpal sonic flying magic weapons +5.

Like, there are probably some skills that cannot really be made Legendary. But the skills you've listed are all very powerful concept-wise. The only reason why would you be thinking of them as "no one is going to give a shit" is because of their shitty "realistic" portrayal in D&D.

[tussock]

Eh.

If you want to give people spells, give them spells. D&D's spell-level slot system works pretty well. Meanwhile, no one at all cares if you roll a die to jump 10,000 miles or 15,000 miles, or what it would mean to roll for knowing everything rather than almost everything, or why you'd want to blow 9th level spells away with a skill check.

Because it's actually pretty tricky to make an at-will rope use thing at tier 4 that has some use for a roll and is meaningfully better than tier 3 and worse than tier 5 and also doesn't completely dominate the normal game play and make Wizards look crap, or remain useless.

[Sergarr]

Eh.

If you want to give people spells, give them spells. D&D's spell-level slot system works pretty well. Meanwhile, no one at all cares if you roll a die to jump 10,000 miles or 15,000 miles, or what it would mean to roll for knowing everything rather than almost everything, or why you'd want to blow 9th level spells away with a skill check.

Because it's actually pretty tricky to make an at-will rope use thing at tier 4 that has some use for a roll and is meaningfully better than tier 3 and worse than tier 5 and also doesn't completely dominate the normal game play and make Wizards look crap, or remain useless.

The relative lack of rolling for higher levels of skills is a feature, not a bug. That's what being a "high-level characters" means, in my opinion - you can do some really special things, and, moreover, you can rely on them working, and, since there's no arbitrary "usage" limitation, they become an actual defining trait of your character, making them feel actually legendary, and not "legendary" in D&D sense (lol @ +2 to attack rolls as an epic feat).

Blowing 9th level spells with skills is also necessary, because that's the only way to make Wizards to not be able to just do anything you can do better and also do a hundred other things. Wizards have insane versatility due to having access to almost every possible magical effect, and their supposed "weakness", limited numbers of spells per day, is basically non-existent on higher levels, because there are enough "teleport far away" and "create a safe hideout to sleep" spells to ensure that they will never actually run out of spells; so the only way to make the greatly limited in scope of application skills worthwhile at high levels is to make them stronger - far stronger, than spells of the same high level.

I do wonder, however, why do you feel that there must be some "use for a roll"? Should a character who has displayed an ability to lift a mountain still roll to see whenever they can successfully lift a car-sized rock?

[deaddmwalking]

I do wonder, however, why do you feel that there must be some "use for a roll"? Should a character who has displayed an ability to lift a mountain still roll to see whenever they can successfully lift a car-sized rock?

No. I mean, the games might say you would and/or a computer might, but 1d20+ 11 bajillion is still basically 11 bajillion regardless of your die roll. Especially if you can 'take 10' which means it's always 11 bajillion & 10, but nobody cares because it is better than the DC of 50.

[tussock]

I do wonder, however, why do you feel that there must be some "use for a roll"? Should a character who has displayed an ability to lift a mountain still roll to see whenever they can successfully lift a car-sized rock?

The point of a tier system is you still roll for higher tier stuff. So you stop rolling for rocks and cars, then stop rolling for buildings, and start rolling for mountains. I'm just saying that's bullshit, because scaling like that doesn't work in the game. The mountain doesn't have a weight value, and no one could make sense of it even if it did.

But if you stop rolling, why are you bothering with a skill system with bonuses and target numbers and rolling for things to succeed or fail? All you're advocating is giving mundane characters a spell list and calling it a skill system with none of the associated mechanics.

Which you can also do, and 4e D&D did by giving Fighters a spell list called Martial Powers and so on. Which aside from Defenders being shit was not the worst idea ever. You could also make classic thief skills into a spell list, Bards already went that way mostly in 3e, Monks totally should have. The open-to-everyone spell list can be called "skills", because no one really likes class skills.