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Reliable Talent. What the what?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7291517" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Well, the first edition of D&D with official skills per se was 3rd edition, and those auto succeed once you get skilled enough for a particular DC. As for those other games, they typically lack something D&D skills have which is 'degree of difficulty', and in particular a very granular degree of difficulty. Even so, many of them have potentially 99% chance of success or higher (GURPS, BRP/CoC, etc.). Those that do have a degree of difficulty, such as WEG D6 Star Wars (and related systems), do also have automatic successes (if you are trying to beat a 5 on a 5d6, you'll always succeed). </p><p></p><p>Furthermore, in every system that I'm aware of that doesn't have automatic success, they've had to patch the rules by explicitly stating that if the character has at least a certain amount of skill that you shouldn't even roll for ordinary tasks or that you shouldn't roll when the failure wouldn't be interesting.</p><p></p><p>So autosuccess skills are far from rare in in RPGs, and those that lack them typically have much more granularity to the fortune roll than D20 based systems which cannot get more granular than 5% chance. 5% is far too high to not have autosuccess in my opinion. There should be a point where something that is easy cannot be failed on. So you can either do that through the rules by setting the DC's such that failure isn't a possibility for a certain level of competence, or you can do that by fiat by just not rolling whenever the thing is so easy that you shouldn't be able to fail it. It's better to use the rules than use fiat.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In some ways, but not in this way. Remember, RPGs are trying to simulate a literary experience of some sort. A Superhero RPG is trying to simulate being in a comic book. A fantasy RPG is trying to simulate an epic fantasy novel. PnP RPGs are 'write your own adventure' games, where the player is bringing to the table the expectations of drama.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Absolutely. One is fun and dramatic and the other is not. One's idea of drama is "You can't pick the primitive skeleton key lock for some reason" or "Even though the wood is dry for some reason the 12th level ranger can't get a fire going tonight.", and the other involves rooftop chases through the fog and chimney smoke. One is you pedantically stopping the character from doing things because "reasons" and the other is a narrative that is in response to the player's agency and a logical consequence of his own actions that makes that character feel like he has control over his destiny and that of the game world.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Then pick another example. They all work the same way. Drama isn't created by or dependent upon failing trivial tasks. Drama is created by doing things that are cool and failing at things that are epic. A 12th level character shouldn't expect to fail at the routine tasks that a 1st level character sometimes fails at, because by 12th level you've already done all that sort of thing and moved on.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7291517, member: 4937"] Well, the first edition of D&D with official skills per se was 3rd edition, and those auto succeed once you get skilled enough for a particular DC. As for those other games, they typically lack something D&D skills have which is 'degree of difficulty', and in particular a very granular degree of difficulty. Even so, many of them have potentially 99% chance of success or higher (GURPS, BRP/CoC, etc.). Those that do have a degree of difficulty, such as WEG D6 Star Wars (and related systems), do also have automatic successes (if you are trying to beat a 5 on a 5d6, you'll always succeed). Furthermore, in every system that I'm aware of that doesn't have automatic success, they've had to patch the rules by explicitly stating that if the character has at least a certain amount of skill that you shouldn't even roll for ordinary tasks or that you shouldn't roll when the failure wouldn't be interesting. So autosuccess skills are far from rare in in RPGs, and those that lack them typically have much more granularity to the fortune roll than D20 based systems which cannot get more granular than 5% chance. 5% is far too high to not have autosuccess in my opinion. There should be a point where something that is easy cannot be failed on. So you can either do that through the rules by setting the DC's such that failure isn't a possibility for a certain level of competence, or you can do that by fiat by just not rolling whenever the thing is so easy that you shouldn't be able to fail it. It's better to use the rules than use fiat. In some ways, but not in this way. Remember, RPGs are trying to simulate a literary experience of some sort. A Superhero RPG is trying to simulate being in a comic book. A fantasy RPG is trying to simulate an epic fantasy novel. PnP RPGs are 'write your own adventure' games, where the player is bringing to the table the expectations of drama. Absolutely. One is fun and dramatic and the other is not. One's idea of drama is "You can't pick the primitive skeleton key lock for some reason" or "Even though the wood is dry for some reason the 12th level ranger can't get a fire going tonight.", and the other involves rooftop chases through the fog and chimney smoke. One is you pedantically stopping the character from doing things because "reasons" and the other is a narrative that is in response to the player's agency and a logical consequence of his own actions that makes that character feel like he has control over his destiny and that of the game world. Then pick another example. They all work the same way. Drama isn't created by or dependent upon failing trivial tasks. Drama is created by doing things that are cool and failing at things that are epic. A 12th level character shouldn't expect to fail at the routine tasks that a 1st level character sometimes fails at, because by 12th level you've already done all that sort of thing and moved on. [/QUOTE]
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