What's Your "Sweet Spot" for a Skill system?

[JohnSnow]

I’ve grown quite fond of games that don’t really worry about the difference between attributes and skills. Blades in the Dark, for example, just has Action Ratings. So your Prowl rating is a measure of how good you are at moving quietly and the like. What that rating means… natural skill, intense training… is up to you.

And the Resistance System, which is used in both Spire and Heart, skips Attributes and instead has a list of Skills and a list of Domains. It has no ratings, you either have a Skill or Domain or you don’t. When you make a roll, you start with 1d10. If you have an applicable Skill, add 1d10, if you have an applicable Domain, add 1d10. So the relevant Skills and Domains add to your dice pool, increasing your chance of success.

Other games do similar things. I’ve come to like this approach; it seems simpler and allows the player some freedom in describing how and why the PC is good at any given skill.

My experience is that systems like this lend themselves to abuse unless the GM keeps copious notes.

“You say it was all training Mr. Wayne? I see. How exactly did you, a normal human, train yourself to be able to bench press a truck?”

 

[pemerton]

It's the FoRKing that makes BW-derived skills so much fun/flexible and useful in the hands of players. Every time I play a game with non-FoRKable skills, I sit around wishing I was FoRKing my character's skills.

Imagine if your 5e character could stack Perception, Insight and Insight into one roll to solve the mystery? And another player could argue that their Survival skill could grant you bonus dice?

And the absence of self-FoRKing in Torchbearer - but there can still be helping using other skills - is one part of the engine that drives party play in that system.

 

[hawkeyefan]

My experience is that systems like this lend themselves to abuse unless the GM keeps copious notes.

“You say it was all training Mr. Wayne? I see. How exactly did you, a normal human, train yourself to be able to bench press a truck?”

I don’t think so… I may not have explained it well.

There are no attributes. Instead there’s just a Skill or Action. So if you’re great at Skirmish in Blades in the Dark, it can be because you’re incredibly strong, or incredibly fast, or incredibly skilled. It’s up to you to determine that. It’s all Skirmish. No need to try and maximize let’s say Strength in order to be at good at melee as possible and that kind of thing.

 

[JAMUMU]

I don’t think so… I may not have explained it well.

There are no attributes. Instead there’s just a Skill or Action. So if you’re great at Skirmish in Blades in the Dark, it can be because you’re incredibly strong, or incredibly fast, or incredibly skilled. It’s up to you to determine that. It’s all Skirmish. No need to try and maximize let’s say Strength in order to be at good at melee as possible and that kind of thing.

Man, I am a relic of pre-Frank Miller Batman. I have no problem with Bruce Wayne bench-pressing a truck. Or jury-rigging an antique engine into a 1000cc bomb, or tweaking the Batmobile so it out-drags everyone in a 1000m row, prison-fight style.

I have a problem with omni-god Batman who can do all that with one throw of the dice...

 

[JohnSnow]

I don’t think so… I may not have explained it well.

There are no attributes. Instead there’s just a Skill or Action. So if you’re great at Skirmish in Blades in the Dark, it can be because you’re incredibly strong, or incredibly fast, or incredibly skilled. It’s up to you to determine that. It’s all Skirmish. No need to try and maximize let’s say Strength in order to be at good at melee as possible and that kind of thing.

Doesn’t sound like it’s for me.

I’d feel the need to take notes about whether this skill was due to speed, and this one was due to strength, and this one was due to training, and so the PC is all of the above.

Or they’re inexplicably slow/weak when doing something else.

It’s basically even worse than just dumping it all on attributes. It’s…fine. But it’s awfully fuzzy for my tastes.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Doesn’t sound like it’s for me.

I’d feel the need to take notes about whether this skill was due to speed, and this one was due to strength, and this one was due to training, and so the PC is all of the above.

Or they’re inexplicably slow/weak when doing something else.

It’s basically even worse than just dumping it all on attributes. It’s…fine. But it’s awfully fuzzy for my tastes.

I find it’s actually more believable than how stats tend to broadly categorize people. Like a high Dex means you’re naturally good at being sneaky, picking pockets, gymnastics, and shooting a gun!

But I’ve known people who walk into walls but are incredible at dancing. And guys who are super strong but have no idea how to throw a punch, so they can’t actually fight worth a damn.

So instead of having stats, the game has action ratings that will cover anything the characters attempt to do. It works well and I’ve never felt the need to worry about taking notes about the characters.

 

[Committed Hero]

It seems to me that designers of a game should figure out about a dozen() distinct things that are *actually rolled in the game and make 'skills' for them. If it's not rolled often, fold it into another 'skill' and make that beefier.

Kevin Kulp (piratecat on this forum) is pretty ruthless when it comes to combining skills in his games, but he gets it to work.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think that nearly every RPG system that I play has more descriptors than this: as well as the ones I've mentioned there is 4e (combat rolls, plus 17 skills), and Marvel Heroic RP (19 categories of power, plus 13 "specialties" which are a bit like skills). The only exception I'm thinking of at the moment is Agon, which as I posted upthread has 4 "domains" of competence.

Yeah, I know that many (perhaps most) have more than 12. But I still think that 12 "feels" right. One of the goals, IMO, should make each of the skills at least somewhat equally weighted when playing a standard campaign in the system.

What we'd like to avoid, IMO, is things like 5e D&D's "tools" - where it's pretty obvious how useful a "thieves' tools" check might be, but far less obvious as to where in the game you might roll a "tinkerer's tools" check.

Which isn't to say that I'm against a variety of crafting styles! But I think that if you had an overall "craft" skill, for example, and had a simple-yet-robust support system for when/where/why you'd use it, it could easily be up to the specific character if they're a weaver/painter/tailor/carpenter or whatever.

That said, I admit that I haven't ever tried to put together a master list, and perhaps I'd find that I'd want more than 12. I guess it depends on if those 12 include combat skills, or if the skill system is separate (ala D&D).

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, I know that many (perhaps most) have more than 12. But I still think that 12 "feels" right. One of the goals, IMO, should make each of the skills at least somewhat equally weighted when playing a standard campaign in the system.

What we'd like to avoid, IMO, is things like 5e D&D's "tools" - where it's pretty obvious how useful a "thieves' tools" check might be, but far less obvious as to where in the game you might roll a "tinkerer's tools" check.

The idea of a "standard campaign" seems to me closer to what I described above as module/AP-type play, where the GM has a lot of say over what sorts of action declarations are needed for play to progress.

I think BW or RQ or even Prince Valiant-style skill lists work better in games where the players tend to drive the choice of action declarations. So that's what's "typical" in a given campaign is what the players bring to it via their PC build.

This does rely on there being robust resolution frameworks for the various skills. This is where games like Burning Wheel, Torchbearer and Prince Valiant shine compared to earlier systems like RM and RQ.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I much prefer skills over class. The three key issues for me are:
1) number of skills
2) Increasing skills.
3) How skills impact mechanics.

CoC 7th has a bit of skill bloat, but it is tolerable. The skills are percentile, so players can regularly improve without becoming too powerful, and they tie directly into die rolls.

Zweihander has 36 skills, which is a good number. They have three levels and unskilled, and are expensive but not hard to increase, and interact smoothly with the dice rolls.

Another important point is titles or grouping. You want the skill name or title to be easily recognizable to the skill's purpose. There doesn't seem to be too much problem with that these days.