Game Systems that Allow Skill Resolution with No Roleplaying

[Mark CMG]

A gelatinous ooze would have a surface that would be apparent (reflective of light, looks a bit "wet") that should have been part of the description.

Looks like from the description he got halfway through and the players jumped in with list of skills and rolling dice for checks then he finished the description.

"The skeleton glides forward slowly. As it moves, the air about a foot in front of it ripples and glints as your light is reflected from the membrane of the Gelatinous Cube."

 

[Janx]

Looks like from the description he got halfway through and the players jumped in with list of skills and rolling dice for checks then he finished the description.

that's probable.

as a GM, I'm wary of setting up a scene that is misleading about obvious details (a rope suspending the skeleton or a strange undulating film across the inside of the doorway.

If I had players making action requests that seemed odd, or as if they are based on incomplete understanding (like the classic gazebo), would pause the game and clarify what I've described. I would never let the gazebo scene get to the point where it's obvious the player thinks it is a monster and commits to actions that don't make sense.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Which is why the situation had "gotcha" all over it. A gelatinous ooze would have a surface that would be apparent (reflective of light, looks a bit "wet") that should have been part of the description. Rolls or no rolls.

The gelatinous cube is supposed to be a "gotcha" monster. Their big gimmick is that they are incredibly hard to spot, even when you're looking right at one.

 

[MarkB]

Yup, he edited in some good points. Nevertheless, I think there is a oddness in procedure when one can glance at a situation, rattle off three or more skills, and get a full knowledge check for each mentioned skill accomplished without any closer examination. It also brings up the question about roleplaying the situation in regard to lighting, where in the crowd one might be, etc.

You seem to be compouding two different skill functions here - Knowledge and Perception.

As used in D&D, Knowledge skills like Arcana and Religion are purely passive in nature - they're a way of checking what you know.

Perception, on the other hand, is an active skill, and players can and frequently do add roleplaying descriptions of how cleverly and meticulously they are examining or observing a subject, in the hopes of ekeing out extra bonuses.

In the case of the example, the skills were really applied backwards. First, the players should have made Perception checks (possibly including some of the playing-out that you seem to be seeking) in order to determine exactly what information is at their disposal. Then they could roll Knowledge checks to see what their characters could deduce from that information.

Further, do most GMs just allow the player to roll such checks (regardless of what the system dictates)? Does a player character know he is rolling well and knows he doesn't know something or rolls low and knows there might still be something to know but that he has rolled poorly? How many GMs feel the need to make some adjustments such that a player cannot just rattle off a list of skills, make a quick series of rolls, and know which rolls were good and which were wanting?

The thing is, they're Knowledge checks. They can't be re-rolled or boosted - you either know some relevant fact or you don't. The player may know that they rolled very poorly and had the potential to get a different result if they hadn't - but there's nothing they can actually do with that knowledge.

Generally speaking, I wouldn't let my players go through a cascade of different Knowledge checks in the hopes of hitting on something useful - I'd just tell them which skill(s) are applicable and let them roll those. However, the example you quoted is one situation where I might take a different approach - the characters are presented with what appears to be an undead or supernatural threat (a skeleton hovering in mid-air), but is actually of a more mudane nature (a very hard-to-see transparent ooze). If I tell them that they need to roll Dungeoneering instead of Religion or Arcana, I'm revealing something of the nature of the threat, whether they succeed or fail.

 

[redrick]

Recently a GM described an example of his game as -




How do systems that encourage this type of play sit with other GMs?

Even if your system of choice theoretically allows it, do you play this way?

Do you prefer this type of gaming over something less game-driven?

How might you GM such a scenario differently, even if only a little?

My first reaction to this story is that both the players and the GM are doing it wrong, unless, of course, they are describing a situation in which all of them had fun. Who am I to say that a table doesn't like making a few arbitrary d20 rolls, checking them against a DC, and then being eaten by a big cube of acid?

But, let's assume the players felt unfairly eaten and the GM felt bored out of her mind. Many better GMs than I have emphasized that players describe actions and GM's call for skill checks. So a player who declares, "religion check!" is basically just flexing her religiousness in the mirror. "22? You do feel quite knowledgeable on the subject of gods and demons!" The GM should remind the player that, at this point, she needs to use that skill in a sentence. So, sticking with a player who is phoning in the rp, "I look at the skeleton in mid-air and see if I notice anything religious about it."

"You don't see any religious markings on the suspended skeleton, nor do you see any signs of rituals with which you are familiar, nor do you detect the presence of any divine or infernal powers." (I feel like the breadth of the denial is related to the success of the skill check. A 20 would get a very thorough denial, while a 1 might just get, "that doesn't look like an angel in the way you like to think of one.")

"I try to look for any signs of the arcane."

"Well, you know the levitate spell, and that could levitate a skeleton. Somebody else would have to be concentrating on it. Or the skeleton could be concentrating on levitating itself, though it's not wearing a pointy hat or carrying a spell focus or a component pouch of any kind."

"I look at it really hard to see if I perceive anything."

[BAD ROLL]

"All you can see is a skeleton suspended in the air. You don't think you heard anything or sensed anything else."



That's not exactly thrilling, but at least the player had to make some effort to apply their skills to a real world situation, and the GM made some effort to indicate what success or failure in that skill check might mean. Even in an old-school, rules light system, players could still try to brute-mechanic their way through a problem.

[EDIT -- THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLE IS CONTRIVED AND NOT VERY EFFECTIVE, BUT I'M LEAVING IT HERE AS A TESTAMENT TO, WELL, SOMETHING. I TRIED TO EXPLAIN WHAT I WAS GETTING AT IN A LATER POST.]

"A blood hawk shoots out of the trees and flies over your head."

"Attack roll. I rolled a 17."

"The blood hawk is 20 feet over your head. You swing at the air."

"Ranged attack roll. I rolled a 16."

"While you put down your sword and reach for your javelin, the blood hawk plunges out of the sky and claws at your face. Critical. Now it's latched onto your nose and trying to scratch your eye out. Do you still want to throw your javelin at it?"

 

[MarkB]

That's not exactly thrilling, but at least the player had to make some effort to apply their skills to a real world situation, and the GM made some effort to indicate what success or failure in that skill check might mean. Even in an old-school, rules light system, players could still try to brute-mechanic their way through a problem.

"A blood hawk shoots out of the trees and flies over your head."

"Attack roll. I rolled a 17."

"The blood hawk is 20 feet over your head. You swing at the air."

"Ranged attack roll. I rolled a 16."

"While you put down your sword and reach for your javelin, the blood hawk plunges out of the sky and claws at your face. Critical. Now it's latched onto your nose and trying to scratch your eye out. Do you still want to throw your javelin at it?"

So this is, what, the DM punishing the player for not being more descriptive? Maybe that works for some people, but it seems like making the game less enjoyable for a player would only cause him to engage less with it, and thus would be self-defeating.

 

[Mark CMG]

Hmm. There's another aspect/wrinkle. Do systems with knowledge skills assume all characters have perfect recall. Some folks seem to be saying that is someone rolls above a certain number they do/did know something and if they do not roll that number they simply don't know. This contrasts with the idea that seeing or examining something might jog recall, thus a roll of a die, and in that moment you recall knowing something. The former seems to discount any chance that a bad roll doesn't mean you don't know but rather you can't recall in the moment (perhaps due to distraction, stress, being eaten by a grue, etc.). How does that factor in for the folks above, not just in system RAW but in recarg to actual practice?

 

[Umbran]

In the case of the example, the skills were really applied backwards. First, the players should have made Perception checks (possibly including some of the playing-out that you seem to be seeking) in order to determine exactly what information is at their disposal. Then they could roll Knowledge checks to see what their characters could deduce from that information.

I don't know about you, but I've been using passive perception checks in various games for about forever, to indicate what information the character has without taking special measures. It isn't that they've been applied backwards, it is just that the first application of passive perception has already been done. And, honestly, it *has*, unless the characters are walking around with their eyes closed, ears plugged, and so on, they *do* perceive quite a bit of their world without making active checks.

 

[Umbran]

Hmm. There's another aspect/wrinkle. Do systems with knowledge skills assume all characters have perfect recall.

I don't generally think so. The die roll subsumes both what the character has been taught, and what they remember at the moment. Thus, you can get another roll if you get substantial information later.

 

[Umbran]

"A blood hawk shoots out of the trees and flies over your head."

"Attack roll. I rolled a 17."

"The blood hawk is 20 feet over your head. You swing at the air."

I call GM shenanigans on this one. The fact that it was 20 feet overhead would have been perfectly obvious to the character, without needing to take extra care to determine the fact, but the GM failed to adequately describe it. Penalizing the player for that is not really fair.