Why I Hate Skills

[Fenris-77]

If I have to call for an informational thing I like letting the roll determine the amount of information rather than its absence or presence. The better the roll the better the info but even a fail gets the basics. Modified for topic and circumstance.

 

[Bill Zebub]

If I have to call for an informational thing I like letting the roll determine the amount of information rather than its absence or presence. The better the roll the better the info but even a fail gets the basics. Modified for topic and circumstance.

Boy I would struggle with improvising that in the moment, if the players ask me about something unexpected.

Good thing players never do anything unexpected, I guess. :-/

 

[soviet]

I don't agree about perception, but then you probably already know that. I think there are a few cases where information is obscure and whether a given character should know it is as well handled by a die roll as anything else, and where being particularly knowledgeable in the general subject probably should put a thumb on the scale, but I think a lot of it should just be "If you have Rank X in Skill Y you'll know this." (I can see cases where these interact, where someone below Rank X might just happen to know the piece of information anyway because they've crossed it in their learning Skill Y at all, but above a certain level of training there are things in most fields you just will know).

I guess I don't mean that you should never do a 'do you know this particular piece of knowledge?' roll, just that they should be very rare. Normally it should just be the GM tells you if you would know based on your background etc, or be based on whether you have sufficient ranks in that particular skill or exceed a passive DC, or the players could decide whether they would know.

Even then there is normally a better way of dealing with the situation than a flat 'does this exist in your brain' roll that represents no events occurring contemporaneously in the fiction.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Even then there is normally a better way of dealing with the situation than a flat 'does this exist in your brain' roll that represents no events occurring contemporaneously in the fiction.

I would love for that to be true, but what is it?

Or do you mean that although the way a particular "knowledge check" can be turned into a declarative action is going to vary depending upon circumstances, it's not hard to improvise something?

 

[soviet]

I would love for that to be true, but what is it?

Or do you mean that although the way a particular "knowledge check" can be turned into a declarative action is going to vary depending upon circumstances, it's not hard to improvise something?

It's as I said in the sentences you didn't quote. Someone makes a decision as to which characters (if any) knows.

Or, you reframe the situation to be either about using the knowledge in a practical sense ('You can use your Know Arcane Metallurgy skill to get advantage on the lockpicking roll, because you know that Hathridian Copper expands easily on even just the heat of a lantern') or you make the seeking out of that knowledge itself to be part of the adventure (asking around in the right places, hiring an expert, library searches, dangerous divinations, etc).

 

[Bill Zebub]

It's as I said in the sentences you didn't quote. Someone makes a decision as to which characters (if any) knows.

Ah, I misunderstood. I took it to mean that aside from your points in the first paragraph (which I 100% agree with, by the way) there is also a good way to resolve it mechanically through rolling.

Or, you reframe the situation to be either about using the knowledge in a practical sense ('You can use your Know Arcane Metallurgy skill to get advantage on the lockpicking roll, because you know that Hathridian Copper expands easily on even just the heat of a lantern') or you make the seeking out of that knowledge itself to be part of the adventure (asking around in the right places, hiring an expert, library searches, dangerous divinations, etc).

Yeah I'm a big fan of that, too.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is most easily resolved by just making perception/knowledge defenses. Gated information can have an obscurity modifier the GM rolls against the PC's defense, and then you can just report everything they know outright.

Other than reversing the die roll, how is that any different than having a skill with specialty mechanics? (Especially since you need to do multiples to cover different Knowledges anyway).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I guess I don't mean that you should never do a 'do you know this particular piece of knowledge?' roll, just that they should be very rare. Normally it should just be the GM tells you if you would know based on your background etc, or be based on whether you have sufficient ranks in that particular skill or exceed a passive DC, or the players could decide whether they would know.

Even then there is normally a better way of dealing with the situation than a flat 'does this exist in your brain' roll that represents no events occurring contemporaneously in the fiction.

I suspect I don't really disagree with you here. I was mostly addressing some corner-cases.

 

[Fenris-77]

Boy I would struggle with improvising that in the moment, if the players ask me about something unexpected.

Good thing players never do anything unexpected, I guess. :-/

Mostly I don't gate information behind rolls anyway.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Mostly I don't gate information behind rolls anyway.

Same.