d20 Modern: What Would you change part II

[Vigilance]

I'm going on the record in favor of more die rolling, for a couple reasons.

First, to consider the Stealth check you mentioned - what if the PCs are the guards? Who rolls the check? If it's the GM, will the players be happy having the resolution out of their hands? Or being surprised when an enemy gets a coup de grace attempt?

The PCs always roll.

If the PC was the guard, he would roll a Perception check with a DC equal to the attacker's Stealth +10.

 

[ashockney]

Vigiliance,

I too love the show Alias. Superb.

I've implemented the static skill check in my campaigns, and never had a problem with it. I used your rule almost verbatim: straight up = skill +10, upperhand = skill +20. So, I've got to say, I really like the idea. This works particularly well with higher level skills and resolutions. For example, I had a truenamer in my last campaign who had a series of knowledge skills, at 17th level that were +35. This is a tremendous amount of knowledge, and for high level play, making a bunch of rolls was really quite silly. It did help to determine the number of pieces of information to provide.

I saw your work up on the Influence skill, and I find that kind of thinking really terrific. You did a nice job with that design. I have a vision of all kinds of different "access" points through different race/feat/class combinations to use the different abilities. You've created a whole cool system/setup for the skill system to really become a cool part of character creation and development.

As far as the "combined" skill sets like "physical" I think it's a great idea. If you're telling me that a well-trained, peak physical form, athlete isn't better at running, jumping, swimming, climbing, tests of strength, tests of endurance, etc. than your "average joe" then you're on crack. I love your analogy though of having "SEAL" level training in a skill. A subset of the physical skill could allow a character to perform any number of amazing and unusual feats, like holding your breath for an extended period of time, or jumping higher than anyone else, whatever that thing is that you've been specifically trained/conditioned/built to do.

Keep up the good work.

 

[Vigilance]

Keep up the good work.

You made my day.

Thanks!

 

[wedgeski]

Okay I have a better grip on what you're saying now... I think I misconstrued your blog a little. Still very much looking forward to hearing your ideas.

Interestingly, Alias, which I freaking LOVE, is/was the model for most of my d20M games. My goal with modern adventuring is to create that perfect mix of mission-based scenarios with an overriding conspiracy/deception metaplot. I haven't quite got there yet but I'm getting closer each time.

 

[Psion]

Again, I'm not getting rid of any of that.

In fact, contacts are a much bigger part of these rules than d20 Modern.

What I'm getting rid of, is rolling dice to make a Knowledge check.

You still have knowledge skills, and either you know things or you don't, and if you don't, you have a research time that will tell you how long it will take for you to find out.

Well, related to that, there was something I did in my D&D game. I still had knowledge checks for obscure bits of knowledge, but I wanted something that the players could be more pro-active about than the reactive nature of knowledge checks.

So what I did was prepare a variety of nuggets of exposition information pertinent to the coming campaign, and then put them on index cards, each with an appropriate knowledge skill and minimum knowledge rank to know that nugget. Then, I pass out one card to each player for each rank in knowledge skill the character has.

This is a lot of work at higher levels, and I really didn't keep up with it. But I think that if you assemble a little table to this effect that would automate the GMs work a little, the basic idea is sound.

The change I'm advocating is akin to doing point-buy character generation, rather than random stat-rolls.

You put it that way, it makes me wary, seeings how I don't like point buy too much.

 

[Azgulor]

Thanks!

My thoughts exactly.

A Knowledge check, like most skill checks, is basically a yes or no question. Does my character know who the ruler of Wakanda is, yes or no?

Why do we need a die roll for that? Much less several?

To avoid GM fiat. In my entire time in the hobby, there has been nothing as frustrating as being a player where an iron-fisted GM dictated everything to either ensure that his story went as he envisioned it or to put his pet NPC in the spotlight.

I would also argue that if a knowledge check is reduced to a yes/no question it's a flaw with how the GM is handling it. Knowledge checks could have degrees of success based on the result of the roll. The better the roll, the more detailed the knowledge retrieved.

Barely make the check = yes you know who the ruler of Wakanda is. Beat the DC by a certain margin and you also know some of his personal or family history, political views, &/or how he's generally viewed by his people (what's public knowledge, anyway - as in facts obtained from interviews, history books, or opinion polls, etc.).

D20 Modern can use some fixes, absolutely. I'm not convinced the skill mechanics are one of those areas. I think the "simplify skills" theme that seems to be all the rage these days will actually end up being detrimental to the game. Remember Non-weapon proficiencies?

Now, if you want to give me more reasons to use skills, ala Iron Heroes or Book of Iron Might or Dramatic Conflicts ala Spycraft 2.0, then I'm all for it.

 

[Psion]

Yeah... I'm not to sold on the thought of "never roll for yes/no" questions. The entire skill system exists to answer yes/no question. A principal reason that I loathe diceless systems is I loath the implicit "you can or you can't" nature of resolution in the system. Adding "you can try" to the equation makes the resolution system infinitely better, IMO.

As for knowing who the ruler to Wakanda is... is it necessary the group know? Or just helpful? Is there an adventure if they don't know? If they need to find out quickly, could they? These are all things to consider when deciding if and how to dispense that knowledge to players. Taking all rolling out of knowledge checks seems a bit like throwing out the baby with the bathwater to me.

 

[jonrog1]

I'd suggest a hybrid system, at least for Knowledge checks, and then roll to see if you know a bit more about the subject, revealing nominally more useful goodies. The roll-less sytem based on an idea of basic competency is something I've used in my Wealth system, which I could post if you're interested.

Also, Vigilance, I'd take a look at the skill groups for the game Passages. Bloody lovely.

 

[SteveC]

As for knowing who the ruler to Wakanda is... is it necessary the group know? Or just helpful? Is there an adventure if they don't know? If they need to find out quickly, could they? These are all things to consider when deciding if and how to dispense that knowledge to players. Taking all rolling out of knowledge checks seems a bit like throwing out the baby with the bathwater to me.

I just wanted to suggest taking a look at Spirit of the Century for the advice it gives on running knowledge skills. Basically it talks about two things: one, if you're having characters make a knowledge check, you usually want them to succeed. At the same time, you also want to reward those characters who have put ranks into knowledge skills, so there is a sort of balancing act that has to go on.

Now Spirit has a lot more player empowerment than many gamers may be comfortable with (it gives players who have a lot of ranks in knowledge skills the ability to essentially create setting details on the fly, for instance) but I think it has some of the best advice on running games where characters need to know things, spot things and generally figure out pieces to a mystery that I have ever seen.

Just a suggestion...I'm liking this thread a lot, by the way, as there have been some very interesting ideas proposed.

--Steve

 

[Vigilance]

Yeah... I'm not to sold on the thought of "never roll for yes/no" questions.

Bangs head on desk.

I never said I didn't want ANY rolls for yes or no questions.

An attack roll is a yes or no question.

I want to reduce the amount of dice rolling in what I consider non-critical parts of the game.

I also want to get rid of the concept that "you can afford that car if you're lucky", or "you can know who the ruler of Wakanda is if you're lucky". To me, these things seem a little odd to be random.

Science (Int)
You are intimately familiar with a field of learning. Examples include: History, Law, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Religion and Tactics. This skill requires specialization, meaning that one specialty must be chosen when this skill is selected. Additional specialties can be added through perks, or through selecting this skill a second time. Areas the character has not selected a perk in can still be known to the character however, since the character still retains one-half his effective ranks (see the information on perks in the skills introduction above).

Depending on the character’s ranks in Science, there are certain facts he will know off the top of his head. What the character does not know, he can find out through research. If the character has access to a computer, research time is reduced by one-half.

Ranks Knowledge Level Research Time
2 Basic 36 hours
4 Introductory 18 hours
8 Intermediate 12 hours
12 Advanced 8 hours
16 Cutting Edge 6 hours
20 Next Generation 4 hours
23 Almost Limitless 2 hours