Has the skill list gone in the wrong direction?

[DEFCON 1]

Sorry, but that's just a recipe for player vs. DM conflict. I think that during my spying background I was awesome at lying to people, whoever they were, so I should get +3 whenever I lie to someone now. I think that I also travelled a lot, so I know geography. Oh and I spied on several different countries, so I know lots about their customs, and I'm streetwise in their cities but also hung out with their nobles.

Then I would suggest that the DM needs to grow a pair. ;-)

The entire purpose of having a "background" and not just a collection of skills is that the theory would be the player would actually design a history of his character. What he did, where he was, who did he interact with. What was he good at. Thus... speaking personally as a DM... I would have worked with the player to actually have him create who exactly he spied for, why he was a spy, who were generally his targets etc. etc. You know... the PC's background.

That way... during play we'd be able to easily know that sure, in the capital city of the nation you were spying on... your Streetwise would easily apply, and your knowledge of the customs and locations of the people and places within it are under your purview. However... when you suddenly found yourself in the Underdark infiltrating a drow city... those same uses and knowledges from being a spy would not apply (or at least not apply unless the PC could give a really good reason why it should.) But it's up to the DM to accurately access the situation and the use.

After all... EVERYONE should be able to Intimidate SOMEBODY. There is always someone you have power over. That's the point of making it a STR or CHA check rather than a generic Intimidate check. And the +3 bonus to that STR or CHA check should occur when the PC is intimidating the absolute right person they have power over... which we know to be the case much more based upon their Background and who they've interacted with in the past, rather than just being generically good at browbeating everybody. A higher-level church official should be able to intimidate his underlings much easier than a random soldier could. And that should be made clear in the rules as to when that +3 might thus apply.

 

[RangerWickett]

I like that this thread has reminded me of the original idea, which I thought was clever.

If maybe you could have a background, plus one or two personalized skills, that might work.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Brainstorming (might be a terrible idea):

The background itself is a blanket +1 to any relevant skill check (interpreted generously).

The specific skills are a +1 to what they cover (intrepreted narrow or broad or middling depending on the details of the specific skill, as explained in that skill).

If both apply, you get +3.

Analysis: Things like Artisan may have a more narrow range for the background by itself, but skills like profession and lore can be written rather broadly. This means that such a character will hit that +3 most of the time any of it applies. Whereas, something like a Bounty Hunter or Soldier has all kinds of uses for spot, but most of these are not background related, and thus will only get the +1. Meanwhile, when the baker talks to the king, he does get a +1 to his diplomacy, from his general practice of talking to people a lot.

Also, either with the above change or with the original, they could rate skills for "scope". Then give backgrounds an equal value of "scope" with their specific skills, which may translate into more or less skills. Spot gets a high scope rating, and thus cost a lot, whereas Profession gets a low scope rating and is cheap. In the current playtest, I don't think it would be terribly unbalancing if Artisan had another middling important skill added to its list.

 

[kerleth]

I want a compromise between the two extremes. I want ability checks to be the norm, but a clean, paragraph long description for each skill of the most likely situations in which that skill's bonus might apply. As far as a pirate being better at climbing a rock wall cause he's used to hanging out in the rigging, I LIKE THAT! There, I said it. It implies that a character can take general lessons he's learned in one context, like lessons about balance, whether your grip feels secure, etc., etc., and apply them in another context. This makes for more interesting roleplaying and less specialized characters. It's also something not at all unrepresented in fantasy novels and short stories. If a character is in a situation that the DM rules he is completely unfamiliar with, then give him disadvantage on the roll (which is approximately a -3). This should apply whether or not he is trained in that particular skill. That way the knight can use his familiarity with horses, the nobles hunting dogs, the bs he swapped with the princes falconeer as he was knight erranting in the kingdom over, the way soldiers act when they go fight or flight, etc., to balance out his unfamiliarity with bears, which didn't naturally occur in his homeland.

Also, Defcon 1. I understand your standpoint, but respectfully disagree. Some groups don't want to have a fully fleshed out backstory, they just wanna play and fill in the holes as they go. I'm hoping DDN will have a core system that can be used for either preference.

Crazy Jerome, that may just be the best idea I've heard yet.

 

[Kannik]

I love the idea of skills being divorced from both strictness as well as being applied with a single attribute modifier. Its been used in other game systems and I liked how well it worked there, letting one skill influence knowledge checks, for example, as well as the application of the skill and, best of all, use in creative applications. It works especially well with those type of skills that really can/should be used with different attributes depending on what you're doing (for example a performance skill where it could depend on the style of performance being done).

As for broad based background type skills, I think they can work great, though I speak from a biased viewpoint having written a "Trade and Professions" skills supplement for 4e. It does require DM adjudication and DM/Player interaction, so having "backgrounds" in D&D^N be an "advanced" module might be a good idea. When there's good interaction, though, it can really shine. The Paladin of Bahamut in one of my recent campaigns using his Influence trade skill to good effect -- using his status and station as a knight of Bahamut to both garner favour as well as bully obstacles -- comes to mind of how well this can work.

I hope (and will provide this feedback to WotC) that they steer away from this foray back into the narrower definition of skills and open it back up to attribute roll + skill/background bonus (if said skill/background applies here).

peace,

Kannik

 

[DEFCON 1]

I want a compromise between the two extremes. I want ability checks to be the norm, but a clean, paragraph long description for each skill of the most likely situations in which that skill's bonus might apply. As far as a pirate being better at climbing a rock wall cause he's used to hanging out in the rigging, I LIKE THAT! There, I said it. It implies that a character can take general lessons he's learned in one context, like lessons about balance, whether your grip feels secure, etc., etc., and apply them in another context.

I also wouldn't mind something like this if two things happened...

1) The player made a very good explanation as to how his time and background as a pirate would apply to this specific situation and why he should get a +3 bonus over just the standard STR check to climb the rock face. Make the player justify having experience in something relatable so that he's actually taking agency to what and who his character is. And

2) The DM can then decide "Okay, yeah, that makes sense. You get a +3 on this check."

But right now... the system instead would give us an "Athletics" skill... which would include not only climbing, but also jumping, swimming, and sprint running-- and it would apply in EVERY situation.

And I don't know about you... but I know that if my PCs were chasing someone through the snow... I wouldn't want to give the Pirate PC a +3 to run the guy down just because he had "Athletics". A regular STR check? Absolutely! That's why we're using ability scores. But a bonus +3 to running through snow just because it was the only way to represent the Pirate being really good at climbing rigging and being able to swim? No thanks.

Also, Defcon 1. I understand your standpoint, but respectfully disagree. Some groups don't want to have a fully fleshed out backstory, they just wanna play and fill in the holes as they go. I'm hoping DDN will have a core system that can be used for either preference.

True enough. But my response was to Chris_Nightwing, who made the case that the PCs would just start making up various reasons why a character's Background could apply to almost any situation-- basically overrunning the DM's ability to say "Sorry, doesn't apply". Basically I'm saying the DM is allowed to use a little common sense to know that if a Bounty Hunter was focused in one kingdom and he and the party are in another... that the BH's "Streetwise" might not apply to ever single situation within the city. The DM has the ability to make a call and say that it doesn't work in this case.

 

[Rune]

I agree completely with every single point that the OP made.

Personally, I'd rather see very broadly-designed skills.

Ideally, every character would get three, and they would be called, "[Whatever the Background is called]," "[Whatever the Class is called]," and "[Whatever the Specialty is called]." If the player thinks that one of these might apply to a situation when an ability check is called for, s/he can make a case for it.

(And, yes, I know that some would much prefer to have a rigid set of skills to work from, but, in my experience, the fundamental interaction between DM and player is generally hampered when the character sheet continually gets in the way.)



Also, on an unrelated note: the Forbidden Lore skill was a lot more flavorful before it had a description to go along with it.

 

[kerleth]

But right now... the system instead would give us an "Athletics" skill... which would include not only climbing, but also jumping, swimming, and sprint running-- and it would apply in EVERY situation.

And I don't know about you... but I know that if my PCs were chasing someone through the snow... I wouldn't want to give the Pirate PC a +3 to run the guy down just because he had "Athletics". A regular STR check? Absolutely! That's why we're using ability scores. But a bonus +3 to running through snow just because it was the only way to represent the Pirate being really good at climbing rigging and being able to swim? No thanks.

You and I agree on that one. If my character grew up and was trained in a desert on the banks of the life giving river (think the Nile), then he should definitely be able to swim. But if all the watercraft were barges and he never had much reason to learn how to climb, I shouldn't just have to handwave away an ability I "bought" with my skill choice. I want the granularity set where climbing and swimming are seperate, but I don't necessarily want climbing rope, climbing rock, climbing the company ladder(lol). I can see where you're coming from. I think I've just had some bad experiences trying to DM and play in open, vague skill systems in the past. I think we can agree that whatever system they go with needs to be based primarily on "ability scores, with skills as bonuses" and have brief detailed desriptions of what that skill/background actually entails as guidelines/suggestions.

 

[Jester David]

Keep in mind that just because they changed something in the playest, doesn't mean that's what they want to do with it, and it doesn't mean they've changed their overall design goals.
Sometimes, between packages and versions of a playtest, the designers will try variant approaches to see how much support each gets. They'll move between extremes to see where the lines are drawn to get a better idea of where a happy middle might be.

They might have gone for a full skill list to gauge people's reactions. To see what skills people latch on to, or how people like skills designed.

This might also be the design of an optional more detailed and structured skill system that they're testing as part of the core to generate more feedback for how it works.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Keep in mind that just because they changed something in the playest, doesn't mean that's what they want to do with it, and it doesn't mean they've changed their overall design goals.
Sometimes, between packages and versions of a playtest, the designers will try variant approaches to see how much support each gets. They'll move between extremes to see where the lines are drawn to get a better idea of where a happy middle might be.

Ordinarily I'd agree with you... and that's usually my reaction to all manner of stuff that gets thrown out here. However, this seems different to me because they aren't testing some new system... they're just devolving BACK to a system they've already used twice and know how it works. Considering we haven't even had a playtest with the much more "open" format that they originally said they were thinking about.

You know what was my favorite skill they listed in the first playtest packet? It's was the Commoner's "Commerce" skill. Why? Because it was the only new skill that they included that implied multiple things with it. Commerce (to me) meant you got a bonus to CHA for negotiation. You got a bonus to INT for recognizing product and appraising items. You got a bonus to WIS when trying to figure out if you were being conned or taken for a ride on a bad deal. It was all the things that I think the ability modifier system was meant to accomplish...

...a single concept that implied uses amongst many different ability scores. THAT is much more interesting to me as a means for delivering skills for the game.