How does a game work without skills?

[Remathilis]

PnP brings up my great complaint with 2e's Non-Weapon Proficiency System (used similarly in 1e and the RC); the abilities were static. Additionally, NWPs were binary; you knew how to do it (you had prof) or you didn't.

For example, someone who took the music instrument (lute) NWP could play the lute. The check was dexterity with a -1 to the roll (meaning if you had a 15 dex, you needed to roll under a 14 to succeed). If you weren't trained in lute-playing (no nwp) you couldn't do it; there was no "untrained" ability.

Which was fine for lute-playing, but got ridiculous for swimming, sewing, fire-building, cooking, fletching, and other mundane tasks. And since they were ability checks; they never improved beyond improving your score (or spending another NWP slot to gain a +1, a waste of a slot if there ever was one).

Compared to such a bass-ackwards system, 3e's skill-point system seemed like a godsend.

 

[StylinLP]

There's usually a narrative element, with or without a roll.

I personally dislike ability checks. They render a 1st level character no less effective than a 10th level character, and take no account of class, which is absolutely key to making sense of the 1e system--so I prefer (and OSRIC advocates) using saving throws, or modified saving throws, as checks rather than direct rolls against ability scores.

So a "sense motive" to determine if someone is telling the truth might be a Wisdom check if you're an ability-check advocate, but I'd use the base numbers for a poison save, modified by your Wisdom bonus. The result is then:

1) A high-level character is automatically better at it;
2) A character with high wisdom gets a bonus; and
3) Your chance of success also varies by class (and in this example, cleric or druid > paladin > thief or assassin > mage or illusionist > fighter or ranger).

None of this is intuitive unless you know the rules backwards, though. That's a feature of the 1e/OD&D systems--they do include systems you can adapt to any circumstance, but you have to be able trust your referee to make the right call and be willing to run with him when he thinks outside the box.

3e and 4e codify all this stuff which makes them a lot more forgiving of referee inexperience or occasional stupidity.

Here here! I hear ya. In an ideal world nothing beats AD&D. But when a DM looses the respect of his players then they all are happy to move to 3.5 - Rules to control the DM. Rules to kill the DM and turn him into a GM. Then you are no longer playing D&D. Looses the soul of D&D.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Which was fine for lute-playing, but got ridiculous for swimming, sewing, fire-building, cooking, fletching, and other mundane tasks.

You see, I think you shouldn't be rolling for "mundane tasks" in the first place. Player characters aren't necessarily heroes, but by default they're tough, competent and capable.

Before the dumbness of the NWP system, 1e characters could read and write unless the player made a roleplaying choice not to. They could ride horses, unless the player made a roleplaying choice that his character couldn't. They could swim, cook, sew, forage, hunt, make a fire, butcher a hog, do math, tell a story, dig a hole, staunch your bleeding, take a stone out of a horse's hoof, and in fact do all the basic stuff a reasonably-educated citizen of a mediaeval world would be able to do, without a roll.

Then along comes Oriental Adventures with its non-weapon proficiencies and all of a sudden, all these previously-competent adventurers started to fall off their horses and drown trying to ford shallow rivers...

... I'll stop there before this turns into a rant, and just say I think the rolling needs to be reserved for "stunt" moves where the character's trying to do something exceptional or unusual. I think that if it's mundane, don't roll.

 

[Simon Atavax]

Here here! I hear ya. In an ideal world nothing beats AD&D. But when a DM looses the respect of his players then they all are happy to move to 3.5 - Rules to control the DM. Rules to kill the DM and turn him into a GM. Then you are no longer playing D&D. Looses the soul of D&D.

Agreed. And once the soul of D&D is loosed, it is lost.

 

[Voadam]

Before the dumbness of the NWP system, 1e characters could read and write unless the player made a roleplaying choice not to.

Its been a while, was literacy a NWP? I don't remember taking it, even with my mages, but it has been a long time since I played 2e.

 

[Voadam]

Somethings been bugging me recently about what people say about editions like 1e: If you don't have skills how do you adjudicate non-combat situations? In particular I don't understand how things such as sensing (Sense Motive . . .) work.

Player: Do I think he's lying?

DM: I don't know, do you?

 

[Voadam]

Serious answer

Somethings been bugging me recently about what people say about editions like 1e: If you don't have skills how do you adjudicate non-combat situations? In particular I don't understand how things such as sensing (Sense Motive, Spot, Listen), any sort of movement that has a consequence for failure (basically any Str or Dex skill), and being sneaky (Disguise, Forgery, Move Silently, Hide) work.

IME mostly off of ad hoc DM adjudication based on common sense, experience, the particulars of the situation including what the players say they are doing and what the characters are like.

Many situations work great with just DM description followed by player declarations of actions/interactions.

If nobody says they look up they don't see the murder holes/lurker above monster hidden in the ceiling. If someone says they open a drawer the DM tells them what they see inside.

Rolling dice skill mechanics are only desired when the DM wants to insert randomness and (optionally) character mechanics into the adjudication decision.

 

[Korgoth]

Player: Do I think he's lying?

DM: I don't know, do you?

That's how I roll. Or don't roll, in this case.

If a telemarketer calls me, I don't need to use praeternatural ninja abilities of voice stress analysis to figure out that I don't need what he's trying to sell me. After all, he called me, I didn't call him.

Likewise, in a recent EPT session, the characters had tresspassed the Black Abode of Putrescence Triumphant, an underworld temple of the god of decay. They were confronted by the unctuous high priest and his flunkies, and he insisted that in recompense the party leave one of their number to be "initiated into the mysteries". It didn't take a genius for them to figure out that if they left someone with these guys, they'd never see him again. After all, how often are priests of the god of decay going to be genuinely nice to you after you invade their temple?

And I *know*, if I had been running the same game in D20, after that oily hierophant had presented his honeyed and merciful-sounding proposal, someone would have shouted "Sense Motive!" and rolled a D20.

 

[StylinLP]

Nothing works better than cartoon art

 

[kobold]

It was called roleplaying. Back in the old days we had to do it a lot. You kids don't know how lucky you are with your rules that handle everything, just look at all those shinny books!