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Message: <blockquote data-quote="catenwolde" data-source="post: 4532092" data-attributes="member: 33889">The overall attitude always seemed (at least to me) to be based on a reasonable interpretation of what the character could do, with a little luck thrown in when appropriate.  The "reasonable interpretation" bit is based on the player and GM interacting with each other to establish what the character knows, including class descriptions and character background.  Note that the luck element isn't always needed - sometimes GM and player interaction is all that is needed.With the right group you don't even need a system, but it can help, especially with players used to having things spelled out for them.  Over the years, I've put together the following (very simple) system and used it to good effect in one form or the other:1. The character is competent in all skills relating to his class.  He should be able to assume he can do basic tasks without any element of luck or further training involved, like a Fighter taking care of his weapons and even repairing minor damage to armor.  Obviously, this is based to a certain extent on how the class operates within your own campaign world - a classic Medieval Fighter would have basic knowledge of siege combat, while a Viking Fighter wouldn't ,etc.2. The character is also competent in skills relating to his general background, before he started adventuring.  This is covered in the usual brief character background sketch, such as "He grew up in the hills herding cattle and hunting."  A character with that background would be reasonably proficient in climbing, basic foraging and survival, animal handling, and even tracking.  This is one way to create "Ranger" or even "Knight" types without even having those classes.3. I allow the players to throw in three "background story" elements any time during play, which essentially give them extra skills that the party didn't know about.  For instance, the party needs to cross a flooded stream in flimsy boats ... one of the characters can use of his three "surprises" to tell the party that he spent his summers fishing with his uncles on the rocky coasts, and knows how to handle small craft in difficult weather.  This allows the characters' stories to grow in a meaningful way, and since they only have three for their whole career it doesn't go too overboard.(BTW, using the above three elements, you can easily create different "Basic Fighters" or "Basic Clerics" or whatever that look and play very differently, which I think was the whole idea behind leaving things relatively undefined.)4. Where there needs to be an element of luck, or a marginal element of success, use the "roll under the appropriate attribute" system with a few adjustments depending on the situation.  I will have the players roll multiple d6, depending on the difficulty of the task.  Easy task?  2d6, and so on.  There can be things like 6d6 or 10d6 checks, but the kicker is that in some cases you can add either your class level or half your class level to the roll, depending on how closely connected the task is to the character's training and experience.  It's a pretty loose system, but it gives the players a framework to understand task difficulty in relation to their character, and gives me as DM plenty of room to wiggle and adjust chances of success depending on the situation.</blockquote>

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