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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 8045914" data-attributes="member: 63">The only game that has ever actually impressed me with its skill system is the new FFG Legends of the Five Rings.D&D and PF just have a pretty minimalist "did you succeed" system, where even if you add more skills - or wonky stuff like skill feats to unlock special abilities - you don't get much story out of it.But L5R fascinates me. Skills have up to five ranks, with 1 being competent, and 2 or higher being increasingly impressive. There are about 20 skills, split into five categories, and during character creation you're pretty much bound to get at least 1 rank in at least 2 skills from each category.Artisan - Aesthetics (aka, visual media), Composition (aka, writing and music), Design (aka, fashion), SmithingMartial - Fitness (aka, running/jumping/sneaking), Melee, Unarmed, Ranged, Meditation, TacticsScholar - Culture, Government, Medicine, TheologySocial - Command, Courtesy, Games, Performance, SentimentTrade - Commerce, Labor, Seafaring, Skulduggery, SurvivalAnd whenever you attempt any skill, you don't simply rolling against a Target Number. You first announce your approach - which maps to the five different rings of the game.Air - Cunning, graceful, or preciseEarth - Steady, grounded, or thoroughFire - Direct, ferocious, and inventiveWater - Balanced, flexible, and cooperativeVoid - Enlightened, serene, and mysticalAnd due to the way their dice system works, you roll a dice pool, with dice from your ability score (the ring you choose) and your skill ranks. You can get three main results: success, strife, and opportunity. The more success you get, the better you do.The more strife you get, the more the effort wears at your composure. (In L5R, if you run out of composure in a social setting, you embarrass yourself, and if you run out in a battle, you can no longer effectively defend against attacks.)The more opportunity you get, the more novel stuff you can do aside from just accomplishing your main task.For instance, you might be negotiating to convince a samurai from a different clan to let you pass through his patrolled area to pursue enemies from a third clan. This would probably be a Courtesy check, though you could try to make your point through a story (Performance) or even leverage some legal obligation (Government). And then you'd pick your approach. Based on what the GM knows of the samurai you're talking to, that might adjust the Target Number up or down.Say you go for Courtesy (Water). You succeed, and even have some opportunities, which you use to make a friend, so the samurai sends some of his foot soldiers to help you.Or Tactics (Earth), where you recount the precise details of a battle you had with your quarry, because you're dealing with a Lion clan samurai, and they love tactical talk, and you manage to impress him that your plan is the best way to deal with the threat the other guys pose. You can use some of your opportunity to say that the discussion actually helps you refine your plan, so that each member of your party gets a bonus die one time during the upcoming conflict.Or Culture (Void) to simply have an idle conversation with the samurai, never stating your purpose, but opening your senses so that a kami - or perhaps one of the samurai's own ancestors - will guide your words to say the right thing. Some random turn of phrase will persuade the samurai to let you pass. And you can use your opportunity to gain good fortune: pick a different ring, and the next check you make with that ring has its Target Number reduced by 1.It leads to some interesting roleplaying and storytelling through skill-based encounters. (And the similar system works in combat, so you might even fail to deal damage, but still use opportunity to change the nature of the fight.)</blockquote>

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