Legends & Lore: Loyal Opposition

[Scribble]

Yeah, which basically shows up that what we really end up with is effectively the old system with much greater spread of DCs and much larger increments of modifiers. I prefer the tighter spread and lower modifiers so you can then have "well, yeah, you can try to cross the wire, but it is a bit windy, is it worth the risk?" vs "Oh, its windy +10 to the DC, forget it."

The virtue is that there are more situations where you have a 100% chance of success, and in people's calculations the difference between 90% and 100% is an important distinction.

Ok upon sleeping on it I'm now wondering if the distinction is that with a system of DCs and numbers people try to game the numbers more, but with a system like Mearls describes people try to game the game more. If that makes sense...

IE since I know unless I do something to get a bonus I will fail at this task, I'm more likely to try to do something in game to garner that bonus then if I figured I just needed to roll well.

The same being true on the other side of the screen as well- since people don't understand numbers as well, it's easier for a DM to say ok this is now an apprentice level task or something as opposed to figuring out what the proper DC should be, or just saying eh +2 I guess...

 

[braro]

If the true purpose of these articles is to explore and measure our response... I like it, even if I don't like the idea.

It has, though, gotten me to truly think about what I want from a skills system. Generally, I look at the rules as being there just for conflict resolution, so I don't care much about how they work over time (crafting, making things, etc) unless they have a true and meaningful contribution towards resolving the conflicts that we are RPing through.

What I want is: for skills to use the same resolution mechanic as everything else; to make it easy to show what a character is good at, and to make them actually good at it by virtue of training; to not give me additional decision points after character creation unless they are significant; and to truly matter for conflict resolution.

D&D 4e does most of this, but I have been playing Fallout recently and I am loving the point juggling. That is because every little bit of skill helps in some way, and all resources are both combat and out of combat (I don't consider gunning down a lone enemy as a true combat encounter, even though my gun skill affects it; and even survival has combat applications if I am trying to get health back in a fight). In Fallout's system Repair is important because a good skill with it means that my equipment is better. By that virtue, I could see putting some kind of Craft D&D4e if give gave you some kind of effect; but then, it doesn't use the same resolution mechanic as the rest of the game, and becomes more of a power or martial practice. And also, the skill points system from Bethesda's stuff is easy to use because you have a computer calculating all of this stuff, including weapon degradation; having a computer aids you in having decision points that have small, broadi mpacts. Pen and paper games really require big decision points with immediate effects (+5 to skill!)

With that in mind, I now have stuff to add to my custom martial practice notes (Sharpen your sword as a practice, requiring a whetstone worth X gp, giving you a damage bonus to the next encounter, similiar to the whetstone items; or giving durable/toughness to your armor for one encounter, using expendable resources to jurry rig it). ...and I am also now that much more eager for Skyrim.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The easy shortcut for this is if you're mathematically inclined instead of verbiagely... take your stat mod, don't add any half-level or any other nonsense...

Each level of training increases your bonus by 10. The DCs are 10/20/30/40/50.

So the big strong guy with no training (+4) _can't_ make the DC 30 journeyman check, has a chance for the DC 20 Novice check, and is pretty decent at the DC 10 "Yep" check. Meanwhilst, the journeyman with str 10 sits on his +20 and is purty darn good at the DC 10 and DC 20 checks, but still has to roll for the journeyman DC 30

If all you want to do with this system is recreate something much like 4E skills, but with the wide range of the d20 and ability modifiers being muted in favor of training being more determinant--then I agree with you.

If, however, you want to provide hooks for options to the skill system that make them more or less important or address different flavor, then I think you just went a step too far. Namely, you just took what was a very good option for a certain style of play and made that the default mechanic.

I fully agree that a system such as you suppose should be a clear option--maybe even the first option listed.

 

[keterys]

For clarity, my post is a translation of Mike's system but in actual game terms. (It's also exactly what I predicted it would be based on his prior post of success/failure for 1 level)

Ie, his system is that simple. Levels of training are +10s, DM deciding you've done something cool or something is harder is +/- 10. Done.

 

[mneme]

I like the idea of gross skill points, with each "skill point" being +10 to success (which as [MENTION=43019]keterys[/MENTION] says, is really what the system boils down to). Mind, I'd be tempted to throw in an "exploding 20s" rule where when you roll a 20, you keep all or part of it and reroll (normally, one does this as "keep the max roll and add in another die", but for the proposed skill system I think it would make more sense to do it as "keep 10 and add in another d20, turning anything below a 10 into a 10)" (repeating as necessary), as it would keep the scaling reasonable. This would let someone attempt things beyond their weight class, but with a very small chance of success (need a 20 + a 15 or higher, even with a +5 stat or stat + circumstance mods).

 

[Scribble]

I like the idea of gross skill points, with each "skill point" being +10 to success (which as [MENTION=43019]keterys[/MENTION] says, is really what the system boils down to). Mind, I'd be tempted to throw in an "exploding 20s" rule where when you roll a 20, you keep all or part of it and reroll (normally, one does this as "keep the max roll and add in another die", but for the proposed skill system I think it would make more sense to do it as "keep 10 and add in another d20, turning anything below a 10 into a 10)" (repeating as necessary), as it would keep the scaling reasonable. This would let someone attempt things beyond their weight class, but with a very small chance of success (need a 20 + a 15 or higher, even with a +5 stat or stat + circumstance mods).

But I *think* that ends up kind of defeating the purpose of what I believe he's trying to do...

If you think back to his earlier posts about skills, one of the things he mentioned was that when he played the thief, he liked the fact that despite hopeless inability to do anything based on the numbers, he was able to essentially game the DM to create a happy outcome.

I think he's trying to put a little of that back into the system without the skills being truly useless by the numbers.

For a lot of things you're trained in, you'll just be able to do them... So a thief should in theory be able to pick the average lock, and climb the average wall, BUT:

Because certain tasks are "hopeless" and you automatically fail he hopes you'll be forced, or at least prompted to interact in game in ways you hope will convince the DM to lower the DC (in the same way he was when he played the thief oh so long ago...)

Exploding dice would work counter to this because they then become almost like a lottery, where instead of interacting in game you're just meta-praying you get a good roll.

 

[mneme]

[MENTION=23977]Scribble[/MENTION], it's ironic that your example belies your point. With exploding dice as I described them, your odds of doing something past your weight class would be at best 1.25%, and two pips beyond your weight class would drop to .06%. The things you "could not do" in OD&D/AD&D" generally had odds around 1-10%.

 

[Scribble]

Scribble, it's ironic that your example belies your point. With exploding dice as I described them, your odds of doing something past your weight class would be at best 1.25%, and two pips beyond your weight class would drop to .06%. The things you "could not do" in OD&D/AD&D" generally had odds around 1-10%.

I understand that you're saying the odds involved would be great- most people don't understand odds though, so they kiss their dice and hope for the best. Which isn't what he seems to want.

Mearls also understands odds, which is what he was saying with the thief. He knew his chances were low, so his best bet was to convince the DM.

Since most people don't understand odds, he needs to find another way to get them to fall into the convince the DM method.

So by making some tasks impossible unless you manage to convince the DM otherwise, he forces people who would ordinarily kiss their dice and pray for the best to instead interact in game.

I don't know if I'm right about it, I could be completely misreading his intentions, but it sounds like he feels this will cause people to start thinking more in terms of in game surroundings and less in terms of what numbers they need.

I think he feels that instead of just rolling the dice people will start thinking about what they would do if this were a real situation.

Shrug.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think some of our disagreement here is that some of us are talking about the information presented as the whole (skill) system, while some of us are talking about the information presented as musings towards greater flexibility.

For example, I don't have time right now to satisfy Abdul's request for a complete sample of one of the ways I could see this playing out. So I can hardly convince him that I find one dimensional systems inherently over-constrained, anymore than he can convince me that multi-dimensional systems are inherently unbalanced. And that's good at this point, since the whole point of the exercise is to get peoples' brains churning. If we all agreed (yea or nay), then Mearls has failed.

 

[Balesir]

For clarity, my post is a translation of Mike's system but in actual game terms. (It's also exactly what I predicted it would be based on his prior post of success/failure for 1 level)

Ie, his system is that simple. Levels of training are +10s, DM deciding you've done something cool or something is harder is +/- 10. Done.

Strictly speaking, I think his system is +10 or more per skill 'level'. The "one level up or down is automatic pass/fail" thing would work with +100 modifier/DC per level just as well as +10.

I understand that you're saying the odds involved would be great- most people don't understand odds though, so they kiss their dice and hope for the best. Which isn't what he seems to want.

Mearls also understands odds, which is what he was saying with the thief. He knew his chances were low, so his best bet was to convince the DM.

Since most people don't understand odds, he needs to find another way to get them to fall into the convince the DM method.

I think you're right. It's a shame that the whole "blag the DM for prizes" thing was what I came to loathe about D&D many years ago. 4E finally fixed it, in one particular fashion, but what is being discussed here just brings it back. I would love to see something that fixes it in a different way - but that doesn't even seem to be on the agenda.