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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 9371482" data-attributes="member: 6801228">I don't fully disagree with you, but there are problems. First of all, empty rooms are boring. If nothing is in a room, the players will just move on and that means it was a waste of time. I would posit that no rooms should ever be empty, but this also gets to what do we mean by "empty". in a recent dungeon I made there were multiple rooms with no traps or monsters, but they had clues to the larger events of the quest, items that could be used to help bypass or deal with the obstacles, puzzles that could be tackled for extra clues or rewards. I know that was what was likely meant by "empty" but I feel it needs pointed out. Secondly, two of the most problematic, troublesome, and difficult things in the entire game are social interactions and traps/puzzles.... the two key cornerstones of the non-combat portions of the game. The problems with traps/puzzles have been enumerated countless times, but to focus on them as a character design problem... if you need specific abilities to counter traps, then no one else can deal with those traps. Which locks people in to requiring that character to exist, and have the correct ability, to get past the trap. Just like you never want to have a key mcguffin behind a magical seal that requires a cleric to cast a specific spell (as a general rule) you don't want to have abilities that are only useful if you are dealing with specific traps. And you can't make traps and puzzles the sole domain of a single character, because then no one else can participate in the exploration, and that is boring. Classically, this can lead to the Decker problem of Shadowrun, where the existence of a single class can vastly alter the entire pace of an adventure, because they get all of these abilities and sub-systems that then require challenges they are uniquely suited to challenging. I'm not saying it is an impossible design challenge, but it is a formidable one. And social scenes are almost the same, but with a caveat. I can get behind a social system that is more robust... but it would require setting up the system to force Players to take actions, even against their desires and interests. THe current system works by being almost completely defensive. The PC acts against a DC or opposed roll, but the PC cannot be acted upon. This preserves player autonomy and prevents DMs from using the system and Charisma-based NPC builds to force player behavior by making them vulnerable to the same social "attacks" that the PCs can engage in. You would, by default I think, need to set up such a system to be opt-in. And even then.... once more you cannot make it the sole domain of a single class or two. Because, at the end of the day, everyone fights, and everyone needs to fight. Very, Very few players would be happy having a character who is dead weight in a fight, and forced to sit and watch the combat classes go to town, and have their lives rest on those classes. But, by the same token, it is ALREADY an issue for combat classes (who are forced to share their pillar) that this is exactly what happens to them during social and exploration scenes. They are forced to sit around and wait for others to solve the problem, so they can get in combat and share the spotlight. So, I am actually really happy to see the social and exploration spotlight (represented by the skill system) spreading out and becoming more open to all classes. This is a good thing. And I don't think making the rogue worse at combat to be better at non-combat actually fixes anything. Now, could the skill system be improved? 100% guarantee it could. But every adventurer needs to be able to handle every pillar of play, so that no one is stuck scrolling on their phone while their friends get to play the game.</blockquote>

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