Mearls: Abilities as the core?

[Gundark]

True. Like most threads on Enworld this one stopped being productive after about page 3 or 4, and degenerated in a "no I'm right , no I'm right" discussion.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In 3e, there are a number of ways to handle this.
1. When you build your setting, limit the DM limits class choices to those that are culturally appropriate.
2. Modify a class's skills to create a variant that is background appropriate per Customizing a Character in the PHB. The PHB gives one example. There were a couple of examples of variants in 3.0 supplements (e.g., the Urban Ranger) and many more examples in Unearthed Arcana (e.g, Savage Bard, Urban Ranger, and Wilderness Rogue).
3. Modify a race as mentioned under under Character customization and expanded upon in Unearthed Arcana
4. As DM, use the skill sidebar that states the DM can prohibit a character from taking some skills based on background.
5. Use the urban/wilderness class skill swap from the Cityscape web enhancement.
6. As a player, spend some of those extra first level skill skill points on skills that reflect background.
7. If you are using 3.0, there is 0/0 multiclassing at first level found in the DMG

4e has plenty of mechanisms which allow customization. Provide background elements which grant whatever it is the player wants for instance. Take a theme which grants a skill or a skill bonus. Take skill powers which enhance your ability to use a skill in a particular way, or a feat which does something similar.

I think people get too hung up on questions of realism when it comes to skills. Consider that you're playing an RPG, the purpose is to tell interesting stories revolving around larger-than-life fantasy characters. The question isn't trivia about whether or not some guy that runs around killing monsters for 30 levels has a better understanding of trees or not. It is about whether or not the system helps you imagine yourself as Ralf the Fighter or not.

 

[Greg K]

4
I think people get too hung up on questions of realism when it comes to skills. Consider that you're playing an RPG, the purpose is to tell interesting stories revolving around larger-than-life fantasy characters. The question isn't trivia about whether or not some guy that runs around killing monsters for 30 levels has a better understanding of trees or not. It is about whether or not the system helps you imagine yourself as Ralf the Fighter or not.

Those are your preferences and emphasis for "how the system helps" and the type of things you want out of the game. If it works for you great. Other people want things that bring more verisimilitude not realism to ground the character into the setting and add more detail. And, not everyone approaches the game as running around killing monsters- it stopped being that during 1e- so, maybe, that is where the difference in approaches begins.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Those are your preferences and emphasis for "how the system helps" and the type of things you want out of the game. If it works for you great. Other people want things that bring more verisimilitude not realism to ground the character into the setting and add more detail. And, not everyone approaches the game as running around killing monsters- it stopped being that during 1e- so, maybe, that is where the difference in approaches begins.

What makes you think my game revolves around "running around killing monsters". It sounds like you believe that's all you can do unless you have a skill system that splits hear noise from spot hidden. It just isn't that way.

Of course a lot of play involves fighting, monsters, etc. Why would I use D&D if that wasn't going to be a significant aspect of my game? I don't need a D&D that does everything perfectly. It lets me have a game of intrigue or a game of hex-crawling, or a game of dungeon-crawling, or a game of empire building, or whatever I want. The core is always going to feature going to places and killing things as a common aspect of the game.

In any case the original discussion here was about skills vs ability scores. I'm going to assume we are both on the same side of 'yeah, we want skills'. lol.

 

[Greg K]

What makes you think my game revolves around "running around killing monsters". It sounds like you believe that's all you can do unless you have a skill system that splits hear noise from spot hidden. It just isn't that way.

You were the one stated the game was about 30 levels of killing monsters

In any case the original discussion here was about skills vs ability scores. I'm going to assume we are both on the same side of 'yeah, we want skills'. lol.

Yes, we agree on this.

 

[Greg K]

What exactly did you take "BACK TO THE DUNGEON" to mean?

After reading the books? Hyperbole!

 

[BryonD]

After reading the books? Hyperbole!

Exactly. You can't point at the actual rules and find "back to the Dungeon" there.

I'd agree that it was an abstract concept that was largely embraced during the design of 3E. But as much as anything it was just a marketing slogan. It isn't "in the details".


"The math works" is completely different because it defines a core fundamental of the game system itself.

 

[pemerton]

I think people get too hung up on questions of realism when it comes to skills. Consider that you're playing an RPG, the purpose is to tell interesting stories revolving around larger-than-life fantasy characters. The question isn't trivia about whether or not some guy that runs around killing monsters for 30 levels has a better understanding of trees or not. It is about whether or not the system helps you imagine yourself as Ralf the Fighter or not.

Good stuff.

I would want to add - the action resolution mechanics should also help you imagine yourself as Ralf the Fighter in the course of their application. (This is my version of the "rules vs fiction" debate!) I personally think that 4e definitely satisfies this criterion.

Those are your preferences and emphasis for "how the system helps" and the type of things you want out of the game. If it works for you great. Other people want things that bring more verisimilitude not realism to ground the character into the setting and add more detail.

You were the one stated the game was about 30 levels of killing monsters

No. To say that the game is not about "whether or not some guy that runs around killing monsters for 30 levels has a better understanding of trees or not" isn't to say the game is about killing monsters. It is to say that killing monsters is a core focus of the game, in a way that botany is not.

Fighting "monsters" is a core focus of the X-Men, and the Hulk, and the Arthurian legends, and Lord of the Rings, in a way that botany is not (the closest we get to botany in LotR is Sam's remarks to Gollum about seasoning rabbits ie not very close). But none of those stories is about killing monsters.

4e is designed around the assumption that fighting monsters, scaling Mount Doom, negotiating with sphinxes and efreets, and sneaking into the palace of Orcus, will be core activities, and that botany, and blacksmithing, will not. This is obvious from the barest familiarity with the PC build and action resolution mechanics.

But to infer from that that the game is, or must be, or tends to be, or best supports only, shallow play is completely unfounded. Imaging myself as Aragorn the Ranger, or Lancelot the Knight of the Round Table, or Wolverine the berserker, or Doc Samson the gamma-irradiated psychoanalyst, or even Ralf the Fighter, need have nothing to do with shallow or hack-and-slash play. But as Abdul Alhazred has posted, it also needn't have much to do with thinking about my expertise in botany, nor pondering how I am going to cross the creek without drowning after last night's heavy rain.

To put it another way - gritty does not have a monopoly on roleplaying, on imagination, on storytelling, or on fantasy gaming. No doubt some prefer it. But those who want a different experience aren't therefore more shallow in their tastes.

 

[pemerton]

In some respects, it might have been better if the 3e skill system cap didn't increase every level. I know that when I played it, I tended to think of skills as "my character is good in these three skills" and just put a point in chosen skills every level.

If the cap didn't increase so rapidly, such that players were always bumping against the cap, it would encourage them to spend excess points on new skills.

Rolemaster and HARP's solution to this problem is diminishing returns - the first 10 ranks give +5 per rank, the next 10 +2 per rank, the next 10 +1 per rank (in RM it then drops to 0.5 per rank, while HARP keeps going at 1 per rank).

This creates more of an incentive for the players of mid-to-high level PCs to diversify in skill selection.

It does have other consequences, though, like level gain being less significant at higher than lower levels (more like AD&D, less like 3E and 4e).

 

[pemerton]

We can debate the pros and cons of different skill system mechanics all day, but IME there is no perfect solution. My opinion is that people spend far too much time harping on these kinds of largely theoretical 'issues'. Who cares if my 30th level fighter is roughly as knowledgeable about Arcana as an optimized 1st level wizard? Is he really ever going to compare his Arcana skill to that of a situation intended for low level characters where this is going to matter? It is just irrelevant. In all my 35 years of DMing I have yet to see this situation arise.

There's your problem.

You don't understand the issues because you are confusing your own personal opinions and experiences with the preferences and experiences of the market as a whole.

I'm not all that interested in the preferences and experiences of the market as a whole.

But is this the great case against 4e? That it's a shallow vehicle for roleplaying because its action resolution mechanics, and the encounter building guidelines that are heavily integrated with those mechanics, presuppose that a 1st level wizard and a 30th level barbarian won't find themselves in the same party facing the same challenge? And, as a result, take the view that a +15 skill bonus typically means something different for a high level PC than for a low level one?

(Is it relevant to this discussion that, in AD&D, the meaning of 4 hit points of damage varies depending on both (i) the total number of hit points the vitim of the damage has, and (ii) rather nebulous flavour pertaining to that victim - eg most of a giant slug's hit points are meat, whereas few of a high level PC's hit points are meat? The meaning of one hit point remaining is different from character to character also, for similar reasons. But I can't tell whether or not these points are relevant, because I've lost track of what exactly the flaw in 4e is meant to be, other than not being some people's (most people's?) preferred game.)