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New Legends & Lore: Player vs. Character
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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5669972" data-attributes="member: 54877"><p>Explicit skills can have that effect. But short of freeform, I think some of that effect is unavoidable. And I'm not a proponent of freeform. So I'd rather look to things that keep the listed skills, but minimize the bad side effects, within reason. </p><p> </p><p>For example, I think skills should be reasonably broad most of the time, within the confines of what the game is about, but narrow when utility makes that important. That is, I think in a game of action heroes, "Athletics" is generally a superior skill to separate skills for "Jump", "Swim," and "Climb. Then if you want to distinguish among people who can't swim but can jump well, you do that with some supplemental mechanic, rather than breaking out one skill into three. Being "athletic" is something that the player of an action hero character can wrap his mind around, without worrying too much about the distinctions. OTOH, in a gritty game, part of immersion <strong>is</strong> wrapping your mind around those distinctions. You should be worried about having a lousy swim skill. So obviously the lines get drawn in different places depending upon what you want to achieve.</p><p> </p><p>However, on the larger question, I think this effect of listed skills--unless the skills are very poorly done--is minor compared to how the rest of game interacts with whatever type of play is expected. For example, if you routinely make it extremely challenging to do task T, and critical to success, then players will start grabbing every advantage the game and the table will allow--pouring over character sheets, gaming the DM, repeated use of "clever" play that is more about spreadsheet fanny covering--AKA 10' pole checking every square foot of every corridor. </p><p> </p><p>To wit, my experience with good and not so good games is that if the DM puts them under siege, the players will act like they are under siege. If you let up a little, and encourage them to roleplay the things they do, you'll get more roleplay. If they've been under siege for a long time, it may take awhile to turn it around. But once the bad stuff gets stopped, the good stuff will pick up momentum rapidly. </p><p> </p><p>So obviously, one of the ways to help a DM having trouble with this is to put some kind of mechanism on the players to let/encourage them to set the pressure level where they can roleplay comfortably. And related to your question, I think that the effect of explicit skills on the sheet is more often than not a symptom rather than the cause of the problem.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5669972, member: 54877"] Explicit skills can have that effect. But short of freeform, I think some of that effect is unavoidable. And I'm not a proponent of freeform. So I'd rather look to things that keep the listed skills, but minimize the bad side effects, within reason. For example, I think skills should be reasonably broad most of the time, within the confines of what the game is about, but narrow when utility makes that important. That is, I think in a game of action heroes, "Athletics" is generally a superior skill to separate skills for "Jump", "Swim," and "Climb. Then if you want to distinguish among people who can't swim but can jump well, you do that with some supplemental mechanic, rather than breaking out one skill into three. Being "athletic" is something that the player of an action hero character can wrap his mind around, without worrying too much about the distinctions. OTOH, in a gritty game, part of immersion [B]is[/B] wrapping your mind around those distinctions. You should be worried about having a lousy swim skill. So obviously the lines get drawn in different places depending upon what you want to achieve. However, on the larger question, I think this effect of listed skills--unless the skills are very poorly done--is minor compared to how the rest of game interacts with whatever type of play is expected. For example, if you routinely make it extremely challenging to do task T, and critical to success, then players will start grabbing every advantage the game and the table will allow--pouring over character sheets, gaming the DM, repeated use of "clever" play that is more about spreadsheet fanny covering--AKA 10' pole checking every square foot of every corridor. To wit, my experience with good and not so good games is that if the DM puts them under siege, the players will act like they are under siege. If you let up a little, and encourage them to roleplay the things they do, you'll get more roleplay. If they've been under siege for a long time, it may take awhile to turn it around. But once the bad stuff gets stopped, the good stuff will pick up momentum rapidly. So obviously, one of the ways to help a DM having trouble with this is to put some kind of mechanism on the players to let/encourage them to set the pressure level where they can roleplay comfortably. And related to your question, I think that the effect of explicit skills on the sheet is more often than not a symptom rather than the cause of the problem. [/QUOTE]
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