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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6063520" data-attributes="member: 7006">Here's the dichotomy I get into when I see your skill list, SD.  One the one hand you do exactly what I have said they should do, which is have lots of different skills.  But on the other hand I also think many of your skills are SO specific that they could be combined (which I acknowledge is ironically what I've been fighting against, and thus I'm contradicting myself.)It's really weird and hard for me to encapsulate what I wish to see... because I want LOTS of available bonuses, but also don't want so specific activities that they will never come up.  It's hard to explain.In my mind... the name of the Background should be enough.  That should be all someone needs to know what might give a bonus when the DM asks a player to make an Ability Check.  So for instance... Bluff, Disguise, and Forgery.  All three are individual skills that satisfy my claims of wanting "a larger skill list".  But then again... all 3 each attribute to pretty much a single Ability Check.  Bluff affects CHA and nothing else.  Disguise affects CHA and pretty much nothing else.  Forgery affects DEX and pretty much nothing else.  So rather than have three three separate skills, each of them giving a bonus to a single Ability Check... I'd rather just go with the Background of Charlatan.  THAT'S your "skill list" right there.  Anything a PC does that involves fooling someone... either via performance, or lying, or forging documents, using magic devices, or Indiana Jones trying to replace the golden idol with a bag of sand... you get the bonus to your Ability Check because you are a Charlatan.Now yes... I know the counter-arguments to that ideal.  People have rightly said when I've brought this up before that it's "too hard for new players to understand" by not having actual "skills" and instead requires DM adjudication to determine whether a PC is doing something that falls under a Backgrounds purview.  Or the other side, which is that you get a lot less "stuff" by having the Artisan Background say, over the Pirate or Hunter.  I get all that.But the fact remains... in D&DN... we're not making skill checks.  So to say that being a Charlatan means you having FOUR specific and defined "skills" that modify only four distinct Ability Checks... I feel is really lame.  Because what ends up happening is that in order to give the Background its money's worth... the four "skills" end up being so broad and wide that two completely disparate Backgrounds have the EXACT same "skill", which (by the rules of the game) apply to the EXACT same situations.The Commoner AND the Knight both have "Persuade".  And if you look at what Persuade entails... it makes no distinction about WHO is doing the persuading.  So by the rules... the Commoner AND the Knight BOTH get the exact same bonus to Persuade the King (if we assume for a moment that a Commoner would ever get a meeting with the King that is).  And I find that kind of ridiculous.  Now yes... as a DM I would be well within my right to say that the Commoner doesn't get the bonus... but that's me deliberately house-ruling the situation in the middle of the game.  Whereas in my ideal... having the Commoner BE the "skill list" and requiring that DM adjudication from the get-go... means that the process is:  Player of Commoner PC says he wants to try and convince the King to do some thing.  DM says okay, roll a CHA check.  Then the player has to explain HOW and WHY being this specific Commoner in this specific situation should grant him a BONUS to that CHA check.  Now if there's some backstory there as to why he should get the bonus, great!  But it's the player's responsibility to roleplay and introduce the reasons in-game why he should be getting the bonus... NOT JUST "well, it's because I have the 'Persuade' skill."  And the Knight?  Getting the bonus to speak to the King is probably much, much easier for him, as being a Knight means there's a better chance he already has a relationship with the King.  But the Knight trying to convince some fence to sell him some black market item?  MUCH more difficult!  And the Knight would not and should not automatically get the bonus to the CHA check unless he too had some in-game backstory reason to justify it.  And that's what using the "Background as skill list" gets you.  Players needing to justify why they should be better in certain situations, and many more common sense rulings on the part of the DM to confirm if and when those justifications are real and true.  The Commoner has a better shot getting bonuses to CHA checks when dealing with the bartender, other peasants, the weird dude on the edge of town, than the Knight would (assuming of course of what the persuasion involved).  Whereas the Knight has much better opportunity to try and convince lords and ladies in court than the Commoner does.  It's just common sense that I wish the game made all DMs use for adjudication.And of course... the bonus of this system being that being a Knight means not just the CHA bonus for persuading the King... but also the WIS bonus for knowing if the chambermaid is lying to him, the INT bonus for recognizing the banners of an opposing army, the CON bonus for forced march, the DEX bonus for leaping down from a horse, and the STR bonus for lifting drawbridges or portculli.That's the kind of thing I wish we'd see.  Even though I realize I'm going to be sorely disappointed when the game finally gets released.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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