Would you agree that the outcome depends on measure of skill relative to the difficulty of tasks confronted?
I can't speak for
@Campbell, but from my point of view this is stated at such a level of abstraction that I don't even know what it means, let alone whether or not I agree with it.
In classic D&D, for instance, a standard measure of difficulty is
level. In that sense, White Plume Mountain is more difficult than KotB. This is normally understood in terms of resources required for success, both depth of hit point resources (to handle physical punishment) and spells and similar magic available.
But difficulty can also be measured in terms of
ingenuity demanded - eg the "gelatinous cube in a pit" trap requires more ingenuity to resolve successfully than navigating around an open, unconcealed and empty pit in a corridor.
There is no canonical way of measuring this second sort of difficulty in classic D&D, other than - say - setting ToH towards the more challenging end of the posited gradient of difficulty. Are you proposing some such canonical measure? Are you suggesting that having some such measure would assist us in understanding Gygaxian skilled play, or some other sort of RPGing?
clearstream said:
For RPGs with strong character mechanics, such as 5e, we have the peculiar problem that the more skill a player has in one area of the game, the less they will likely need in another.
Are these conjectures based on actual play experience? Are you able to give examples that illustrate what you have in mind?
The crispest example is charop in 3rd edition. If you build Pun Pun, the rest of the game can't possibly be taxing. Arguably, building Pun Pun obviates any skill in play after session 0. However, to build Pun Pun itself takes skill.
Even when its comes to 3E D&D, I'm not sure that one degenerate case supports a generalisation that
the more skill a player has in one area of the game, the less they will likely need in another.
And even if that were true for 3E (I'm not expert enough in that system to have an opinion), I don't think it generalises to other systems. For instance, I have a friend who is much more skilled than I am at improving his PC when playing Burning Wheel, by managing the way in which he establishes his dice pools for his declared actions. Thus his PC grows in ability more quickly than mine does. This doesn't led to him needing less skill in other parts of the game: in fact in many ways its orthogonal to the rest of the play of the game.
As the soft and hard moves are not specified, your group might well have a good grasp of what you will uphold as valid. Another group might have a very different grasp. There is nothing in RAW that proves the other group is mistaken. This is a general problem with the meaning for rules (that because TTRPG rules must be grasped, enacted and upheld by players, they are subject to meaning issues).
The fact that something doesn't admit of mathematical demonstration doesn't mean that there is no constraint, that there is no better or worse adherence to principles and guidelines.
What RPGs do you have experience with? From your posts I infer 3E and 5e D&D, and maybe some RuneQuest. Have you played or GMed AW, or DW or other PbtA system? BitD or other FitD systems? Buring Wheel? HeroWars or HeroQuest? Even 4e D&D?
@Campbell posted that your posts seem to be introducing ambiguity, "making it impossible to discuss real differences between different modes of play". I feel that they would benefit from being grounded in reference to actual RPG systems and actual processes of play in those systems. This would also make it clearer what the evidence base is that you are relying on for your generalisations.
