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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8302751" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>I had a thought about this which perhaps we can dig into. Let's say that to simplify</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">tasks can be grouped into a type (a label for the group) and ranked by difficulty</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">success at tasks of a given type is predicted by a skill in common (so that success at type A tasks is predicted by skill A)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">a skill is a factor found in common across a cohort that predicts success at tasks of the appropriate type and known difficulty</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">members of a cohort can therefore be ranked according to the difficulty of tasks a skill in common can overcome</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">performance is predicted by skill but not identical to it: elevated stakes, time constraints, fatigue, group effects all impact on performance (in this thread I suspect we are frequently talking about performance when we say skill)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">skill usually can't be applied when a player doesn't understand the task - this is the first barrier to performance - and then skill usually quickly improves with practice to a plateau, after which introducing the player to a new strategy may unlock further growth</li> </ul><p>Many game tasks are complex: they stress multiple skills (present multiple axes of difficulty). An example might be a task that requires visual-spatial sorting, processing speed and memory. Skills seem to be layered so that fundamental factors collectively determine skill at higher-order tasks.</p><p></p><p>A key strategy in game play is to reduce the difficulty of a task so that it requires less skill to succeed at it. This idea - strategy - is differentiable from and works with (what I will call) mid-order skills. Hooking a player up to an fMRI vividly reveals the reduced workload. In older players, strategy does more work because it does not decline with fundamental abilities: it can even increase while fundamental abilities are all measurably in decline.</p><p></p><p>So back to the concern about negating husbanding of resources. For this to really count, we must have a series of tasks of reliably known difficulty. I am DMing Tomb of Annihilation at present, and for my party of six the difficulty of the tasks is unreliable. WotC playtesting resources are significant, but not unlimited. Additionally there is the problem of difficulty across successive tasks. It is impossible for WotC to thoroughly test all party compositions against all task orderings.</p><p></p><p>I am not denying the possibility of skill here. Rather I am pointing to a role for a DM in adjusting written map+key. They have information WotC did not have. So much as possible, it may be good for them to do this adjustment in advance. WotC give them a tool in the written material which is to introduce when they feel like it a Tomb Guardian encounter. It is through good judgement in advance and on the fly that a DM course corrects difficulty. They might follow solid principles (well, I find them solid) such as exercising restraint, letting the dice almost always fall as they may, avoiding forcing some kinds of rolls (for example, I often force random encounter rolls, extremely rarely do I force rolls for characters and foes, I <em>never </em>force clutch rolls that might take the campaign on a completely new course).</p><p></p><p>If characters are able to husband resources because the printed material does not tax them, no special skill is being demonstrated. Taken sincerely, we assume that this is not the case in your example... but it can well be the case in similar examples that might at the table be very hard to discern from yours (except by a skillful DM, naturally!) Hence while I am with you in disliking force in most cases and I agree with you that force <em>can </em>obviate skill, I do not agree with you in supposing that it <em>necessarily </em>obviates skill (and no more than making a softer rather than hard decision, when decisioning).</p><p></p><p>Something I like that this thread has made visible to me is the group impact on performance: generally players evidence more skill when the players <em>around </em>them are skillful. In hindsight I already had evidence of this. [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER]'s examples really crystallised it for me.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 8302751, member: 71699"] I had a thought about this which perhaps we can dig into. Let's say that to simplify [LIST] [*]tasks can be grouped into a type (a label for the group) and ranked by difficulty [*]success at tasks of a given type is predicted by a skill in common (so that success at type A tasks is predicted by skill A) [*]a skill is a factor found in common across a cohort that predicts success at tasks of the appropriate type and known difficulty [*]members of a cohort can therefore be ranked according to the difficulty of tasks a skill in common can overcome [*]performance is predicted by skill but not identical to it: elevated stakes, time constraints, fatigue, group effects all impact on performance (in this thread I suspect we are frequently talking about performance when we say skill) [*]skill usually can't be applied when a player doesn't understand the task - this is the first barrier to performance - and then skill usually quickly improves with practice to a plateau, after which introducing the player to a new strategy may unlock further growth [/LIST] Many game tasks are complex: they stress multiple skills (present multiple axes of difficulty). An example might be a task that requires visual-spatial sorting, processing speed and memory. Skills seem to be layered so that fundamental factors collectively determine skill at higher-order tasks. A key strategy in game play is to reduce the difficulty of a task so that it requires less skill to succeed at it. This idea - strategy - is differentiable from and works with (what I will call) mid-order skills. Hooking a player up to an fMRI vividly reveals the reduced workload. In older players, strategy does more work because it does not decline with fundamental abilities: it can even increase while fundamental abilities are all measurably in decline. So back to the concern about negating husbanding of resources. For this to really count, we must have a series of tasks of reliably known difficulty. I am DMing Tomb of Annihilation at present, and for my party of six the difficulty of the tasks is unreliable. WotC playtesting resources are significant, but not unlimited. Additionally there is the problem of difficulty across successive tasks. It is impossible for WotC to thoroughly test all party compositions against all task orderings. I am not denying the possibility of skill here. Rather I am pointing to a role for a DM in adjusting written map+key. They have information WotC did not have. So much as possible, it may be good for them to do this adjustment in advance. WotC give them a tool in the written material which is to introduce when they feel like it a Tomb Guardian encounter. It is through good judgement in advance and on the fly that a DM course corrects difficulty. They might follow solid principles (well, I find them solid) such as exercising restraint, letting the dice almost always fall as they may, avoiding forcing some kinds of rolls (for example, I often force random encounter rolls, extremely rarely do I force rolls for characters and foes, I [I]never [/I]force clutch rolls that might take the campaign on a completely new course). If characters are able to husband resources because the printed material does not tax them, no special skill is being demonstrated. Taken sincerely, we assume that this is not the case in your example... but it can well be the case in similar examples that might at the table be very hard to discern from yours (except by a skillful DM, naturally!) Hence while I am with you in disliking force in most cases and I agree with you that force [I]can [/I]obviate skill, I do not agree with you in supposing that it [I]necessarily [/I]obviates skill (and no more than making a softer rather than hard decision, when decisioning). Something I like that this thread has made visible to me is the group impact on performance: generally players evidence more skill when the players [I]around [/I]them are skillful. In hindsight I already had evidence of this. [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER]'s examples really crystallised it for me. [/QUOTE]
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