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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8303652" data-attributes="member: 71699">What I've been attempting to do is go beyond what amounts to statements about what is found satisfying to a group. One of the clearest skill constructs we have in gaming is the Elo. This has been emulated by Microsoft's TrueSkill and in other games such as League of Legends MMR.Each of these concrete skill constructs is silent on the factors of skill (e.g. ingenuity), and takes the approach of collecting game results and using that to predict subsequent results. When you say "abstraction", in fact I was attempting the opposite: to make concrete.Dismissing Pun Pun as one degenerate case fails to think through what is going on in 3rd and 5th edition charop. System mastery in those two games allows construction of mechanically stronger characters. The intended game balance as laid out in the DMG, e.g. as guided by CR, entails that those characters will defeat encounters with ease that ought to be matched for their level. The tweak is for the DM to adjust encounters although often what happens is that the optimised character joins a group of unoptimised characters so that route isn't open.Your example in Burning Wheel is a different case. This is the second time that you have responded to a case I have presented by saying no that is not true in this - quite different - case. It is old news that more skill in the area of charop in 3rd and 5th edition lead to needing less skill during play (given a group is following the written principles of the game).It's not so much the mathematical demonstration, as the concrete construct and reducing of confounds around task modelling, task difficulty, and small group self-perceptions. When posters in this thread and others like it speak about skill, I feel at best they can be speaking about what their small group has experienced (in this context, less than a thousand is small).I have played and/or DMd - Dogs in the Vineyard, Burning Wheel, RuneQuest, D&D (all editions), HeroQuest, Earthdawn, Shadowrun, Bushido, Empire of the Petal Throne, Land of the Rising Sun, Chivalry and Sorcery, Ars Magica, Traveller, Aftermath, Paranoia, GURPS, Savage Worlds, a diceless game of my own invention (influential in my small part of the world), Amber, Rifts, Champions, two or three games of friends' invention. We've probably one-session'd some others that I don't recall. EDIT Also T&T (solo only), Megatraveller, Call of Cthulhu, and DragonQuest (both editions).Heh! I find that other posters are speaking ambiguously and making it impossible to discuss real differences. However, I am happy to revert to discussing experiences and preferences. One can learn from sharing those. One cannot make claims to be saying anything concrete about skill, however. Well, that is a little harsh: one can make guesses and speculate as to factors (e.g. ingenuity) and say what factors one values, but one cannot say that one self-reported example was any more skillful than any other - even in cases where the other sounds on surface less skillful.</blockquote>

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