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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6576074" data-attributes="member: 996">When it comes to clarity in general, though, so that's not really saying a whole lot.&nbsp; &nbsp;The way it seems to me is that the 4e designers took the universe of 'things a character in an heroic fantasy story might do, that might actually accomplish something heroic' and cut it up into what they hoped might be not-too-unequal pieces, and called each wedge a skill.&nbsp; It gets vague when an action is close to the border-line between wedges, or not quite in the imagined universe of heroic (or, at least, adventuring) things.&nbsp; IMHO, it might be improved if they started with the second half, 'things you might accomplish,' and let the how slide with the individual character concept.... &nbsp;One factor may be that a more fully realized concept supports more backstory.&nbsp; If you're an old-school 1st level 'veteran,' your backstory can't exactly involve many battles (or you'd be higher level - or dead), if your concept won't be realized until 6th level, then level 1-5 are going to end up being your backstory (and may not suggest your build or concept, at all, assuming you even stuck to it).&nbsp;Maybe. <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&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />&nbsp; I'm thinking more like how powers work in Hero.&nbsp; Could be a bad example, because it's too much like invisibility.&nbsp; Maybe what I'm really saying is games shouldn't have skill systems at all.&nbsp; That there are things anyone can do - lots of the, including most things encompassed by most 'skill systems' - and things that are more unique that PCs can make choices to gain for their characters.&nbsp; When you make something as everyman as a skill like 'stealth' into one of the latter, you make everyone who doesn't take it bad at stealth.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6576074, member: 996"] When it comes to clarity in general, though, so that's not really saying a whole lot. The way it seems to me is that the 4e designers took the universe of 'things a character in an heroic fantasy story might do, that might actually accomplish something heroic' and cut it up into what they hoped might be not-too-unequal pieces, and called each wedge a skill. It gets vague when an action is close to the border-line between wedges, or not quite in the imagined universe of heroic (or, at least, adventuring) things. IMHO, it might be improved if they started with the second half, 'things you might accomplish,' and let the how slide with the individual character concept.... One factor may be that a more fully realized concept supports more backstory. If you're an old-school 1st level 'veteran,' your backstory can't exactly involve many battles (or you'd be higher level - or dead), if your concept won't be realized until 6th level, then level 1-5 are going to end up being your backstory (and may not suggest your build or concept, at all, assuming you even stuck to it). Maybe. ;) I'm thinking more like how powers work in Hero. Could be a bad example, because it's too much like invisibility. Maybe what I'm really saying is games shouldn't have skill systems at all. That there are things anyone can do - lots of the, including most things encompassed by most 'skill systems' - and things that are more unique that PCs can make choices to gain for their characters. When you make something as everyman as a skill like 'stealth' into one of the latter, you make everyone who doesn't take it bad at stealth. [/QUOTE]

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