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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 9097924" data-attributes="member: 7006">I will disagree with the premise.&nbsp; Reason being... skills should not be a &quot;mechanics mini-game&quot; within an RPG.D&amp;D Combat is a &quot;mini-game&quot;.&nbsp; You can strip the entire system out of the RPG and play it on its own-- and we know this because WotC has actually created board games that specifically do this.&nbsp; They remove the roleplaying from games like Wrath of Ashardalon and Legend of Drizzt to just have the combat mini-game.But ability checks and skills are not that.&nbsp; And they shouldn't be that.&nbsp; What they are, is giving us 'Yes' / 'No' answers to the questions regarding our narrative experiences within the roleplaying.&nbsp; We don't play &quot;skills&quot; to play skills-- we use skills as randomizers to describing our actions within the story.&nbsp; We tell the DM what it is we want our characters to do in the story... and the ability check (with or without skills added) is there purely for the DM to help them decide how successful the action was.&nbsp; That's it.&nbsp; Because whatever the result, the DM will then narratively describe what happens.The fact of the matter is... we don't NEED skills at all.&nbsp; AD&amp;D didn't have them after all.&nbsp; D&amp;D can completely function just by the player describing what it is their PC wants to accomplish and the DM could just decide for themselves &quot;Is this something I think should work?&quot; and describe the results from that.&nbsp; But that's an arbitrary DM decision that results in players and DMs oftentimes arguing if the player doesn't accept the DM's reasoning for why some action wouldn't work.&nbsp; So instead, we add in a die roll specifically just to take the heat off the DM.The DM still gets to make a decision on how possible they think the action should be... they choose the DC of the action... but then the player gets a chance for their PC to be successful by making a check.&nbsp; And this process-- replacing a DM fiat decision with a die roll-- should be just as easy and quick as it was when the DM just said 'Yes' or 'No'.&nbsp; Because we aren't trying to gamify skill checks, we're just using randomness in our narrative description and roleplaying.&nbsp; So trying to enlarge the entire thing by expanding the die rolling systems or creating multiple layers of things you can and can't do with skills... that's all unnecessary.&nbsp; Describe narratively what you want to do, make a die roll, gets the results.&nbsp; Then move on in the adventure.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 9097924, member: 7006"] I will disagree with the premise. Reason being... skills should not be a "mechanics mini-game" within an RPG. D&D Combat is a "mini-game". You can strip the entire system out of the RPG and play it on its own-- and we know this because WotC has actually created board games that specifically do this. They remove the roleplaying from games like Wrath of Ashardalon and Legend of Drizzt to just have the combat mini-game. But ability checks and skills are not that. And they shouldn't be that. What they are, is giving us 'Yes' / 'No' answers to the questions regarding our [I]narrative experiences[/I] within the roleplaying. We don't play "skills" to play skills-- we use skills as randomizers to describing our actions within the story. We tell the DM what it is we want our characters to do in the story... and the ability check (with or without skills added) is there purely for the DM to help them decide how successful the action was. That's it. Because whatever the result, the DM will then narratively describe what happens. The fact of the matter is... we don't NEED skills at all. AD&D didn't have them after all. D&D can completely function just by the player describing what it is their PC wants to accomplish and the DM [I]could[/I] just decide for themselves "Is this something I think should work?" and describe the results from that. But that's an arbitrary DM decision that results in players and DMs oftentimes arguing if the player doesn't accept the DM's reasoning for why some action wouldn't work. So instead, we add in a die roll specifically just to [I]take the heat[/I] off the DM. The DM still gets to make a decision on how possible they think the action should be... they choose the DC of the action... but then the player gets a chance for their PC to be successful by making a check. And this process-- replacing a DM fiat decision with a die roll-- should be [I]just as easy and quick[/I] as it was when the DM just said 'Yes' or 'No'. Because we aren't trying to gamify skill checks, we're just using randomness in our narrative description and roleplaying. So trying to enlarge the entire thing by expanding the die rolling systems or creating multiple layers of things you can and can't do with skills... that's all unnecessary. Describe narratively what you want to do, make a die roll, gets the results. [I]Then move on in the adventure[/I]. [/QUOTE]

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