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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7447762" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think it is very trivially easy to see how 'skills', when implemented at all, in 'classic' D&D were of little significance, even in 2e where NWPs were at least presented as a possibility in the core books.1. They were NEVER used to represent anything like a class or race ability, even when they obviously could have been (IE thieves, rangers, elves, etc.). 2. They were always optional systems (2e NWPs, 1e Secondary Skills, etc.). The one marginal exception was OA, where they ALMOST became a significant subsystem.3. No implementation in classic D&D was actually mechanically viable in any sensible way. DSG, WSG, OA, and 2e PHB (etc.) implementations were mechanically unworkable in significant ways. I was always dubious that they had ever really been playtested, and they almost seemed like a way of simply discouraging players from doing 'other stuff' vs actually something you would use in practice.4. The implementation in 3e is PROFOUNDLY different. 3e skills have serious bugs, but they are actually mechanically usable and fairly successfully implement core parts of the game like thief skills and such.I disagree that, pre 3.x, they were used for anything except color in RP. A clever DM in OA (for example) would probably allow a character with 'Tea Ceremony' or whatever to simply do his thing and ignore the actual mechanic of it, but in a mechanical sense they weren't something you could ever depend on.I think they were mostly avoided because they didn't really fill a needed spot in classic D&D. You had ability score for raw capability, and class provides everything specific, with all else being relegated to PC omnicompetence or being a test of player skill. It is informative to see how Gygax used thief skills in OD&D. They were explicitly described as a tool by which the thief character could 'do the impossible'. They weren't skills in the post-2e sense at all, they were magical class features, which allow thieves to climb sheer walls, move silently across fields of broken glass, disarm diabolic magical traps, read incomprehensible writing, etc. Simply hiding in a good safe hiding place, climbing a cliff using a rope, walking quietly on a clean stone floor, or plugging up the spout of a flaming oil dispenser, etc. don't require checks of any kind in OD&D.Admittedly, even Gygax became a lot less clear about this distinction in AD&D, where he seemed to want to back off from the more fantastical aspects of it. I'd assume he spent a lot of time rejecting crazy player shenanigans and wanted to put the kibosh on all of it. In any case, he had no need for a skill system.</blockquote>

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