What's Your "Sweet Spot" for a Skill system?

[niklinna]

The disconnect is between the task of cooking and the adjudication of the dice roll not being about the result of said cooking, but about the further development of the scene. This is something that seems to run counter to the intuition of many people playing RPGs, which is why I think explicit buy-in can help to reduce the potential friction.

It isn't about the act of cooking and the result of said cooking (if by that you mean how the dish turned out). It's about the act of cooking and anything that might lead to: tasty roast frog, burnt stomach-churning frog, the smoke from the fire attracting hostile (or friendly) attention, a forest fire accidentally started....

Now, a bad die roll could be adjudicated with a completely unconnected event, such as a lightning strike on the campfire, or a flash flood of the nearby river, or ninjas teleporting in from an entirely different reality, or a vorpal blade inexplicably flying through the air and cutting off the cook's head. But in my actual experience as a player, and in examples I've seen @pemerton and company post, the bad outcomes are nearly always something that could reasonably happen given the situation and recent occurrences in gameplay. And should they not make sense to me, I feel quite welcome to say so.

 

[Thourne]

Fair point. The specific case I was thinking of is PbtA games, where moves might look a lot like skill checks, but their nature is a bit different. And when I ran these games for people who mainly played trad games before, about half of them were not really onboard with that different nature. And that was even after they read the rule books (or at least claimed they did). It did get better over time, but we ended up that for some people it just ran counter to their preferences.
But in line with what you are saying: when I played Trophy Dark last year, no such friction existed - people bought into the premise when they specifically signed up for that game.

Never trust a player who says they read the book until after you quiz them!
I joke... mostly, well some, never mind quiz them!

 

[aramis erak]

Dysentery is a killer

Constipation can be, too.
And dehydration. "Cold camp" (no fires) is risky for multiple reasons - the water may be unsafe without boiling, the dehydrated rations don't rehydrate fully (esp. beans and maize), the spores and bacteria aren't killed...
The range of disorders from cold camp include dehydration, either direct, via dysentery or via consuming inadequately rehydrated food...
Several kids in the same Basic Training company as I didn't rehydrate their MREs properly... one got heatstroke, the other I'm not sure, as never saw him again after they rushed him to the hospital. (He didn't die; that would have made the base paper.)
Mr Heat Stroke was ordered to drink a canteen between meals, got to carry an extra, even. He washed out in week 6.

 

[Thourne]

Constipation can be, too.
And dehydration. "Cold camp" (no fires) is risky for multiple reasons - the water may be unsafe without boiling, the dehydrated rations don't rehydrate fully (esp. beans and maize), the spores and bacteria aren't killed...
The range of disorders from cold camp include dehydration, either direct, via dysentery or via consuming inadequately rehydrated food...
Several kids in the same Basic Training company as I didn't rehydrate their MREs properly... one got heatstroke, the other I'm not sure, as never saw him again after they rushed him to the hospital. (He didn't die; that would have made the base paper.)
Mr Heat Stroke was ordered to drink a canteen between meals, got to carry an extra, even. He washed out in week 6.

Them strawberries are quite tasty right outta the pack, but yah. Gotta get that water in yah.

 

[hawkeyefan]

However, the skill roll using the skill value to overcome the difficulty doesn't represent likelihood of cooking badly, it represent likelihood some other bad thing that is completely unrelated to these facts happening. That is just confused and illogical.

This assessment is incorrect.

No, that is how you describe the game working.

No, this is how your incorrect assessment is leading you to a conclusion that is confused and illogical. You’re blaming that result on the game or the description of it rather than on your own failure to understand what’s being said.

Unless you move past the idea that the cooking test and the result are “entirely unrelated”, you’ll continue to make this mistake.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think I agree (see below), and I have to say that I find jumping from a discussion about what exactly is adjudicated in a skill test to railroading as a pattern of bad GMing seems like a rather unfavourable way to read and reply to my post.

The connection is this:

How does the GM introduce complications and adversity into the fictional situation? One way is to do so when the players fail a roll. I've provided an actual play example of this (the failed Cook test).

Another is for the GM to do whenever they think it makes sense. Presumably this is what those who are critical of the Torchbearer approach to adjudication favour. I hope it's fairly clear why someone - eg me! - would see this principle as pretty close to railroading.

The specific case I was thinking of is PbtA games, where moves might look a lot like skill checks, but their nature is a bit different. And when I ran these games for people who mainly played trad games before, about half of them were not really onboard with that different nature.

This goes back to my previous post: if someone ran "trad" games for players who are used to playing 4e D&D, or Burning Wheel, or other non-"trad" games, they may not be onboard with the basic principle of "GM decides". There is in my view nothing distinctive about (say) Burning Wheel or Torchbearer or Apocalypse World that requires game participants to be on board.

The disconnect is between the task of cooking and the adjudication of the dice roll not being about the result of said cooking, but about the further development of the scene. This is something that seems to run counter to the intuition of many people playing RPGs

I've not had the experience of it being counter to intuition. It's a game rule, like any other game rule.

And the adjudication of the dice roll is about the result of the cooking. The cooking takes time, generates smoke and smell, etc. The result of that is that bandits turn up.

So the skill value measures how good the character is at cooking, the difficulty measures how hard something is to cook. However, the skill roll using the skill value to overcome the difficulty doesn't represent likelihood of cooking badly, it represent likelihood some other bad thing that is completely unrelated to these facts happening. That is just confused and illogical.

The roll doesn't represent anything at all. It is an event that occurs at the table. It establishes who gets to say what next, about what happens in the fiction.

What seems confused and illogical to me is your insistence that rules play a representational function that it's obvious that they don't.

You seem to keep projecting your own narrative discontinuities onto other's play.

No, that is how you describe the game working.

Well, I quoted John Harper explaining how "ninjas attack" is not how Apocalypse World works. And then you made a post where you suggested, as failure naration, "ninjas attack". Hence why I see the confusion, illogicality and problems establishing narrative continuities as ones that you have, not ones that I have.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The roll doesn't represent anything at all. It is an event that occurs at the table. It establishes who gets to say what next, about what happens in the fiction.

What seems confused and illogical to me is your insistence that rules play a representational function that it's obvious that they don't.

Then why are we taking account representational things such as cooking skill and difficulty of the recipe for determining the odds of this roll? That is what is illogical. Going from representational starting point to non-representational results is confused.

Well, I quoted John Harper explaining how "ninjas attack" is not how Apocalypse World works. And then you made a post where you suggested, as failure naration, "ninjas attack". Hence why I see the confusion, illogicality and problems establishing narrative continuities as ones that you have, not ones that I have.

I was not talking about AW, I was talking about your example which was literally that, except it was bandits and not ninjas.

 

[pemerton]

Then why are we taking account representational things such as cooking skill and difficulty of the recipe for determining the odds of this roll? That is what is illogical. Going from representational starting point to non-representational results is confused.

The better on is at cooking, the more likely one is to achieve success when trying to cook. That's not confused, or illogical.

The result is representational: it represents what happens when the declared action is attempted. In this case, a cook tries to cook; and the cooking is unsuccessful, because interrupted by bandits. That's not confused, or illogical.

I was not talking about AW, I was talking about your example which was literally that, except it was bandits and not ninjas.

But you assert that doing a difficult thing causes bandits to appear. Which is obviously not the case. Bandits are attracted by smoke, smell, and other sensory cues.

You seem to be the only one confused about this!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The better on is at cooking, the more likely one is to achieve success when trying to cook. That's not confused, or illogical.

It would not be, if the reason of the failure was related to your skill in cooking, but like you have repeatedly said, it isn't.

The result is representational: it represents what happens when the declared action is attempted. In this case, a cook tries to cook; and the cooking is unsuccessful, because interrupted by bandits. That's not confused, or illogical.

It is, because the outcome does not follow from the cause. It is not logical that worse you're at cooking, more likely you're to be attacked by bandits.

But you assert that doing a difficult thing causes bandits to appear. Which is obviously not the case. Bandits are attracted by smoke, smell, and other sensory cues.

But only if you fail the roll! Otherwise smoke and smell goes unnoticed.

BTW, we have had basically this same discussion before, the last time it was just about a better lockpicker having higher chances of finding documents in the safe. But it was similar discontinuity of the cause and effect.

 

[GMMichael]

Some of you are rolling great on your Perceive Argument contests, and the toaster is due for maintenance.

Let's throw out some food for thought...

Steve (player name: Steve) has some giant frog flesh that he wants to smoke while camping in the wild, equipped for treasure-hunting, not feast-preparation. But he has some helpful tools . . . okay, just a skinning knife. It's better than nothing. The GM wants a Mental contest to see if Steve can figure out how to put together a decent smoker in this situation. Steve, obviously the cook of the group (which is out hunting in order to simplify my example) has a skill point in Cook (craftsman), so he adds that to his contest. The goal of the contest (Steve's result versus the GM's) is to see if the smoking effort has a favorable result - versus is/is not successful.

Welp, Steve rolls a result of 12, which is not bad, but the GM decides that making a smoker in the wild with only a skinning knife would be a Difficult task, which results in 18 after the GM takes half. (Further, Steve neglected to inject a role-playing effort for the bonus of the same name.) Steve's outcome is a Con - an unfavorable result - and the GM says, "you rolled a Con. What went wrong?"

Steve, who has only the rosiest picture of his cooking (smoker construction?) skills, says, "some bandits showed up and destroyed my smoker."

The GM, ostensibly in charge of ruling the world, decides to roll with it or alter it, with input from the players. Bandit visits are decidedly unfavorable outcomes, but they're not likely related to Steve's cooking skill. In preparing the smoker, Steve could have sought the wrong materials, leading him close to a bandit camp. Or he could have been flinging frog bits in all directions, not realizing that it would attract the bandits' dogs. Or the bandits could be completely unrelated, and the Con is the simple smashing of the smoker by bandits before the frog meat becomes... delicious? But the way we get there is with a brief give-and-take by the active PC, the GM, and even the other players. The result is that everyone has a more vivid memory of the time Steve tried smoking giant frog. If that's not necessary, the GM could have cut it off at, "roll Mental. Con. The frog meat is horrible. Let's talk about your quest goals."