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

[Crimson Longinus]

You and @Crimson Longinus are asserting that my game play is not logical. I don't agree, and you haven't offered any standard of logic other than your own preference as to what bits of the fiction should be resolved by a player's roll to see if their character succeeds when using a skill.

What I deemed illogical was basing odds of things happening on stuff that would not causally affect them. Like @Emberashh earlier explained, the procedure jumbles together several unrelated things. Now it is perfectly valid that one might want to make such a trade off for expedient game play, but lets not pretend that it is not a trade off and the logic of task resolution odds doesn't get messed up in the process.

I have far lower chances of successfully making macarons than Gordon Ramsey has successfully making chocolate chip cookies, but this is not because I am more likely to be interrupted to non-cooking related mishaps while baking, it is because I'm a bad cook and Gordon is very good one, and I will mess up a complicated recipe while he will easily successfully execute a simple one.

 

[dragoner]

My sweet spot is Traveller's 8+ on a 2d6; I've used BRP's roll under with d00, except I find it less intuitive, as one really needs to load point in a few skills so they are up in the 60's vs spreading them out at lower numbers.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That was not part of the original example, this is something you brought up as a possible explanation. Perhaps you were part of the game too, and this is actually how it happened, I don't know.

Nope, was not a part of the game. Just not bewildered by how it works.

In any case, why we started to discuss this in the first place, was the idea that a bad skill roll didn't necessarily mean the character did badly. I.e. bad cooking roll didn't mean the character cooked badly. But if the objective is to cook fast, and you end up cooking really slowly, then you in fact cooked badly!

It’s not about cooking badly. Do you think such a roll would be called for if the characters were in their hometown and wanted to cook the rations?

But if its bothering you, we can change the example to "Aragorn stops to sharpen his sword, and the Nazgul show up". It doesn't make any difference to either Crimsons nor my arguments, but we no longer have to utilize your personal anecdote.

I prefer “the hobbits decide to cook some food and the Nazgul show up” as an example.

What I deemed illogical was basing odds of things happening on stuff that would not causally affect them. Like @Emberashh earlier explained, the procedure jumbles together several unrelated things. Now it is perfectly valid that one might want to make such a trade off for expedient game play, but lets not pretend that it is not a trade off and the logic of task resolution odds doesn't get messed up in the process.

The procedure bundles related things together, not unrelated things.

I have far lower chances of successfully making macarons than Gordon Ramsey has successfully making chocolate chip cookies, but this is not because I am more likely to be interrupted to non-cooking related mishaps while baking, it is because I'm a bad cook and Gordon is very good one, and I will mess up a complicated recipe while he will easily successfully execute a simple one.

How would Gordon do when camping in a dangerous area that also contains a moathouse full of bandits? What might Gordon be risking if he decides to try and cook something under those conditions?

A poorly made cookie? What a fun adventure game!!!

 

[Emberashh]

How would Gordon do when camping in a dangerous area that also contains a moathouse full of bandits? What might Gordon be risking if he decides to try and cook something under those conditions?

A poorly made cookie? What a fun adventure game!!!

You've probably never worked in a professional kitchen before if you think that kind of pressure isn't something professional cooks could handle.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

How would Gordon do when camping in a dangerous area that also contains a moathouse full of bandits? What might Gordon be risking if he decides to try and cook something under those conditions?

A poorly made cookie? What a fun adventure game!!!

Whether it is interesting to do in an adventure game to begin with is besides the point. But jumbling things together simply leads to disconnect of cause and effect, and creates weird decision logic. For example, "let's make chocolate chip cookies, not macarons, as latter are harder to make and we don't want to be attacked by the bandits."

 

[hawkeyefan]

You've probably never worked in a professional kitchen before if you think that kind of pressure isn't something professional cooks could handle.

Actually I have, and I can say that there was never anything remotely as dangerous as bands of killers nearby!

But nice attempt at a dodge! It seems you argue the same way you want to play RPGs!

Whether it is interesting to do in an adventure game to begin with is besides the point. But jumbling things together simply leads to disconnect of cause and effect, and creates weird decision logic. For example, "let's make chocolate chip cookies, not macarons, as latter are harder to make and we don't want to be attacked by the bandits."

It’s not beside the point, it’s the entire point. The player says “I want to do this thing that may produce resources we can use”. The GM says “Okay, but doing so is risky because of X”.

The roll goes poorly, X manifests.

It’s incredibly simple.

 

[Umbran]

It seems you argue the same way you want to play RPGs!

Mod Note:
Please stop making this personal.

 

[pemerton]

I think you're a little too attached to the idea that the example the discussion is revolving around is your own. I can't speak for Crimson, but when I evoke the example Im doing so on a theoretical or even hypothetical level; I'm using it to illustrate an issue.

What does it mean to invoke an example "hypothetically", without reference to (i) a RPG system, and (ii) a context of play.

I mean, which RPG do you take yourself to be "hypothetically" discussing, such that is suffers from an illogical approach to the resolution of player rolls to find out if their characters succeed when using a skill?

we can change the example to "Aragorn stops to sharpen his sword, and the Nazgul show up". It doesn't make any difference to either Crimsons nor my arguments, but we no longer have to utilize your personal anecdote.

This drives home my points just above - what are you envisaging? I mean, if the scene is comparable to the one on Weathertop, with Nazgul known to be abroad, and Aragorn's player declares the action to try and get an edge and the action fails, having the Nazgul choose that moment to assault the party looks like the right call (at least if the game is similar to Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, or HeroQuest revised).

What I deemed illogical was basing odds of things happening on stuff that would not causally affect them. Like @Emberashh earlier explained, the procedure jumbles together several unrelated things. Now it is perfectly valid that one might want to make such a trade off for expedient game play, but lets not pretend that it is not a trade off and the logic of task resolution odds doesn't get messed up in the process.

I repeat that the meaning of "illogical" is not contrary to @Crimson Longinus's preferences.

What the resolution system does is determine whether the player (and their character) achieve what they want by using the skill in question. And having a higher skill makes the answer to this more likely to be yes. That's not illogical - it poses and answers a completely coherent question via a completely clear process.

It's not a process of task resolution - if by "task resolution" is meant finding out the degree of skill that the character displays in their efforts - but that doesn't make it incoherent or illogical. The rulebook is not confused or misleading on this point.

jumbling things together simply leads to disconnect of cause and effect, and creates weird decision logic. For example, "let's make chocolate chip cookies, not macarons, as latter are harder to make and we don't want to be attacked by the bandits."

So if you play a non-task resolution game and describe all your actions in terms of task resolution, the game won't work. But any such jumbling would be yours, not the game's. (And by that measure 5e D&D is illogical, because I narrate every hit as chopping of an opponent's limbs and eviscerating them, yet they don't fall down and keep moving at full speed!)

Anyway, I can tell you what the players in my Torchbearer game actually do: they consider, as their characters, how hard to push themselves, knowing that the harder the task attempted, the less likely they are to achieve what they want. The decision logic it creates is one that is salient to risk, threat and the demands of the situation. Which seems fitting for a game (Torchbearer 2e) whose tagline is a roleplaying game of desperate adventure.

 

[Emberashh]

What does it mean to invoke an example "hypothetically", without reference to (i) a RPG system, and (ii) a context of play.

I mean, which RPG do you take yourself to be "hypothetically" discussing, such that is suffers from an illogical approach to the resolution of player rolls to find out if their characters succeed when using a skill?

I don't believe you don't know what I mean here. I just don't, and I'm not going to engage with that kind of rhetorical strategy.

But any such jumbling would be yours, not the game's.

If a Move has been engaged, are you allowed to contradict its preordained outcomes, yes or no?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I repeat that the meaning of "illogical" is not contrary to @Crimson Longinus's preferences.

What the resolution system does is determine whether the player (and their character) achieve what they want by using the skill in question. And having a higher skill makes the answer to this more likely to be yes. That's not illogical - it poses and answers a completely coherent question via a completely clear process.

You are eliding the illogical part: that in the fiction the task failing might have nothing to do with the skill. It is illogical to draw odds of a thing happening from values that do not represent anything related to it. That the system "works" in a sense that it produces clear results doesn't change that. Again, the reason why I am less likely to successfully bake macarons than Gordon Ramsey, is not because being a less skilled cook makes me more prone to ninja attacks while baking.

It's not a process of task resolution - if by "task resolution" is meant finding out the degree of skill that the character displays in their efforts - but that doesn't make it incoherent or illogical. The rulebook is not confused or misleading on this point.

Then why take account the character skill and the difficulty of the task when determining the odds?