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<blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 8959880" data-attributes="member: 32164">Okay, this is another &quot;let's get people talking&quot; post. And I know everyone will have very different answers to this, but I'd be interested to know if there's any trends...Skill systems feel like one of the most divisive subjects in RPGs. The earliest editions of D&amp;D had a solidly defined &quot;skill system&quot; to cover combat and a bolted on subsystem for the various thief skills...and not much else. After introducing the concept of non-weapon proficiencies (1e Survival Guides and 2e), 3e went nuts with a simulationist skill system using the core mechanic. Other than cleaning it up and greatly simplifying the list, that's largely held on in D&amp;D, although the granularity isn't great, and most of the &quot;improvement&quot; is dumped on leveling. Counting tools and languages, a starting 5e character gets to train in 6 (most), 7 (Rangers), 8 (Bards, w/&quot;musical instruments&quot; as a single tool), or 9 (Rogues) skills, in addition to their combat and spell-casting abilities. All the non-humans usually get an extra language. It's worth noting that D&amp;D only has 18 official &quot;Skills,&quot; although languages are separate and some of that load is dumped on Tools, which seem to be considered &quot;less useful.&quot;Outside of D&amp;D, many other games have highly developed skill systems, some of which (classless systems) even handle combat and spell-casting. But those run the gamut from Palladium to GURPS to VtM to Savage Worlds and everything in between.And then there are a ton of games which basically don't have skill systems, or that replace them with something highly abstract, like Castles &amp; Crusades Primes, or the minimalist systems that lean heavily on attributes, like PbtA, or many, many OSR games.Personally, I'm kinda in the middle on skill systems. I like them because I like not having to rely on something as artificial as &quot;Class&quot; on which to build characters, and I'm highly skeptical of the &quot;just wing it&quot; based on what's plausible from a character's background, but I really don't want to go back to the days of having separate skills for pistols, rifles, and bows (&quot;Shooting&quot; feels right) or highly curated lists of proficient weapons. By the same token, I'm also perfectly fine with combining &quot;Hide&quot; and &quot;Move Silently into a single skill called &quot;Stealth&quot; or &quot;Sneak&quot; and &quot;Listen&quot; and &quot;Spot&quot; and &quot;Seach&quot; into one skill called &quot;Notice.&quot; I'm not even sure we need to separate athletics and acrobatics. And the various social and knowledge skills create a whole extra level of problem, but in the interest of keeping this post manageable, I won't go into detail about that. I can also appreciate that the more load we put on skills, the less we need attributes. Is that a bad thing? I'm not sure. As a sword-fighter, I know that strength doesn't impact your ability to inflict damage with sharp weapons nearly as much as many people think it should. That's honestly why people use swords.I certainly have thoughts on this subject, but I'm not 100% sure where the sweet spot is or even theoretically &quot;should&quot; be. And it probably varies greatly from table to table. I just know that too much complexity bogs things down, and too much abstraction starts to feel weird (to me, at least).Thoughts? Anybody else want to weigh in?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="JohnSnow, post: 8959880, member: 32164"] Okay, this is another "let's get people talking" post. And I know everyone will have very different answers to this, but I'd be interested to know if there's any trends... Skill systems feel like one of the most divisive subjects in RPGs. The earliest editions of D&D had a solidly defined "skill system" to cover combat and a bolted on subsystem for the various thief skills...and not much else. After introducing the concept of non-weapon proficiencies (1e [I]Survival Guides[/I] and 2e), 3e went nuts with a simulationist skill system using the core mechanic. Other than cleaning it up and greatly simplifying the list, that's largely held on in D&D, although the granularity isn't great, and most of the "improvement" is dumped on leveling. Counting tools and languages, a starting 5e character gets to train in 6 (most), 7 (Rangers), 8 (Bards, w/"musical instruments" as a single tool), or 9 (Rogues) skills, in addition to their combat and spell-casting abilities. All the non-humans usually get an extra language. It's worth noting that D&D only has 18 official "Skills," although languages are separate and some of that load is dumped on Tools, which seem to be considered "less useful." Outside of D&D, many other games have highly developed skill systems, some of which (classless systems) even handle combat and spell-casting. But those run the gamut from Palladium to GURPS to VtM to Savage Worlds and everything in between. And then there are a ton of games which basically don't have skill systems, or that replace them with something highly abstract, like [I]Castles & Crusades [/I]Primes, or the minimalist systems that lean heavily on attributes, like PbtA, or many, many OSR games. Personally, I'm kinda in the middle on skill systems. I like them because I like not having to rely on something as artificial as "Class" on which to build characters, and I'm highly skeptical of the "just wing it" based on what's plausible from a character's background, but I really don't want to go back to the days of having separate skills for pistols, rifles, and bows ("Shooting" feels right) or highly curated lists of proficient weapons. By the same token, I'm also perfectly fine with combining "Hide" and "Move Silently into a single skill called "Stealth" or "Sneak" and "Listen" and "Spot" and "Seach" into one skill called "Notice." I'm not even sure we need to separate athletics and acrobatics. And the various social and knowledge skills create a whole extra level of problem, but in the interest of keeping this post manageable, I won't go into detail about that. I can also appreciate that the more load we put on skills, the less we [I]need[/I] attributes. Is that a bad thing? I'm not sure. As a sword-fighter, I know that strength doesn't impact your ability to inflict damage with sharp weapons nearly as much as many people think it should. That's honestly [I]why[/I] people use swords. I certainly have thoughts on this subject, but I'm not 100% sure where the sweet spot is or even theoretically "should" be. And it probably varies greatly from table to table. I just know that too much complexity bogs things down, and too much abstraction starts to feel weird (to me, at least). Thoughts? Anybody else want to weigh in? [/QUOTE]

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