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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9203959" data-attributes="member: 4937">I earlier defined the attributes I prefer to see in a skill system without making mention of &quot;degree of success&quot;.&nbsp; That was an oversight in retrospect.Personally, I'm agnostic on whether a system benefits from degree of success compared to simple pass fail, but I do prefer that if a system considers degree of success that they consider it as a separate issue in each type of skill check rather than having a unified system that assumes for all skill tests that degree of success exists and is meaningful.&nbsp; If you design &quot;degree of success&quot; into your system, I believe you are obligated for each and every possible skill test in your system to define what it means to succeed at every degree of success your system defines.&nbsp; In other words, in my opinion, skills are not actually completely congruent and interchangeable.&nbsp; Many skills are actually orthogonal to each other and assuming a unified system for skills that is completely generic and abstract just does not work.&nbsp; Two attributes of a skill that exemplify this orthogonality are: 1) whether or not the success represents some quantity that can be measured (&quot;How far did I jump?&quot;) or some measureless quantity (&quot;Was I seen or not?&quot;)2) Whether or not successes in the skill are linearly distributed or highly normalized.&nbsp; For example, &quot;How much do you know?&quot; or &quot;Can you pass/fail hit a target&quot; might be linearly distributed, but &quot;Can you lift this object?&quot; is highly normalized.&nbsp; Systems that assume all skills can be abstracted away in the same manner - everything pass/fail or everything degree of success, everything dimensionless or everything measurable, or everything linear or everything normalized (implied by tying all skills to the same fortune mechanic) - IMO tend to be eventually problematic in play and require the GM to make ad hoc rulings in order to get around the limitations of the skill system and the nonsense that applying it without judgment calls would regularly throw up.An example of this is that while I in general love 3e D&amp;D skill system, it's inclusion of &quot;Jump&quot; as a skill is in my opinion a mistake.&nbsp; Because D20 is inherently a pass/fail linear fortune mechanic skill system, and &quot;Jumping&quot; as a skill is orthogonal to both design decisions in that it's inherently about a measurable quantity and inherently highly normalized.&nbsp; In this manner, 1e D&amp;D which just defined absolute distances that you could jump is actually a stronger design.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9203959, member: 4937"] I earlier defined the attributes I prefer to see in a skill system without making mention of "degree of success". That was an oversight in retrospect. Personally, I'm agnostic on whether a system benefits from degree of success compared to simple pass fail, but I do prefer that if a system considers degree of success that they consider it as a separate issue in each type of skill check rather than having a unified system that assumes for all skill tests that degree of success exists and is meaningful. If you design "degree of success" into your system, I believe you are obligated for each and every possible skill test in your system to define what it means to succeed at every degree of success your system defines. In other words, in my opinion, skills are not actually completely congruent and interchangeable. Many skills are actually orthogonal to each other and assuming a unified system for skills that is completely generic and abstract just does not work. Two attributes of a skill that exemplify this orthogonality are: 1) whether or not the success represents some quantity that can be measured ("How far did I jump?") or some measureless quantity ("Was I seen or not?") 2) Whether or not successes in the skill are linearly distributed or highly normalized. For example, "How much do you know?" or "Can you pass/fail hit a target" might be linearly distributed, but "Can you lift this object?" is highly normalized. Systems that assume all skills can be abstracted away in the same manner - everything pass/fail or everything degree of success, everything dimensionless or everything measurable, or everything linear or everything normalized (implied by tying all skills to the same fortune mechanic) - IMO tend to be eventually problematic in play and require the GM to make ad hoc rulings in order to get around the limitations of the skill system and the nonsense that applying it without judgment calls would regularly throw up. An example of this is that while I in general love 3e D&D skill system, it's inclusion of "Jump" as a skill is in my opinion a mistake. Because D20 is inherently a pass/fail linear fortune mechanic skill system, and "Jumping" as a skill is orthogonal to both design decisions in that it's inherently about a measurable quantity and inherently highly normalized. In this manner, 1e D&D which just defined absolute distances that you could jump is actually a stronger design. [/QUOTE]

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