Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Bill Zebub" data-source="post: 9854780" data-attributes="member: 7031982">Well, it's not &quot;optimism&quot;.&nbsp; It's the way I play and it seems to work.As for &quot;training&quot; I think Shadowdark's system works really wellPlayer: &quot;Hey, my background is miner, so I think I should get to roll with advantage.&quot;GM: &quot;Sounds good.&quot;I get that some people enjoy finer granularity, but I would argue that is scratching an itch that has little impact on the game itself.&nbsp; For a skill that is maybe used occasionally (swimming, climbing, etc.) the pattern of successes or failures will owe more to RNG than to some granular modifiers.In other words, if two players wrote down all their success or failures at one of these skills, over multiple sessions, the probability that the one with more successes was actually the one with lower skill is higher than many people would assume.But what would you actually be narrating here?&nbsp; In combat it could be &quot;I try to flank the orc&quot; &quot;I jump on the table&quot; &quot;I focus more on defense than offense&quot; &quot;I use my XYZ power&quot; &quot;I drink a potion&quot; &quot;I pretend to drop my guard&quot; &quot;I heal my companion&quot; &quot;I drop my shield and go two-handed&quot; &quot;I scream my tribe's battle cry!&quot; Etc. etc. etc.What are the climbing equivalents?&nbsp; I generally try to avoid giving any IRL details about myself, or to make appeals to authority, but here I'll add that I'm an extremely experienced rock climber...and not that wussy sport/gym climbing nonsense, but day-long multi-pitch lead climbing at altitude, sometimes unroped, on both rock and ice...and I have absolutely zero idea about how I would turn climbing into a <s>mini-game</s> meaningful sub-system within an RPG.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Bill Zebub, post: 9854780, member: 7031982"] Well, it's not "optimism". It's the way I play and it seems to work. As for "training" I think Shadowdark's system works really well Player: "Hey, my background is miner, so I think I should get to roll with advantage." GM: "Sounds good." I get that some people [I]enjoy[/I] finer granularity, but I would argue that is scratching an itch that has little impact on the game itself. For a skill that is maybe used occasionally (swimming, climbing, etc.) the pattern of successes or failures will owe more to RNG than to some granular modifiers. In other words, if two players wrote down all their success or failures at one of these skills, over multiple sessions, the probability that the one with more successes was actually the one with lower skill is higher than many people would assume. But what would you actually be narrating here? In combat it could be "I try to flank the orc" "I jump on the table" "I focus more on defense than offense" "I use my XYZ power" "I drink a potion" "I pretend to drop my guard" "I heal my companion" "I drop my shield and go two-handed" "I scream my tribe's battle cry!" Etc. etc. etc. What are the climbing equivalents? I generally try to avoid giving any IRL details about myself, or to make appeals to authority, but here I'll add that I'm an [I]extremely[/I] experienced rock climber...and not that wussy sport/gym climbing nonsense, but day-long multi-pitch lead climbing at altitude, sometimes unroped, on both rock and ice...and I have absolutely zero idea about how I would turn climbing into a [S]mini-game[/S] [I]meaningful sub-system[/I] within an RPG. [/QUOTE]

Verification