Why I Hate Skills

[Bill Zebub]

I've been playing Dragonbane this weekend, and it reminds me of why I hate skill systems.

First, I have to say that I love almost everything else* about Dragonbane, so I'd love to figure out a hack to change how skills work.

*ok, I don't love roll-under.

Unfortunately, one of the things I do love is the flat progressions, which in Dragonbane is tied to the skill system. Instead of levels, characters advance in three ways:

1. Equipment, including magic items
2. Heroic Abilities (kind of like Feats)
3. Skills increasing

When you roll a 1 or a 20 when using a skill, you mark that skill, and at the end of the session you roll a d20 for every marked skill: if you roll above your current skill, it increases by one. That end-of-session rolling is really fun, but unfortunately (in my opinion) it creates an incentive to roll dice during the session.

The adventure we were playing had a lot of things like:
"A successful Awareness roll reveals the outlines of the hidden door..."
"They can find the hidden trap door with a successful Spot Hidden roll..."
"With a successful Myths & Legends check they recognize the mural as..."
"The inscription can be read with a successful Languages check..."

Because of the advancement system, it makes sense to have lots of these things in an adventure, for as many different skills as the designer can think of. But I have three issues with these sorts of checks for "noticing" or "knowing" things:

First, there's all this "me-tooism" going on, where EVERYBODY wants to roll to see if they can read the inscription. I know some GMs solve this by saying that only one person gets to roll, calling that the best attempt, and in a lot of games whoever has the highest skill becomes the point person. But in games where rolling is a chance to advance, everybody wants to be that person.

Second, the players aren't doing anything. Why are they rolling to see if they spot the hidden door? Because they happened to walk past it. There's no thoughtfulness, no planning, no risk-taking. Finding the door isn't a reward for good game-play, unless you count "putting points into Awareness" as good game play. Which I don't. Or, at least, if the skill in RPGs comes down to knowing how to build a character, I'm not really interested.

Third, if nobody succeeds they know they missed something, so then they start poking around really carefully, even looking in exactly the right spot. So...I'm supposed to give them their reward, even though they failed the skill roll, because the roll itself signaled they should stay in that spot searching for something until they click the right pixel?

I resolved it this weekend by just having everybody roll. And inevitably somebody in the party of five succeeded in every case, so at least we avoided the "now we know we missed something syndrome." But I find it incredibly unsatisfying. My players are learning they don't really have to be very thoughtful; they just blunder around and I tell them what dice to roll.

Oh, and then there's lock-picking and trap-disabling. The dungeon had several instances (at least three) where the key to a lock was hidden in another part of the dungeon. Which is a pretty standard video game trope, but when you have a sleight-of-hand skill, and an incentive to use skills, eventually all the locks get picked. Not only was there no problem solving, planning, or other trade-offs, just dice rolling, but the presumed purpose of the locks and keys...getting them to explore the other parts of the dungeon...wasn't actually achieved.

That isn't a problem specifically with skills....if we were playing Shadowdark they wouldn't have even had to roll dice to pick the locks...but it's a common design feature (flaw, imo) that is part of the whole skills ecosystem problem: that because there's a skill for picking locks, you put locks in the dungeon. (I did rule that each attempt takes an entire 15-minute "stretch", which then triggered a random hazard check, but that's still safer than going to look for the key.)

In fairness, there was one instance where skills did work the way I think they are supposed to: there was an incentive for a character to dive into a pool, and I explained that the water was frigid and turbulent, and that Swimming checks would be required, with consequences for failure. They tied a rope around the waist of the swimmer, for which I granted a Boon (i.e. Advantage) on the roll.

Other than spellcasting and weapon attacks during combat, which in Dragonbane uses the skill system, the lock picking (because of the hazard checks) and the swimming were literally the only examples I can think of where skill checks were called for in response to action declarations for which there would have been consequences for failing. And overall we did a LOT of dice rolling.

So, yeah....I hate skills.

 

[bsss]

I think your approach to the lock picking would have worked for both of your Awareness issues, too. They could rush through the section with hidden stuff with no checks (maybe applying a passive check if that makes sense) and no indication if they missed anything or not, or take their time, let everyone roll as they scour the section, but risk random encounters again. That's what jumped to mind to me anyway.

I agree that the advancement mechanic sounds fun but would lead to a lot of "opportunistic checking". Maybe I would cap the number of skills you can roll for to each player's "top 5" or something from the session.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think your approach to the lock picking would have worked for both of your Awareness issues, too. They could rush through the section with hidden stuff with no checks (maybe applying a passive check if that makes sense) and no indication if they missed anything or not, or take their time, let everyone roll as they scour the section, but risk random encounters again. That's what jumped to mind to me anyway.

Hmm...maybe. If I play that out, I see two things happening:

1. It becomes a known deal: if you risk a hazard ("wandering monster") roll, you are more likely to discover things. Which is ok, I guess, but there's still no information on which to make an informed decision. They either decide they are going to make that choice with every area, or they randomly choose in each new area, but it's always just a guess.

2. If they choose to risk the hazard, do I always have them roll either Spot Hidden or Awareness, or do I only have them roll if there's something to discover? In the former case, a success means there is nothing to find, but a failure means there might have been something. In the latter case, a failure means there was something missed, and no roll means there was nothing to find. Either way it's....weird.

I agree that the advancement mechanic sounds fun but would lead to a lot of "opportunistic checking". Maybe I would cap the number of skills you can roll for to each player's "top 5" or something from the session.

Dragonbane already has something sort of like that, which I really like: at the end of each session the GM asks five questions (ranging from "Did you participate in this session?" to "Did you give in to your character's weakness?" and for each Yes you get to mark one skill of your choice.

 

[MGibster]

First, there's all this "me-tooism" going on, where EVERYBODY wants to roll to see if they can read the inscription. I know some GMs solve this by saying that only one person gets to roll, calling that the best attempt, and in a lot of games whoever has the highest skill becomes the point person. But in games where rolling is a chance to advance, everybody wants to be that person.

In the old Palladium games, you were supposed to get 25 experience points for using a skill. So we'd jokingly have our characters roll Acrobatics while strolling through the library. Of course the fine folks at Palladium told GMs to use their best judgment and avoid awarding experience points for unnecessary skill use. But your complaint is valid, some players will try to game the system to their advantage.

 

[Bill Zebub]

In the old Palladium games, you were supposed to get 25 experience points for using a skill. So we'd jokingly have our characters roll Acrobatics while strolling through the library. Of course the fine folks at Palladium told GMs to use their best judgment and avoid awarding experience points for unnecessary skill use. But your complaint is valid, some players will try to game the system to their advantage.

Ha! Yeah, that's the sort of thing I see happening.

The last end-of-session point I mentioned, the one about "giving in to your weakness", induces a similar effecdt. I had to tell my players that my requirement is that giving in has to come at a cost. The ogre player, for example, has a weakness of "Gluttony", and merely narrating being gluttonous isn't sufficient. It has to be something that comes with a cost, like devouring berries even though they might be poisonous, or wasting a turn during combat to wolf down a snack.

 

[zakael19]

Is this a "I hate skill systems" or really "I don't like XP tied to rolling for skills" post? Most games I've seen that include a skill system of any sort also include some degree of guidance around when to use them, generally positing uncertainty/risk/negative outcomes/etc.

 

[prabe]

Is this a "I hate skill systems" or really "I don't like XP tied to rolling for skills" post? Most games I've seen that include a skill system of any sort also include some degree of guidance around when to use them, generally positing uncertainty/risk/negative outcomes/etc.

The system as described does seem to have some gaps in between how rolls happen and what they do and the way/s people can plausibly improve them. Skills as such don't seem to be the problem here. I don't disagree with the OP that the incentives are a little weird in the system described, if the players are in charge of determining who rolls and when.

 

[bsss]

1. It becomes a known deal: if you risk a hazard ("wandering monster") roll, you are more likely to discover things. Which is ok, I guess, but there's still no information on which to make an informed decision. They either decide they are going to make that choice with every area, or they randomly choose in each new area, but it's always just a guess.

2. If they choose to risk the hazard, do I always have them roll either Spot Hidden or Awareness, or do I only have them roll if there's something to discover? In the former case, a success means there is nothing to find, but a failure means there might have been something. In the latter case, a failure means there was something missed, and no roll means there was nothing to find. Either way it's....weird.

For 1, they are choosing whether to prioritize timely progress vs. finding everything in every nook and cranny. The decision is not completely informed, but it is at least partially, I'd say, probably about the value of finding things vs. the risk of extra combat or failing their mission (if there is a mission). Risky combats and high stakes help put some pressure on the decision.

For 2, I would let them always roll, and if your whims or sudden inspiration decide they should find something where once there was nothing, that's fine, that's what random tables are for. But, sometimes they're just wasting their time, that's part of the risk in part 1. If their rolls are terrible to the point that they're not convinced the nothing they found was truly that nothing is available, they can always double down and spend/waste more time (GM grin here).