Why I Hate Skills

[GrimCo]

That isn't my experience, at least not with experienced players new to my table. And not just perception. "I'll try to persuade him!" (reaches for dice). "I search for traps!" (reaches for dice). "Can I read the inscription?" (reaches for dice)

My PF1 group usually plays like that. Declare what they wanna do and what skill they wanna use. Not my personal preference, but that games tend to be super casual monty haul h&s, so it works. In my main group, we sometimes play like that, mostly when we all play tired.

I think you're missing the point. There's no real in-setting reason the party shouldn't split up at all, in fact it makes great sense in lots of situations. But the mechanics push back against it hard. Very hard depending on the specific encounter roll mechanic in question. Explaining to the players that yes, that does make sense, but the rules don't like ti is never going to a satisfying answer.

Party splitting up, even with best rules, is bad idea because of simple reason not tied to setting or game rules. It's cause you only have one DM. If you split party in two, or even worse, more parts, DM can resolve scene for only one party at the time. Very capable DM might fast switch between them every couple of minutes in some cases, depending on what is happening. But in say D&D, if party splits and both of them end up in combat, it's resolved one at the time. It just disrupts flow of the game, and if you run shorter sessions, both halves will have some wasted session time.

 

[Fenris-77]

No, the difference is whether or not the mechanic represents something that is real in the setting. I've said it how many times?

And in this case you are factually incorrect. Most OSR games are very upfront about the function of encounter rolls. That function is only peripherally diegetic (at best). I don't give a good goddamn how many times you repeat the same biased and incorrect things btw, but if your throat is getting sore I'll happily offer you a nice lemon lozenge.

 

[Fenris-77]

Party splitting up, even with best rules, is bad idea because of simple reason not tied to setting or game rules. It's cause you only have one DM. If you split party in two, or even worse, more parts, DM can resolve scene for only one party at the time. Very capable DM might fast switch between them every couple of minutes in some cases, depending on what is happening. But in say D&D, if party splits and both of them end up in combat, it's resolved one at the time. It just disrupts flow of the game, and if you run shorter sessions, both halves will have some wasted session time.

Nope, sorry. Other games, like Monster of the Week (just as one example) handle party splitting just fine. Nothing changes and the system chugs on. It's not a GM skill issue. I can move the spotlight around just fine thanks, it's neither a complicated nor rare skill. The problem in this case with OSR games in in the mechanics, not anything to do with GM skill.

 

[zakael19]

Nope, sorry. Other games, like Monster of the Week (just as one example) handle party splitting just fine. Nothing changes and the system chugs on. It's not a GM skill issue. I can move the spotlight around just fine thanks, it's neither a complicated nor rare skill. The problem in this case with OSR games in in the mechanics, not anything to do with GM skill.

Yeah uh, I routinely split the party in my Daggerheart games and it works great. Cover more narrative / actual ground, cut on rising tension, come back with an escalation. Just did a bunch of that last night.

And you don't sit on one group for ages, you spotlight a bit and hit that rising action (or a denouement) and then cut over to the other folks so the table remains engaged and present. Honestly works better most of the time then a lot of classic play where one person is the focal point in a social / skills situation...

But the procedures and currencies of that game are built to facilitate that sort of play. When I was running Dolmenwood I'd only do that in town / downtime as people were doing their individual little bits of business. Anything with danger and stakes? You'd better believe the party is together & doing turn declarations.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And in this case you are factually incorrect. Most OSR games are very upfront about the function of encounter rolls. That function is only peripherally diegetic (at best). I don't give a good goddamn how many times you repeat the same biased and incorrect things btw, but if your throat is getting sore I'll happily offer you a nice lemon lozenge.

I know there are gamist reasons for encounter rolls. There are diagetic reasons too, and those reasons make sense to me, and I value that more. It's an opinion, not a matter of me being wrong. I just place the game reasons for encounter rolls at a lower priority.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I don't think I follow this.

At least in my experience, when playing AD&D with PCs of (say) 5th or higher level, then when the group looks around the table saying "What do we do?", most often the answer is something that is on someone's character sheet - typically a spell or a magic item; but perhaps some mundane piece of gear, or a large number of hit points, or a good saving throw vs poison.

Ok, my "...looking around the table saying 'what do we do?" was more of a metaphor for an attitude of "how do we solve this together."

I agree with you that, regardless of what words are actually spoken at the table, that is what tends to happen with 5e.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

Expecting genre conventions to apply is precisely meta; you are not acting with the understanding a person in the world can have

But the character exists IN the genre — the only understanding they should have is based on the genre, not on a simulation of the player’s world.

I’d argue that if you are playing a game set in a a given genre, then your character should act as the genre dictates; if you, the player, are deciding their actions based on not on the world (genre) they inhabit, but instead based on our (the players’) world, then you are causing your character to act based on knowledge and understanding that they cannot have — which is some people’s definition of meta.

Think of playing a character in a TOON game. One of the conventions there is that toons do not die no matter what you do to them. To me, if you don’t play your character with that understanding, your character is not behaving with the understanding a toon in the toon world can have.

Or to put it another way, the game’s genre defines the understanding the characters have of the world, so that acting within that understanding — within the genre — is the most character-driven and least meta-driven way you can play.

 

[CreamCloud0]

That isn't my experience, at least not with experienced players new to my table. And not just perception. "I'll try to persuade him!" (reaches for dice). "I search for traps!" (reaches for dice). "Can I read the inscription?" (reaches for dice)

Couldn’t you just follow those declarations up with ‘what is your character doing to perform that check’ before you allow them to roll anything? Insist on having some narrative scaffold from them before resolving the action.

 

[bsss]

Or to put it another way, the game’s genre defines the understanding the characters have of the world, so that acting within that understanding — within the genre — is the most character-driven and least meta-driven way you can play.

I don't think this is absolutely true. CoC characters don't know they exist in a world where it'd be extremely unwise for them to investigate any oddity they see and read the odd journals or play with the odd objects they find. If they did, they'd just stay home and only engage with their mundane lives, and no one would play CoC for the reasons it was written.

I don't disagree with your TOON example if they're supposed to be conscious of their comic immortality, but it doesn't work across the board. The genre information has to seep in, at least some of the time.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Couldn’t you just follow those declarations up with ‘what is your character doing to perform that check’ before you allow them to roll anything? Insist on having some narrative scaffold from them before resolving the action.

Sure. And I do.

(And sometimes the answer is, "Ummm....I, you know, Persuade.")

The point I was making is that so many players seem to have gotten used to the idea that that list of skills is similar to a list of spells or class abilities. Buttons to press to make something happen.