Why I Hate Skills

[Andvari]

If you don't want your door to be picked or broken down, you can put in an alternative type of "lock." Like having slots shaped so only certain items held by someone elsewhere in the dungeon, or a lever in a separate location operating it.

I think a good example of OSR design is that of an obvious trap, the mechanism of which is described in the adventure, so the players can manually interact with it to disable it. Maybe there are 3 obvious holes (no roll needed to spot them) on either side of the tunnel and a toxic smell. Instead of rolling, the players might put pieces of cloth on a spear and clog them from a safe distance to prevent gas coming out as they walk past. No roll needed - just clever problem-solving.

As opposed to a trap where the GM goes "Aha! You forgot to search! Now you take 13 damage from the poison pouring out of the hidden holes you didn't notice", or if they do search, goes "You find a gas trap and you disable it", by the player simply rolling, rather than through deliberate, tactile engagement with the imagined world.

But that's kind of tough to do with lock-picking unless you have some brilliant idea for a lock-picking mini-game. And sometimes players will come up with a clever way of getting through your special lock through means you did not anticipate, anyway.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm just trying to wrap my head around what a PC is in a roll-playing game. I guess there's what the character is (attributes), what the character does (skills), possessions, background/history (where skills originate), and what, superficial elements? I'm sure that I'm missing a category or three, but I don't see a lot of cases in which a PC has free will/options, and isn't motivated to use her "good score," however that might manifest.

The smith solves problems by hammering them. The accountant puts them in a ledger. That's just what they do.

But yeah, I'll take the lighter mechanical approaches over class-specific proficiencies, cross-class skills, and/or skill check requirements that are baked-in to adventures.

A character in a role playing game is a heuristic that allows the player to take on the role of a character in a setting and interact with that setting despite a low information environment. By low information I mean that we don't have access to the full range of human sensory experience, nor can the players 'look around' except via questioning the GM. Different games give that heuristic different inputs, but that's what they are all doing. The interface between heuristic and setting is also further gated by the presence of other rules and fortune mechanics that delimit various kinds of setting interaction (combat for example).

Different players will look at the range of knobs and dials provided by a given game and make a vast range of decisions about how and when to use them. This is where the fuzzy creeps in, because with RPGs we are never just talking about the rules, but also how different players use (or don't use) those rules at the table.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Sure. It seems "skilled" is in the eye of the beholder, here. Not sure which skill you're looking for, but there's skill in designing a character, skill in knowing what one has put on the character sheet and how to use it, and skill in role-playing the character in a way that maximizes everyone's enjoyment. Even if a single roll requires no skill.

My 9 year old has very little trouble choosing lockpicking skills (in games that have such a thing) when rolling a thief. Then he also seems to have very little trouble saying, "I try to pick the lock" when coming across a lock.

Come to think of it, he was pretty skilled in that way when he was 7 years old, too.

So if we're going to describe this as a skill, I'm not sure I believe the threshold is very high.

When I talk about "using player skill" I don't mean literally picking a lock. I mean making plans and weighing tradeoffs. For example, maybe a battle is raging, and if the thief can open a lock then something good happens (you can escape, you can free an ally that can help, there's a lightsaber in the chest...whatever). So now there's a decision to make: do you use your turn to help fight, or do you use your turn to try to open the lock? If you choose the lock, how likely are you to succeed?

That's the kind of scenario where I think a lock in a dungeon can be interesting design, because the player has to make a tough decision, but the action is resolved with character skill.

(And "Can I try, too?" syndrome is self-regulating. "Sure...you may absolutely waste...I mean, spend...your turn attempting that!")

If you're disappointed that games (Dragonbane?) call for character skill instead of player skill, you might find better results from games in which you don't play a character, or a non-RPG.

Is my critique of skill systems angering you in some way, or making you feel threatened, such that you feel justified in making obnoxious comments?

 

[Fenris-77]

Perhaps I should have expected it, but I didn't think that the idea of player skill would be so contentious. I thought the general use (in OSR playstyles for example) was pretty common. Huh.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Perhaps I should have expected it, but I didn't think that the idea of player skill would be so contentious. I thought the general use (in OSR playstyles for example) was pretty common. Huh.

Maybe it's because of AI: if all the skill lies in creating your character, you can do that and then let your character loose in an AI adjudicated game world. It can run a whole campaign in milliseconds, and you can look at the results and pat yourself on the back for having chosen your skills so...skillfully.

 

[GMMichael]

I mean making plans and weighing tradeoffs. For example, maybe a battle is raging, and if the thief can open a lock then something good happens (you can escape, you can free an ally that can help, there's a lightsaber in the chest...whatever). So now there's a decision to make: do you use your turn to help fight, or do you use your turn to try to open the lock? If you choose the lock, how likely are you to succeed?

That's the kind of scenario where I think a lock in a dungeon can be interesting design, because the player has to make a tough decision, but the action is resolved with character skill.

I think I get it. One skill check is no bueno- there have to be competing or mutually exclusive checks . . . Then skills are more acceptable.

Is my critique of skill systems angering you in some way, or making you feel threatened, such that you feel justified in making obnoxious comments

Wasn't trying to be obnoxious (probably just tired), but it seems appropriate given the thread title and some admittedly facetious responses. It's nothing personal.

 

[Bill Zebub]

If you don't want your door to be picked or broken down, you can put in an alternative type of "lock." Like having slots shaped so only certain items held by someone elsewhere in the dungeon, or a lever in a separate location operating it.

Yes. I try to have three kinds of locks:

1. The ones that are just there for flavor that the Thief is going to open. At most it will just count as a crawling round (toward wandering monster checks)
2. The ones, like I described a couple posts back, where trying to pick the lock will come with risk, so that the player has to make a decision.
3. Rarest of all, unpickable "locks" (e.g. magical, barred from the other side, etc.) that require some other challenge to be overcome in order to open the door

I think a good example of OSR design is that of an obvious trap, the mechanism of which is described in the adventure, so the players can manually interact with it to disable it. Maybe there are 3 obvious holes (no roll needed to spot them) on either side of the tunnel and a toxic smell. Instead of rolling, the players might put pieces of cloth on a spear and clog them from a safe distance to prevent gas coming out as they walk past. No roll needed - just clever problem-solving.

As opposed to a trap where the GM goes "Aha! You forgot to search! Now you take 13 damage from the poison pouring out of the hidden holes you didn't notice", or if they do search, goes "You find a gas trap and you disable it", by the player simply rolling, rather than through deliberate, tactile engagement with the imagined world.

My "theory of traps" (and secret doors, too) is that they come in two flavors:

• Easy to spot, hard to avoid/disarm/open
• Hard to spot, easy to avoid/disarm/open

And by "hard to spot" I really mean, "non-obvious, but telegraphed". Sometimes that might mean there's dried blood on the floor, or it might mean an NPC gave them a cryptic warning three days ago and they have to realize that this is the spot he was talking about. IMO, if players are surprised by a trap they should also realize, on their own, what clue they missed or didn't pay attention to.

But that's kind of tough to do with lock-picking unless you have some brilliant idea for a lock-picking mini-game. And sometimes players will come up with a clever way of getting through your special lock through means you did not anticipate, anyway.

Yeah I don't have a solution to that, which leaves me with the three kinds of locks mentioned above.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Perhaps I should have expected it, but I didn't think that the idea of player skill would be so contentious. I thought the general use (in OSR playstyles for example) was pretty common. Huh.

I keep thinking about this comment, and how (sadly) true it is. The counter-argument keeps coming back to players actually swinging swords or picking locks, or the glib player bamboozling the DM with their silver tongue, or whatever.

In my book "player skill" just means coming up with in-game solutions to problems, and then weighing the risks/rewards of alternatives.

 

[pemerton]

In my book "player skill" just means coming up with in-game solutions to problems, and then weighing the risks/rewards of alternatives.

As I posted upthread, choosing which door to open can be an in-game solution to a problem. The roll to open locks then determines whether or not that solution can actually be put into effect.

 

[Bill Zebub]

As I posted upthread, choosing which door to open can be an in-game solution to a problem. The roll to open locks then determines whether or not that solution can actually be put into effect.

Got it.

I personally don't find that interesting in the absence of understood threats/risks. I can certainly think of ways to add threats/risks to that scenario, but as described it's just RNG determining which way the party goes.