Why I Hate Skills

[Bill Zebub]

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.

Somehow missed this.

That's still not quite what I'm talking about. In the approach I'm describing checks need to have risk. There needs to be a downside to trying, either because it costs you something to try (such as using your turn in combat) or because failing has a cost (of which falling to your death is an extreme but illustrative example). In other words, the decision should be a non-obvious choice.

"Can I roll to see if I can read the runes?" is an example of an obvious choice. Why wouldn't you try? (Which is why we end up having to make rulings like, "Um...no, you can't...because, um, well because the Wizard couldn't and he has more skills and higher intelligence, so if he can't then you can't.")

Now, I agree that it becomes even more interesting if there are multiple ways of overcoming a challenge, and each of them has a different risk:reward profile. Then the players have to weigh the likelihoods of succeeding vs. the cost of failing not just to each other, but to all the other options.

But as long as the one option under consideration makes the players pause and ask, "Hmm...is it worth it?" then I think the minimum threshold has been met.

EDIT: And note that I'm not really talking about skills here, I'm talking about dice rolls, checks. Clearly skills can be compatible with this approach. My beef with skills is that they tend to undermine this gameplay, because instead of going through all the trouble of defining a goal and an approach, and having the GM come up with risks/consequences, that skill on your character sheet....Lockpicking, Stealth, Arcana, Hunting, whatever...becomes a tempting shortcut to avoid the whole thing. "Can I roll Arcana?" "Um, sure." "Seventeen." "Ok, you succeed."* And adventure writers, without even realizing (I think) fall into the same trap. "If the characters succeed at a DC 15 Perception check...." etc.

*Or, alternately, "Eight". "No, you fail." And all that cool backstory/history the GM spent time inventing doesn't get appreciated by the players.

 

[bsss]

EDIT: And note that I'm not really talking about skills here, I'm talking about dice rolls, checks. Clearly skills can be compatible with this approach. My beef with skills is that they tend to undermine this gameplay, because instead of going through all the trouble of defining a goal and an approach, and having the GM come up with risks/consequences, that skill on your character sheet....Lockpicking, Stealth, Arcana, Hunting, whatever...becomes a tempting shortcut to avoid the whole thing. "Can I roll Arcana?" "Um, sure." "Seventeen." "Ok, you succeed."* And adventure writers, without even realizing (I think) fall into the same trap. "If the characters succeed at a DC 15 Perception check...." etc.

*Or, alternately, "Eight". "No, you fail." And all that cool backstory/history the GM spent time inventing doesn't get appreciated by the players.

This Perception check example isn't a "trap". It's a difference in play style. The author/GM wants to have some scenario defined or resolved partially by the nature of the character, via in this case a skill. I think it's as simple as that.

 

[Bill Zebub]

This Perception check example isn't a "trap". It's a difference in play style. The author/GM wants to have some scenario defined or resolved partially by the nature of the character, via in this case a skill. I think it's as simple as that.

Definitely a difference in playstyle, but I also think an incompatible difference. Not intrinsically incompatible, but in practice that's what happens because the "just roll your skill" playstyle is corrosive to the "goal/approach/risk" one, simply because it is so much easier and faster.

If I saw more adventures written such that there are some Perception and Knowledge type checks interspersed with the kind of challenges I'm talking about I might feel differently, but it has seemed pretty rare.