Why I Hate Skills

[pemerton]

I would argue that the only ways discrete skills make the games better is that some players enjoy both the character building aspect and they like imagining themselves as especially good at something. But the actual math isn't important/noticeable.

As a thought experiment: if you were playing on VTT and it looked like you were getting all your bonuses when rolling skills, but really the software was reducing any high rolls on the d20 by your skill bonus before displaying the result, so that the bonus was negated, most people would never notice anything wrong.

I think that in systems where roll is dice pool based (Burning Wheel and its cousins, BitD and its cousins, Prince Valiant, etc) people would notice.

Rolling 1D and trying to get 3 successes is pretty different from rolling 6D and trying to get 3 successes.

 

[pemerton]

I have yet to see a TTRPG with realtime combat. If one comes along though, I'd give it a try to see how it plays. I assume that would require videogame combat (first-person ARPG combat maybe, or over the shoulder if the combat is more martial-arts-y), and the players would have gamepads or mouse and keyboard to control their characters, or something, and then afterward it drops out of combat back to your typical GM Narration-based gameplay?

Combat can be resolved via "typical narration-based gameplay" the same as any other activity. And then it will be as real-time as any other activity.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think that in systems where roll is dice pool based (Burning Wheel and its cousins, BitD and its cousins, Prince Valiant, etc) people would notice.

Rolling 1D and trying to get 3 successes is pretty different from rolling 6D and trying to get 3 successes.

Even non-pool systems that use, say, 3D6, things like that tend to get less lost in the noise than they do in a D20 or D100 system (and of course, as I'm reminded because I'm getting ready to run Eclipse Phase, in some games you're very aware of exactly what the dice are doing vis-a-vis the basic contributors, because you need to be for the game system to work properly, as its interactive with player decisions in various ways).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Combat can be resolved via "typical narration-based gameplay" the same as any other activity. And then it will be as real-time as any other activity.

I'd argue most other activities in games aren't realtime, either. Even social ones.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think that in systems where roll is dice pool based (Burning Wheel and its cousins, BitD and its cousins, Prince Valiant, etc) people would notice.

Rolling 1D and trying to get 3 successes is pretty different from rolling 6D and trying to get 3 successes.

....

And do you think this example undermines the argument?

Because, sure, if in D&D the d20 was replaced by a d4 I also think the players would notice.

 

[VHawkwinter]

No, I think you misunderstood. I'm not saying that the ostensible math isn't important to people ("I get +5, and you schlubs only get +2") but that if the system secretly only gave you a +2 bonus you probably wouldn't notice it for most skills.

That's only a 15% difference on a d20, You're correct, that's small enough that it would take a good while to notice. I was referring to "You have a +12, I have a +32 (or an even larger difference). I autosucceed on checks you need to roll a 20 for, and have a whole class of tasks I can attempt which you cannot." People will notice if they are being made to roll for things which they should autosucceed at, or being told they have no chance of success at things they should have a decent chance of success at. 15% either way, people might not notice. 60%+ relative difference (having +12 or more than another player and yet the game isn't applying the bonus) - people will notice that quickly.

When I'm playing 3.x as a player, for instance, for the skills I have large bonuses on, I print out a list of benchmark skill tasks for those skills I can take 10 on, take 20 on, or succeed on a 1 in-combat. I would notice immediately if I were made to roll for something that I should autosucceed at, that I should be able to "Just Do" without any dice rolled.

Take 1: Just do it in combat without rolling.
Take 10: Just do it outside combat without rolling.
Take 20: Just do it outside combat when you have at least a minute undisturbed to try repeatedly. Special note if they take longer than a minute.

They behave like a list of "Spells" you unlock by having your skills at certain levels of proficiency. Work dependably and with certainty. They also provide benchmarks to compare against for tasks outside of the benchmarks. "Is it easier than these things? If yes, then I don't need to roll under these circumstances, I can just do them". (They're like spells in that they are predictable an you can plan around knowing that you can do them and under what circumstances).

I might also note down the first benchmark task in those skills I cannot do even with a 20, and a few in my rolled range, so I have a sense of what is entirely beyond my abilities. It works out to about half a page per skill section, with maybe 3-4 pages total. Similar to having a couple pages of spell notes.

My point was that it's the belief in being superior at something that is rewarding, and that belief in turn distorts our perceptions.

That might be the case for small differences. But when it's a difference that results in fundamentally different capabilities, "I can balance on a leaf on a branch without rolling because my qinggong skill is so high, while yours is so low that the branch always breaks and you cannot even roll qinggong to prevent that" is more than a belief in relative superiority. My unfun from 5e math was that nobody gets actually good at anything relative to the RNG until you hit the absolute upper limits of ~+17 at level 17+, when that's around the level of "expertise" I want relative to the randomiser for the 'specialist', at level 1.

P.S. Here's the visualization from our Game of War simulation. X axis is how many turns the game lasted, Y-axis is card bias in initial conditions, size of the circle is how many turns were "war" (when the cards are tied). Mouse over a circle to popup the stats for that game.
View attachment 433039

The mouse-overings don't seem to work.

 

[VHawkwinter]

I'd argue most other activities in games aren't realtime, either. Even social ones.

Yeah, they probably aren't. I was more responding to the comment about rounds being tied to a 3 second action framework being an abstraction I can't un-abstract. Abstractions can be reduced to try to make them less "in your face" but you cannot completely remove them, unless you go all the way from TTRPG to a hyper-elaborate VR world-simulation.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The mouse-overings don't seem to work.

The image was a screen shot. It's running locally on my machine. I was just explaining how it works, not giving instructions. Sorry.

 

[VHawkwinter]

The image was a screen shot. It's running locally on my machine. I was just explaining how it works, not giving instructions. Sorry.

I thought maybe you attached a screenshot which was meant to link to a website, and the link didn't work (or that you meant to embed an iframe or something). No worries.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I thought maybe you attached a screenshot which was meant to link to a website, and the link didn't work. No worries.

But when you do click on a circle, it shows you the starting hands as dealt: