What do you look for in a skill system?

[Xeviat]

Hi everyone,

As you know, I'm deeply interested in system design. I love tactical combat with lots of options, which leads me to systems like D&D. But d20's skill system is often seen as lacking. My experience with other systems is limited, so I'm interested to hear about other systems' skill systems, how they work, and what you like about them. I know a bit about L5R and WoD skills, but that's really it.

[Ghostman]

The bane of all skill systems is in managing the scope of the skills. It's easy to end up with skills that feel either too broad or too narrow, or even both in the same system. Also, if everything is supposed to be resolved using skills, then you may find that there are tasks where none of the system's skills apply. OTOH very broad skills tend to overlap and incentivise minmaxing.

If a character's skills are acquired via point buy then balance issues may arise from some skills being mush more useful than others. Skills that should often go together might be bundled into skill groups that can be purchased cheaper, but this might cause new problems when the same skill is found in more than one skill group.

[O Senhor Leetz]

Clarity, simplicity, and flexibility. I'd like to see a system where combat, skills, and character traits all are derived from a single set of 'numbers,' if that makes sense.

[sparkletwist]

One thing that I've noticed is that some systems include a wide variety of skills, but assign all skills equal value. This means that it costs the same to advance skills useful for common adventuring tasks and skills related to professions, background details, or whatever. I feel like this is a source of great imbalance in skill systems, and either every skill should have uses in the kinds of adventuring situations you'll see in most games (Fate tries to do it this way) or there should be two separate pools.

[Xeviat]

A few of my players deeply enjoy the M&M system. One of the options within the system there is to have your standard skills, focused skills, and specialized skills, utilizing the "Limited" drawback. So "Perception" is a skill, "Perception: Vision" is a focused skill, and "Perception: Infravision" is a specialized skills. Skills cost 1 point for 1 rank by standard, so 1 for 2 for focused and 1 point for 3 or 4 (I forget how the fractional math works) for specialized.

Their frustration with the current D&D model is that it doesn't allow for specialization or fine tuning. Skill "ranks" only grow by 4 points from 1st to 20th, and you're either proficient or not. You can become more skilled in a skill, but only through one of the skill-heavy classes. So I'm looking around at other systems for an opportunity to patch on an entirely different skill system.

Leetz, I too like the notion of a system which uses weapon skills and non-combat skills on the same track with similar target numbers. If skill vs. defense is fairly standardized, or at least the curve is flat, you can have simple things like a weapon attack and a harsh criticism operate similarly. I've seen systems that can work like this.

Making sure skills of similar cost are similarly useful is an interesting thing. I'm glad D&D has started bundling skills, because 3E's climb/swim/jump, listen/spot, and hide/move silently were a pain. But, those skills were more "useful", and separating them did go a long way to making them more expensive next to others.

[Lmns Crn]

Hi everyone,

As you know, I'm deeply interested in system design. I love tactical combat with lots of options, which leads me to systems like D&D. But d20's skill system is often seen as lacking. My experience with other systems is limited, so I'm interested to hear about other systems' skill systems, how they work, and what you like about them. I know a bit about L5R and WoD skills, but that's really it.

We can't compare systems one-to-one, so what do you mean by "skill systems"?

If we're judging by the D&D lead-in, do we mean that a "skill system" is how we handle game activities of secondary importance?

[Steerpike]

I'd like to see a system where combat, skills, and character traits all are derived from a single set of 'numbers,' if that makes sense.

5th edition kind of does this, or comes close. Instead of skill checks, ability checks, saving throws, and attack rolls, you just make ability checks which then get modified by your proficiency bonus and other modifiers when applicable. Far fewer numbers to track. There are still skills but what you're tracking is whether you're proficient in them. It's far less granular than some previous editions, more streamlined, and also closer to AD&D style proficiency system without the clunky inelegance of AD&D.

I feel like this is a source of great imbalance in skill systems, and either every skill should have uses in the kinds of adventuring situations you'll see in most games (Fate tries to do it this way) or there should be two separate pools.

This is sort of interesting, because it's so adventure-dependent. I feel like if you weight skills very differently then the game is essentially telling you what kind of adventures you're "supposed" to run, which some part of me really dislikes. I tend to agree more with the first approach - that every skill should have a use - but I also tend to think that a certain degree of this should fall on DMs, who often don't make enough use of the full skill-set during design, or present situations that can only be solved in a very limited number of ways. There are definitely some skills in some editions that are way too niche to be useful (I'm looking at you, Use Rope), but I'd rather have adventures that make use of diverse and interesting skills than systems that compensate for bad design via their skill systems.

[sparkletwist]

This is sort of interesting, because it's so adventure-dependent. I feel like if you weight skills very differently then the game is essentially telling you what kind of adventures you're "supposed" to run, which some part of me really dislikes.

Every system tells you what kind of adventures you're "supposed" to run, to a degree, because there are genre conventions and expectations (by necessity) that are inherent in the system. Pathfinder is a good system for dungeon crawling and is a bad system for deep and complex social intrigue. Fate is a good system for lighthearted pulpy adventures and is a bad system for gritty tactical combat. And so on. So, all I'm really saying is that within that framework, every skill should be useful in at least some sort of adventure. That doesn't mean every skill has to be useful in every adventure, but they all have a good chance to be. In other words, what I'm saying is more an argument against skills like Use Rope than an argument for compensating for bad design via the skill list.

[Polycarp]

There's a reason that Perception is the One Skill to Rule Them All in Pathfinder, and it's not (entirely) because DMs are generally unimaginative.  It's because the game offers critical uses and functions for that skill throughout the entirety of its core rules and expansions in a way that it does not for, say, Profession.  Sure, it's possible to run a nautical game in which every player that didn't get Profession (Sailor) for their character is wailing and gnashing their teeth every game night, but this is really the exception that proves the rule - there really is a certain kind of adventure you're supposed to have in 3rd/PF D&D, it involves a lot more Perceiving than Profession-ing, and the rules have been explicitly written to support that notion.

Even Pathfinder devs, or at least some of them, seem to appreciate Sparkle's point - one of the new "innovations" in PF Unchained was to separate "Adventuring" from "Background" skills, and provide separate skill point pools for each, with the intention that putting ranks into thematically appropriate but mechanically questionable skills like Knowledge (Local) no longer competes in a zero-sum game with no-brainer choices like Perception and Spellcraft.

[Steerpike]

So, all I'm really saying is that within that framework, every skill should be useful in at least some sort of adventure. That doesn't mean every skill has to be useful in every adventure, but they all have a good chance to be. In other words, what I'm saying is more an argument against skills like Use Rope than an argument for compensating for bad design via the skill list.

I agree with this. I take your point that there are genre expectations at play - and those genre expectations should be reflected in a skill system.

I do think that some many adventures tend to emphasize a very particular aspect of the genre, though, to their detriment and in such a way that some skills seem more useless than they might otherwise. In something like Lord of the Rings, Knowledge and Linguistics and Survival (to use the Pathfinder skills) are as or more important than a lot of more standard adventuring skills.

I agree that in Pathfinder in particular Perception is vital and tends to "outcompete" other skills but I'm still not sure how I feel about splitting skills as Unchained does; I'd need to see how it worked in play.

One thing that has started to bother me about systems that foreground skills very heavily is that they might run the risk of discouraging problem-solving and critical thinking - certainly not universally or all the time but enough that it gives me pause sometimes while GMing. In recent things I've been writing I've been trying to consciously put in more challenges where just rolling and hoping, sort of brute-forcing an adventure via combat or skill-use, is inadvisable or impossible.

[sparkletwist]

I do think that some adventures tend to emphasize a very particular aspect of the genre, though, to their detriment and in such a way that some skills seem more useless than they might otherwise.

This is true, although Survival has usually mattered for me a decent amount in most PF games I've been in, now that I think about it.

One thing that has started to bother me about systems that foreground skills very heavily is that they might run the risk of discouraging problem-solving and critical thinking - certainly not universally or all the time but enough that it gives me pause sometimes while GMing. In recent things I've been writing I've been trying to consciously put in more challenges where just rolling and hoping, sort of brute-forcing an adventure via combat or skill-use, is inadvisable or impossible.

I definitely agree with encouraging creative thinking rather than just blindly going through and making checks. As much as I hate the old saying of "role playing vs. roll playing" in this case it's definitely applicable. However, I think that divorcing problem solving from the skill system too much runs the risk of reverting to an OD&D-style paradigm where you had no skills to speak of and everything your character was capable of hinged on your own abilities as a player, and, quite often, the most important of those was your ability to convince the DM of things. I'm not saying you personally do this or advocate this, but I will say that arguments like this sometimes go in this direction and it's not a good direction.

[Steerpike]

This is true, although Survival has usually mattered for me a decent amount in most PF games I've been in, now that I think about it.

Speaking for myself in the Fimbulvinter game, I've gone out of my way to try and make it an important skill. I originally envisioned it as being even more important as I thought that the party would be starving more often than they are.

However, I think that divorcing problem solving from the skill system too much runs the risk of reverting to an OD&D-style paradigm where you had no skills to speak of and everything your character was capable of hinged on your own abilities as a player, and, quite often, the most important of those was your ability to convince the DM of things. I'm not saying you personally do this or advocate this, but I will say that arguments like this sometimes go in this direction and it's not a good direction.

I agree this is the other extreme - I don't think I'd ever do away with skills altogether in a D&D style game.

Part of my growing preference for critical problem-solving (I'm not going to say "role-playing" exactly, as often this kind of thing has relatively little to do with acting in character per se) is just how my regular gaming group like to play. Consistently their favourite moments have been times when they came up with something really clever that allowed them to take on challenges that would otherwise be "inappropriate" for their level, and each time this hinged on presenting what seemed like an unwinnable scenario by conventional means. Basically, my players like Kobayashi Marus that they can Kirk-like weasel their way around. Some other groups would probably hate this because on the face of it they seem unfair.

Even these did often involve some skill checks, though.

[Xeviat]

For skill systems, what I'm referring to does depend on the skills. In many systems, skills and combat checks operate the same. I should say that I'm asking more about general task resolution systems, with a focus on primarily non-combat things.

I am thinking primarily in what I could swap in instead of D&D's skill system. I hadn't heard of that new Pathfinder way of setting things up; that feels a little similar to D&D5's background system, but with a different pool of skills. It's interesting.

A thing I've been thinking on for my own system, built from the ground up, is to have checks determine "amount of success" more so than success vs failure. While sometimes a single skill check determines success or failure, that's more because the failed check changes the situation (or more likely that the situation was changing during the check). Generally speaking, many tasks can be completed given enough time, so a skill check is used to figure out how much you are succeeding with each action.

[sparkletwist]

Part of my growing preference for critical problem-solving (I'm not going to say "role-playing" exactly, as often this kind of thing has relatively little to do with acting in character per se) is just how my regular gaming group like to play. Consistently their favourite moments have been times when they came up with something really clever that allowed them to take on challenges that would otherwise be "inappropriate" for their level, and each time this hinged on presenting what seemed like an unwinnable scenario by conventional means.

The world of a tabletop RPG is not objective reality. There is only the world described by the GM and realized in the imaginations of the group. As such, when designing a puzzle, a GM really only has two options. The first is to unreasonably expect that the players will think of the world in the same way and design puzzles with narrow objective solutions, which will generally lead to frustration and deadlock for all but the absolutely simplest puzzles because the players and GM will almost invariably have different opinions as to how things should work. The second is to design more open-ended challenges in which there are numerous acceptable ways for characters to apply their skills and the GM is more there to encourage that the players come up with something inventive, plausible, and satisfying for everyone to play out rather than trying to guess a single objective defined solution thought up in advance.

I feel that the second solution works better most of the time, but it means that while there is still definitely problem-solving going on, there is really no wrong answer. So, referring to your comment about acting in character, I also think this allows acting in character to come into play more, because players are free to suggest the kinds of solutions that their character would most reasonably suggest, rather than having to brainstorm up absolutely every idea. As I've mentioned in the past, having to think tactically too much can actually interfere in immersion and role playing.

Anyway, in an objective world, a challenge might well be unwinnable and that is that. However, the RP world is not objective, and ultimately, the players want to solve it in an unconventional manner, so the world (as realized by the GM) is biased towards them being able to do exactly that-- they struggle a little, come up with something suitably audacious, and triumph due to their audacity.

[Steerpike]

The second is to design more open-ended challenges in which there are numerous acceptable ways for characters to apply their skills and the GM is more there to encourage that the players come up with something inventive, plausible, and satisfying for everyone to play out rather than trying to guess a single objective defined solution thought up in advance.

Oh, 1000 times this. There should always be more than one solution, including solutions the DM hasn't thought of.

I suppose the only distinction here might be between "applying skills" via rolls and just thinking up stuff and trying it without the necessity for a lot of skills checks, though it's a relatively subtle distinction.

I do feel like a big part of the DM's job is to describe the world in such a way that while there might be subjective distinctions between different versions of a world in different people's heads there is a feeling or experience of being in an objective, shared world - an illusion of being in a shared world.

Point taken about acting in character, and the porousness between tactical thinking and immersion.

Anyway, in an objective world, a challenge might well be unwinnable and that is that. However, the RP world is not objective, and ultimately, the players want to solve it in an unconventional manner, so the world (as realized by the GM) is biased towards them being able to do exactly that-- they struggle a little, come up with something suitably audacious, and triumph due to their audacity.

Right, yeah. When I say I make superficially unwinnable sitatiuons I just mean that sometimes there'll be situations where standard combat is extremely inadvisable, or traps where just hoping saving throws will get you through is a bad idea, or obstacles that are superficially insurmountable, things like that - stuff that encourages outside the box thinking more than a level-appropriate carefully calibrated combat might.