On a sort-of-related note, what's your take on skill levels for "social skills"? Like "Diplomacy" in D&D, for example.

Do you prefer players to say what their character is saying, or do you prefer them to roll?

In the group I played in, we'd have the player give the gist and substance of what they said, and have the roll as how they said it- so if someone came up with a really good point, but did badly on their roll, their character just phrased it in a way which was really bad/inappropriate.

(Reply) (Thread)

I think social skills are vital for any game. When an interaction is going well (which in my case, means deeply immersively) then there is no need to use them to make skill rolls, but in less ideal circumstances, or when someone is trying to do something that their character is vastly better at (such as someone shy having their PC give a resounding public speech), then from my PoV, the best way to handle things is for the player to give in their best shot and the result to be determined by a mixture of that performance with the PC's skill level at Expression (or whatever) and the result of the skill roll.

On a more abstract level, I want all of my PC's skills to be listed, including social skills. I'm OK with these skills not being rolled if I'm doing well enough for that not to be necessary, but I very much prefer having them.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

For what it's worth:

In d20, my general assumption is that anyone with a skill of 5 is a journeyman, 10 is a professional, 15 is an expert and 20 is master.

The basic DC check for any regular skill test against "The World" is usually 15. Add to this the "Take 10" and "Take 20" rules and it's easy to see that with a skill of 5 you can probably succeed and any non-stressed task and when you get to 15 or better you're probably only checking to see if you roll a 1.

Extracting Class Level is a bit harder since it's unlikely that you'd spend all your skill points on just the one thing, but it could be done.

I understand the usefulness of benchmarking, but I worry about systems which go too far in trying to quantify every single thing in the universe. (HERO and GURPS jumpt to mind) It's just way too much effort for things that may not wind up being very important.

later
Tom

(Reply) (Thread)

I understand the usefulness of benchmarking, but I worry about systems which go too far in trying to quantify every single thing in the universe. (HERO and GURPS jumpt to mind) It's just way too much effort for things that may not wind up being very important.

I completely agree and avoid all such systems, because that level of detail (GURPS has 250+ skills for gods' sake) removes utility rather than adding it. I've never seen a case where having more than (at most) 70 separate skills actually makes a game clearer or easier to play. For me, one vital part of benchmarking is clarity, and having too much information is just as unclear as having too little.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

First of all, do you mind if I link to this? And then, later, I'll try to come up with something smart to say about it.

(Reply) (Thread)

Link away!

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

I'm of two minds about this. I want specific, reliable quantifiers of my effectiveness with regard to whatever the game is about, and I absolutely DO NOT want to be bothered with them for anything that isn't what the game is about. I'm also - even where I want the specific numbers - uninterested in them as relative values or as an aid in imagining my character - what I use them for is to know what sorts of things I have a decent chance of succeeding at. One effect of that is that I don't care what Joe the Street Vendor has for stats. Only if he's Joe the Evil Street Vendor of Doom and my lifelong nemesis are his stats of any conceivable interest.

As I'm re-reading your post, I'm struck by how much my priorities (in the games that have been most fun for me) are the exact reverse of A set of physical and mental traits and abilities on the character sheet...I want absolutely nothing written about my character's personality before play starts, and I especially want to avoid personality stats or mechanics ...because I very much prefer to leave everything about personality in the domain of roleplaying.

I want the stuff that matters most to me - the strength and nature of my characters passions, relationships, and beliefs - defined in game-mechanical terms that are important for resolution. And I want all the gear and skills and powers and the like to be in my domain to describe and improvise as play goes forward.

Mark W

(Reply) (Thread)

I'm of two minds about this. I want specific, reliable quantifiers of my effectiveness with regard to whatever the game is about, and I absolutely DO NOT want to be bothered with them for anything that isn't what the game is about.

In contrast, the very details you don't want are essential to help m ground my character in the world. This seems to be a fairly essential difference in preferences that may well map onto the Nar/Sim division.

I want the stuff that matters most to me - the strength and nature of my characters passions, relationships, and beliefs - defined in game-mechanical terms that are important for resolution. And I want all the gear and skills and powers and the like to be in my domain to describe and improvise as play goes forward.

Thus we once again see the difference between immersive and non-immersive players. Because my understanding of my PCs' personalities is a largely internal process, anything I write down would be a pale and inaccurate reflection of my experience of them and I would gain absolutely no benefit from writing it down.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Does the Storyteller system work better for that nowadays? In the old days the skill levels really didn't match with their descriptions...

(Reply) (Thread)

Fairly well. I think the best version for that was the revised version used in Trinity and Exalted. However, new Storyteller is a solid system that works and where 5 dots in a skill means a chance of success well over 90% (assuming an attribute of 2 or 3).

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)