Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[AnOminous]

3.5's skill system wasn't robust. It was an easily breakable mess with too many overdefined skills. The skill point system was garbage, because it was tied to INT and d20+N is too coarse of a probability distribution to allow tinkering without breakage.

I always thought skill systems where you get a skill by just leveling up were gay and unrealistic. So you killed a bunch of goblins and now you're suddenly a lion tamer.

Chaosium's system where you got and improved skills by actually doing the things the skills were about made more sense. So maybe after a bunch of driving experience you can pull off a bootlegger's reverse.

None of these are perfect really since you're almost always gaining abilities to do things you haven't specifically done before, but it would seem to make sense to get better at things at least related to what you actually do instead of just oh you're level 5 now you can ice skate and program in FORTRAN.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I think the fundamental problem with D&D skills is d20 vs target pass/fail isn't a very good skill system, but the designers of the game have, for the last 25 years, felt a relentless need to unify everything under the same engine. It works well enough for combat (but isn't particularly good for that, either).

Ironically, that's where 5e's bounded accuracy would be good with a more granular skill system.

In the end, I can't remember any system that had a fantastic skill system. It's relatively easy to abstract comparative combat abilities and how difficult a task with dynamic difficulty like attacking an enemy is, but not so much specific non-combat abilities like skills.

I suppose a halfway elegant way to do it would be to frontload one's skill bonus and only roll 1d6. Instead of a baker with +14 to Baking failing a DC 20 cake recipe 25% of the time, you'd feasibly be able to get your Baking up to +20 by stacking skill points, tool and circumstantial bonuses, never get that recipe wrong, but still have a chance to successfully bake a DC25 cake. That's one of those things most RPG systems don't account for: having the right tools for a task giving you a bonus to the skill check.

 

[AnOminous]

In the end, I can't remember any system that had a fantastic skill system. It's relatively easy to abstract comparative combat abilities and how difficult a task with dynamic difficulty like attacking an enemy is, but not so much specific non-combat abilities like skills.

To some extent I would apply simple common sense. For instance, assume people have basic literacy and that they don't need to roll a success on English to know what a STOP sign means. But even if they have superhuman jumping skills you're not going to even bother letting them roll for "okay and now I jump up to the Moon."

And if there's some specific skill check in the prepared scenario that has a modifier on it, to be subtracted to or added from a skill in the game, you set that in advance, or have specific ranges for success/crits. I.e. super difficult safe to crack, roll -50% of the skill so for instance even a master safecracker would only have a 50/50 shot.

Obviously you can't predict anything a player might decide to do in advance, but having at least some likely things planned out is a good idea. And the rest can be done on the fly. Usually I'd at least warn if the action was very unlikely to succeed and have drastically bad results if failed.

An example of this kind of thing in vidya is the way some games (like Disco Elysium) just straight up give you a percentage chance of success.

 

[Corn Flakes]

To some extent I would apply simple common sense. For instance, assume people have basic literacy and that they don't need to roll a success on English to know what a STOP sign means. But even if they have superhuman jumping skills you're not going to even bother letting them roll for "okay and now I jump up to the Moon."

And if there's some specific skill check in the prepared scenario that has a modifier on it, to be subtracted to or added from a skill in the game, you set that in advance, or have specific ranges for success/crits. I.e. super difficult safe to crack, roll -50% of the skill so for instance even a master safecracker would only have a 50/50 shot.

Obviously you can't predict anything a player might decide to do in advance, but having at least some likely things planned out is a good idea. And the rest can be done on the fly. Usually I'd at least warn if the action was very unlikely to succeed and have drastically bad results if failed.

An example of this kind of thing in vidya is the way some games (like Disco Elysium) just straight up give you a percentage chance of success.

I think there is something to be said for d100 systems like WHFRP, where you might only have a 30% chance to succeed on an unmodified skill check, but a easy tasks have such a large bonus to them (either by percentage or multiplying your skill value by some amount) anyone would be able to automatically pass them unless there are additional constraints.

So you could have a situation in which operating a simple mechanism like a door latch (let's say you have 30% Tool Use) would ordinarily be a task with a +80% bonus so you'd auto-pass the check... but if you're trying to undo that latch (simple task, +80%) in a hurry (-20%), in the dark (-30%), and while wounded (-30%) by the bounty hunter you just gave the slip, that Tool Use check is now back to a 30% chance of success.

Of course, that goes back to stacking modifiers and some people aren't a fan of that. But that's just the price to pay for a more granular and less abstracted skill system.

 

[AnOminous]

Of course, that goes back to stacking modifiers and some people aren't a fan of that. But that's just the price to pay for a more granular and less abstracted skill system.

How much granularity you need also depends on the focus of the game. For instance, to go back to the driving thing, if you had a game that was almost entirely vehicular combat, or you were a bootlegger constantly escaping the police, you might want to break down driving into multiple relevant skills or even skill trees.

However, if you did this with every single skill in the game, it would start getting ridiculous, especially for skills you maybe use once or twice in an entire campaign.

That's why I like a more customizable system where you can add or remove skills and make the progression germane to the setting.

 

[The Ugly One]

IME CoC's percentile degree-of-success system is much nicer than D&D's d20 v Target. The GM simply says whether something is easy, hard, or extreme, you roll, and there you go. Or he can say it's easy and give an extra result if you roll an extreme success.

 

[anti SJW]

The main difference between the satanic panic and what's going on now is back then, the people pushing the satanic panic didn't work for the company that makes Dungeons and Dragons.

This is far worse.

 

[Ghostse]

I think the fundamental problem with D&D skills is d20 vs target pass/fail isn't a very good skill system, but the designers of the game have, for the last 25 years, felt a relentless need to unify everything under the same engine. It works well enough for combat (but isn't particularly good for that, either).

One of the things I felt that 4e and 3.5 started to touch on but never went all the way with was was gradient success. There are areas in 4e skill challenges where rolling higher numbers would get extra rewards, or passing a skill challenge with no failures would get you extra rewards. The checks on Ritual Casting were a good example. They just didn't go all in with it.
3.5 just forgot to put caps on success and that led to some really wacky outcomes as you got up there.


(The downside was 4e had level scaling - but for the most part module designers put in the work to say "The Athletics DC to climb this wall is 25 because you are being buffeted by strong winds".)

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

I don't understand this shit, not even the 4E purists were this obnoxious.

Right? It's probably because like @Adamska said, it's people who want to pretend to play, in addition they really just want to roleplay their degeneracy, gay fantasties in which 5e is easy to do. It's practically made for normies and the wrong kind of autists.

One of the dumbest things I ever saw was someone trying to do this with Pokemon, when you have the stupidly simple Pokerole system right there. A strong runner-up was a Lovecraft inspired game, which I would say is more damning due to how there is a D20 version of it.

It's for fucking everything. I've seen retards ask for Cyberpunk but for 5e and refuse any existing alternative, if something exists and already has a working system and game, people will ask for exactly that but 5e and pretend nothing else exists. I call it The Fifth Edition Law.

the people pushing the satanic panic didn't work for the company that makes Dungeons and Dragons.

TSR Games.

 

[LovisXVI]

It's for fucking everything. I've seen retards ask for Cyberpunk but for 5e and refuse any existing alternative, if something exists and already has a working system and game, people will ask for exactly that but 5e and pretend nothing else exists. I call it The Fifth Edition Law.

It's not even like Cyberpunk uses something esoteric and strange to a D&Drone, it is a flat probability d10 system, same as a d20 system with half the faces!

 

[The Ugly One]

they really just want to roleplay their degeneracy, gay fantasties in which 5e is easy to do

You should tell them it's much easier to be a fag in VtM.

 

[BIG BILL HELL'S]

It's not even like Cyberpunk uses something esoteric and strange to a D&Drone, it is a flat probability d10 system, same as a d20 system with half the faces!

All right! My chances are twice as good!

 

[Blarmed&Dangerous]

You should tell them it's much easier to be a fag in VtM.

The new edition even has a tranny wish-fulfilment spell in its incredibly stripped down thaumaturgy. Very few spells, even fewer of them are interesting, but they made room for "make me a real girl uwu"

 

[Corn Flakes]

The new edition even has a tranny wish-fulfilment spell in its incredibly stripped down thaumaturgy. Very few spells, even fewer of them are interesting, but they made room for "make me a real girl uwu"

I'm surprised they didn't catch flak for it. Some troons are adamant that spells/items/abilities that turn you into an actual woman are transphobic and "trans erasure" by "invalidating the trans experience".

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

You should tell them it's much easier to be a fag in VtM.

Won't have to, Bloodlines II will do that for me. Actually not even, it's already doing that:

Would be based if they were self-aware. Fag rep is a blood sucking, man killing (pun intended) vampire definite terrorist.

Kek.

 

[LovisXVI]

Won't have to, Bloodlines II will do that for me.

I keep forgetting that will actually come out, and I regularly check Paradox for EU5 TTs. Must just mentally block it out ever since they hired the people that have never made a game to make it, the Chinese Room.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

I keep forgetting that will actually come out

Dude I didn't even know the trailer for BL2 even came out until like 6 months after the fact, I never had hope for BL2. And every development for the game they showcase digs them a deeper hole. They made an update 2 months ago and the interest was just nonexistent, Paradox even said the game is more a "spiritual successor" than a sequel since they knew it wasn't going to be anything like BL1 or live up to it. They're fucked and they know it, they're just trying to salvage as much of the investors money as possible while trying this mysterious, totally real "modern audience."

 

[AnOminous]

I'm surprised they didn't catch flak for it. Some troons are adamant that spells/items/abilities that turn you into an actual woman are transphobic and "trans erasure" by "invalidating the trans experience".

I wish I could run a campaign with a troon in it just so I could have a trickster wizard zap him back into a man every time he trooned out again.

 

[Blarmed&Dangerous]

I wish I could run a campaign with a troon in it

You don't, actually. I tried getting involved with various games over discord and stuff with organized groups, big meta-campaign stuff (which I love conceptually) and every single fucking time I got partied with a troon and every single fucking time they did something grossly inappropriate like constantly try to start erp shit.

I have lost my fucking mind with 1) how often I have to deal with this shit 2) how horribly fucking out of line it always is 3) how, in light of 1 & 2, normies fucking manage to ignore the obvious connection between troonery and perversion.

 

[AnOminous]

You don't, actually.

Yeah I know but if I could somehow ensure it was time limited just until I got bored of torturing him.