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I'm a pretty scrawny guy.  Not strong, rather thin.  Should probably start lifting.  Point being, I could never climb the rope in gym class.  Not on Monday, not on Tuesday, not on Wednesday, not on Thursday, and not on Friday.  I couldn't do it.  Problem is, RPGs say I can climb the rope if I try enough times.  That is wrong.  A random skill check doesn't work.  So my thinking is that climbing (and certain other skills) should have a base skill that must be met before a character even has a chance to climb.

For instance, in WFRP, climbing a rope might require a 40% scale sheer surface to roll the dice.  Players can stack bonuses to boost their skill (chalking hands might give +10%).  At that point, rolling merely determines how long it takes to climb the wall.

On the opposite end of the above scenario, there are people who will always climb the rope no matter what.  Thus, they need not roll at all.  Using the example above, if a player exceeds the base chance of success by 20% or more, he need not roll at all.

Thoughts?

I use climbing not as a "can you get up there" but "do you fall when you get a certain distance up", if it's high enough.  F'rex I had a one of the players in a game I was running climbing up the side of a giant's castle - quite a formidable climb.  I deemed that halfway up he needed to give me a climbing check (per thief rules, as he was a fighter/thief) or else he'd fall.

That's not a hard rule; sometimes short distances I won't even ask about, or if the surface is rough enough (like a dry cave wall).

It wouldn't come up in the D&D I run.  They only character that uses a climb check is the Thief (or variants), and *his* climb check isn't to climb ropes, but to climb sheer surfaces without any gear at all.

I'd just "eyeball" climbing a free-hanging rope, leverage the class concept, and evaluate the circumstances:

You're a lightly-laden Thief?  Up you go, no roll required.

You're a lightly-laden Fighter or Cleric?  Up you go, no roll required.

You're an encumbered Thief, Fighter, or Cleric?  Got a strength bonus?  Yeah, ok, but you struggle and go slow.

You're a heavily encumbered PC?  Drop something, Einstein.

Your PC is especially heavy (fat, dense, whatever)?  Probably not going to happen.

You're a Magic User?  Got a penalty in Str or Con?  No?  Ok, you struggle a bit
and complain about how it hurts your hands, but you make it.

I might call for some sort of roll if time were critical, but it wouldn't be a success/failure roll, it would be a "how long do I take" kind of roll.

Climbing a rope just isn't the kind of action that I think deserves a lot of rules minutiae.  (Similarly, I'd probably almost never call for any rolls for things like "starting a fire.")

Yup, they bug me too.
A PC once died in a game I played after failing 4 Climb rolls, with associated DEX rolls, plunged into a swamp, which buffered the fall damage, only to fail to get his armour off and drown.
I cringe at the memory of my younger self, who was trying so hard to both follow the rules and also try and find a way to save the guy.

So now, either it's a base skill and you can climb it, or a massive +50% bonus for an easy climb, or the downside is just a delay compared to others, which only matters if there is a combat, or people firing arrows at you, or the last one up gets a nibble from a dragon.

Plus those who can climb well go up the truly nasty climb first, and then lower a rope, and all who follow get a BIG bonus and CANNOT fall. With a rope round your middle almost anyone can be hauled up!

But yes, this whole linear skill % thing can be a problem, and those of us who prefer skill based systems do need to take a lesson from the old skool handwavium guys!

I handle it like the Dungeon Delver mostly but if feel bitchy PJ's way is the ticket. It's a game dammit!  If want real life I'll just walk down to the store while people straight up ask me if I'm drunk while I'm walking.  It gets fun when the police stop me, for me that is.:D

It really isn't something I want to deal with other than it may take you longer not failure.  Besides that's what Levitate is for silly. You can even help others with that spell. I wonder if I could convince a DM that combining Tenser's Floating Disk with Levitation isn't game breaking and perfectly allowed?

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;547486It wouldn't come up in the D&D I run.  They only character that uses a climb check is the Thief (or variants), and *his* climb check isn't to climb ropes, but to climb sheer surfaces without any gear at all.

I'd just "eyeball" climbing a free-hanging rope, leverage the class concept, and evaluate the circumstances:

You're a lightly-laden Thief?  Up you go, no roll required.

You're a lightly-laden Fighter or Cleric?  Up you go, no roll required.

You're an encumbered Thief, Fighter, or Cleric?  Got a strength bonus?  Yeah, ok, but you struggle and go slow.

You're a heavily encumbered PC?  Drop something, Einstein.

Your PC is especially heavy (fat, dense, whatever)?  Probably not going to happen.

You're a Magic User?  Got a penalty in Str or Con?  No?  Ok, you struggle a bit
and complain about how it hurts your hands, but you make it.

I might call for some sort of roll if time were critical, but it wouldn't be a success/failure roll, it would be a "how long do I take" kind of roll.

Climbing a rope just isn't the kind of action that I think deserves a lot of rules minutiae.  (Similarly, I'd probably almost never call for any rolls for things like "starting a fire.")

Sounds reasonable to me.

I once asked Geezer how he'd handle field-engineering (like building platforms in trees, setting traps, other apparatuses), and he put it to me like, "If a boy scout can do it, you sure as hell can, since you're adventurers."

Quote from: Peregrin;547510Sounds reasonable to me.

I once asked Geezer how he'd handle field-engineering (like building platforms in trees, setting traps, other apparatuses), and he put it to me like, "If a boy scout can do it, you sure as hell can, since you're adventurers."

That's ridiculous. Everyone knows you can't do anything 'fun' in an RPG without rules.

Feat: Can climb = Fun

GM saying "sure, you climb the wall" = mother may I, bullshit NOTfun.

Quote from: Piestrio;547512That's ridiculous. Everyone knows you can't do anything 'fun' in an RPG without rules.

Feat: Can climb = Fun

GM saying "sure, you climb the wall" = mother may I, bullshit NOTfun.

Not to be mean (or a hypocrite, because I am), but isn't there another thread floating around that would suit that post better?

Quote from: Piestrio;547512That's ridiculous. Everyone knows you can't do anything 'fun' in an RPG without rules.

Feat: Can climb = Fun

GM saying "sure, you climb the wall" = mother may I, bullshit NOTfun.

Even better is can you explain to me how ADEU isn't disassociated mechanics? I thought that question was my permaban at TBP but Kai actually locked the thread before I could respond back to Topher.  Without blaming me?!? That sucked.:D

Re: OP

Isn't this sort of addressed in some skill systems?  If you're not under pressure or the task isn't super-hard even for a skilled individual, you don't roll.  But if someone is chasing you and you're attempting to scramble up a rope/ledge, then you would roll because even if you're super-good at it, you may bungle in the heat of the moment?

I think just getting past rolls is cool in some contexts, but I think a skill system can still be reasonably applied.

Quote from: Peregrin;547519Not to be mean (or a hypocrite, because I am), but isn't there another thread floating around that would suit that post better?

You're correct.  So lets get this thread on point again.

BT, there are bad and good systems for this.

And there is the rule of fun, which you are avoiding in your attempts at honest realism.

a good system views ascending and rope climbing as different skills, though related.
Rope climbing is harder and needs more strength.  In my main system, there is a STMOD of 14/2.2 for this, which means for every point od ST under 14, there is a 2.2% penalty, and for every point above 14, there is a 2.2% bonus.  And climbing a rope without any footing. Is minus 20%.  so the character in question needs a heap of climb skill to make up for it.

The rule of fun is that characters like to have some chance to succeed....even if somewhat illogical.

Quote from: B.T.;547481Thoughts?

If you want to handle it in a more realistic manner, then have a table that relates a strength attribute to the ability to climb in various ways at various encumbrance levels such that there would be a minimum strength required to climb a rope at an encumbrance level, below which you couldn't do it at all.  The climb skill would come into play with respect to keeping hold of a surface, finding handholds and footholds, or even making them with things like pitons where the problem is not the strength to get up but the ability to hang on is.  Encumbrance could also create negative modifiers to climb skill rolls.

In such a system, a person should be able to climb something like a ladder or a knotted rope most of the time with the default climbing roll so long as they have the strength to do so (with the option to waive the roll entirely, if that's what a GM or group would prefer).  If they have to climb a pole, a tree, a wall, or a cliff, they'll probably need more than just the default skill to succeed most of the time.

Quote from: LordVreeg;547539The rule of fun is that characters like to have some chance to succeed....even if somewhat illogical.

The alternative to letting a single character climb themselves up a rope, no matter how illogical, is to provide a way for other characters to either help them or haul them up, which is quite common in the source material of the genres most games are set in.  One place where many rule systems are weak is handling cooperative skill use and one character helping another character do something.  I think the preferably solution for the weakling nerd not being able to climb the rope isn't to let him climb it, anyway, but to make it possible for the strong jock to haul him up after he's tied a rope around his waist.

Quote from: John Morrow;547558The alternative to letting a single character climb themselves up a rope, no matter how illogical, is to provide a way for other characters to either help them or haul them up, which is quite common in the source material of the genres most games are set in.  One place where many rule systems are weak is handling cooperative skill use and one character helping another character do something.  I think the preferably solution for the weakling nerd not being able to climb the rope isn't to let him climb it, anyway, but to make ti possible for the strong jock to haul him up after he's tied a rope around his waist.

I agree.
most systems, that is.
Some mention it, though (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955644/How%20skills%20are%20used%20and%20played%20in%20game).

Quote from: Peregrin;547522Re: OP

Isn't this sort of addressed in some skill systems?  If you're not under pressure or the task isn't super-hard even for a skilled individual, you don't roll.  But if someone is chasing you and you're attempting to scramble up a rope/ledge, then you would roll because even if you're super-good at it, you may bungle in the heat of the moment?

If I were running BRP, that's how I'd approach it: not really much different from how I'd do it with D&D.  Make a judgment call on whether a roll is needed, at all, and probably only require a roll if the situation is critical or high-pressure, somehow.

For climbing the rope, BRP gives some other numbers that could inform the judgment call (e.g., STR compared to SIZ).

Quote from: B.T.;547481I'm a pretty scrawny guy.  Not strong, rather thin.  Should probably start lifting.  Point being, I could never climb the rope in gym class.  Not on Monday, not on Tuesday, not on Wednesday, not on Thursday, and not on Friday.  I couldn't do it.  Problem is, RPGs say I can climb the rope if I try enough times.  That is wrong.  A random skill check doesn't work.  So my thinking is that climbing (and certain other skills) should have a base skill that must be met before a character even has a chance to climb.

Thoughts?

I think you're only going to have problems by thinking too much on it.  What I mean by that is that there are several types of climbing.  Rope, cliff, threes, etc.  And each required different technique and ability.  Some might rely on strength more while other forms rely on technique more.  So putting that into an rpg mechanic is just too much fiddling.

In your rope example, someone with a lot of strength might be able to just pull themselves up the rope.  But if you use proper technique (using the feet to act as a brake by having the rope go over one foot while the other foot is on top), you're using much less arm strength because you're lifting with your legs, and not just arms.

Quote from: Peregrin;547510Sounds reasonable to me.

I once asked Geezer how he'd handle field-engineering (like building platforms in trees, setting traps, other apparatuses), and he put it to me like, "If a boy scout can do it, you sure as hell can, since you're adventurers."

That exactly mirrors what I asked Gary about skills once; if you're taking on the mantle of "person who goes into unspeakable places looking for treasure" you've already managed to learn how to ride a horse without falling off, catch small game (within reason) and so on and so forth.

It really keeps the game moving to keep that in mind :)

Quote from: B.T.;547481I'm a pretty scrawny guy.  Not strong, rather thin.  Should probably start lifting.  Point being, I could never climb the rope in gym class.  

Did anyone ever show you how to hold the rope with your feet?  If so, I'm surprised that a skinny guy would be unable to climb a rope. Whereas pulling yourself up by arms alone is something lots of people can't do.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;547583..you're using much less arm strength because you're lifting with your legs, and not just arms.

This, by the way, is the correct way to climb anything - push yourself up with your legs instead of trying to pull yourself up with your arms.

In the real world, the difficulty of a climb is graded (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(climbing)) and climbers classify how good a climber they are by the highest grade that they're comfortable climbing.

So, someone might say that they're comfortable on 5.5 and happy to attempt 5.6 or 5.7. However, a 5.12, say, would be well beyond their abilities.

I like Rolemaster's Moving Manuver Table which gives you a percentage of movement accomplished.  So you get part of the way up the cliff, hit a rough spot and have to roll again.

But then, I like a lot of things about Rolemaster...

Quote from: David Johansen;547647I like Rolemaster's Moving Manuver Table which gives you a percentage of movement accomplished.  So you get part of the way up the cliff, hit a rough spot and have to roll again.

But then, I like a lot of things about Rolemaster...

It's a good system but the point is to find a happy medium between Dnd and RM.

Quote from: Peregrin;547510I once asked Geezer how he'd handle field-engineering (like building platforms in trees, setting traps, other apparatuses), and he put it to me like, "If a boy scout can do it, you sure as hell can, since you're adventurers."

That's always seemed obvious to me. However, I've seen too many GMs require rolls for things that really should be gimmes in most situations. I finally put a rule in the latest edition of Microlite74 clearly stating that all adventurers are assumed to be competent enough in basic adventuring skills (stuff like riding a horse, climbing, swimming, making camp, cooking dinner, etc.) that all attempts to do so should be automatically successful in normal/near normal circumstances.

If someone wants to play, Realism, the Dice Rolling, and make rolls for all those mundane actions, I suppose they can knock themselves out.  But I'd like to save that time wasting function for when it really matters, so you're not interrupting game play.

Quote from: RandallS;547682That's always seemed obvious to me. However, I've seen too many GMs require rolls for things that really should be gimmes in most situations. I finally put a rule in the latest edition of Microlite74 clearly stating that all adventurers are assumed to be competent enough in basic adventuring skills (stuff like riding a horse, climbing, swimming, making camp, cooking dinner, etc.) that all attempts to do so should be automatically successful in normal/near normal circumstances.

It's unfortunate, because those same GMs are often the ones spawned by White-Wolf and 3e module-based/Living Greyhawk gaming who believe it's the GM's job to be a storyteller and create drama.  But you're trying to create drama while making people do a dozen pointless checks, increasing their chances of failure on stupid things, and generally just slowing the game down.

The Pathfinder group I'm in atm has one of those GM-as-storyteller types, and another dude who thinks Pathfinder is "better than D&D at telling stories", but then the game is run like a sticky-slow tactical exercise with checks for everything.  Mismatch of design and player desire if I ever saw one, but they're close friends and I don't want to tell them they're trying to use a knife to eat pudding after they've invested so much in adventure-path modules and whatnot.

I mean people wonder where the roll/role dichotomy came from.  When you don't understand the intent of the rules and you're not properly applying them to the intended purpose, of course you're going to have people get pissed off at the dice and think that they "get in the way" of role-playing and fun, rather than serving to push the game forward and keep things interesting by allowing everyone at the table to be surprised or to spur creativity.

Quote from: RandallS;547682That's always seemed obvious to me. However, I've seen too many GMs require rolls for things that really should be gimmes in most situations. I finally put a rule in the latest edition of Microlite74 clearly stating that all adventurers are assumed to be competent enough in basic adventuring skills (stuff like riding a horse, climbing, swimming, making camp, cooking dinner, etc.) that all attempts to do so should be automatically successful in normal/near normal circumstances.

While I certainly think die rolling can be taken too far and too many die rolls can strain or even break verisimilitude, nobody ever talks about the time their character tried to do something and the GM said, "OK, you just do it."  Even a sequence of failed attempts at making camp or cooking dinner can lead to some interesting role-playing and a running joke for the campaign.  I've seen a lot of interesting play generated from a failed DFU* rolls.  

* A Don't "Foul" Up roll, which is a roll where things go wrong only if the worst possible result is rolled on the dice, to take into account situations where things normally won't go wrong but something could go wrong -- perhaps terribly wrong -- every now and then.  One of the most memorable DFU rolls, which I still remember more than two-and-a-half decades later, involved two 00 DFU rolls on percentile dice.  The first was triggered by an NPC saying, "Catch me, you fool!" after a romantic encounter with a PC near the edge of the roof of a very tall building.  Cruel but quite memorable.

Quote from: Dodger;547622This, by the way, is the correct way to climb anything - push yourself up with your legs instead of trying to pull yourself up with your arms.
 
In the real world, the difficulty of a climb is graded (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(climbing)) and climbers classify how good a climber they are by the highest grade that they're comfortable climbing.
 
So, someone might say that they're comfortable on 5.5 and happy to attempt 5.6 or 5.7. However, a 5.12, say, would be well beyond their abilities.

For comfortable I guess read "able to do with no serious chance of failure"? Probably young BT wouldn't have thought of the leg thing, but its also possible he wouldn't have wanted to do it, if he had thought of it, so as to not fall on his head.
 
Or in other words in 3.5 terms, trying to climb the rope week in and out was Taking-10, over and over again.

I think I was a little unclear about climbing before, as I was in haste.

Let me now expand on it a little.

Thieves, using the thieves' climb skill, are generally the first ones over the top (as it were).

Most everyone can "climb" a rough, sloped surface (mountain, etc.) but thieves are the ones who can climb up smooth-finished towers with little more than a bag of pitons and a small mallet.  Or less.  That's where the thieves' climb roll comes in.  In the case of the fellow climbing the giants' castle tower, it was a case of being confronted with an easily-climbed stone wall that was buffeted by severe winds, hence me having him make the test.  

A thieves' climb check is to cover those contingencies (smooth or otherwise difficult surfaces).  Otherwise they, and other character types, have no problem going up and down slopes with plenty of natural hand-holds.

To the widerr point though its totally reasonable to have skill threshold levels. To climb a rope you need climbing of x your base skill is computed from your stats.
So in dnd terms climb might be 8 plus dex and str bonuses. To climb a rope 30 feet you need climb 9 you can't do it if you have less. If you want to climb an additional 30 feet make a check.
I hate thre all adventurers can do every thing like cos it actually limits roleplay to a set of 'adventurer' archetypes and I want to have the option of fat sedentry wizards or aged clerics.

I have done a bit of climbing, I was that smug kid at school who would get to tthe top of the rope first every time then I trained for an expedition to ice land and did a fair bit of wall climbing. Its totally true that the teenaged BT could have learnt to climb the rope, using his legs and what not, but that is what a skill is right learning to do something.

In GURPS, you have to roll to even start a rope climb.  It then takes into account fatigue, dexterity, the length of the rope (roll for fail at various times as you're climbing it), are you over-burdened, do you have Tarzan skills, and if you're being shot at while climbing (in combat).

You have to be in good shape and be a good rope climber in GURPS.  Otherwise, you take the freight elevator like everyone else.

Quote from: John Morrow;547692While I certainly think die rolling can be taken too far and too many die rolls can strain or even break verisimilitude, nobody ever talks about the time their character tried to do something and the GM said, "OK, you just do it."  Even a sequence of failed attempts at making camp or cooking dinner can lead to some interesting role-playing and a running joke for the campaign.  I've seen a lot of interesting play generated from a failed DFU* rolls.

I agree. However, I think such rolls should still be reserved for when the situation is quite out of the ordinary. If the PCs are making a 100-day trek across the wilderness, having to roll to cook each meal and to set up camp every night is silly (IMHO). Sure, if the whether is terrible or the like, a roll might be a good idea -- but most people don't fuck up badly enough to call it a failure on things they do every day. Few people who work 5 days a week fail to successfully drive to work 5% of the time (fumble chance in many games), for example.

Quote from: B.T.;547481I'm a pretty scrawny guy.  Not strong, rather thin.  Should probably start lifting.  Point being, I could never climb the rope in gym class.  Not on Monday, not on Tuesday, not on Wednesday, not on Thursday, and not on Friday.  I couldn't do it.  Problem is, RPGs say I can climb the rope if I try enough times.  That is wrong.  A random skill check doesn't work.  So my thinking is that climbing (and certain other skills) should have a base skill that must be met before a character even has a chance to climb.

Someone slips a couple of these (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UAm8280zwrA/T0vKbMlntbI/AAAAAAAAAWo/vtqjlozUwCE/s1600/madpitbull.jpg) in the side door and you'll rediscover your monkey roots quick enough. Its all about the motivation. Never say never!

The system doesn't have to disqualify someone from doing something, just make it exceedingly unlikely that they will succeed. With the additional wrinkle that if they are trying to beat the odds by doing it over and over again, a "training" system kicks in, whereby attempts are aggregated over days and weeks.

For example, my own system, a d10 variant, you'd have strength 4 out of a possible 10, and climbing skill 0 out of a possible 10. Climbing a rope would be average difficulty, target 15, so you'd have to roll an 11 on a d10.

Impossible, but the system allows open ended rolls if you like, which means if you roll a ten, you can add the next roll to it. As an added bonus you've probably now got a climbing skill of 1.

The downside is, if you roll a one after declaring an open ended roll, you've just managed to hang yourself upside-down at exactly the right height for the abovementioned pitbulls to conduct some impromptu plastic surgery.

If someone was trying to game the system by rolling over and over therefore they'd have as great a chance of injuring themselves as success, or the GM could invoke fatigue rules, making it more difficult again to succeed incrementally, or the GM could invoke training rules, whereby the risk is reduced but you need to spend days increasing your skill, training essentially, in order to try again.

All perfectly realistic.

Quote from: jibbajibba;547708To the widerr point though its totally reasonable to have skill threshold levels. To climb a rope you need climbing of x your base skill is computed from your stats.

In general, I feel that most RPG systems vastly over-emphasize the random element compared to real life - and one that isn't necessary for heroic gaming.

A typical system might say a talented expert has a rating of 80%, while a typical beginner has 20%.  That is a big difference, but picture that in real life.  Suppose someone is an expert physicist and is given a tricky quantum mechanics problem that they have a 20% chance of failing.  That is *not* something that you can just bring in five beginners and have better odds of getting a success.  Likewise, if there is a tricky cliff and you want someone to get over it, one expert climber should be better than a group of a dozen beginners.  

Required minimum skill is in my opinion a fudge for this understated effect of skill.  A more direct change would be to reduce the variance of the die roll.

Quote from: jhkim;547824In general, I feel that most RPG systems vastly over-emphasize the random element compared to real life - and one that isn't necessary for heroic gaming.

A typical system might say a talented expert has a rating of 80%, while a typical beginner has 20%.  That is a big difference, but picture that in real life.  Suppose someone is an expert physicist and is given a tricky quantum mechanics problem that they have a 20% chance of failing.  That is *not* something that you can just bring in five beginners and have better odds of getting a success.  Likewise, if there is a tricky cliff and you want someone to get over it, one expert climber should be better than a group of a dozen beginners.  

Required minimum skill is in my opinion a fudge for this understated effect of skill.  A more direct change would be to reduce the variance of the die roll.

I built a skill system for ADRPG which is diceless. It all works on thresholds and compared rolls. So to rebuild a car engine you might need 20 mechanic less and you can't do it without help more and its all about how well and how fast.

Quote from: jibbajibba;547833I built a skill system for ADRPG which is diceless. It all works on thresholds and compared rolls.

So how does one have a diceless system that compares the rolls of dice?

Quote from: jhkim;547824A typical system might say a talented expert has a rating of 80%, while a typical beginner has 20%.  That is a big difference, but picture that in real life.  Suppose someone is an expert physicist and is given a tricky quantum mechanics problem that they have a 20% chance of failing.  That is *not* something that you can just bring in five beginners and have better odds of getting a success.  Likewise, if there is a tricky cliff and you want someone to get over it, one expert climber should be better than a group of a dozen beginners.  

Interesting subject. There was a bunfight over in the Design & Development subforum awhile back over the somewhat related issues of opposed rolls and taking-10 here (in amongst other discussion).
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=22152

Quote from: RandallS;547741I agree. However, I think such rolls should still be reserved for when the situation is quite out of the ordinary. If the PCs are making a 100-day trek across the wilderness, having to roll to cook each meal and to set up camp every night is silly (IMHO). Sure, if the whether is terrible or the like, a roll might be a good idea -- but most people don't fuck up badly enough to call it a failure on things they do every day. Few people who work 5 days a week fail to successfully drive to work 5% of the time (fumble chance in many games), for example.

The way to handle this, in my opinion, is to start out with a daily "something unusual happens today" roll.  The next thing I'd roll would probably be a degree roll if the unusual thing might be good or bad, using a low-is-bad and high-is-good assessment.  If you are using a d20 and assume something unusual happens on a 1 only, then you'd get an average of 5 "something unusual happens today" days in a 100 day trek across the wilderness.  They could range from being potentially suddenly fatal (e.g., avalanche, deadly disease) to simply curiously odd or even beneficial (e.g., a long-abandoned caravan, traveling merchants that have supplies that could help the PCs).  So on average you'll get one or two events that might kill some PCs.

In your diving to work example, roughly once a month "something unusual happens today" would happen on your way to work and it would probably be a potentially bad thing ..  That something unusual would probably be negative -- something requiring a driving check -- a car slamming on it's brakes in front of you, a child running out into the street, etc.

As I've previously mentioned, I roll a lot of dice when I GM.

Quote from: John Morrow;547907So how does one have a diceless system that compares the rolls of dice?

Sorry typing in a hurry meant compare skills just like the rest of the adrpg system. Me bad.

In RL i suspect the random element of compared checks is far lower than in most games. So in a 100m race each runner might have a skill of 1-100 on to which you add 1d6 as opposed to a skill of 1-20 onto which you add 1d20 which seems to be the sort of randomness you get in most games

Quote from: jibbajibba;548016In RL i suspect the random element of compared checks is far lower than in most games. So in a 100m race each runner might have a skill of 1-100 on to which you add 1d6 as opposed to a skill of 1-20 onto which you add 1d20 which seems to be the sort of randomness you get in most games

Are footraces much to do with real life either though? They are tightly controlled events with every element considered, between min-maxed athletes.

Quote from: The Traveller;548019Are footraces much to do with real life either though? They are tightly controlled events with every element considered, between min-maxed athletes.

Well you can take anything at all and compare it in exactly the same way and a footrace doesn't have to between min-maxed atheletes . You and I could have a foot race. Chances are one of us is better at racing and would win every race. If we happened to be well matched then randomness would come into it.
The exact came would be true of a game of chess, a painting competition, solving a set of quadratic pynomials or climbing a wall.

Another issue with RL is that people have a lot of skills a lot more than in most games (maybe not GURPS :) ). Most adults can drive, read, have a job with a set of related skills, have a hobby or follow a craft etc etc . Then there is all the knowldge you pick up through school reading or whatever.
If you try to stat yourself out for all the skills you possess from novice from that week long potttery class you took last year to expert in Cooking becuase you work as a sous chef at a top hotel and you add all that stuff up in comes to an impressive list.
Now most of the time you aren't stretching your skill you are doing things inside your threshold. Its an argument for the all D&D PCs are adventures so then can all do this basic stuff, but I hate the idea of a world with professional adventurers and also once you do stretch yourself how do you determin the result if everyone can basically do whatever they like and where skills do intervene, like a thief having move silent of just 10% so an untrained person should have lower, or a thief having 70 climb an untrained person should have lower (and people should read the theif climb rules again, it requires hand holds etc and doesn't turn them into spiderman).

Quote from: jibbajibba;548058Well you can take anything at all and compare it in exactly the same way and a footrace doesn't have to between min-maxed atheletes . You and I could have a foot race. Chances are one of us is better at racing and would win every race. If we happened to be well matched then randomness would come into it.
The exact came would be true of a game of chess, a painting competition, solving a set of quadratic pynomials or climbing a wall.

If that were true bookies would be out of business, things just aren't that predictable. I prefer one third chance, one third skill, and one third native endowments as a reasonable mix.

Quote from: jibbajibba;548058Now most of the time you aren't stretching your skill you are doing things inside your threshold. Its an argument for the all D&D PCs are adventures so then can all do this basic stuff, but I hate the idea of a world with professional adventurers and also once you do stretch yourself how do you determin the result if everyone can basically do whatever they like and where skills do intervene, like a thief having move silent of just 10% so an untrained person should have lower, or a thief having 70 climb an untrained person should have lower (and people should read the theif climb rules again, it requires hand holds etc and doesn't turn them into spiderman).

Ah see I haven't played D&D in a looong time so I'm coming at it from a completely different mindset. I vaguely recall something about thaco.

Quote from: The Traveller;548060If that were true bookies would be out of business, things just aren't that predictable. I prefer one third chance, one third skill, and one third native endowments as a reasonable mix.


Ah see I haven't played D&D in a looong time so I'm coming at it from a completely different mindset. I vaguely recall something about thaco.

Well now bookies deal with odds and handicapping. If Horseraces weren't handicapped then bookies would indeed be out of business but they are handicapped. The Odds of Usain Bolt winning the 100m final at the Olympics this year are 8/15. this is before Bolt has even arrived in the country and are based on him fouling gettting ill or all the random stuff that might happen  before the race actually starts. On the day despite the fact that he will be lining up against 7 of the 8 fastest men in the world you will get odds closer to 1/5. In skill terms all these guys have running in the high 90%s but Bolt will very likely win.

When you have larger teams with longer events say a game of soccer or American Football then the number of skill rolls required througout the course of the event grows so odds even up. Even so I suspect that the Dallas Cowboys could play a bunch of part timers and beat them every single time. When they play another pro team the randomness comes into play but the randomness is about the margins. The massive part of the result is already set by skill training etc.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;547915Interesting subject. There was a bunfight over in the Design & Development subforum awhile back over the somewhat related issues of opposed rolls and taking-10 here (in amongst other discussion).
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=22152

and there are some very very simple solutions here.  Some, more basic skills, have  a large component of native talent that incorporates into success.  More advanced skills (such as said quantum physics problem) require much more grounding in the discipline; with experience and knowledge being much more critical ingredients into success.

So any skill system worth a shit that wants to tackle this has to address this.  Nesting skills (with basic versions being needed for subskills) solves this problem nicely.

Quote from: jibbajibba;548064Even so I suspect that the Dallas Cowboys could play a bunch of part timers and beat them every single time. When they play another pro team the randomness comes into play but the randomness is about the margins. The massive part of the result is already set by skill training etc.

True, but nobody is saying a massive skill level difference won't carry the day almost without exception, most rules cover that. So the highly skilled are already covered (maybe not in D&D?), but in most real life situations outside of pro sports and science experiments, randomness comes into play a lot more.

Quote from: LordVreeg;548069So any skill system worth a shit that wants to tackle this has to address this.  Nesting skills (with basic versions being needed for subskills) solves this problem nicely.

Easier just to give each skill a difficulty level as I do. Anything beyond difficulty 1 or 2 cannot be learned on the fly, and even then only "gross mechanical skills" are applicable, or wit based skills like charm. Climbing is difficulty 1, quantum physics difficulty 5.

This also feeds nicely into putting skill advancements on a gradient, making it slower to advance in difficult skills, and helping to decide skill starting scores.

Quote from: The Traveller;548072True, but nobody is saying a massive skill level difference won't carry the day almost without exception, most rules cover that. So the highly skilled are already covered (maybe not in D&D?), but in most real life situations outside of pro sports and science experiments, randomness comes into play a lot more.

still not sure.
Back to BTs OP climbing a rope. When he was a kid he couldn't climb a 30 foot rope. When I was a kid that was simple stuff. I would beat him every time based on this evidence.
Likewise I have always been a bit crap at racquet sports. When i was a kid I could play a game of tennis against a couple of my mates who played tennis a little. They woudl always win, not occassionally always. They weren't semi-pro tennis players they were 15 year old kids with a bit of natural talent and some practice.
There are lots of sports where someone a little better will always win. Pool, tennis, squash, boxing the list is extensive.

Skills are similar. I work with a lot of coders a good coder will alwys produce better code than a crap coder. I used to make my own furniture. Learnt it from a book, was alright but then I worked with a mate who was a trained cabinetmaker and the gulf was huge. He wasn't Chipendale but he had 2 years experience and 3 years of training.

I would say in real life different skills and challneges work out different but its closer to 20% talent 70% skill and 10% luck than 1:1:1

Quote from: jibbajibba;548079I would say in real life different skills and challneges work out different but its closer to 20% talent 70% skill and 10% luck than 1:1:1

You're talking about 90% predictability there, which is clearly not the case even in pro sports. The bottom line is if luck or whatever unforeseeable factors call themselves luck were that small a factor one could predict almost everything.

Quote from: The Traveller;548080You're talking about 90% predictability there, which is clearly not the case even in pro sports. The bottom line is if luck or whatever unforeseeable factors call themselves luck were that small a factor one could predict almost everything.

Your maths is a bit hokey. In pro-sports the guys all have near max natural talent and near max skill so then luck does come into play. The skill difference between Nadal and the world number 50 is probably about 6-7 (on a 1-100 scale). Lets stat Nadal at tennis. Give him 18/20 natural ability (he's a bit short if truth be told) and 69/70 Skill. So for a game he gets 87+1d10. then Take Andy Murray 17/20 natural ability and 67/70 skill so for a game of tennis he gets 84+1d10. Nadal will win 60% Murray 30% and it goes to an extraset 1 in 10 and we reroll....... seems about right.

Quote from: The Traveller;548078Easier just to give each skill a difficulty level as I do. Anything beyond difficulty 1 or 2 cannot be learned on the fly, and even then only "gross mechanical skills" are applicable, or wit based skills like charm. Climbing is difficulty 1, quantum physics difficulty 5.

This also feeds nicely into putting skill advancements on a gradient, making it slower to advance in difficult skills, and helping to decide skill starting scores.

Well, no.
Or yes, I think that is one factor.  I just don't think that covers the issue well.  Nesting skills allow the more real life -equiv of having a character learn 'physics 101' before learning more advanced skills, while giving a character a small ability in all the subskills.

I say yes, since I use an attribute bonus and an experience modifier per skill that accomodates for the difficulty level, but the nesting is also there to allow for generalists or specialists and to bar unskilled characters from choosing upper level skills.

Quote from: jibbajibba;548079I would say in real life different skills and challneges work out different but its closer to 20% talent 70% skill and 10% luck than 1:1:1

Quote from: The Traveller;548080You're talking about 90% predictability there, which is clearly not the case even in pro sports. The bottom line is if luck or whatever unforeseeable factors call themselves luck were that small a factor one could predict almost everything.

I'm not sure what these numbers are actually saying.  What does 66% predictability mean versus 90% predictability?  

I think it would be easier to give more concrete things.  Suppose there's a task that a top expert has a 90% chance of succeeding at.  What should be the chance of success by someone who has equal talent but no skill have?  (Understanding that this is a generalization)  

Typical RPGs might say that if expert skill is 90%, then a beginner might have 30%.  (From the other design thread cited, this was one example.)  

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=22152

Quote from: jhkim;548110I'm not sure what these numbers are actually saying.  What does 66% predictability mean versus 90% predictability?  

I think it would be easier to give more concrete things.  Suppose there's a task that a top expert has a 90% chance of succeeding at.  What should be the chance of success by someone who has equal talent but no skill have?  (Understanding that this is a generalization)  

Typical RPGs might say that if expert skill is 90%, then a beginner might have 30%.  (From the other design thread cited, this was one example.)  

http://www.therpgsite.com/showtread.php?t=22152

see my tennis example as i think its a reasonable fit.

Re the skilled versus the unskilled ... depends . You might be realy smart but with no grounding in sub atomic physics you can't solve a string theory problem anymore than a carpenter can make a chest of draws out of a tree with no tools.

Quote from: jhkim;548110I think it would be easier to give more concrete things.  Suppose there's a task that a top expert has a 90% chance of succeeding at.  What should be the chance of success by someone who has equal talent but no skill have?  (Understanding that this is a generalization)  

Well Jibbjabba is saying any given skill roll should be (1 to 20) plus (1 to 70) plus (1d0). I'm saying I feel its more like (1 to 10) plus (1 to 10) plus (1d10).

Really its a big complicated thing with lots of caveats and gotchas, and when you boil it all down the answer is probably 42, but we're sitting at the bar blowing wind here tbh, and it comes down to your tastes in gaming.

I think half random is too much, ten percent random is too little, so a nice median fits well. The acid test if it was important, and its not really, is how well the system models what might happen in real life - in my experience an even three way split does the job.

Quote from: The Traveller;548122Well Jibbjabba is saying any given skill roll should be (1 to 20) plus (1 to 70) plus (1d0). I'm saying I feel its more like (1 to 10) plus (1 to 10) plus (1d10).

Really its a big complicated thing with lots of caveats and gotchas, and when you boil it all down the answer is probably 42, but we're sitting at the bar blowing wind here tbh, and it comes down to your tastes in gaming.

Thanks.  It's a lot clearer to talk about 1 to 10 scales of skill and attribute.  

The issue that I see is that there are people who advocate this, but then introduce various conditions to prevent the natural consequences of this.  The previous thread was full of people with all sorts of conditions to put on contests - like requiring multiple rolls for a given task, Take 10, minimum skill or a special conditions for being unskilled, and the GM allowing skilled PCs to do things without rolling.  

In practice, I think this hodgepodge of fixes can be avoided by just making the skill range larger.  For example, take car driving.  In the Call of Cthulhu game this Saturday, we had to deal with the issue that several of our PCs - being lower-class types in the 1920s - didn't know how to drive.  With the 1 to 10 scale, it's impossible to deal with the spectrum of "I'm a Pacific Island native who's barely seen a car"; "I've taken taxis and seen some things but never driven"; "I'm a typical driver who drives every day"; and "I'm an top professional race car driver".  

GMs typically deal with this with various hand-waving to deal with it - but the end result is that there should be a significant difference in the chances of a Pacific Island native and the non-driver driving; but also between the non-driver and the licensed driver; and between the licensed driver and the top expert.  

Quote from: The Traveller;548122I think half random is too much, ten percent random is too little, so a nice median fits well. The acid test if it was important, and its not really, is how well the system models what might happen in real life - in my experience an even three way split does the job.

I don't think this models real life well at all.  Let's take a typical RPG situation.  Say there's a vault sealed by a high-tech, top-of-the-line security lock.  The PC skill 9 expert safecracker has a 90% chance of opening it, but by bad turn of the dice, he fails.  What do the PCs do?  

In real life, I think the usual answer would be "get a better expert".  In the typical RPG setup, though, they have a fair chance of succeeding by just all the others trying it even though they have only default skill.  (If Skill 9 has 90%, then Skill 1 has 10% - assuming equal talent.)

I can't help but think that too much of this problem derives from the binary pass/fail nature of most games' skill mechanics.  IRL a "task" you resolve with a "skill" 1) never breaks down that neatly into tasks and skills and b) is generally a lot fuzzier around the edges.  In fact, a lot of project management focuses on breaking work down into (arbitrarily defined) discrete, 100% pass-fail tasks because that's not the way most work is actually done.

Quote from: jhkim;548245With the 1 to 10 scale, it's impossible to deal with the spectrum of "I'm a Pacific Island native who's barely seen a car"; "I've taken taxis and seen some things but never driven"; "I'm a typical driver who drives every day"; and "I'm an top professional race car driver".  

The scale isn't 1 to 10 though, at least not how I run it. Tasks are set on a difficulty scale of 1 to 30, with 30 being almost impossible.

So say an average driving check, swerving to avoid a pedestrian, might be a 15. Averge reflexes (5) plus average skill (5) plus an average roll on a d10 (5 or better) will get you there. Someone with 1 skill but 9 reflexes stands the same chance, and vice versa.

A top class driver with super reflexes wouldn't need to roll at all there (10+10), but would only have a one in ten chance of successfully completing an almost impossible task, like doing a wall of death stunt with a medium sized van along the side of a building.

Thirty points in a scale is usually plenty, in my experience, but thats the system I use, it might not copy over to every game.

Quote from: jhkim;548245In the typical RPG setup, though, they have a fair chance of succeeding by just all the others trying it even though they have only default skill.  (If Skill 9 has 90%, then Skill 1 has 10% - assuming equal talent.)

I think the layout described above would deal with that issue. Some rolls would be just too high to reach on a 1d10. You could roll open ended or exploding dice, but you've as good as or a better than even chance of tripping the alarm and somehow blowing yourself up in the process if you do that.

Quote from: daniel_reamI can't help but think that too much of this problem derives from the binary pass/fail nature of most games' skill mechanics. IRL a "task" you resolve with a "skill" 1) never breaks down that neatly into tasks and skills and b) is generally a lot fuzzier around the edges. In fact, a lot of project management focuses on breaking work down into (arbitrarily defined) discrete, 100% pass-fail tasks because that's not the way most work is actually done.

Some skills in my setup do work like that, but you want to keep it to a minimum to prevent excessive rulebook checking for the corner cases on each skill.

Quote from: jibbajibba;548058Now most of the time you aren't stretching your skill you are doing things inside your threshold. Its an argument for the all D&D PCs are adventures so then can all do this basic stuff, but I hate the idea of a world with professional adventurers and also once you do stretch yourself how do you determin the result if everyone can basically do whatever they like and where skills do intervene, like a thief having move silent of just 10% so an untrained person should have lower, or a thief having 70 climb an untrained person should have lower (and people should read the theif climb rules again, it requires hand holds etc and doesn't turn them into spiderman).

That's kind of along the lines of why I'm not a big fan of using D100 for skill checks.  D100 results are random and have no attachment or binding what-so-ever to a character's action.

Quote from: The Traveller;548078Easier just to give each skill a difficulty level as I do. Anything beyond difficulty 1 or 2 cannot be learned on the fly, and even then only "gross mechanical skills" are applicable, or wit based skills like charm. Climbing is difficulty 1, quantum physics difficulty 5.

This also feeds nicely into putting skill advancements on a gradient, making it slower to advance in difficult skills, and helping to decide skill starting scores.

I just had some crazy idea about an RPG system having rules for a character running fast or winning a running race by making those skills easy ones.  The character rolls.  And because the skill is so easy for that character, he/she easily succeeds (wins).

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;548287I just had some crazy idea about an RPG system having rules for a character running fast or winning a running race by making those skills easy ones.  The character rolls.  And because the skill is so easy for that character, he/she easily succeeds (wins).

The difficulty of the skill isn't related to the difficulty of the task here. The only time skill difficulty gets involved is when you want to improve your skill score (training) or in chargen.

Rarely it might get involved if you need to try something out of the blue, like climbing with zero skill - possible, but hard, and even if you succeed you won't gain much. Its flat out disallowed for higher difficulty or intellectual skills, without assistance.

Quote from: jhkim;548245Let's take a typical RPG situation.  Say there's a vault sealed by a high-tech, top-of-the-line security lock.  The PC skill 9 expert safecracker has a 90% chance of opening it, but by bad turn of the dice, he fails.  What do the PCs do?  

In real life, I think the usual answer would be "get a better expert".  In the typical RPG setup, though, they have a fair chance of succeeding by just all the others trying it even though they have only default skill.  (If Skill 9 has 90%, then Skill 1 has 10% - assuming equal talent.)

That is weird how a character with almost no skill could still roll a successful result in opening such a vault.  That would lead me to believe that the character (in real life) has some sort of common sense or logical approach to things.  And if common sense or logical approach were talents (not skills) in an RPG, they could be used for opening the vault instead of rolling against a low vault skill.  A character without those talents would need to have a high vault skill to open the vault.

Maybe there is an RPG out there that has talents in its system?

Quote from: The Traveller;548271The scale isn't 1 to 10 though, at least not how I run it. Tasks are set on a difficulty scale of 1 to 30, with 30 being almost impossible.

So say an average driving check, swerving to avoid a pedestrian, might be a 15. Averge reflexes (5) plus average skill (5) plus an average roll on a d10 (5 or better) will get you there. Someone with 1 skill but 9 reflexes stands the same chance, and vice versa.

A top class driver with super reflexes wouldn't need to roll at all there (10+10), but would only have a one in ten chance of successfully completing an almost impossible task, like doing a wall of death stunt with a medium sized van along the side of a building.

OK, so let's take a simple task - like merging onto a highway without any incident.  What's the difficulty of that?  There are thousands of people who do that every day without incident, so the chance of success should be a lot closer to 100% than 90% - even for people with below average reflexes.  Let's call it difficulty 8.  

Now let's take a native Pacific Islander - a player character from my last night's Call of Cthulhu game - who has never seen a car.  What is his chance of successfully merging onto the highway?  Well, he's got above average reflexes (6), and since the skill scale is 1 to 10, I guess he has a 1 skill.  So he's got an 80% chance to drive a car and merge onto the highway successfully.  

I think that is significantly over-estimating his chances.  

Conversely, let's imagine something that is difficulty 22.  This is something that is just a little bit tricky for the best driver in the world.  At reflexes 10 and skill 10, he'll fail at this 1 out of 10 tries.  What is this like?  Well, let's keep in mind what kind of stunts trick drivers can do for a daily show - like jump a car 30 feet in reverse.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5GS7A_frYI&feature=relmfu

Difficulty 22 is something definitely tougher than that.  

Now, let's take someone with no special driving skill but above-average reflexes: reflexes 7 and driving skill 5.  He can succeed at that stunt 10% of the time.  That also seems a stretch.

Quote from: jhkim;548294Now let's take a native Pacific Islander - a player character from my last night's Call of Cthulhu game - who has never seen a car.  What is his chance of successfully merging onto the highway?  Well, he's got above average reflexes (6), and since the skill scale is 1 to 10, I guess he has a 1 skill.  So he's got an 80% chance to drive a car and merge onto the highway successfully.  

I think that is significantly over-estimating his chances.  

No, only gross mechanical skills like climbing or swimming may be attempted with skill 0. Its common sense stuff really.

Quote from: jhkim;548294Difficulty 22 is something definitely tougher than that.  

Now, let's take someone with no special driving skill but above-average reflexes: reflexes 7 and driving skill 5.  He can succeed at that stunt 10% of the time.  That also seems a stretch.

Ah you're dragging me into a threadjack about the system I use here - in this case the skill would not be driving, but stunt driving. Its far enough away from any normal driving maneuvers that it deserves its own skill, as would say a particular martial arts move versus say "use blade".

Quote from: The Traveller;548295Ah you're dragging me into a threadjack about the system I use here - in this case the skill would not be driving, but stunt driving.

Like walking and tightrope walking.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;548296Like walking and tightrope walking.

Exactly.

Quote from: The Traveller;548295No, only gross mechanical skills like climbing or swimming may be attempted with skill 0. Its common sense stuff really.

This is exactly what I was talking about with the exceptions.  The GM steps in and says things like "No, you can't roll for that" or "You succeed automatically" in order to override the basic system results.  

My claim is this:  The islander Koko should be able to go from being able to do absolute nothing with a car, to having a small chance of doing a simple task, to have a small chance of being able to merge onto a highway, to having an 80% chance to merge onto the highway.  

The simplest way to represent this would be through him having a very low skill, and then that skill rising.  Within your system, he will jump from being unable to do anything at all with a car to having an 80% chance to merge onto the highway, with nothing in between.  You could simulate something by the GM overriding the system ("Well, you've had one driving lesson now, so you're still technically skill zero, but I'll give you a chance to move the car across the parking lot.")  

Quote from: The Traveller;548295Ah you're dragging me into a threadjack about the system I use here - in this case the skill would not be driving, but stunt driving. Its far enough away from any normal driving maneuvers that it deserves its own skill, as would say a particular martial arts move versus say "use blade".

Let me quote to you the example that you yourself used for a driving task: A top class driver ... would only have a one in ten chance of successfully completing an almost impossible task, like doing a wall of death stunt with a medium sized van along the side of a building.

In any case, the particular example doesn't really matter.  Give me an example of a difficulty 22 driving test.  Whatever it is, it's going to give non-sensible results.

Quote from: jhkim;548309This is exactly what I was talking about with the exceptions.  The GM steps in and says things like "No, you can't roll for that" or "You succeed automatically" in order to override the basic system results.  

My claim is this:  The islander Koko should be able to go from being able to do absolute nothing with a car, to having a small chance of doing a simple task, to have a small chance of being able to merge onto a highway, to having an 80% chance to merge onto the highway.  

The simplest way to represent this would be through him having a very low skill, and then that skill rising.  Within your system, he will jump from being unable to do anything at all with a car to having an 80% chance to merge onto the highway, with nothing in between.  You could simulate something by the GM overriding the system ("Well, you've had one driving lesson now, so you're still technically skill zero, but I'll give you a chance to move the car across the parking lot.")  

Sorry, miscommunication there. Without copying over the full corpus of the rules I can't enunciate every nook and cranny in advance, and this aint the thread for it. If you have the skill, it runs the gamut from 1 to 10. If you don't, its zero.

Quote from: jhkim;548309Let me quote to you the example that you yourself used for a driving task: A top class driver ... would only have a one in ten chance of successfully completing an almost impossible task, like doing a wall of death stunt with a medium sized van along the side of a building.

In any case, the particular example doesn't really matter.  Give me an example of a difficulty 22 driving test.  Whatever it is, it's going to give non-sensible results.

An exampli gratia to illustrate the point. Had I known we were going to cross swords over it I would have used a different example. There are also things like skill specialisation, vehicle customisation, and luck scores to take into account. If someone has focused a large portion of their lives on succeeding at one particular stunt, they are going to be good at it. Doesn't mean they will be any good at any other stunt, which is where specialisation comes in.

Quote from: jhkim;548294Well, let's keep in mind what kind of stunts trick drivers can do for a daily show - like jump a car 30 feet in reverse.

From your own link:

Quotethis show tells you that when he goes in the background(earlier in the show) they switch cars, both go forwards but one has the frame on backwards so when he appears to be driving in reverse he is just looking forward out the back window.

I am a big fan of Steffan O'Sullivan's "your skill is your skill" approach, because trying to fold in attributes results in wonky results like GURPS IQ-as-god-stat where one point in a skill jumps our prospective Vanuatuan to a par with Bo and Luke Duke.

As for all the driving metaphors, there's very little point in arguing about how likely a success or failure is until you've defined what those terms mean.  Is a failure to successfully merge onto a highway overshooting into the middle lane and having to swerve back, or is it a twenty-car pileup?  Since you're talking about a binary pass/fail check, defining your two possible results matters.

Quote from: daniel_ream;548319From your own link:

Bam, plus five vehicle customisation.

Quote from: The Traveller;548313Sorry, miscommunication there. Without copying over the full corpus of the rules I can't enunciate every nook and cranny in advance, and this aint the thread for it. If you have the skill, it runs the gamut from 1 to 10. If you don't, its zero.

My point is that you are lumping a wide range of actual skills under the label of "skill zero". At his original skill zero, the pacific islander native Koko has never seen a car before.  He should have no chance of even backing it into an alley to keep it out of sight.  There should be different level of "skill zero" where he has some chance of simple car tasks, but still has much less than an 80% chance of merging onto a highway on his own.  

Quote from: daniel_ream;548319As for all the driving metaphors, there's very little point in arguing about how likely a success or failure is until you've defined what those terms mean.  Is a failure to successfully merge onto a highway overshooting into the middle lane and having to swerve back, or is it a twenty-car pileup?  Since you're talking about a binary pass/fail check, defining your two possible results matters.

I did define success as being "without incident" - by which I meant without causing any sort of accident or report-able traffic violation.  I would presume that failure would mean any of a range of possible incidents.  Let me go over my point again.  Let's consider several characters:

1) A native Pacific Islander who has never seen a car
2) Someone who has never driven, but grew up around cars and has seen how they work
3) Someone who has driven every day for years, but is not notably skillful
4) Someone who is a top professional stunt driver

I'm claiming that there are things that are easy (over 75%) for #2 that will be hard for #1 (under 25%).  Likewise, there are things that are easy for #3 that are hard for #2.  Similarly, there are things that are easy for #4 that are hard for #3.  

Quote from: The Traveller;548313An exampli gratia to illustrate the point. Had I known we were going to cross swords over it I would have used a different example. There are also things like skill specialisation, vehicle customisation, and luck scores to take into account. If someone has focused a large portion of their lives on succeeding at one particular stunt, they are going to be good at it. Doesn't mean they will be any good at any other stunt, which is where specialisation comes in.

That's fine by me.  I hope you'll also do me the courtesy of not harping on my backwards jump example.  I'm still asking my question - define for me a regular Difficulty 22 driving task.

Quote from: LordVreeg;548069So any skill system worth a shit that wants to tackle this has to address this.  Nesting skills (with basic versions being needed for subskills) solves this problem nicely.

Quote from: The Traveller;548072True, but nobody is saying a massive skill level difference won't carry the day almost without exception, most rules cover that. So the highly skilled are already covered (maybe not in D&D?), but in most real life situations outside of pro sports and science experiments, randomness comes into play a lot more.

The 'nested subskill' approach is basically what you were using already in the Driving/Stunt Driving example earlier. I do like skill nesting myself rather than stratospheric skill bonuses and DCs (I'd rather someone who want to be a rocket scientist takes Aerospace Engineering as a skill a la Palladium, rather than d20 systems's approach where you need Build Mechanical Device +37 and can then also fix anything).

Quote from: jibbajibba;548079Likewise I have always been a bit crap at racquet sports. When i was a kid I could play a game of tennis against a couple of my mates who played tennis a little. They woudl always win, not occassionally always. They weren't semi-pro tennis players they were 15 year old kids with a bit of natural talent and some practice.
There are lots of sports where someone a little better will always win. Pool, tennis, squash, boxing the list is extensive.

Skills are similar. I work with a lot of coders a good coder will alwys produce better code than a crap coder. I used to make my own furniture. Learnt it from a book, was alright but then I worked with a mate who was a trained cabinetmaker and the gulf was huge. He wasn't Chipendale but he had 2 years experience and 3 years of training.

I would say in real life different skills and challenges work out different but its closer to 20% talent 70% skill and 10% luck than 1:1:1

Just to comment - again tying it back to the other thread which I think discussed this - how a system uses skill checks is also important. A slight shift in skill can make a substantial difference across multiple checks. If 'critical failure' on a Drive roll allows a second Drive check to negate a pileup, it will happen much less frequently. A racketball contest played out shot-by-shot would means the higher skill % character is much more likely to win. Usually skill contests don't get run in this much detail (unless you happen to like 4th Edition...) but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Edit: cross-posted with BSJ

Actually, a follow-up as I think about it.  

I think the implied tiered skill system effectively gives a wider range of skill.  

i.e. Suppose that there's a basic "Understand Technology" skill, and a certain level of that is required for the "Drive" skill, and a certain level of the "Drive" skill is necessary for the "Stunt Driving" skill.  

By tiering skills on top of each other, you're creating a wider range of skill capability than just a single range of 0 to 10.  

I think such tiering could satisfy what I would want out of balance between skill and randomness.

Quote from: jhkim;548324He should have no chance of even backing it into an alley to keep it out of sight.

That's correct, and is the standing rule.

Quote from: jhkim;548324That's fine by me.  I hope you'll also do me the courtesy of not harping on my backwards jump example.

Meh, after rpgnet man, this place is a warm day on a sunny beach.

Quote from: jhkim;548324I'm still asking my question - define for me a regular Difficulty 22 driving task.

Hard overtake on a deep bend maybe? If uncontested.

Quote from: jhkim;548329Edit: cross-posted with BSJ

Actually, a follow-up as I think about it.  

I think the implied tiered skill system effectively gives a wider range of skill.  

i.e. Suppose that there's a basic "Understand Technology" skill, and a certain level of that is required for the "Drive" skill, and a certain level of the "Drive" skill is necessary for the "Stunt Driving" skill.  

By tiering skills on top of each other, you're creating a wider range of skill capability than just a single range of 0 to 10.  

I think such tiering could satisfy what I would want out of balance between skill and randomness.

yes, this is what I was saying in mine one incomprehensible way earlier, to you and Mr. Johnson's credit.

Quote from: LordVreeg;548069and there are some very very simple solutions here.  Some, more basic skills, have  a large component of native talent that incorporates into success.  More advanced skills (such as said quantum physics problem) require much more grounding in the discipline; with experience and knowledge being much more critical ingredients into success.

So any skill system worth a shit that wants to tackle this has to address this.  Nesting skills (with basic versions being needed for subskills) solves this problem nicely.

A solution I've been looking at is having the thing that are handled by a large component of native talent being handled by attribute rolls and those things that require knowledge being handled by skills, and handling things such that tasks that can be performed with natural ability require an attribute roll but someone will levels in a real skill appropriate for the task either doesn't need to roll or only needs to make a DFU roll (only the very worst result creates a failure or failure possibility) and if it's a task that requires levels, a person without the skill rolls as unskilled while a skilled person uses their skills.  That way, everyone has a chance to climb trees, for example, but not everyone can climb cliffs.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;548328The 'nested subskill' approach is basically what you were using already in the Driving/Stunt Driving example earlier. I do like skill nesting myself rather than stratospheric skill bonuses and DCs (I'd rather someone who want to be a rocket scientist takes Aerospace Engineering as a skill a la Palladium, rather than d20 systems's approach where you need Build Mechanical Device +37 and can then also fix anything).

Nested subskills are awesome but take a lot of time and effort to put together, if one has the time to invest in the milieu I'd say go for it! They don't affect ongoing gameplay in any material fashion, just add a nice spin of flavour and maybe some strategy. If chargen has a lifepath system, they also tie nicely into that, a bit like WHFRP. I would imagine they lead to long lists of skills as well, which doesn't suit everyone.

The system I use can't really be gamed by adding +50 bonuses somehow and then use driving skills to perform brain surgery, again its a common sense thing like any system. Similarly no matter how high you roll to hit with "use blade" you can't mimic the effects of the "inverted crocodile" martial arts skill.

Quote from: The Traveller;548431Nested subskills are awesome but take a lot of time and effort to put together, if one has the time to invest in the milieu I'd say go for it! They don't affect ongoing gameplay in any material fashion, just add a nice spin of flavour and maybe some strategy. If chargen has a lifepath system, they also tie nicely into that, a bit like WHFRP. I would imagine they lead to long lists of skills as well, which doesn't suit everyone.

The system I use can't really be gamed by adding +50 bonuses somehow and then use driving skills to perform brain surgery, again its a common sense thing like any system. Similarly no matter how high you roll to hit with "use blade" you can't mimic the effects of the "inverted crocodile" martial arts skill.

well, that is the truth.  And I am kind of insane that way (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956117/Skill%20Master%20spreadsheet).
I've invested decades, so it's worth it.
And ther rest of your assumptions are pretty right on, to a a degree.  I think we are clsoer than I thought on this.
I just have found a few things that work well for simulated this in terms of long-term character growth.  Most of my campaigns really go on and on, so having unique and varied character growth as the normal expected play style requires certain investirure on the other side.

Quote from: LordVreeg;548442well, that is the truth.  And I am kind of insane that way (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956117/Skill%20Master%20spreadsheet).

Nice. Did you ever do up an at-a-glance chart of the skill trees? I'd be interested to see something like that. That's the kind of detail that really needs to go into every game world, but so few have the time and/or skill to pull it off. I've a half dozen campaign milieus on the workbench at the moment, and I doubt I'll get a single nested skill group in there. :D

Quote from: The Traveller;548431The system I use can't really be gamed by adding +50 bonuses somehow and then use driving skills to perform brain surgery, again its a common sense thing like any system. Similarly no matter how high you roll to hit with "use blade" you can't mimic the effects of the "inverted crocodile" martial arts skill.

Hope I haven't killed the conversation by interrupting too much, I've found it interesting to talk through. I think alot of it does come down to different preferences about level of randomness, but its interesting to see the logic behind the different preferences.
I think what you're calling 'common sense' is what jhkim called 'a hodgepodge of fixes to make the skill range larger' (multiple rolls, taking 10, minimum skills to make checks). :)
 
Another thing I found interesting was when you said earlier.  

Quote from: The Traveller;548122I think half random is too much, ten percent random is too little, so a nice median fits well.

I'm not sure that [d10 + skill [1-10] + [stat 1-10] is one-third random, though. I'd say its more random than that. Everyone has a stat and an average is probably 5-6; on opposed rolls for instance, this will cancels out; on a normal skill check also, basically half the potential bonus is going to be there. So in this system, the difference between two characters is mostly going to due to the skill and random roll.
(Probably not explaining that very well, sorry.)

Quote from: The Traveller;548454Nice. Did you ever do up an at-a-glance chart of the skill trees? I'd be interested to see something like that. That's the kind of detail that really needs to go into every game world, but so few have the time and/or skill to pull it off. I've a half dozen campaign milieus on the workbench at the moment, and I doubt I'll get a single nested skill group in there. :D

Well, it was a consious decision a few decades ago(ok, almost 3 decades) to concentrate on one setting and a system built specifically to support it and the gamestyle I wanted.

I will be drawing out the nestings again soon, I had rto change a few and add a few more.  

And sometimes a dozen good ideas should not be ignored.

(Re: a Difficulty 22 driving task)

Quote from: The Traveller;548331Hard overtake on a deep bend maybe? If uncontested.

This depends on exact how hard the overtake is and how deep the bend.  But I suppose you have a picture of it.  So the best driver in the world can't quite do it reliably - failing 1 out of 10 tries.  That seems like it's going to be a really tough.  Then picture that someone who is simply above average (reflexes 6, driving skill 6) has a 10% chance of success.  

For most skills, I find this really hard to picture.  The top expert in the world can't do something reliably, and then someone just above average has a good shot at it?  

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;548461I think what you're calling 'common sense' is what jhkim called 'a hodgepodge of fixes to make the skill range larger' (multiple rolls, taking 10, minimum skills to make checks). :)

To clarify a bit about the "hodge-podge" of fixes.  The issues I have are:

1) Skill Zero and required minimum skill

Here you're effectively lumping a wide range of abilities under a single number.  For example, someone with skill 0 has 0% chance whatsoever at a task, but when they get to skill 1 they have an 80% chance.  In reality, there should be a range between 0% and 80%.  This works if you don't care about distinguishing among low skill levels.  However, I think would be more straightforward to have those extra skill levels.  

A similar issue appears in minimum skill level for a task.  The result is that someone with below the minimum has zero chance, but when they get the minimum they jump up to a higher chance.  

2) Take-10 and "No roll"

Take-10 is the D&D3.X / D20 system rule.  By "no roll", I mean the tendency of GMs to allow someone to do some things automatically at higher skill, even though they would require a roll for someone of lower skill.  For example, in Call of Cthulhu, a high-school grad has English skill at 60%.  The GM makes the foreigner with 10% English skill roll (with no bonus or penalty) for a simple conversation - but allows the native speaker to do that automatically.  

Effectively this is the inverse - with a step higher skill, the chance goes up to 100%.  This is explicit with Take-10.  If you need to roll an 11 for a task under stable conditions, you have a 50% chance of success.  If you need to roll a 10, you have a 100% chance of success.  

I think it's more straightforward to represent the 100% chance of success by sufficient skill that they don't have to roll - instead of making a special case of it.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;548461I think what you're calling 'common sense' is what jhkim called 'a hodgepodge of fixes to make the skill range larger' (multiple rolls, taking 10, minimum skills to make checks). :)

The exploding dice is meant to represent the occasional strange random stuff that happens in the real world, common sense is meant to refer to the idea that you can't use a sufficiently high driving check to perform brain surgery with a Honda Civic. An upscale Lexus, maybe.
 

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;548461I'm not sure that [d10 + skill [1-10] + [stat 1-10] is one-third random, though. I'd say its more random than that. Everyone has a stat and an average is probably 5-6; on opposed rolls for instance, this will cancels out;

In contested rolls between people of equal ability, its 50-50 who will come out on top. Is that unrealistic?

Quote from: jhkim;548533For most skills, I find this really hard to picture.  The top expert in the world can't do something reliably, and then someone just above average has a good shot at it?  

Nine times out of ten doesn't seem unreliable, while one in ten is a fair distance from "a good shot".

Quote from: jhkim;5485331) Skill Zero and required minimum skill

Here you're effectively lumping a wide range of abilities under a single number.  For example, someone with skill 0 has 0% chance whatsoever at a task, but when they get to skill 1 they have an 80% chance.  In reality, there should be a range between 0% and 80%.  

Again you're misrepresenting the chances.

This applies to skills where some sort of knowledge is required, like driving, completing a very simple task. An unlettered hill tribesman who just made it into town on his first camel is going to sit in a car and look at the bewildering array of controls and scratch his head. He's not even going to know where the ignition is, or even that the car has an ignition. Zero percent chance.

Someone who knows the bare basics of driving, maybe had a lesson or two, stands a decent chance of success on this very simple task. If the task were more difficult, the barely skilled person's odds drop significantly. In this system by the way, a 10 difficulty would be "easy". You are perceiving a gap in the system where none exists.

Quote from: jhkim;548533A similar issue appears in minimum skill level for a task.  The result is that someone with below the minimum has zero chance, but when they get the minimum they jump up to a higher chance.

That doesn't even make any sense.

Quote from: jhkim;548533I think it's more straightforward to represent the 100% chance of success by sufficient skill that they don't have to roll - instead of making a special case of it.

That is the case already? Plus in the system I use rolling a ten brings with it a chance of an increase in the actual skill score, so you don't want people rolling for things they can do automatically. A fair bit of thinking went into that which I'll explain if you like.

Quote from: The Traveller;548554Again you're misrepresenting the chances.

This applies to skills where some sort of knowledge is required, like driving, completing a very simple task. An unlettered hill tribesman who just made it into town on his first camel is going to sit in a car and look at the bewildering array of controls and scratch his head. He's not even going to know where the ignition is, or even that the car has an ignition. Zero percent chance.

Someone who knows the bare basics of driving, maybe had a lesson or two, stands a decent chance of success on this very simple task. If the task were more difficult, the barely skilled person's odds drop significantly. In this system by the way, a 10 difficulty would be "easy". You are perceiving a gap in the system where none exists.

I had put some numbers down before, but here you're hand-waving without specifying the system numbers.  I'm going to suggest as examples three actual current player characters in my Call of Cthulhu campaigns.  I'd suggest some basic tasks: turn the car on; back the car up from the street into an alley; and drive the car merging onto a busy highway.  

1) Koko is a native of Easter Island who has never seen a car before.  He has good reflexes (7 out of 10).  As you say, he should have no chance to turn the car on, let alone back it up.  

2) Lila is a lower-middle-class woman from Chicago, who has frequently been in and around cars, and knows the principles, but never owned or driven one herself.  She has above-average reflexes (6 out of 10).  It should be trivial for her to turn the car on (100% or close), tricky for her to back it up (roughly 50%), and really tough for her to merge onto the highway (no more than 10%).  

3) Rico is a gangster who is used to driving and has frequently owned a car, but was never a specialized wheel-man.  He has below-average reflexes (4 out of 10).  He should have 100% chance for all the tasks.  

I'm leaving it to you to set what the skill levels and difficulties are, but the results should be roughly what I state.  I will claim that it can't be handled in the system scale you describe.  (Though of course the GM could assign the chances above based on judgment overriding skill and difficulty numbers.)

Quote from: jhkim;548586I will claim that it can't be handled in the system scale you describe.

Really?

1) No chance.

2) No chance. People ride in taxis all the time before they learn how to drive (where I come from there are quite a few people who don't know how to drive into their 30s due to public transport). Turning the key and starting the car, sure. Knowing it should be in neutral when you do that, nope. Pushing the clutch to change gears, knowing when to release the clutch after accelerating so the car doesn't stall out, zero chance. Even knowing which pedal is which is not something she would know.

If she had made a particular point of learning these minutae she would not have skill 0.

3) Rico has no problems, his skill would be 5 or 6. Normal driving is easy, that's why so many people manage it without crashing daily. At a base skill of 5 with reflexes 4, he gets to do most tasks 100% of the time, no roll required.

Quote from: jhkim;548586the results should be roughly what I state

No, they shouldn't.

The system does make allowances for situations say where 1) or 2) are left alone with a car for a week and told to figure it out, that's a possible way to go from skill 0 to skill 1, but that isn't going to work for many skills. Left alone with a software decompiler, the same people are not going to be able to self train to hack a program. They need a book or prefereably a mentor actively teaching them.

Quote from: The Traveller;548590Really?

1) No chance.

2) No chance. People ride in taxis all the time before they learn how to drive (where I come from there are quite a few people who don't know how to drive into their 30s due to public transport). Turning the key and starting the car, sure. Knowing it should be in neutral when you do that, nope. Pushing the clutch to change gears, knowing when to release the clutch after accelerating so the car doesn't stall out, zero chance. Even knowing which pedal is which is not something she would know.

If she had made a particular point of learning these minutae she would not have skill 0.

3) Rico has no problems, his skill would be 5 or 6. Normal driving is easy, that's why so many people manage it without crashing daily. At a base skill of 5 with reflexes 4, he gets to do most tasks 100% of the time, no roll required.

I didn't specify that Lila had skill zero.  To clarify some more:  She is smart as a whip and has an interest in cars and driving, but has never had a chance to drive herself.  (As a lower-middle class colored woman in the 1920s Midwest, it was well outside the norm.)  She will indeed have asked many questions like what the pedals do, the gears, and even how the engine works.  I might picture her sitting beside her gangster boyfriend in Chicago criticizing his driving, for example.  

Given this, you imply that she should be skill 1.  That gives her a base of 7 + 1d10 for driving tasks.  

Rico is reflexes 4 and skill 5 for a base of 9+1d10 and you agree that he has a 100% (or more) in all the driving tasks mentioned.  

That would mean that Lila has a minimum of 80% in all the driving tasks.  

The point is that the system allows no middle ground.  If she were skill zero, Lila could do absolutely nothing with a car.  If she were skill 1, she has at least an 80% chance to merge onto a highway without incident.

Quote from: jhkim;548604The point is that the system allows no middle ground.  If she were skill zero, Lila could do absolutely nothing with a car.  If she were skill 1, she has at least an 80% chance to merge onto a highway without incident.

I'm sorry what is so hard to understand here? Day to day driving isn't hard. Once you can make it go forwards, backwards and stop, that's all there is to it. On the other hand if you don't understand the mechanics of it and the specifics of each control, you aren't going to be able to hop into one and make it work.

Every single point you've raised, including some extremely dubious ones where one in ten is a "good chance" and nine out of ten is "unreliable", has been dealt with. A d10+skill+stat system is nothing unique, CP2020 used it among others, its well proven and tested. These are the systems you're arguing with on increasingly boggy ground.

Quote from: The Traveller;548609Every single point you've raised, including some extremely dubious ones where one in ten is a "good chance" and nine out of ten is "unreliable", has been dealt with. A d10+skill+stat system is nothing unique, CP2020 used it among others, its well proven and tested. These are the systems you're arguing with on increasingly boggy ground.

I'm not attacking your system in particular; nor am I claiming that it is unplayable.  This is a very common issue through a great many RPGs, not just the d10+skill+stat ones.  I think I've emphasized that these are playable given that a GM regularly steps in to override the strict system results.  

However, just because lots of RPGs do it and it is playable, doesn't mean that it's the best solution.  What I see regularly is:
1) GMs special judgment calls about whether someone can even attempt a roll with low skill.
2) GMs making special judgment calls about whether someone with high skill needs to roll.
3) GMs imposing special restrictions about how many people can attempt a task.  

I think that these could be simplified by stretching out the skill scale.  

For example, I love Call of Cthulhu.  I think it's a good system in general.  However, it definitely has this issue.  For example: an American high school grad has 60% in Speak English.  Let's say my foreigner has a 2% in Speak English.  The question is, what kind of roll is needed to have an ordinary conversation?  You need to give it more than a +40% mod for it to be automatic to the high school grad, but that means that the guy with 2% skill has at least a 42%.  That seems wonky.  

I think a lot of play would go more smoothly, and require less GM overriding results, if the skill scale were increased.  

Quote from: The Traveller;548609I'm sorry what is so hard to understand here? Day to day driving isn't hard. Once you can make it go forwards, backwards and stop, that's all there is to it. On the other hand if you don't understand the mechanics of it and the specifics of each control, you aren't going to be able to hop into one and make it work.

This is a bullshit straw-man.  I never claimed that driving was hard to learn.  Regardless of whether it is easy to learn or hard to learn, though, there exist different levels of driving skill.  

The default result of the system is that there are two states:  Skill 0 where you are unable to do anything at all with a car (like the islander Koko); and Skill 1 where Lila has an 80% chance to merge out onto the highway.

Quote from: jhkim;548604She will indeed have asked many questions like what the pedals do, the gears, and even how the engine works.  I might picture her sitting beside her gangster boyfriend in Chicago criticizing his driving, for example.

You have a very unusual notion of how people behaved in the 1920s.

Quote from: jhkim;548631I think I've emphasized that these are playable given that a GM regularly steps in to override the strict system results.  

According to every example I've given so far this is not the case, the objections are getting a bit hysterical at this stage.

Quote from: jhkim;548631However, just because lots of RPGs do it and it is playable, doesn't mean that it's the best solution.  What I see regularly is:
1) GMs special judgment calls about whether someone can even attempt a roll with low skill.
2) GMs making special judgment calls about whether someone with high skill needs to roll.
3) GMs imposing special restrictions about how many people can attempt a task.  

No special judgement calls needed in any of the above. Even if there were it wouldn't matter. I've never met a player that wasn't a specialist in finding corner cases.

Quote from: jhkim;548631For example, I love Call of Cthulhu.

Roll under systems suck for all sorts of reasons I won't go into here.

Quote from: jhkim;548631The default result of the system is that there are two states:  Skill 0 where you are unable to do anything at all with a car (like the islander Koko); and Skill 1 where Lila has an 80% chance to merge out onto the highway.

Which to my mind is an accurate representation of reality.

Have you seen some of the driving out there? Lot of people wavering around 1 and 2 skill.

Look, I get where you're coming from now, courtesy of your last post. CoC is your thing, and that's alright. What I've done is take a damn good basic system and stripped out all the guff. Then I spent the last twelve years lifting the best from every other system and more from my own head, examining the components, stripping them out, refining, discarding, turning everything over and over, playtesting with my eternally patient group, until what I was left with was a ballet, a fucking symphony.

We have a CP2020-alike core system. We have combat where you only roll to hit, not damage, and it is like sex. Not great sex in the grand scheme of things but still. We have cast aside initiative for an exalted-style battle wheel. The large vessel combat system, you can take five minutes and set up an extremely realistic battle between a combined force of dromonds, galleys, and cogs, or a full blown skirmish between starfleet battle groups, complete with fighters. Do a world war 2 Pacific conflict, it works just as well. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. I hope to be able to share the details with everyone before too long.

You have CoC and I respect that.

Quote from: daniel_ream;548637You have a very unusual notion of how people behaved in the 1920s.

What exactly are you saying?  This sounds like it's critical, but I can't tell what the substance of the objection is.

Quote from: The Traveller;548639Look, I get where you're coming from now, courtesy of your last post. CoC is your thing, and that's alright. What I've done is take a damn good basic system and stripped out all the guff. Then I spent the last twelve years lifting the best from every other system and more from my own head, examining the components, stripping them out, refining, discarding, turning everything over and over, playtesting with my eternally patient group, until what I was left with was a ballet, a fucking symphony.

That sounds great.  I don't like roll-under much either, in general.  I'm eager to see what your system is like.  (In case you didn't know - I maintain a big encyclopedia of RPGs on the web, and am always interested in new ones.)  

I still think we're talking past each other on the skill thing, but you're taking this as me attacking your system in particular - and on the contrary, I generally like what I've heard so far.

Quote from: The Traveller;548554In contested rolls between people of equal ability, its 50-50 who will come out on top. Is that unrealistic?

Well, no...?
I'll continue pondering this I think.

QuotePlus in the system I use rolling a ten brings with it a chance of an increase in the actual skill score, so you don't want people rolling for things they can do automatically. A fair bit of thinking went into that which I'll explain if you like.

Would a character with a low stat then be rolling for tasks more frequently, and so getting more skill improvements? Anyway, I can't critique constructively without seeing the whole in action, I guess. You're system sounds interesting - look forward to seeing it sometime then. If you drop something over in the Design & Development subforum sometime I'd definitely have a look.


On jhkim's other post:

Quote from: jhkim;5485331) Skill Zero and required minimum skill

Here you're effectively lumping a wide range of abilities under a single number. For example, someone with skill 0 has 0% chance whatsoever at a task, but when they get to skill 1 they have an 80% chance. In reality, there should be a range between 0% and 80%. This works if you don't care about distinguishing among low skill levels. However, I think would be more straightforward to have those extra skill levels.

A similar issue appears in minimum skill level for a task. The result is that someone with below the minimum has zero chance, but when they get the minimum they jump up to a higher chance.

Another fix you see in some systems is benefits/hindrances that apply further modifiers.
If you were playing Savage Worlds for instance (I doubt you would like the system given the increasing-variance-with-skill level problem as mentioned at Darkshire but anyway...) then Lila would have untrained Drive [d4-2], Rico would have perhaps a d6, and Koko would like Lila be untrained [d4-2], but might have a disadvantage - for instance All Thumbs, which would give him a 25% chance (1 on the skill die, irrespective of wild die) of breaking the car when he used it. Conversely, a driving expert might have not just a high skill rating but an Edge e.g. Ace, which would give them a further +2 to their check.
SW also semi-codifies the GM fudge factor with Common Knowledge rolls, where a character can handle some routine things by making an Int check, adjusted with circumstance penalties as the GM deems applicable, and has 'interests' which can add a bonus to common knowledge rolls.

Quote2) Take-10 and "No roll"

Take-10 is the D&D3.X / D20 system rule. By "no roll", I mean the tendency of GMs to allow someone to do some things automatically at higher skill, even though they would require a roll for someone of lower skill. For example, in Call of Cthulhu, a high-school grad has English skill at 60%. The GM makes the foreigner with 10% English skill roll (with no bonus or penalty) for a simple conversation - but allows the native speaker to do that automatically.

Effectively this is the inverse - with a step higher skill, the chance goes up to 100%. This is explicit with Take-10. If you need to roll an 11 for a task under stable conditions, you have a 50% chance of success. If you need to roll a 10, you have a 100% chance of success.

I think it's more straightforward to represent the 100% chance of success by sufficient skill that they don't have to roll - instead of making a special case of it.

I have similar objections to taking 10 (as seen in the other thread) - agree with you here.
GDW's house systems often handled difficulty by doubling/halving the skill score for easy or difficult, which at least handles  the English conversation problem but is still very unsatisfying in other respects i.e. only three levels of difficulty.
Other than than either modifying the dice rolled or having as you say a wider range of skill values would perhaps be the way to go. Anyway, thanks, I've found this interesting since I hadn't considered that side of the d100/roll under thing before.

As a bit of background:  The game that really showed me about reduced randomness was Greg Porter's CORPS, although Wujcik's Amber Diceless is also worth mentioning.  

Another eye-opener was seeing just how outrageous the consequences of high-randomness systems are - esp. systems with open-ended rolls like Rolemaster, Torg, Ars Magica, etc.  I remember someone once figured that in Torg, if you got a few hundred people jumping up and down for a while, one of them was bound to literally jump to the Moon.  By comparison to that, the scale of Interlock/Cyberpunk is quite moderate.  

The thing is, I've played games with open-ended systems.  They're not unplayable at all, despite the wacky logical consequences of the rules.  With a GM applying common sense on top of the rules, those logical consequences don't break play.

Quote from: jhkim1) Skill Zero and required minimum skill

Here you're effectively lumping a wide range of abilities under a single number. For example, someone with skill 0 has 0% chance whatsoever at a task, but when they get to skill 1 they have an 80% chance. In reality, there should be a range between 0% and 80%. This works if you don't care about distinguishing among low skill levels. However, I think would be more straightforward to have those extra skill levels.

A similar issue appears in minimum skill level for a task. The result is that someone with below the minimum has zero chance, but when they get the minimum they jump up to a higher chance.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;548668Another fix you see in some systems is benefits/hindrances that apply further modifiers.
If you were playing Savage Worlds for instance (I doubt you would like the system given the increasing-variance-with-skill level problem as mentioned at Darkshire but anyway...) then Lila would have untrained Drive [d4-2], Rico would have perhaps a d6, and Koko would like Lila be untrained [d4-2], but might have a disadvantage - for instance All Thumbs, which would give him a 25% chance (1 on the skill die, irrespective of wild die) of breaking the car when he used it. Conversely, a driving expert might have not just a high skill rating but an Edge e.g. Ace, which would give them a further +2 to their check.

On the one hand, there is something more flavorful about being an "Ace" rather than just having a higher skill rating.  On the other hand, it still seems to me like it's a fudge.  If the point is for you to be better at driving, I think having a higher Driving skill is the simplest and most intuitive approach.  

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;548668I have similar objections to taking 10 (as seen in the other thread) - agree with you here.

GDW's house systems often handled difficulty by doubling/halving the skill score for easy or difficult, which at least handles  the English conversation problem but is still very unsatisfying in other respects i.e. only three levels of difficulty.

Other than than either modifying the dice rolled or having as you say a wider range of skill values would perhaps be the way to go. Anyway, thanks, I've found this interesting since I hadn't considered that side of the d100/roll under thing before.

Doubling/halving in a linear system is tricky.  Doubling is effectively broadening the skill scale, which handles the English conversation problem as you note.  However, halving is effectively narrowing it.  Under halving, you can't have a task that is automatic for an expert, but difficult for moderate skill.  

For example, there are a lot of questions that would be easy for a top professor in English to answer that would be nigh-impossible for me - even though I'm an educated English speaker.  Likewise, I can do many math problems with no chance of error that are guaranteed to stump people who got all A's in their high school math.

Not familiar with CORPS, regrettably. For TORG, from what I know of it, the problem sounds like the a combination of open-ended rolling and its logarithmic system for handling real-world measurements.
 
On adventages - As you say, I suppose advantages like 'Ace' are something of a kludge because they could just be represented with higher skill.
 
(Just as an aside, in SWs case I think they work in the context of the system, since they fix the basic math  - a +2 bonus meaning that a skill check against a routine TN 4 will fail only on a critical failure - and allow characters to bypass the normal soft cap on skill increases - where raising a skill becomes double cost after the rating exceeds the character's attribute. I can't say that they're the bestest way to handle the problem, though).
 
I do believe Disadvantages are a good way to handle extreme cases of skill inability, though, if only because having 0% represent hilarious levels of incompetence makes this a trap for people unfamiliar with the system, who didn't know that they needed to put X points into it just to reflect an unremarkable level of ability.
(as an example, I have fond memories here of a mortal Storyteller game years ago where another PC, a doctor, bought an expensive luxury car, then realized it was a manual and he couldn't drive it with only 1 dot in Drive).

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;548999I do believe Disadvantages are a good way to handle extreme cases of skill inability, though, if only because having 0% represent hilarious levels of incompetence makes this a trap for people unfamiliar with the system, who didn't know that they needed to put X points into it just to reflect an unremarkable level of ability.

(as an example, I have fond memories here of a mortal Storyteller game years ago where another PC, a doctor, bought an expensive luxury car, then realized it was a manual and he couldn't drive it with only 1 dot in Drive).

I agree that there is a common problem about forgotten or skipped skills - and that defaults are one step to handling the problem, though it takes a lot more to handle that.  

I like best when defaults are explicitly a part of your background.  So driving is a skill that should be normal for a 21st century American.  It isn't nearly as standard for a 1920s American, or a 21st century Egyptian.  The HERO System made this explicit through "Everyman Skills" - where the campaign setting defines a number of standard baseline skills.  Call of Cthulhu has default numbers also - though they are only different for the era, not for background.  

I think that's a better approach than the approach taken by some games that skill zero is whatever the "normal person" has - because the normal person varies a lot with time and place.  

Skipped skills is a big problem, though.  I agree that tiered skills like Driving to Stunt Driving can handle the range of real-world ability.  However, when skills are subdivided finely (i.e. aerospace engineering vs. structural engineering), then it can be really hard to cover the full range of a person's skill - and hugely unwieldy to handle exceptional heroes like Indiana Jones.  

Covering expected skills becomes even harder in a point system where players have to choose between putting points into cooking vs. points into sword skill.  I used to deal with this by giving out a number of points explicitly for non-adventuring skills.  More recently I find it's been less of an issue, especially with broader skills.

Good points.

I found a GURPS character sheet for Indiana Jones...

http://web.archive.org/web/20020203184536/http://members.fortunecity.com/azurian/dr_jones_hero.html

...that's alot of numbers. Occasionally you see systems with variable skill widths (e.g. having expensive wide skills plus 'skill specializations', or LegendQuest lets a character pick up either a 'genre skill' that encompasses most melee weapons, or a specific sword skill) that might better handle omnicompetent characters like that, I suppose, but it could be a problem.

I hadn't thought of Everyman skills, but yes those are good - then characters might have the option to take an alternate package or 'sell down' a skill rather than needing a disadvantage, which is pretty neat. I would still trust PCs to find character concepts that need modelling with some sort of skill below the regular zero rating, though.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;549018Good points.

I found a GURPS character sheet for Indiana Jones...

http://web.archive.org/web/20020203184536/http://members.fortunecity.com/azurian/dr_jones_hero.html

...that's alot of numbers.

The character was created in HERO and then translated to GURPS.  327 points is a bit over the top though for a guy with a whip and a gun.