Are some skills more trouble than they're worth? In terms of mechanical integration, that is.

I know Perception gives people fits.

Crafting skills have to toe an very fine line between being effectively worthless or campaign-bustingly broken.*

Luck, as a skill, is tricky to implement in a way that isn't metagamey/immersion-breaking.

What skills give you the most trouble and what do you do about it?




*Plus, I want doers, not makers. I'm not too fond of crafting. Maybe in Harn or something.

This is such a wide-open question, it all depends on how the game implements things.

For me, it's skills that work one way on an ally, and another on hostiles, that are really a problem.

I'm surprise Persuasion isn't on your list. That (or Bluff) can get totally out of control, very quickly.

Of your list, I'd go with Crafting as the hardest one to get right. I don't think I've ever seen a game do it right, truth be told. The closest would be Asheron's Call's Alchemy, and then only when it came to making one particular thing. It wasn't brokenly powerful, it was quite useful and it wasn't as skill that anyone could pick up easily.

Like nearly everything in RPGs in one players hands the exact same skill is overpowered while in anothers its too weak.

I actually rather like the crafting skill in 5e as it allows for some interesting work to be made by a PC or to guage what commissioning work from others will go. So if the fighter wants a +1 sword made for them we know the cost and time frame that will take. Or how much and long it will take a PC to craft their own crossbow.

Perception in 5e I think works pretty well too. Other editions... well YMMV there.

Luck as a skill is one of those iffy things. It can be fairly passive and not intrude. Or it can be a real nuisance. Things like the Halfling and feat based luck seem to be ok overall and not get too out of hand or intrusive.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;931822Are some skills more trouble than they're worth? In terms of mechanical integration, that is.

They can be, depending on the players, what they want, and the related rules and the way the GM applies them.

That is, for any skill, how do the GM and players want that aspect of the game to be handled, and do the rules for that skill match? If they match, great. To the degree that they don't and to the degree people care/notice, there may be issues.

QuoteI know Perception gives people fits.

It depends, as above. As a newbie TFT GM, I had to figure out the effect of high-IQ characters noticing many things, low-IQ characters failing to notice many things, and characters with perception talents being really good at spotting things others usually won't. It meant I needed to assign different difficulties that I thought at first, and that I ought to have a few different levels of discovery, so that different types of characters are likely to notice what they would notice. That is, the main issue I'm aware of is when a system offers a wide range of ability levels, and the GM hasn't processed the math of that and/or hasn't figured out appropriate ways to GM the limits and nature of what being extremely perceptive should and shouldn't provide.

QuoteCrafting skills have to toe an very fine line between being effectively worthless or campaign-bustingly broken.*

Seems like a playstyle thing which just makes sense and is only a problem for players stuck in the crude orientation to games that "it's a thing I can give my character so I want it to be cool and worth the points I spend on it even in a game not about that thing". If it's an adventure game where no one else wants to get a forge and spend months while a PC is busy forging a sword, then of course that's an issue. It's also an issue if the rules/GM make it too cheap/easy to make an effective adventurer who is also a crafter who can crank out better gear than the party can get from other means, unless you weren't interested in the aspects of play where players try to get good gear from other means. It's just a mismatch between player, playstyle, rules and/or GM somewhere. Expectations may be getting set in places by games designed to gratify players' desires at the expense of making sense, such as MMORPGs.

QuoteLuck, as a skill, is tricky to implement in a way that isn't metagamey/immersion-breaking.

Again, it depends on the players. Luck tends to be pretty meta and people can have different ideas about what luck is. For those with an understanding of mathematical material/mechanical luck, a Luck skill or power shouldn't exist unless it's a magic/supernatural power, so the players with Luck skill may look like they just have cheat/fudge powers. So it can annoy/alienate players who feel that way. I tend to ignore/disallow/limit Luck or make it something specific that makes some sort of explicit sense.

QuoteWhat skills give you the most trouble and what do you do about it?

Detect Lies is a classic for me, because it tends to suggest mechanics where players may not have the same ideas about how it should work. There can be several logical traps in having someone roll to detect lies.

Other social skills that offer mechanics for social interactions tend to be problems, because game mechanics that provide concrete results tend to not work the way real people actually work, because people and social situations are often not simple. As a woman once speculated about how the playing the James Bond RPG might go something like, "roll to see if you can resist James' charms. Nope, you can't!"

Also, some players don't have the interest, will or social skills to match their PCs, or even to know the difference, and/or players may try to roleplay and roll dice and not do a good job of figuring out what to do with the two.

I have ways I like to handle social interactions in RPGs, and ways I don't, and the main problem I still run into is with incompatible players, though as with most things that just gets discussed and handled.

Like so many things, for me it tends to come down to choosing rules and designing characters that match the game I want to play, and ignoring or using GM discretion for the rest.

Quote from: Doom;931824I'm surprise Persuasion isn't on your list. That (or Bluff) can get totally out of control, very quickly.

If you treat it like an at-will Charm Person, then, yeah, it's bonkers. The way I handle it is to make it clear that you can never persuade someone to do something that they wouldn't do of their own volition under the right circumstances. So, maybe the local crime boss has been waiting for the right time to run a rival mob out of town. You could persuade him that now is the time (so your allies can retrieve the MacGuffin from the rival's HQ in the resulting chaos, etc.).

Often combat skills seem to be an issue. Who's not going to blow all their points and just raise their weaponry skill to max ? Not if they have sometimes else to do in combat (e.g. magic) but generally there's a sameness between characters because everyone becomes a 'fighter', primarily.

As far as fixing it, sometimes there's a cost multiplier, sometimes there's a skill maximum, sometimes just a big list of specific weapons or other skills (has its own problems, e.g. random magic weapons are junk), sometimes there's a costing curve so at some point you give up and instead of +1 to sword you get +lots to something else.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;931928If you treat it like an at-will Charm Person, then, yeah, it's bonkers. The way I handle it is to make it clear that you can never persuade someone to do something that they wouldn't do of their own volition under the right circumstances. So, maybe the local crime boss has been waiting for the right time to run a rival mob out of town. You could persuade him that now is the time (so your allies can retrieve the MacGuffin from the rival's HQ in the resulting chaos, etc.).

What I found with those Skills in the system that people treated it as an 'At-Will Charm Spell' was they didn't read the language or the intent.  Let's face it, whenever you talk to someone, they have their own goals and agenda, and will want to push it on others if they can.  However, most of the time people (or creatures) will compromise, maybe edge out a thing or two extra for themselves, but they'll concede a bit.

Let's say you're trying to finagle a magic doohicky from the hoard of a dragon.  Now, the particulars aren't really relevant save two:  You want because of X, and the Dragon wants to keep it because he thinks it's his.  Now, assuming it devolves into a skill roll, and you managed to score really well.

Here's the thing:  That could mean many a thing, and the DM should decide what it really does.  First off, the player won, OK, what does that mean?  Does it mean that the Dragon hands it without a fuss?  Maybe, and if it does, it doesn't mean that the next the players negotiate they'll have an advantage.  It could also mean that the Dragon gives the magic item with a stipulation, like wanting it back when the PC's are done.

And then you have to consider the other party, keeping with my example, a Dragon concept of time may be very different.  The Players may keep the item for the rest of their careers (and long after the campaign ends) but for the Dragon, he'll get it back, as the PCs will be long dead before him, so it's not a big thing to let them have it for 20-40 years (or more.)

But it's easier to let it be an 'at-will charm' because a fair amount of DM/GMs don't care enough to put motivations and reasons, and then they whine when players get lucky, and the DM hands over everything, instead of thinking it through.

Reading this thread is making my eyes twitch. Y'all are nailing it.

For me, I think the longer the list, the more problems will pop up in implementing balance of the skills in actual play, and perhaps worse, the more likely the author will have super skills like "Stealth" and highly specific one like "Radio Repair" in the same list.

I am not a D20 fan, but their list and implementation was pretty good.

As a Palladium fan, I...need a drink.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;931960What I found with those Skills in the system that people treated it as an 'At-Will Charm Spell' was they didn't read the language or the intent. . . . But it's easier to let it be an 'at-will charm' because a fair amount of DM/GMs don't care enough to put motivations and reasons, and then they whine when players get lucky, and the DM hands over everything, instead of thinking it through.

As if the US election wasn't sign enough, CB and I strongly agree on something twice in the same week - truly The End Is Extremely Fucking Nigh.

My game of choice, Fudge, doesn't come with a default skill list, so I've spent a lot of time thinking about these sorts of questions.

I split perception into two different types: physical perception and social perception.  That way you can have a character who's good at spotting traps in a dungeon but not so good at noticing when somebody bluffing him.  Or vice versa.

Crafting has never come up in my games, even when the players have been given carte blanche to make their own skill lists.  Make of that what you will.

I wouldn't treat Luck as a skill, I'd treat it as a metagame bonus.  There are plenty of systems that handle it like that; fudge points, drama points, hero points, action points, whatever.  The idea is that players get a set number of meta-narrative points that they can spend to get a bonus on a roll, and they regain those points at set intervals and/or by acting a certain way in-game.

Otherwise, what's the point of having "lucky" as a separate trait?  Rolling dice already represents a measure of luck, so having an additional luck trait would effectively just be a bonus to rolls.  Shifting it to a meta-game economy is just a way to prevent it from being overpowered.

Alternatively, you could treat luck as something outside of the character's control and roll the dice without any skill modifiers.  Dungeon World does this for its "not dying" roll; instead of rolling 2d6 plus the character's stat the character just rolls 2d6.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;931822Are some skills more trouble than they're worth? In terms of mechanical integration, that is.

No, as far as I'm concerned:).
Yes, probably, for other people.
Seriously, did you expect an answer that applies to all game groups out there;)?

Quote from: AsenRG;932058No, as far as I'm concerned:).
Yes, probably, for other people.
Seriously, did you expect an answer that applies to all game groups out there;)?

Not looking for consensus, just discussion.

Sense Motive.
You may as well not even bother roleplaying with this skill around.

It's real annoying when you have players trying to make a Sense Motive check in a system that doesn't have it, like 1st edition AD&D. They just take it for granted.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;931822Are some skills more trouble than they're worth? In terms of mechanical integration, that is.

I know Perception gives people fits.

Crafting skills have to toe an very fine line between being effectively worthless or campaign-bustingly broken.*

Luck, as a skill, is tricky to implement in a way that isn't metagamey/immersion-breaking.

What skills give you the most trouble and what do you do about it?




*Plus, I want doers, not makers. I'm not too fond of crafting. Maybe in Harn or something.

The biggest thing is really learning how to balance out skills like Crafts (coming from an NWOD perspective --- obvs...). PCs are technically enabled to create more-or-less whatever they want through Crafts and Science and to a lesser extent Computer and Survival. A significant minority of the player populations in general across medium-to-heavy systems will absolutely develop crafting skills if the GM empowers them to do so through freedom to create and reward for putting the in-game time and money and effort and then the EXP into making use of such skills.

Even when I GM'd Only War, I had one PC who was an absolute crafting beast and ended up creating twin-linked, sentry lascannons affixed from above the campsite they made in a crashed helicraft because he could. The PC was so specialised in crafting and repairs and stuff that he couldn't really fight or do anything else but man could he take random pieces of junk and make a motherfucker. Then again, this was a game where I used a custom sub-system to allow PCs to start off with IP and CP -- the latter leading to a PC being able to Phase. Hah hah!

(I'm such a nice GM! But they had fun in the end)

I recently implemented -- due to balance concerns -- a rebalanced method of detecting ambushes and other dangerous surprises (still undecided about making a Trap Sense Merit, though). As we've got a lot of overlap in perceptive ability, in order to reward explorer and stealth-build characters, a PC has to make a [WTS+SURV] roll to detect ambushes every time now instead of [WTS+CMP]. It makes [SURV] actually fucking useful to everyone and I've legit seen players be like "lemme' get a dot of that Survival, oh yeah". I also turned Danger Sense from being a useless-fucking-Merit-to-higher-than-starting-characters to now simply enabling PCs to use [WTS+CMP] INSTEAD OF [WTS+SURV]. Suddenly, that Merit is incredibly popular.

What gets me are the underrated, criminally underappreciated Skills like Politics. That is insanely powerful when used right (which is all the fucking time): it is more-or-less "GM, give me your notes" on organizations, prominent peepz, overall and specific social-political/poli-economic situations and is also incredibly useful for enabling players to quickly ascend power structures, navigate and manipulate bureaucracies, power-broke and generally lord over the other PCs. We will be beginning our club's Consensus next week and I dread to think about how it will go down if Vampire gets voted in and one of my players has more than a casual think about powering their Politics (these people do not fuck around on their sheets!). Other good ones are Socialize (the dude/dudette with this will have the Sheriff pining over them like a darling) and even Expression is good when you've got the right mindset (you've become the Sting of the NWOD writing your own Every Breath You Take. Every. Single. Time. Making bank, bank, BANK! Of course, you'll need -- or a friendly PC'll need -- a healthy dose of [MNP], [PERS],

, [ACAD], [PLTC]).

I think this naturally leads to a wider discussion of the use of Attributes in-game and when they should be used and the problems that can occur when a system relies extensively on one or two (DEX and INT the two biggies from Pathfinder) to the detriment of the rest.

Quote from: Harg of the City Afar;932084Not looking for consensus, just discussion.

Thing is, I can't even discuss it until you answer the question "for what kind of game".

A game with omnicompetent pulp-like characters doesn't gain much by fragmenting the skills much. In it having separate skills for sailing a ship and driving a canoe is problematic...you're better off with something like the Careers system from Barbarians of Lemuria, where both are just "Career: Sailor".
A game focused on non-pulp pirates probably has those, and you could argue it needs them.

A game where the setting features lots of fencing schools might require different skills for rapier, sabre and epee, but probably only one skill for "shooting".
A game about special forces ops probably has multiple skills for firearms, and only one for "blades".
A game which focuses on political intrigue more and less on duels might only have "blades" and "guns".
All three would need exactly the skill list they got.

So, which skills are problematic? Depends. What kind of game are we talking about;)?