Quote from: Justin Alexander;958039To speak with brutal honesty: That sounds dumb.

GM: You approach a chasm.
Player: I'm going to guess... Jump?
GM: Ha ha! No! The correct guess was Climb!

The underlying problem is that your players have a "throw a mechanic at it" mentality for declaring actions.

Another good example of throwing mechanics at it is with diplomacy.

My wife's sister kept wanting to just "use my diplomacy skill" and I finally trained her with always saying "OK, what story are you trying to convince them of?"

Of course, now, we're running Cave Catering and making mushroom soup and chicken (death lizard) vindaloo for orcs and goblins... :eek:

Quote from: Tod13;958041Another good example of throwing mechanics at it is with diplomacy.

My wife's sister kept wanting to just "use my diplomacy skill" and I finally trained her with always saying "OK, what story are you trying to convince them of?"

Of course, now, we're running Cave Catering and making mushroom soup and chicken (death lizard) vindaloo for orcs and goblins... :eek:

Two things first. A campaign about death lizard catering is litterly the best thing I have read on this fourm (although I migjt not want to play that every week)

B/ In mystery on the orient express call of Catholulu, there are 4 social skill, I have one of them great one ok and the other two hardly at all, but between the party we have all 4 skills well covered.   It never fails if the Intimidating guy is trying to lean on someone, the book says we need to negotiate, if I am trying to fast talk we need to charm, if we try to charm we need to negotiate.  Its Dumb.  It breaks emerision (thats a big deal around here right?)

Part of having social skills is knowing whether someone would respond better to negotiation or intimidation.  
End Rant.

Quote from: Ashakyre;957963Ok, so this idea is coming back with a pretty hard "no."
Helpful.

So how do you make your skills have an element of both player and character skill?

Usually by asking the player to describe how they do the thing/try to find out something by relating it to their background or whatever (cant always do this) - and they get a bonus to their roll if they describe it well. If not, no bonus, just roll. Something like that. I find this comes up most commonly for attempts at diplomacy or deception. If htey have a good argument, maybe they dont need to roll at all, or they roll with advantage, etc.

Case closed.

In my organic machine example, I guess I should prepare ways to interact with the machine for each skill that might relate to it, and let that be that. And be open to the unexpected interactions that players come up with. Those have always been the most fun part of the game anyway.

I guess this relates to how you teach players a game. Just keep telling them, "tell me what you try to do, and we'll find the mechanics to resolve it."

Quote from: Headless;958045Two things first. A campaign about death lizard catering is litterly the best thing I have read on this fourm (although I migjt not want to play that every week)

Thanks! I do think I have the best players ever! I have a link in the book to the wandering monster thread here, since I put in a wandering monster reasons for wandering table.

After we finished playtesting using Tales from the Laughing Dragon (BFRPG), I asked my players what they wanted more of. They all wanted more sapient (human-type intelligence) monsters in the dungeon that they could role play with. A good half or more of TftLD is animal monsters or mindless undead. So, I bought the B series D&D PDFs on the GM's sale and threw out the suggested monsters for B1. Instead I put orcs and goblins that are feuding in the top level, and blocked off the rest of the top level with a magical barrier. The rest of the level has the death lizards in it.

That was my setup for the game. I randomly assigned some traits (secretive, paranoid, stupid) and prepared hitpoints, but that was it. Everything below comes from the players and game play.

To make friends with the orcs and goblins and get their help, the PCs started cooking. The orcs were in the fungus room, so the PCs could cook with fungus. But, they found a scroll of Chicken Vindaloo in the goblin area. I often will roll the dice and say "this is the chance of finding cookware or something in this room" and then roll to see if there was something. In this case, they got permission to search the library/throne room of the goblin leader. I thought it would be funny to find a recipe scroll and I love chicken vindaloo. (The recipe I use is Sindhi, which always amuses friends from India or Pakistan or England.)

This Sunday, the son of the goblin leader and the daughter of the orc leader are going to show the party the secret entrance to the death lizard area, so they can make the chicken vindaloo.

Quote from: Headless;958045B/ In mystery on the orient express call of Catholulu, there are 4 social skill, I have one of them great one ok and the other two hardly at all, but between the party we have all 4 skills well covered.   It never fails if the Intimidating guy is trying to lean on someone, the book says we need to negotiate, if I am trying to fast talk we need to charm, if we try to charm we need to negotiate.  Its Dumb.  It breaks emerision (thats a big deal around here right?)

Part of having social skills is knowing whether someone would respond better to negotiation or intimidation.  
End Rant.

I use careers as skills, like Barbarians of Lemuria. After a session or two, people seem to catch on pretty easily. In my game, the difference would only come up if I or a player wanted it to come up. For example... For the system I wrote, I also let the players pick one thing they are really good at. For our science fiction game, my wife specifically picked a more limited intimidation rather than a more generic version, because she thought it fit the character better.

Quote from: Ashakyre;958106Case closed.

In my organic machine example, I guess I should prepare ways to interact with the machine for each skill that might relate to it, and let that be that. And be open to the unexpected interactions that players come up with. Those have always been the most fun part of the game anyway.

Well, yes and no. You should prepare for the players to use every skill, every ability, every possible thing they can do that doesn't fall under a specific skill or ability that their characters can do. And by no means fool yourself into thinking you have an exhaustive accounting of potential outcomes. You never know when the party will suddenly get it in their head to inject that vial of chaos beast blood they picked up 8 levels ago into your living castle BBEG, and you'll have to come up with a what-happens for it.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;958142Well, yes and no. You should prepare for the players to use every skill, every ability, every possible thing they can do that doesn't fall under a specific skill or ability that their characters can do. And by no means fool yourself into thinking you have an exhaustive accounting of potential outcomes. You never know when the party will suddenly get it in their head to inject that vial of chaos beast blood they picked up 8 levels ago into your living castle BBEG, and you'll have to come up with a what-happens for it.

Definitely this. In another thread someone said something along the lines of "Don't plan solutions. Plan problems and situations. Your players will come up with their own solutions so planning 'pre-set' solutions is just a waste of time and a path to disappointment."

Make the world live in your head. Take notes cause that helps you learn.  The more notes you take the less often you have to refer to them.  Once the world lives in your head you can help it live in your players.

"Guess the Skill for a +! Bonus" is not a game I like to play. In reality a person who has several possibly relevant skills is going to apply them all simultaneously to the problem as a gestalt.  As GM I decide which skill (or skills) are appropriate to the problem at hand and tell the player to roll it.

Player skill come in when a player suggests using a skill I had not thought of as a possible solution and makes a reasonably convincing case for why that skill should apply. Also player skill comes in in describing character actions in ways that are not neccesarilly defined by game mechanics. "I push the shiny red button" should not require a skill roll. "I want to push the 'stop' button" might.

The person running this website is a racist who publicly advocates genocidal practices.

I am deleting my content.

I recommend you do the same.