Skills System - Out of Synch?

[Lucius]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

 

I'd also like to compliment you, Von Hase, both for starting an interesting thread and for making your case in a thoughtful and courteous fashion (even though I disagreed with your central premise!). That's what makes these boards so much fun; and why these kinds of threads are the Hero community at their best.

 

Good point. I could probably stand to learn to be more courteous.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary points out that I'm multi-posting and probably ought to stop doing that.....

[Trebuchet]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

An if three characters roll 55 Stun with their attacks, who performed better?

 

If one character has fewer dice but rolled better, is his "performance" better or worse than that of someone with more dice who happenned not to roll so well?

 

And if one character makes a Skill roll by 2 and another by 4, do we clearly know who performed better?

 

To answer the first question directly - all 3 characters (all other things being equal) performed equally well. Just as comparing two characters who rolled 55 Stun, both did equally well. Of course, they probably won't NEXT time they use that skill; just as the person with fewer dice of attack probably won't equal the guy with more dice the next time they both make an attack...

I think this is an important point: All Skill rolls (or damage rolls for that matter) tell you is whether you made the roll and by how much. A 17- Skilled-character and a 13- might both make their rolls most of the time. If the 13- rolls a 9 he's made it by 4 and "beats" the 17- guy's roll of 14. That doesn't mean he'sd better; simply that he did it better that one time.

 

Similarly, an outstanding roll of all 5's and 6's on 10d6 might generate more damage than an average 15d6 (52), but nobody is going to mistake that the guy with the 10d6 attack hits harder than the one with 15d6. He just got lucky (or hit opponent was unlucky if you prefer) that one time.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

I think this is an important point: All Skill rolls (or damage rolls for that matter) tell you is whether you made the roll and by how much. A 17- Skilled-character and a 13- might both make their rolls most of the time. If the 13- rolls a 9 he's made it by 4 and "beats" the 17- guy's roll of 14. That doesn't mean he'sd better; simply that he did it better that one time.

 

This is where I disconnect with skill systems in most systems.

 

Is a roll of 14 from 17- guy worse than a 9 from 13- guy?

 

I'm not sure of the answer. Obviously it is much easier to roll 14 than to roll 9 but does the 9 actually indicate a deep flash of insight from 13- guy that outshines the easy grasp of the concept that 17- guy gets by rolling 14?

 

I think in comparing scores I would be more inclined to give better results to the highest successful roll. Thus 17- guy's 14 is exceptional in that 13- guy could not possibly understand anything that a roll of 14 indicates therefore it must be deeper than 13- guy's knowledge.

 

That doesn't feel right to me either but I thought I should air it as another option.

 

 

Doc

[Black Rose]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

Although I haven't considered how to implement it, I think there should be a system of reducing the costs of Skills based on their relative importance to a campaign.

Okay, I think you may be on to something here.

 

LA

p

Might want to take a look at GOO's Tri-Stat System; there's a good setup for certain skills having less "relevance" to the campaign's theme being less expensive. Shoots cross-genre games in the head, but works great for settings that are going to remain stable throughout the campaign.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

This is where I disconnect with skill systems in most systems.

 

Is a roll of 14 from 17- guy worse than a 9 from 13- guy?

 

I'm not sure of the answer. Obviously it is much easier to roll 14 than to roll 9 but does the 9 actually indicate a deep flash of insight from 13- guy that outshines the easy grasp of the concept that 17- guy gets by rolling 14?

 

I think in comparing scores I would be more inclined to give better results to the highest successful roll. Thus 17- guy's 14 is exceptional in that 13- guy could not possibly understand anything that a roll of 14 indicates therefore it must be deeper than 13- guy's knowledge.

 

That doesn't feel right to me either but I thought I should air it as another option.

What success means is going to vary radically from Skill to Skill anyway. A successful roll in Combat Driving is a completely different thing from a successful roll in Astronomy. So I don't see that there's any reasonable way to assign exact results from rolls. In the examples above, a successful Combat Driving roll might mean nothing more than that the character made a hairpin turn without losing control of the vehicle; whereas a successful roll in Astronomy might mean the character correctly identified a type of star, or came up with a new theory regarding stellar evolution, or used his Skill to determine his approximate location. I don't see a lot of room for nuances in most physical Skills - either you Breakfall, or you don't. If you don't, you're going to get hurt. And this problem becomes even worse when you start inserting penalties or bonuses.

 

I think in the interests of playability it's probably just simpler to state "A 14- character is better at Skill X than an 11- character" and leave it at that. What actually constitutes "better" should be left to the discretion of the GM. (Funny how you just can't get away from GM responsibility in this system. Not that I dislike that; I'm running this campaign, not the rulebook. The rules only provide the basic framework.)

[ghost-angel]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

This is where I disconnect with skill systems in most systems.

 

Is a roll of 14 from 17- guy worse than a 9 from 13- guy?

 

I'm not sure of the answer. Obviously it is much easier to roll 14 than to roll 9 but does the 9 actually indicate a deep flash of insight from 13- guy that outshines the easy grasp of the concept that 17- guy gets by rolling 14?

 

I think in comparing scores I would be more inclined to give better results to the highest successful roll. Thus 17- guy's 14 is exceptional in that 13- guy could not possibly understand anything that a roll of 14 indicates therefore it must be deeper than 13- guy's knowledge.

 

That doesn't feel right to me either but I thought I should air it as another option.

 

 

Doc

What a character rolls for a skill check has absolutely nothing to do with how much they do know or could know. Rolls are a Per Situation Per Instance account of how well a character did.

 

So yes, a person with a 17- rolling a 14 may do worse in that instance that a person with 12- rolling a 6. What a 17- is really indicating is that overall they have a better chance for success (better overall odds for higher levels of success; the 17- can succeed by up to 14 on a roll of 3, the 12- will only ever succeed by 9 maximum). The 17- is better than the 12- because if they each roll a 10 the 17- person succeeds by a much larger margin than the 12- person. It's a comparative system, not an absolute one.

 

The laws of probability reset with every instance - so do the laws of being able to accurartely apply your knowledge. A higher roll simply means you apply your knowledge correctly more often, on average at least - everyone has a bad day.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

The 17- is better than the 12- because if they each roll a 10 the 17- person succeeds by a much larger margin than the 12- person. It's a comparative system, not an absolute one.

 

Is that a rule in the system or just the one that you use? I can't remember seeing any comparators like that.

 

I have used different comparators - lowest roll is best, highest roll is best, greatest margin is best. Probably the last one is the most intuitive and gives the large skill more chance of being better than the low one - another strength of the bell curve there as well.

 

 

Doc

[RDU Neil]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

I've always used the basic thought process, similar to G-A above.

 

This is derived from the concept of "how much you make the roll by is important" which is implied in giving plusses and minuses to show difficulty.

 

I simply ask players to roll (assuming they have the same skill) and tell me how much they made it by. I tend to have the modifier in my head (+2 or -3 or whatever) so sometimes the player will say, "Crap, missed by 1" and I'll say, "Actually, something comes to you... this was an easy one, so you had plusses." Or some such.

 

Therefore, if you tend to look at "by how much did you make your roll?" then it is implied that "the greater margin you succeed by the better."

 

I read your possible interpretation, and to be honest the first thing that jumped to mind was, "Whoa... talk about overthinking an issue. Just look at who makes the better roll IN THIS INSTANCE and go with it."

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

I read your possible interpretation' date=' and to be honest the first thing that jumped to mind was, "Whoa... talk about overthinking an issue. Just look at who makes the better roll IN THIS INSTANCE and go with it."[/quote']

 

I must be confused - isn't this the overthinking the issue forum?

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

I must be confused - isn't this the overthinking the issue forum?

Did you just use thinking and forum in the same context, Doc D?

 

 

 

 

 

( )

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

Did you just use thinking and forum in the same context, Doc D?

 

Am I mixing up thinking and tinkering?

 

perhaps I need to get away from work and get some sleep....

 

[ghost-angel]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

Is that a rule in the system or just the one that you use? I can't remember seeing any comparators like that.

 

I have used different comparators - lowest roll is best, highest roll is best, greatest margin is best. Probably the last one is the most intuitive and gives the large skill more chance of being better than the low one - another strength of the bell curve there as well.

 

 

Doc

In the book? not in so many words I don't think - it's certainly implied, as RDU Neil pointed out, by the Modifiers application and the idea of buying up skill levels.

 

As for using different comparators, those can work as well if applied to everyone in the same instance of use. I personally think that doing something like comparing lowest roll sidesteps the characters that actually put points into a skill and tosses everything to a roll of the dice - it would be pure luck based at that point and the level of someone's skill would have little to no bearing thereby undermining the point based system (at least IMO).

[Von Hase]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

I simply ask players to roll (assuming they have the same skill) and tell me how much they made it by. I tend to have the modifier in my head (+2 or -3 or whatever) so sometimes the player will say' date=' "Crap, missed by 1" and I'll say, "Actually, something comes to you... this was an easy one, so you had plusses."[/quote']

 

That is exactly how a GM can completely ignore the rules - and dice - to simply make happen whatever they wish. I've seen it done to great effect in excellent games, and I've seen it make a game suck so bad that people have packed up their books and left in the middle of it.

 

When it's a good GM, the 'read my mind for a modifier' (also known as the 'I really don't care what you roll, I've already decided if you succeed or fail') approach works great because the story moves where it is supposed to. However, in the case of a less apt GM, this rapidly turns into a game that revolves around the GMs whims, taking away the players' ability to make strategic choices and calculated risks.

 

Although it can be a great tool to let a GM keep things on track, this approach eventually trivializes successes and makes failures seem arbitrary. While I agree that this is often a better way to approach the Hero System's Skills system, the fact that it is a better way to handle Skills is the crux of my argument here. The Skills system should be well defined enough that GMs and players should have a very clear idea about the modifiers and probabilities before they decide on their courses of action, and not have to rely on off the cuff judgment calls or even worse, the totalitarian whim of a GM.

 

The Skills system should be well defined enough that without resorting to capricious judgment calls, players and GMs should be able to lay out exactly what it is they are doing and what the modifiers are before the rolls, letting victory be sweet and defeat have dignity.

[zornwil]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

That is exactly how a GM can completely ignore the rules - and dice - to simply make happen whatever they wish. I've seen it done to great effect in excellent games, and I've seen it make a game suck so bad that people have packed up their books and left in the middle of it.

 

When it's a good GM, the 'read my mind for a modifier' (also known as the 'I really don't care what you roll, I've already decided if you succeed or fail') approach works great because the story moves where it is supposed to. However, in the case of a less apt GM, this rapidly turns into a game that revolves around the GMs whims, taking away the players' ability to make strategic choices and calculated risks.

 

Although it can be a great tool to let a GM keep things on track, this approach eventually trivializes successes and makes failures seem arbitrary. While I agree that this is often a better way to approach the Hero System's Skills system, the fact that it is a better way to handle Skills is the crux of my argument here. The Skills system should be well defined enough that GMs and players should have a very clear idea about the modifiers and probabilities before they decide on their courses of action, and not have to rely on off the cuff judgment calls or even worse, the totalitarian whim of a GM.

 

The Skills system should be well defined enough that without resorting to capricious judgment calls, players and GMs should be able to lay out exactly what it is they are doing and what the modifiers are before the rolls, letting victory be sweet and defeat have dignity.

Although I'm not suggesting that it's "wrong" to add more detail, not at all, I don't think anyone's going to build a skill system with much detail on the myriad circumstances likely to occur as modifiers. Of course some are better than others and some games do have great details on certain types of skills (often the thief type it seems), but universal systems tend to break down more quickly as this becomes overwhelming to do in a book across genres.

 

Personally, I think it's enough to know the general scale and for the GM to be consistent. HERO's scale is not dramatic - -10 is "impossible", and the difficulty guidelines narrow in more on 1-5 as modifiers. I question those values depending on the campaign, but it's also easy to revamp them.

 

As a note, I don't think people should know the modifiers all that often. Some things would be obvious, sure, but others are not. "I must pick the lock now!" shouldn't give any a priori knowledge except for what can visually be seen, for example. And of course one isn't going to give demolitions modifiers unless someone has first done a skill roll to study the bomb, for example. Then again, I'm not suggesting you're saying otherwise, just pointing out that there's lots of circumstances where mods shouldn't be known.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Skills System - Out of Synch?

 

That is exactly how a GM can completely ignore the rules - and dice - to simply make happen whatever they wish. I've seen it done to great effect in excellent games, and I've seen it make a game suck so bad that people have packed up their books and left in the middle of it.

 

When it's a good GM, the 'read my mind for a modifier' (also known as the 'I really don't care what you roll, I've already decided if you succeed or fail') approach works great because the story moves where it is supposed to. However, in the case of a less apt GM, this rapidly turns into a game that revolves around the GMs whims, taking away the players' ability to make strategic choices and calculated risks.

 

Although it can be a great tool to let a GM keep things on track, this approach eventually trivializes successes and makes failures seem arbitrary. While I agree that this is often a better way to approach the Hero System's Skills system, the fact that it is a better way to handle Skills is the crux of my argument here. The Skills system should be well defined enough that GMs and players should have a very clear idea about the modifiers and probabilities before they decide on their courses of action, and not have to rely on off the cuff judgment calls or even worse, the totalitarian whim of a GM.

 

The Skills system should be well defined enough that without resorting to capricious judgment calls, players and GMs should be able to lay out exactly what it is they are doing and what the modifiers are before the rolls, letting victory be sweet and defeat have dignity.

 

 

Man... be an ***, why don't you. I'm not ignoring the rules. I'm not being arbitrary. I'm not saying I've decided ahead of time. Sometimes I've decided it will be an easy roll, so I've got a +1 in my head... sometimes I'll even say, "You've got bonuses... you've seen this simple kind of lock a dozen times before." In no way do I believe the players have a right to know the exact plusses or minuses.

 

Don't get all judmental on me. You don't know me, you don't know my games. Be a prick somewhere else.