SRPG 2010 - Skills
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SRPG 2010 - Skills
So, skills. What a character can do and not do is important. It is especially important to give people explicit empowerment to take certain actions, not simply counting on good will and MTP. But how effective should these empowerments be? Obviously harder guidelines and specific uses are called for than we were playing with in the our most recent run with SRPG system. At least we had timeframes and distances for things like Super Tracking, Clairvoyance, and Psychometry, with a bit of wiggle room for plot points and fun like the extra room for emotionally charged moments for Psychometry.
The question is how specific and exacting should these types of abilities be, and what should be done about chance of failure? In basically every PnP RPG skills have some chance to succeed or fail, even with their most regular uses. But for us the way Super Tracking was it was assumed to more or less auto succeed with out some exceptional circumstances, like long time passage with snow or some such.
Any thoughts on a good way to have these skills work? I think the two main goals that I have that conflict here are not wanting skills to auto succeed but also not having the success of adventures tied to single or small amounts of skill rolls.
The question is how specific and exacting should these types of abilities be, and what should be done about chance of failure? In basically every PnP RPG skills have some chance to succeed or fail, even with their most regular uses. But for us the way Super Tracking was it was assumed to more or less auto succeed with out some exceptional circumstances, like long time passage with snow or some such.
Any thoughts on a good way to have these skills work? I think the two main goals that I have that conflict here are not wanting skills to auto succeed but also not having the success of adventures tied to single or small amounts of skill rolls.
Re: SRPG 2010 - Skills
One thing that's always bugged me is the things where you fail something like Intuit Direction, but obviously you can't know you failed, so at low levels you can't even use it because it's just as likely to be wrong as right.
I think skills should be exciting (although it should be scaled to level). I think they should occasionally be an integral part of the story. I dunno how specific they should be...
I think skills should be exciting (although it should be scaled to level). I think they should occasionally be an integral part of the story. I dunno how specific they should be...
Wade8813- Cloudless Day
- Posts : 83
Join date : 2008-02-18
Re: SRPG 2010 - Skills
Wade8813 wrote:One thing that's always bugged me is the things where you fail something like Intuit Direction, but obviously you can't know you failed, so at low levels you can't even use it because it's just as likely to be wrong as right.
I think skills should be exciting (although it should be scaled to level). I think they should occasionally be an integral part of the story. I dunno how specific they should be...
3e Intuit Direction, like UMD, is a great example of the problematic way that 3e handles skills. It pretends to be granular. However, since skill level is either so high you auto succeed or so low you don't even try for fear of failure, its a binary system with a virtually needless point system layered on. Its why I liked the idea I was proposing for SRPG that we really might as well just have 4ish ranks to denote level of skill at something, so they can be obviously distinct.
To clarify, by specificity I meant now how specific the skills are, I think that is at an all right level atm, but how spelled out their individual rules are. For how specific you/me/we want things, let me share an easy exercise: Take a look at the current non combat skill list and write down what more info would be good to have or should be had about how the skill works/what it can do.
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