What’s in a Skill?

Demetra wiped her palm across the smooth leather of her pants in vain. Her bangs, long and spring green, were down in her face and dripping into her stinging eyes. A bead of sweat tickled its way down her back, too, trying to distract her. Those twice-damned blast nozzles were broiling her alive in here.

Of course, Nollie standing behind her and watching her every move was not helping.

She didn’t look at him. “Could you stand somewhere else, maybe?” She made a valiant effort to keep the peevishness she was feeling out of her tone. Apparently, it didn’t go so well.

“Fine, fine,” the tall Graur agreed in a murmur, his voice dripping sarcasm. “I’ll just go stand over there in the acid pit. Gods and Servants! Hurry up, woman! The guards just made it to the other side of the door.”

“The acid was not my fault,” she grumbled as she searched along the left inner lip of the locking mechanism with her probe. The gnomish liberator of fine and sundry goods was having to bite back a stinging insult. Nollie’s ears were a lot better than hers. Obviously. If he said the guards were close, she’d do well to believe him.

Just then, she found what she’d been looking for: a narrow groove hidden on the inside of the keyhole. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“Got it,” she murmured.

Behind them, the mechanism of the ponderous vault door clicked, then rumbled as screws started to twist it open. A breeze blew into the chamber, smelling of sharpened steel and sword oil. They could hear the quartermaster on the other side. He was not happy.

“I’m telling you, no one could--”

A gruff shout interrupted him before he could finish. One of the guards had spotted them.

The deft gnome pressed her tongue against her bottom lip as she pushed against the groove with the probe in her left hand. With the right, she both held her tension rod and flicked her pick over the tumblers.

They dropped into place. The trap’s spring stayed perfectly still. Demetra unlocked the door with a quick twist.

Nollie clucked his tongue. “Nice.” His tail flicked once in approval. He’d been hanging around Sevirra too long--next thing he knew, he’d be playing with string. She’d have to tease him about it later.

After they were safe.

She looked up to give him a wicked grin, but all she said for now was, “Pure skill, pup.”

The two free spirits slipped through the exit with their prize as the guards behind them looked askance at the burbling acid, and the guildlord screamed at his men in vain.

SKILL-BASED VS. ATTRIBUTE-BASED GAMES

Different roleplaying games approach character abilities in various ways, but most systems can be generalized into one of two camps: attribute-based or skill-based. Strictly attribute-based systems, like many OSR games (or the old D&D video games from the 80s and 90s), use loose attributes like Strength and Intelligence for dice rolls and don’t even have skills. Primarily skill-based games, like d20, Shadowrun, Storyteller, or D6, (or the Elder Scrolls video games) use skills for almost every dice roll except a few, well-defined mechanics like Soak or Drain, which roll against attributes. Many games fall somewhere in between the two extremes.

What are the strengths of skill-based systems? What are their weaknesses? Let’s consider these today as we look at skill-based RPGs.

THE MECHANICS OF A SKILL

No matter what task resolution mechanic you’re using (roll low - roll high - diceless - etc.), skills exist in order to make some challenges easier than others, particularly for those trained in them. Right? Easy!

Now, some skill systems are about as simple as you can get. In d20 or Unisystem, each skill rank adds +1 to the dice roll (d20 or d10, respectively). In Rolemaster or HARP, each skill rank adds +5 to d%. In Mechwarrior, 2nd Edition, (a roll-high dice mechanic) each skill rank reduces your Target Number by 1; in 2d20, Brutal, or GURPS, (all roll-low systems) it increases the Target Number by 1. In Shadowrun, W.O.I.N., or Coriolis, each skill rank gives you an extra d6 in your dice pool. In BASH, Skill Ratings are multipliers, and you take the rating of the skill times your 2d6 roll to get your result. In Mind’s Eye Theatre, each skill dot adds +1 to your Test Pool, which helps to interpret the outcome of your rock-paper-scissors challenge.

Other systems have exquisitely complex skill mechanics. Silhouette skills are composed of a Level and a Complexity: the Level determines the number of d6s the player rolls, (In this system, only the high result counts.) while the Complexity is compared against the rating of the task to get a +/- modifier for the d6 roll. Burning Wheel breaks its skills up into Exponent and Shade: Exponent determines the number of d6s you roll, (This system is success-based.) while Shade indicates your Target Number. (Black is most common, and requires a 4 or higher for a ‘Yes’ result.)

Regardless of the mechanics of the system, though, being trained in a skill always makes you more effective at performing it. In most systems, the more training you have, the better you are. Because a skill represents a narrow focus, it’s possible for a character to achieve a very high degree of training in one or more skills without becoming too overpowered.

DEFINING YOUR CHARACTER

In skill-based systems, your character tends to be defined more by what ze knows, rather than what ze is. In D&D, I might play a cleric. My skills are Diplomacy and Heal (I didn’t have enough choices to take Religion), but most of my abilities are set by my class: what kinds of spells I cast. What kind of weapons and armor I use. My saves. My hit die. The number of spells I can cast in a day.

In Rolemaster, I might also play a cleric. I assign skill in Rigid Leather Armor, One-Handed Concussion Weapons, Concussion’s Ways, Blood Law, Protections, Faith’s Shield, Barrier Law, and Using Prepared Herbs. Along with Body Development and Power Point Development, of course. It’s fair to say that this character is a cleric, but in Rolemaster that doesn’t tell me much. This character is a mace-wielding, front-line cleric with first aid and defensive spells. If I’d taken Missile Weapons along with Calm Spirits, Divine Aura, Light’s Ways, Channels or Repulsions, and Diplomacy, the character would be a ranged support cleric.

See? In a skill-centric system like Rolemaster or HARP, even though it has classes and levels as D&D does, I can change everything about my character just by picking different skills for hir.

Let’s take a more pronounced example.

In D&D, let’s say I create ten different 1st-level male human clerics of the sun god Pelor. The difference in their stats comes mainly from their ability scores, although I may be able to pick a couple of skills. To make each character unique, though, the tools the system gives me are pretty sparse: I can give them different clothes, different armor. Various weapons. Depending on the game version, I may be able to pick a feat or two. In 4th Edition, I can choose which powers each cleric gets.

As a contrast, let’s take Rolemaster: I create ten different 1st-level male Common Man clerics of the sun god Phoen. I give some of them rigid leather armor (metal interferes with channeling spells in RM) and others soft leather and others simple robes. I make some highly skilled at fighting; to others, I give fewer ranks or fighting skills. There are maybe thirty spell lists to choose from, so some of the clerics know more spell lists, others less--but no two of these ten know the same spells, even if they’ve developed ranks in exactly the same spell lists. Some of them have athletic abilities; others are trained in a lot of lore skills; one or two might be accomplished speakers or negotiators, and a few know several languages.

The point is, a skill-heavy system tends to promote character customization by its very nature. When I can choose which skills I want my character to have, I can relate the story of hir life through the things ze knows and the things ze can do well. This discrete mechanical support for character customization helps make characters feel different in play, which promotes good roleplaying.

THE COMPLEXITY OF SKILLS

The tradeoff for this is that there are more complex rules to learn and more rules to juggle. Particularly for crunchy bits like jumping or maneuver-centered skills like Adrenal Speed in Rolemaster, players and GMs sometimes find themselves going back to the book time and again to reference how the skills work. New players have to familiarize themselves with the system’s skill options, so creating characters can take a while, especially the first time. The character is made up of more components, so there’s more bookkeeping involved in character maintenance and progression.

These are all fair considerations, particularly for players that don’t have a lot of experience with different RPG systems. I’ve seen groups where the players got halfway through a character creation session and then gave up and went back to their old favorite system from sheer frustration.

Contrast all this to an attribute-based game like The Black Hack, where you can roll up six attributes and pick a class and then the DM can just tell you, “Make a Dexterity check,” and that’s all you have to do. It takes about two minutes from picking up your pencil to starting your first encounter, (if you really have trouble deciding which two stats to swap) and some players love the simplicity of that.

So. What do you guys think? Do you like a game with skills, or do you think they make a system unnecessarily complicated? Let me know!

Game well, friends!

Jonathan Andrews