Hello All! 

I've been developing a simple system with a normal rules-set (IE: similar to BRP, GURPS, AD&D, etc)... But I've been struggling with skill defaults.  I've gone back and forth with this problem so many times I'm dizzy. 

Here are some of my concerns::
1) I want to have a default roll for those untrained in skills that could be attempted without training.
2) Improving a skill should reflect an improvement in the chance of success from the default, right?
3) Some rolls need to follow the full range of attributes and success (like a very coordinated character will probably never lose his balance)
4) I don't want high attributes to have an unbalancing affect on developed skill levels. 
5) Some skills don't really have important defaults at all (pretty easy to handle mechanically)
6) I find defaults annoying to compute, and wouldn't mind getting rid of them (as a base for trained skills) if there was a way to do it. 

RIght now, the system has attributes from about 1-20, with the percentage of success in a normal skill being about the level of the skill / 20. 

Anyway, just wanted to get some input.

Thanks!
-sean

Welcome to the Forge, Sean!

Skill defaults are one of those tenth-iteration rules considerations that are based off of a dozen prior decisions and have lots of emergent properties attached to them, so it's kind of hard to comment on them without hearing about those dozen prior decisions first.  The question also implies, but does not definitionally state, that you're going for a ruleset that simulates some level of realism -- is that what you're going for, or are you trying to maximize player options?  If you can nail down why you're including skill defaults, it'll be a lot easier to nail down how they should work, or indeed, if you need them at all.

Good point, and thanks for the good welcome!  I recently posted a link to my game on another site, and within a few days, my pride was slammed to floor, and my eyes opened.  So... I'm humbled and ready to learn radical ideas...

Let me guide you through my previous ideas then, if that will help.

1) I started with the intent to extend BRP Call of Cthulhu into other genres. .
2) I switched it to a d20-ish system that always rolls against 20 (approx same probability) to allow for easier contests... (two players rolling skills, and the higher wins)
3) I realized that setting the defaults to mimic the probability of success ( for easier / harder skill) also affected the contents, giving the user of one skill an unfair advantage ... an example of this might be a dodge... You could perhaps think that a highly dextrous character could dodge a falling rock easily, but if he starts with a 18/20 chance to dodge the rock, then if he trains himself more, that skill quickly becomes unbalanced relative to a trained swordsman....  I hate flat dodges, so that's out of the picture.
4) I decided I wanted the system to focus more on skills than attributes, and to minimize the importance of attributes if possible, because I like random attributes, and don't want it to provide an unfair advantage.

Since those decisions, I've gone back and forth between several options
1) Flat defaults... the defaults are always a flat number ... didn't work for agility based skills. 
2) Low defaults for all skills... All skills become balanced, but nobody can do anything untrained well.. It makes rolling an attribute easy to call for a GM, but then rolling the skill that replaces it is harder to succeed at.
3) High defaults... Again, I don't want attributes to have such an impact on the game (it makes me shudder thinking of how many times I used GURPS loopholes to try to make invincible characters )

Here are the main philosophies of the system I'm developing.
1) Dangerous Combat - The system works in settings where combat can be entertaining, but very dangerous.  Consequently, characters must be careful to survive.  (Horror, some fantasy settings, etc)
2) Focus on Character personality and Interaction... The system is supposed to discourage players from trying to make the "best" character, but instead the most interesting to act out.  Therefore, I don't want people trying to optimize them for combat ... etc.. There's some fun in being good at things, but I think you get my drift.

Is that enough info?

Thanks for your help!
-sean

Is there any way to edit posts here?

Two days ago I only knew of systems that attempted to achieve some level of realism, and thought that was the point.  I'm open to radically different ideas of skills themselves, including how one resolves conflict ... Do some systems just not require rolls for most things?

I wanted defaults originally because I thought that was the only option.

I wouldn't mind getting rid of them if I could think of a good alternative. 

What are some good threads/articles dealing with different ways to resolve conflict (player to GM or NPC)?

Ah, welcome to a whole new way of thinking about roleplaying games.  Well actually, welcome to whole new ways of thinking about roleplaying games.

Realism is not necessarily the whole point -- but it may be the point for you and your friends.  Alternately, it's good to see how other people do things, cause maybe you'd like that, too.  Here are three RPGs that you can take a look at (free of charge) to see systems that aren't necessarily about "realism":

<a href="http://www.anvilwerks.com/src/tsoy2/book1--rulebook.txt">The Shadow of Yesterday will probably sound very familiar to you in terms of what you'd expect from an RPG, but take a good look and you'll see that it works a lot differently than the games you're used to.

<a href="http://www.septemberquestion.org/lumpley/other.html">Otherkind presents a fairly familiar setting, but works in completely different ways than most mainstream RPGs.

<a href="http://www.kallistipress.com/CtH/Conquer%20the%20Horizon.pdf">Conquer the Horizon is one of my own and presents a system that has very little reference to character "success".  Technically speaking, it may not really be a roleplaying game, but a different but similar animal.

Additionally, there are tons and tons of threads about different resolution systems in this forum and in Indie Game Design, and if you haven't read the articles (link at the top of the page) that's a good place to start seeing the many different ways to approach the hobby.

(I can't seem to find the "Know Your Hobby" Standard Rant -- can someone else provide a link?)

Thanks a lot!  I'll take a look at those.

(More substantial, this time...)

No, you can't edit posts.  Use the Preview button when posting; it's a good thing.  It's what I should have done to preclude me making this second follow-up post.

If you want dangerous combat and a focus on character interaction, why do you need skill defaults?  You talk about a "good alternative" -- what would a good alternative do for the game?  If you can answer either of those questions, you'll be most of the way to figuring out how things should work.

Woah... I can feel new synapses forming in my left-frontal role-playing gyrus.  :) (Just read the first system you mentioned)

I'll get back to you after I read the others.

-sean 

Joshua wrote:
(I can't seem to find the "Know Your Hobby" Standard Rant -- can someone else provide a link?)

Ok... I've read a lot in the past 10 hours...

I've decided I'm definitely a narrativist, with a little bit of gamist in me too (I was always the one who found the loopholes to make the best character possible).  That being said, I don't really want to encourage gamism in my system, but I don't want my system to be off-the-wall free acting either.

I guess I thought you had to have defaults to handle people trying something that they haven't developed...  Right now in my recently modified rules, we have no "defaults" per se, (Every skill starts at 0) but that's still a 20% chance of success at most things. 

What else can you do?  Is there any other way to get rid of them?  Is there any other way to have them besides fixed values or some derived default based on the attributes?

Some quick ideas:
You could have some derived default based on related skills, rather than attributes.
Say, if you have a high skill in Broadswords, then all swords can be used at a penalty, and all weapons at a bigger penalty (or use fractions instead of penalties - 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc.).

You could organise skills into groups, like Fighting Skills, Social Skills, etc., and allow characters to have a default skill in the group - maybe based on the value of skills in that group, or bought independently.

You could redefine what skills are: "Policeman" could be a skill, and covers everything that policemen should be able to do - such Archetypes might replace traditional skills entirely, or coexist with them, maybe with an artificially low cap on their rating. So, you'd be able to use your Beat Cop rating to spot that hidden gun someone is carrying, intimidate a perp, get donuts at a discount, or whatever - or if you had the specific skills that cover those, you'd use them instead because they are higher.

You could use a Castle Falkenstein-like approach, where all skills default to Average, unless taken down to Poor or up to Good, Great, or Superb.

Very good overview... Thanks!

aedaren wrote:
I've decided I'm definitely a narrativist, with a little bit of gamist in me too (I was always the one who found the loopholes to make the best character possible).  That being said, I don't really want to encourage gamism in my system, but I don't want my system to be off-the-wall free acting either.

I guess I thought you had to have defaults to handle people trying something that they haven't developed...  Right now in my recently modified rules, we have no "defaults" per se, (Every skill starts at 0) but that's still a 20% chance of success at most things.

1) I want to have a default roll for those untrained in skills that could be attempted without training.
2) Improving a skill should reflect an improvement in the chance of success from the default, right?
3) Some rolls need to follow the full range of attributes and success (like a very coordinated character will probably never lose his balance)
4) I don't want high attributes to have an unbalancing affect on developed skill levels. 
5) Some skills don't really have important defaults at all (pretty easy to handle mechanically)
6) I find defaults annoying to compute, and wouldn't mind getting rid of them (as a base for trained skills) if there was a way to do it. 

aedaren wrote: I've decided I'm definitely a narrativist, with a little bit of gamist in me too...

I guess I thought you had to have defaults to handle people trying something that they haven't developed...  Right now in my recently modified rules, we have no "defaults" per se, (Every skill starts at 0) but that's still a 20% chance of success at most things.  What else can you do?  Is there any other way to get rid of them?  Is there any other way to have them besides fixed values or some derived default based on the attributes?

Thanks a ton Mike and Josh!!

I must say I've learned more about role-playing in the past week than I had in years of playing.  Unfortunately, I'm reaching the limit of the idea my feeble gaming mind can process before trying things out, so... I think I'm full.

Thanks for the heads up about classifying myself.  I'll try to avoid that. 

Mike, you hit the head on the nail, we're trying to make a system that will fit our style of play (which we're still defining) in several genres.  I'd love to play the games that people repeatedly recommend on this site, but since they all cost 20-30 bucks, It'll take me awhile to get enough  money to buy them.  I wish more were available for free, but I don't begrudge those who have chosen to sell them either.  I just learned so much reading FATE, I think I could really benefit just from reading a few more.

Anyway, thanks a ton, but I've really got to put some of this stuff into practice before I can go any further.  You guys are awesome!  I'm going to be a regular here, I think.

-sean

Sean--

To help address your problem, I'm going to point you to a free game, Legends of Alyria, that definitely supports narrativism, not only eliminates "defaults" but reduces "skills" to game color, and breaks probably ninety percent of the rest of the rules you've got tucked in your own personal "What is a Roleplaying Game" file.

To answer your question, let me put forward a couple more ideas.

First, if you want a "default" possibility for success, this can be the basis for using an Attribute+Skill system for chance of success. This can work best if the range for skills starts at something greater than one. For example, Multiverser uses a percentile system and gives human attributes a range from (effectively) eleven to thirty and skills from eleven to forty. That means that for the same attribute a person with skill would be at least eleven percent better at it than a person without skill, if the one without skill was relying on Attribute+Skill of 0. It would require substantially greater attribute scores to overcome the advantage of the most amateur skills.

Second, one way to eliminate "default" values for unskilled attempts is to replace such unskilled attempts with a skill learning system. Multiverser also does this, allowing a player character to attempt to teach himself a new skill at any moment, provided he has what is required to make the attempt. Certain numbers, including an attribute, are added, and others, including a value for the skill being attempted, are subtracted, and the dice are rolled. If it is successful, the character has succeeded in doing this and now has the skill at a low level of ability. Of course, Multiverser has no point systems of any sort to control skill acquisition or improvement, and provides no incentive for gamism, so players who want to create monster characters do so only because it pleases them to do so--they don't gain any advantage in the game, really, other than that it colors the kinds of adventures they will have.

Alyria eliminates defaults by eliminating the importance of skills. All contests are between characters, all characters are player characters, and all resolutions are based on what really amounts to personality versus personality. Skills then become color, so that if a character uses his "force" and defeats the character using his "insight", he can explain that the other character tried to outsmart him, but he pulled his gun and shot at him, wounding him and causing him to flee. In this, skill is just color, and explanation useful for how it was that one character defeated the other. If the die roll was reversed, the character using insight could say that when his opponent drew the gun, he made a comment so cutting that the gunman was too embarrassed even to think of pulling the trigger, and turned and left without another word. Whether or not the gun is involved is entirely within the prerogative of the side that wins the contest; "skill" with the gun is simply assumed. There are no "hit points", so there's no need to worry about how bad a wound is or anything like that.

There are other ways to eliminate the importance of skills, but in essence they all reduce to making the contest character-based instead of skill-based, going more for what we call event or outcome resolution instead of task resolution.

I'll also recommend a reading of articles here, particularly Applied Theory, which attempts to suggest ways in which what you want to accomplish changes how you think about the parts. I'm also tempted to suggest a look at the various Fantasy Heartbreakers articles, because they stand in part as cautionary tales relative to how to design games.

I hope this helps.

--M. J. Young

Beautiful.  Alyria is a wonderful example of the opposite angle of game mechanics.  Just what I was looking for to give me more ideas.

Thanks!
-sean

aedaren wrote:
Ok... I've read a lot in the past 10 hours...

I've decided I'm definitely a narrativist, with a little bit of gamist in me too (I was always the one who found the loopholes to make the best character possible).  That being said, I don't really want to encourage gamism in my system, but I don't want my system to be off-the-wall free acting either.

I guess I thought you had to have defaults to handle people trying something that they haven't developed...  Right now in my recently modified rules, we have no "defaults" per se, (Every skill starts at 0) but that's still a 20% chance of success at most things. 

What else can you do?  Is there any other way to get rid of them?  Is there any other way to have them besides fixed values or some derived default based on the attributes?

If you're looking for free, then check out here: http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/freerpgs/

Literally hundreds of RPGs for free. So there's no dearth of reading material. Of course I wouldn't recommend reading them all - lots of them are absolutely terrible designs (though, like MJ says, read the Heartbreaker essays) Anyhow, what's best is to continue to post your ideas here, and ask for more free games that have something to say about what you want. Or do your own research to find them. There are so many free games, that it's unlikely that you'll come up with some subject that can't be elucidated by looking at some appropriate example.

Mike

My First Experiment.

I've spent the last few days reading everything I can.  I read the heartbreaker articles, Mike's eye-opening rants, and everything else I could get my hands on.  I read FATE and Legends of Alyria, and the overviews of a few other systems.  The way I look at role-playing will be forever changed. 

So... instead of trying to play one of those fine systems, I of course tried to make my own :)  I kept one basic concept from the system I had been developing: defeat, and created a resolution system very similar to Alyria and FATE.  I'd never used a die pool, so I threw one in for good measure. 

The system we ended up using lists character Strengths and Weaknesses, with all strengths being gauges, starting at 0, with no cap (but a way to set limits during character creation).  A character simply states what he wishes to happen, rolls a number of dice equal to the strength, and checks the number of dice 4 or greater (6 sided). 

The contests worked very similar to FATE... One character states his goal, which can be opposed by another's strength ( any way he can explain it). 
The first rolls, counts successes, then marks them off his opponents strength.  Once the strength reaches 0, the first char wins and decides how it happened.  The other character will be trying to defeat the first to achieve another goal, usually. 

I had been reading about Polaris and Universalis, and I decided since this was already way different than other role-playing I'd done in the past, we might as well throw out the GM and try something really crazy.  We rotated GMs in a way similar to Polaris, with a main character in each scene, and the player to his left taking the background (with his char) and controlling the environment like a traditional GM.  All other characters played normally, but we centered each scene around one or more of the main character's "keys" (yes, I stole the word from FATE), which are just important sources of conflict, choices, or whatever, or around his weaknesses.  Then we went around and added elements to the scene before it began, including random details about the NPCs, the bad guys, the weather, whatever we felt like would make it better. 

We decided to try out a simple, silly supers campaign, with a telekinetic villain who controlled furniture, and lots of action.  It turned out wonderfully well!  I've seriously never had more fun playing...

It was amazing to see how mechanics didn't seem to matter, since all strengths were equal.  For example, my character could teleport, but we didn't have to make up rules for teleporting, because all contests of strengths were resolved with the same defeat mechanic.  Each character was equally powerful, but how cinematic they were entirely depended on how they wanted their character to feel.  Some fought with guns, some with powers (neither of which needed any special rules), and it just worked.  It was the simplest purest form of playing I've ever experienced.

So... We're very excited to try it again (might be another week).  Thanks so much for all the good advice!  Thanks for pointing out that bit about color and resolution in Alyria, and for everything. 

(More coming soon)

-sean

It was amazing to see how mechanics didn't seem to matter, since all strengths were equal.

Have you thought of handling the default a bit differently.

Instead of moving the default, make all defaults zero.

e.g.

COMPLEX PROBLEMS
   
            Some  problems regenerate, some have  initial  difficulties. 
      Many tasks can have help from tools.  Let me give some examples.
     
      Piloting a ship
     
            Wavestalker has an enchantment worth +15% on a superior ship
      worth 10% and a skill of 30%.  Leaving the harbor in his ship  is
      a 3 point a round task.
     
            That means, that to successfully leave the harbor Starstrid-
      er must earn 3 points each round of play.
     
            On  take-off without any trouble he does 6+3+1  (10)  points
      per  round  on a 3 point task.  He has a good margin  of  safety. 
      Each round he gets 7 points ahead.
     
            Two  rounds  into the channel he  encounters  minor  weather
      trouble -- a mild squall.  That is a 20% level task/problem.  He
      now  does (55% + d20%) - 20% points per round.  He is still  safe
      and  still getting ahead.  That is, he does 35% + d20% (or  7+d4)
      points per round into solving the task.
     
            This  is  the way that a normal harbor exit should  go  even
      with minor weather problems.  However . . .
     
            Suddenly  the spell is dampened as the ship breaks the  spar
      the  spell was enchanted to (wood rot that he did not  check  for
      after  the winter ended).  Wavestalker is now in a (30% + d20)  -
      20% situation.  (or 2 + d4) 
     
            As  the weather worsens with rain(+30% to his  problems)  he
      slips  into a (30% + d50%) - 50% situation.  He is now at d50%  -
      20%  every  round  and could be losing ground.  Add  a  variable
      strong  wind  for a storm and he is at (30% + d100%) -  100%  (or
      d100% - 70% per round).
     
            He is going to start losing that comfortable margin he built
      up.  Luckily for him he makes it back to the dock before  things
      get too sticky.
     
      Reading a foriegn language
     
            Starstrider gets everything fixed and docks at Helvitia.  He
      speaks  15%  of Helvitian.  With his skill he goes into  a  cheap
      restuarant and takes a menu. 
     
            A  simple menu will take d6-0 points to read.  It will  (due
      to  formating) have d3 points of "armor" (Starstrider will  never
      read  some  difficult menus).  As long as  his  dinner  companion
      doesn't  stress him (10% as a level one stress) he will do his  3
      points a round until the menu is read (or he gives up and  guess-
      es).  He reads the menu (which took 3 points to understand,  and
      which had 1 point of armor) in two rounds.
     
      Climbing a cliff
     
            Later he is climbing a bit of cliff.  He's in a hurry  since
      he dropped his sword and the wolves are getting closer.  He has a
      skill of 20% and climbing equipment worth 20% points.  The  cliff
      w' wolves is a 20% problem and because of the shale he has to  do
      2  points before it starts to count (2 points armor on the  prob-
      lem). 
     
            This cliff takes two points per meter to climb. 
     
            Lets put the numbers together.  (20% + {tools} 20% + d20%) -
      20 every round.  He does 4 + d4 points every round.  He rolls  a
      10  on  d20% resulting in 6 points earned (less the 2  points  of
      armor  the cliff has from the shale problem).  This  gets  Waves-
      talker 2 meters up the cliff before the wolves arrive. 
     
            Had  he been a bit more rushed this would have made  a  good
      100%  problem with him at (20 + 20 +d100%) -100% per  round.  At
      d100% - 60 he would have probably been caught by the wolves.
     
            He'll need to continue to be careful as he climbs higher  so
      that he doesn't earn negative points, but at 2 meters he is  safe
      until help arrives.
     
     
      Etc.
           
            Note that the armor idea solves many theoretical of problems
      where  low-skilled types can't solve that kind of problem at  all
      but  high skill types can do it quickly and easily.  Take a  task
      with  10 points of armor and 1 task point.  If your skill is  45%
      you'll  never  succeed.  With a skill of 55% you'll do  it  every
      time when not under pressure and eventually even with pressure.
     
            These kinds of situations and results are relatively  common
      in real life.