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Tuesday, December 08, 2020
Skill checks in role-playing games
After being disappointed with Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth (JIME), I started with another board game called Folklore: The Affliction. Now this resembles a pen & paper RPG much more, to the point where it is barely a board game, and more an "RPG in a box". Very early in the first story (minor spoiler!) you come across some highwaymen threatening a priest, and you can make a skill check of your "speech" skill to persuade them to leave. And that skill check really drove home one of the points I disliked very much about JIME: Skill checks with boring outcomes.
In Folklore: The Affliction, both possible outcomes of that skill check are interesting. Either you succeed in a peaceful resolution of the conflict, or you fail, and combat ensues. Both possible outcomes have their advantages and disadvantages. "Failing" the skill check isn't all that bad, and it still moves the story forward.
In JIME you are constantly making skill checks called "tests", many of them to investigate a search token. Some search tokens need a shown number of successes, and you need to tell the app whether you passed or failed. Other search tokens need a hidden number of successes, but those can be accumulated; for example you need 4 successes, but if you have only 3, the next time you'll need just 1 more to pass. The problem with all these skill checks is that absolutely nothing happens if you fail or partially fail. The search token simply stays in the game, until you try again and at some point succeed. And you need to eventually succeed with certain search tokens to drive the story forward, so this isn't optional. Failing a skill check doesn't move the story forward, but simply forces you to try again until you succeed. Boooooring!
This is something that you really learn early if you are the Dungeon Master in a pen & paper role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons. You don't want a failed skill check to block the story, or instantly kill the character / reset the game to a previous state (see previous post on Fenyx); you want a skill check to have different possible outcomes, all of which are interesting and move the story forward. Does the rogue succeed to sneak up to the dragon without waking him? If yes he can steal some loot or do a surprise attack, if not the dragon wakes up. Both options are "good" from a narrative point of view. You really don't want "you fail to sneak up on the dragon, the dragon stirs, you have to retreat. Try again!" three times in a row until the roll finally succeeds, because that makes the skill check pointless.
Folklore: The Affliction ends up being a far more interesting game, because both decisions and skill checks have different possible outcomes, all of which move the story forward and are thus interesting. Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth has the "you failed, try again until you succeed" version of skill checks, and is a much less interesting game because of it.
Labels: Board Games
- posted by Tobold @ 10:20 AM Permanent Link
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The more indie tabletop RPGs have moved this bar even further by allowing for non-binary outcomes to a skill check or a "move."
Strong hits, weak hits and misses are something Ironsworn utilizes (which in turn was inspired by the Powered by the Apocalypse style games). On a strong hit, that's basically the desired successful outcome. A weak hit means you still get what you want, but there's a cost / penalty involved, which tends to develop the story by throwing in another problem to contend with. On a miss, you don't get what you wanted, and you pay the penalty, so now the situation becomes -worse-, rather than "oh, keep re-rolling until you bash the door in."
FU uses the whole spectrum of "Yes/No" "And/But" on a d6.
Genesys has their Narrative Dice system, which I personally find rather over-complicated and difficult to interpret, but it certainly allows for a spectrum of possibility, not just binary yes/no.
Strong hits, weak hits and misses are something Ironsworn utilizes (which in turn was inspired by the Powered by the Apocalypse style games). On a strong hit, that's basically the desired successful outcome. A weak hit means you still get what you want, but there's a cost / penalty involved, which tends to develop the story by throwing in another problem to contend with. On a miss, you don't get what you wanted, and you pay the penalty, so now the situation becomes -worse-, rather than "oh, keep re-rolling until you bash the door in."
FU uses the whole spectrum of "Yes/No" "And/But" on a d6.
Genesys has their Narrative Dice system, which I personally find rather over-complicated and difficult to interpret, but it certainly allows for a spectrum of possibility, not just binary yes/no.
@Tobold
Isn't this the reason that "some" of the narrative mechanics used in most games are the most limiting factor when it comes to player decisions? You seem to indicate that a player is being forced into participating in the encounter with the Highwaymen as a measure of design. Would there be a measure of ethics on the narrative path if they simply continue walking and leave the priest to his own fate? If a game is based on combat mechanics, the narrative normally acts as a form of set-up for encounters and is heavily constrained by how the fights work, with the player(s) ultimately being affected by the dreaded "decision funnel". When I last played D&D, way back in the 2E days, it was great to have the "charisma" stat used by the DM whenever players would attempt to use diplomacy(as in your Highwaymen example). It wasn't so much a skill check, but an extension of the core gameplay as it revolved around the player-character stats.
Isn't this the reason that "some" of the narrative mechanics used in most games are the most limiting factor when it comes to player decisions? You seem to indicate that a player is being forced into participating in the encounter with the Highwaymen as a measure of design. Would there be a measure of ethics on the narrative path if they simply continue walking and leave the priest to his own fate? If a game is based on combat mechanics, the narrative normally acts as a form of set-up for encounters and is heavily constrained by how the fights work, with the player(s) ultimately being affected by the dreaded "decision funnel". When I last played D&D, way back in the 2E days, it was great to have the "charisma" stat used by the DM whenever players would attempt to use diplomacy(as in your Highwaymen example). It wasn't so much a skill check, but an extension of the core gameplay as it revolved around the player-character stats.
@NoGuff
Yes, you can either have a game *with* a game master that allows you to take all sorts of decisions, or you can have a game *without* a game master, where the choices you can make are limited.
The limited choices are the price you pay if you want to play a role-playing game solo or in a very small group, because systems with a game master require more players to work well.
Maybe one day we get AI controlled games that allow some larger degree of choice, without locking one player into the role of the game master.
Yes, you can either have a game *with* a game master that allows you to take all sorts of decisions, or you can have a game *without* a game master, where the choices you can make are limited.
The limited choices are the price you pay if you want to play a role-playing game solo or in a very small group, because systems with a game master require more players to work well.
Maybe one day we get AI controlled games that allow some larger degree of choice, without locking one player into the role of the game master.
One of the best solutions I've seen to this is using the Gumshoe system, generally used for mysteries, spy thrillers and other investigative games. This is going to sound a bit weird, but I find it works incredibly well -- you can't fail an investigative check.
Investigative skills use a different mechanical system, where if you have a character in a location with a clue use that skill, they get the clue. Period. They can spend points from the skills pool to get bonuses, but even if they've spent all their points they still get any clues if they ask. Furthermore, character creation guarantees that all investigative skills a party needs, they have.
The philosophy here is that "in an investigative game, failing to get the clue isn't fun. The fun is what you do with the information." So if you are interrogating a witness, and you use "Intimidation", they spill the information to you. If you spend a point, they might be so frightened they tell you more, or don't tell someone else that you intimidated them, etc.
Designed by Robin Laws and Ken Hite, Gumshoe powers games like "Trial of Cthulhu", "Night's Black Agents", "Esoterrorists". Has been ported to support Pathfinder (D20 system) in "Lorefinder". My wife and I have been playing a couple of the Gumshoe One-on-One games ("Cthulhu Confidential" and "Night's Black Agents - Solo Ops") and love it. Really does investigation better than anything else I've tried. Highly recommended!
Investigative skills use a different mechanical system, where if you have a character in a location with a clue use that skill, they get the clue. Period. They can spend points from the skills pool to get bonuses, but even if they've spent all their points they still get any clues if they ask. Furthermore, character creation guarantees that all investigative skills a party needs, they have.
The philosophy here is that "in an investigative game, failing to get the clue isn't fun. The fun is what you do with the information." So if you are interrogating a witness, and you use "Intimidation", they spill the information to you. If you spend a point, they might be so frightened they tell you more, or don't tell someone else that you intimidated them, etc.
Designed by Robin Laws and Ken Hite, Gumshoe powers games like "Trial of Cthulhu", "Night's Black Agents", "Esoterrorists". Has been ported to support Pathfinder (D20 system) in "Lorefinder". My wife and I have been playing a couple of the Gumshoe One-on-One games ("Cthulhu Confidential" and "Night's Black Agents - Solo Ops") and love it. Really does investigation better than anything else I've tried. Highly recommended!
@Jeromai
Agreed on some of these other system options. Powered by the Apocalypse, in particular, has a great structure for getting results.
Agreed on some of these other system options. Powered by the Apocalypse, in particular, has a great structure for getting results.
An obscure but fascinating pen & paper fantasy RPG system called HârnMaster had 4 degrees of results of all checks built into everything back in 1986: Success, Failure, Critical Success, Critical Failure. And in conflicts between two characters, both attacker and defender would roll, giving a spectrum of 16 results varying from CS vs CF to CF/CS and everything in between!
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