One thing I don't see  enough of in games, and I think its missing a great oportunity is 'on/off' skills.  You know, skills that you either have or you don't. Not stuff you have to roll, or track levels.

D&D sort of accomplishes this with 'Feats' but its ugly, part of my hate for Feats (a system I should by all rights love dearly, and do when I have enough booze to make the hurt of betrayal fade....).

Consider Power Armor.  Now, most games either ignore the fact that this is some complicated shit and anyone can wear it. Other games make it a buyable skill and then make the players jump through hoops to explain why you'd want more than one level of skill.

In reality, i suspect power armor will be much like any other armor. People who are used to wearing it can wear it just fine, but they don't somehow grow in ability as they 'master' wearing clothes/armor.

Thus making it a 'binary skill' you either can wear armor comfortably or you can't.  

Another idea comes in the realm of weaponry.  Shooting a rifle is shooting a rifle is shooting a rifle. And some guy hands you a fancy laser doohicky and until you figure out the controls you've got all sorts of issues. Once you have them figured out: Presto, you become very marksmen like istantly.

All too often it's this weird 'relearn everything you know about shooting' every time you pick up a new gat.  Sounds like the perfect place for a 'binary skill' to me.  Your shooting is tracked using the skill method of choice, while your repitoir of fancy weapons is tracked by a 'yes I know, no I don't' list.


Again, Feats already do this. It's just ugly implementation. Things that are mundanely learnable skills are treated the same as superhuman acrobatics and minor superpowers.  One weapon (Say... bastard swords) is as hard to learn as 'All martial weapons, including swords'.  

But what other system does?  How do you think it should work? Am I being a crazy loon crying about the end of the world from streetcorners?

Quote from: SpikeAm I being a crazy loon crying about the end of the world from streetcorners?

Yes, but we already knew that and accept you as you are, geek fallacy and all!

-clash

Actually, Iridium uses a few of these. Draw Weapon and Armor Use off the top of my head. It is one of the things that folks have trouble with actually. Strange to me. My rationale here is that these are skills you either can do or cannot. There is little or no degree of success. For instance, Tracking you can have false trails, loose and find the trail again, have a definite idea of the trail. All these results can occur with the same tracks between different trackers.

I feel I am not being clear. I need coffee.

Bill

Quote from: HinterWeltI feel I am not being clear. I need coffee.

Bill

I've gone ahead and had the treatment - they removed my blood and replaced it with Folger's Crystals.

zoom zoom zoom!

-clash

No, I think you are being clear, Bill. Maybe you should be clearer in the game books...

I was thinking if I actually put this to use somehow (trying to see where it fits with all the other crazy ideas I've been bouncing around...) I might even have a list on the character sheet of all the main binary skills with a little dot to fill in saying 'yes, I know this' and a couple of blank lines for the non-standard skills.

This goes along with my next 'theory thread'... the importance of having everything important on the character sheet....

Warhammer uses binary skills also by default.  You can bump them potentially a couple of times to become really, really good.  But by the nature of the system they are all binary.

A German system I used some time ago basically had three categories of skills. One category was finely grained, i.e. from 1 up to your level. Then there were binary skills. The third category was something in between, e.g. you had Literacy I, II and III. Worked quite fine.

Then there's AD&D NWPs and WFRP skills. Both pseudo-binary.

Quote from: SpikeNo, I think you are being clear, Bill. Maybe you should be clearer in the game books...

I was thinking if I actually put this to use somehow (trying to see where it fits with all the other crazy ideas I've been bouncing around...) I might even have a list on the character sheet of all the main binary skills with a little dot to fill in saying 'yes, I know this' and a couple of blank lines for the non-standard skills.

This goes along with my next 'theory thread'... the importance of having everything important on the character sheet....

I think the confusion comes because I do not use all binary or all graduated (increasable skills based on %) skills. To me, it is reflective of how skills truly work. There are some things you just know, there are other things you get better at the more you do them. To me, drawing a weapon fast is something you either do or don't. You can learn it over time, but it is the hitting the target that is the gradual curve of improvement, not the pulling the gun.

This is one of those point that I have always fought with in terms of skill systems. The delineation of skills and the areas they cover. At some point, you have cut them down too far. This results in too many skills on your list while encouraging a series of binary skills that result in assured success. Combine my Lift Foot, Shift Weight, Swing Arm, Place Foot and Shift Weight skill and I am able to run super fast. Alternatively, going the other direction we have 12 basic skills and you end up using you Athletics skill to Run 60 mph, play pro golf and throw a grenade half a mile. To make a fun resolution system, IMO, you need to find that balance. I just happen to mix binary and graduated skills.

Bill

No, I agree with you Bill. You can't just have only binary skills (well, WHRP does, but they make the concession of allowing you to improve them in various ways... hybrid system really). What I suggested was pulling the binary skills to one side and listing them on the sheet as such, leaving the regular graded skills as their own list.  Might clear some confusion, might not.

We had a discussion on this site a few months back about the 'right number' of skills.  I think the concensus was that for most games mid twenties to thirties provided enough gradiation for gaming purposes without overwhelming with nit-picky skills like (nose picking, middle finger).

I wasn't suggesting getting away from gradiated skills at all. Maybe I need the coffee/blood transfusion?!?

Quote from: SpikeNo, I agree with you Bill. You can't just have only binary skills (well, WHRP does, but they make the concession of allowing you to improve them in various ways... hybrid system really). What I suggested was pulling the binary skills to one side and listing them on the sheet as such, leaving the regular graded skills as their own list.  Might clear some confusion, might not.

We had a discussion on this site a few months back about the 'right number' of skills.  I think the concensus was that for most games mid twenties to thirties provided enough gradiation for gaming purposes without overwhelming with nit-picky skills like (nose picking, middle finger).

I wasn't suggesting getting away from gradiated skills at all. Maybe I need the coffee/blood transfusion?!?

No, I probably was misunderstanding. Too much coding and not enough coffee.

The base problem (and I appreciate I am in the minority here) with listing skills on the character sheet is the way it ties down skill lists. Players seldom look beyond what is listed on the sheet. I have had play tests with all the Iridium skills listed on the character sheet and had people build crippled characters or have misunderstandings because skills like Engineering need a specialty (like Mechanical). Sure, it might just be a limitation of the system but I am wary of doing this UNLESS you system has all inclusive list of skills. This is not a bad thing. For instance, you might just have a single skill Engineering, that is the sum all of Engineering.

Bill

Yeah. I'm familiar with that problem, actually. I was thinking that in most cases your binary skills are a much more closed list. Thats what I really was advocating 'listing'.  I'm working my way through this idea too. I don't think there is a right answer here... not yet anyway.

Change the name of binary skills to "abilities" or something. They don't work like regular skills, so don't call them the same. If you call Quick Draw an ability and Firearms a skill, no-one's going to get confused.

-clash

Quote from: HinterWeltNo, I probably was misunderstanding. Too much coding and not enough coffee.

The base problem (and I appreciate I am in the minority here) with listing skills on the character sheet is the way it ties down skill lists. Players seldom look beyond what is listed on the sheet. I have had play tests with all the Iridium skills listed on the character sheet and had people build crippled characters or have misunderstandings because skills like Engineering need a specialty (like Mechanical). Sure, it might just be a limitation of the system but I am wary of doing this UNLESS you system has all inclusive list of skills. This is not a bad thing. For instance, you might just have a single skill Engineering, that is the sum all of Engineering.

Bill

I can see that.  I can fast draw myself...but don't expect me to hit anything right off the bat.  I can draw really fast into position 2 (tactical stance with a two handed grip and sight picture in place) but I need a few seconds to acquire the target and squeeze the trigger.

I woke up this morning thinking of making a Naruto conversion to D6 (for some reason, that's just what I was thinking when I roused to consciousness.  Yeah, I'm a big ol' fuckin' nerd).  And this precise issue was on my mind.

When I was thinking of modeling jutsus (ninja magic techniques), I immediately realized that a lot of them were FAF.  You don't really "roll anything" to use them, you either know them or not, and if you can spend the chakra they work.  To go a bit further, since success at pulling off the technique isn't an issue after basic training, it's really a question of whether or not the target can see through the technique or defend against it.  There are exceptions, of course, but a great many of them work like this.

Sound familiar?  Yeah, like D&D spells that require saving throws.

For some reason few games (and yet, the most popular one does!) model this sort of action, but you often see it in fiction.

So yeah, I agree with ya spike.  A lot more games should make use of unrolled skills and abilities, even when rolled skills are the norm.

Hmm? I see that in games all the time. Spells. Force powers. feats.

And "jutsu" is a magical technique now? Boy, that weekend ken-jutsu course was a total scam...