Quote from: Kyle Aaron on August 07, 2024, 09:00:31 PM

QuoteMost people, especially athletes, can eyeball how far they can jump or what they can climb with a high degree of reliability.

Athletes are working in good light and in good weather on a track or in a sandpit, with a mat on the other side, wearing shoes especially designed for that task - seriously, there are shoes to sprint with, shoes to run 5km with, shoes to do marathon with, jumping shoes, throwing shoes, etc etc - and everything's set up ideally for them.

This is rather different to taking that same athlete and having them (for example) wearing jeans, t-shirt, hoodie and $10 runners from KMart which should have been thrown out three years ago, run from police along a street with smashed-out streetlights and down a dark alley strewn with rubbish and try to leap over a fence which might have bits of broken glass stuck in the concrete on top of it, or barbed wire, or might be a rickety old fence that might break under them, maybe there's an angry dog on the other side, also it's night and there's shouting, etc.

So we do not care about rolling dice for the competive athlete, we care about rolling dice for him when he's a cop chasing a criminal, or a criminal fleeing the cops. We care about adventure activities.

I should probably have been clearer there. I meant "athletes" to mean "athletic people", which would include fantasy adventurers. Perhaps a better example would be people who do parkour, since while they're still using modern shoes, that is done under real world conditions. By dint of practice and experience, I imagine they would have a very good idea of what their long jump is and could spot which surfaces they can climb very quickly.

What I'm trying to say is that someone who is experienced at an activity can usually predict their own success rates at that activity under the conditions they're used to. I think the same logic applies to an adventurer. With enough experience climbing rock walls, they should be able to eye up a rock wall in a dungeon and make an educated guess at their ability to climb it.

EDIT: of course different activities are more or less reliable. A professional musician can play a song almost perfectly night after night, but a professional golfer can't always hit the same shot on the same course. 

I don't think we disagree here. To my mind, the dice are there to represent either challenges that are at the very edge of the character's capability (where the difference between success or failure might be whether they're having an "off" day), or unforeseen factors out of their control (such as the rock wall having loose stones they couldn't see from below).

Incidentally, I posited in another thread that one of the things an adventuring profession would probably invent long before it was invented in the real world is better shoes. Because yeah, medieval shoes have notoriously poor traction.

Again, my basic idea is that it goes like this:

1. Can you do it at all? A caveman can't fly a rocket. Tolkien couldn't have put down his calligraphy pen and pole vaulted. In this case: NO ROLL.
2. If you can do it at all, are you happy to do a mediocre job and take ages? In this case: NO ROLL.
3. If you can do it at all, and you want to do it either well, or quickly, or both: in this case, ROLL.

Don't be an autistic DM and make them roll in all three cases, since eventually everyone will fail and get bored and leave your game. Equally, don't be a wuss DM and give them such huge bonuses they can do all three automatically, or almost certainly.

Holy shit, this is where this forum's OSR D&D bias really makes itself known.

In most of the games out on the market which are not based on D&D, a useful skill system determines success by the GM judging what level of skill is involved vs the complexity of the task. Someone making a microwave dinner? Very easy by someone with Cooking-4, even no roll required. Trying to build an AI computer and program it using only stone knives and bearskins with a skill of Computer-0? Impossible task.

For OSR D&D based games, a good thumbrule is to have the task be decided by the DM as a roll under d20 check against the appropriate characteristic with a modifier of the characters level subtracted from the roll (and divided by the number of steps the task is away from the character class of the PC or NPC).

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 08, 2024, 09:41:57 AMHoly shit, this is where this forum's OSR D&D bias really makes itself known.

Care to elaborate?

Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 08, 2024, 09:55:07 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 08, 2024, 09:41:57 AMHoly shit, this is where this forum's OSR D&D bias really makes itself known.

Care to elaborate?

Sure. When people post about gaming here, it is strongly biased towards OSR D&D to the point that the majority of the conversations are about that. Period. It has even been declared that if a game is not D&D based, it isn't OSR - which makes the OSR a closed off clubhouse in the eyes of this forum. Makes this forum almost Dragonsfoot.

Normally this wouldn't be a problem, except when the discussion turns to RPGs which handle tasks differently from D&D and you want a new perspective for insight. Then the D&D myopia makes itself apparent.

Regardless of the type of game, the term 'level appropriate' has little meaning as it relates to performing activities. Different characters can have varying levels of expertise in wide variety of things. Just because a character is level X doesn't mean a guaranteed level of competency across the board at everything. There are also situational modifiers that can come into play. Baselines need to be established to put ballpark success chances on a level playing field.

As Kyle Aaron mentioned upthread, if a skilled character tries to do something in a calm environment, and can take their time, then just calling it an automatic success is fine. If the skill is being used to attempt getting the very best results and/or doing so quickly then a roll is called for. I see the attempt at the best possible work, and/or completing the task in a hurry as modifiers to the base skill level. The chances of success will thus depend on the base skill level.

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 08, 2024, 10:19:28 AM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 08, 2024, 09:55:07 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 08, 2024, 09:41:57 AMHoly shit, this is where this forum's OSR D&D bias really makes itself known.

Care to elaborate?

Sure. When people post about gaming here, it is strongly biased towards OSR D&D to the point that the majority of the conversations are about that. Period. It has even been declared that if a game is not D&D based, it isn't OSR - which makes the OSR a closed off clubhouse in the eyes of this forum. Makes this forum almost Dragonsfoot.

Normally this wouldn't be a problem, except when the discussion turns to RPGs which handle tasks differently from D&D and you want a new perspective for insight. Then the D&D myopia makes itself apparent.

On other topics I'd agree with you, but I don't see it here. Aside from the couple of comments about the OSR percentage system for thief skills, everything here has been universally applicable across different games. I guess you could argue the "level-appropriate" in the thread title implies a class-and-level based system, but I took it more broadly to mean "appropriate for the character's supposed skill level at a given task".

I guess I can only speak for myself, but I consider this more of an issue more worth discussing in regard to skills-based games than class-based ones.

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 08, 2024, 10:19:28 AM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 08, 2024, 09:55:07 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 08, 2024, 09:41:57 AMHoly shit, this is where this forum's OSR D&D bias really makes itself known.

Care to elaborate?

Sure. When people post about gaming here, it is strongly biased towards OSR D&D to the point that the majority of the conversations are about that. Period. It has even been declared that if a game is not D&D based, it isn't OSR - which makes the OSR a closed off clubhouse in the eyes of this forum. Makes this forum almost Dragonsfoot.

Normally this wouldn't be a problem, except when the discussion turns to RPGs which handle tasks differently from D&D and you want a new perspective for insight. Then the D&D myopia makes itself apparent.

Ah, well, I see your point, although I believe OSR is most useful as a TSR-D&D-compatibility logo.

"Level appropriate" is indeed mostly a D&D thing; when I was playing Pendragon, UA CoC, GURPS, etc., this kind of thing wouldn't come up.

By level appropriate, I wasn't merely referring to the D&D level system, per se.

You attempt a task that should be within your ability range, all things considered.  You have a good chance of success, but success isn't guaranteed.

Is that a 2 out of 3 chance?
3 out of 4?
4 out of 5?
5 out of 6?

Sounds like you're trying to pin down the difference between shades of gray.

There is no single answer, no clear line.

In 3e, for example, your chances of jumping over a 5 ft chasm are something like 55%, 60% for 6 ft, 65% for 7 feet and so on.

https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3e_SRD:Jump_Skill

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 08, 2024, 12:46:01 PMOn other topics I'd agree with you, but I don't see it here. Aside from the couple of comments about the OSR percentage system for thief skills, everything here has been universally applicable across different games. I guess you could argue the "level-appropriate" in the thread title implies a class-and-level based system, but I took it more broadly to mean "appropriate for the character's supposed skill level at a given task".

I guess I can only speak for myself, but I consider this more of an issue more worth discussing in regard to skills-based games than class-based ones.

Quote from: Man at Arms on August 08, 2024, 02:17:40 PMBy level appropriate, I wasn't merely referring to the D&D level system, per se.

You attempt a task that should be within your ability range, all things considered.  You have a good chance of success, but success isn't guaranteed.

Is that a 2 out of 3 chance?
3 out of 4?
4 out of 5?
5 out of 6?

While I acknowledge the posts above, I have a caveat in that only one sentence has gotten the most attention while the next two paragraphs which directly address the OP were ignored does lend credence to my claim.

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 08, 2024, 09:41:57 AMHoly shit, this is where this forum's OSR D&D bias really makes itself known.

In most of the games out on the market which are not based on D&D, a useful skill system determines success by the GM judging what level of skill is involved vs the complexity of the task. Someone making a microwave dinner? Very easy by someone with Cooking-4, even no roll required. Trying to build an AI computer and program it using only stone knives and bearskins with a skill of Computer-0? Impossible task.

For OSR D&D based games, a good thumbrule is to have the task be decided by the DM as a roll under d20 check against the appropriate characteristic with a modifier of the characters level subtracted from the roll (and divided by the number of steps the task is away from the character class of the PC or NPC).

So an example of the above in action. A 7th level fighter with a 14 intelligence is trying to decipher the magical writings in an ancient tome (which would make more sense for a magic-user to do). So a 14 + 7 for stat + level comes out to 21, but a fighter is three steps away from a magic-user so that target number is divided by 3 and is now a 7. 7 divided by 20 (for the d20 roll) makes it a 35% chance of success or 1 in 3.

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 07, 2024, 04:41:51 PMThe way I explain the old school style of skills with escalating success chance is by reference to "Schroedinger's Lock". Basically, the number on your character sheet represents the percentage of all the locks in the world which you have the ability to pick. When you roll a check, you aren't determining how good your attempt in that moment is. You're rolling to see whether the lock is one you have the skill to pick. Not perfect, but I think it's the most coherent interpretation of the system.

I never considered this before, but if that's the logic, then certain skills should be able to be rolled before the actual attempt is being made. Say a thief is walking around the Duke's palace to case the establishment the day before he intends to break in. As he walks past the south wall, he could pause to examine it, roll his climb check, and when he comes back the next night he now knows whether he can climb the south wall.

I've decided to use the same idea for things like Strength rolls. Don't roll to see how "strong" someone is at that very minute, which opens the door to absurdities like a STR 8 character lifting a portcullis that a STR 18 failed at. Rather, roll to see what STR is required to achieve the feat. Once rolled--or decided by the GM--that result stands for the rest of the game, for all comers. "This is a STR 17 portcullis, deal with it."

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 08, 2024, 10:19:28 AM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 08, 2024, 09:55:07 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 08, 2024, 09:41:57 AMHoly shit, this is where this forum's OSR D&D bias really makes itself known.

Care to elaborate?

Sure. When people post about gaming here, it is strongly biased towards OSR D&D to the point that the majority of the conversations are about that. Period. It has even been declared that if a game is not D&D based, it isn't OSR - which makes the OSR a closed off clubhouse in the eyes of this forum. Makes this forum almost Dragonsfoot.

Normally this wouldn't be a problem, except when the discussion turns to RPGs which handle tasks differently from D&D and you want a new perspective for insight. Then the D&D myopia makes itself apparent.

That is very true, and I am about to massively trigger the "but that's not D&D / OSR!" brigade because of it.

I think boiling this question down to percent chance of success is probably the wrong way to view this. IRL most people can succeed at most tasks given infinite time. You can do anything given enough time, but time is also a valuable resource you should use efficiently.

It also might not look at all like what another character does.

Take jumping a chasm. An athletic person might immediately go for dice, jump, and cross the chasm in 5 seconds. A less athletic person might backtrack to a ladder and use that to make an improvised bridge, which could take more like 20 minutes. So the question in my mind is rarely if you succeed, but if you tried to use a shortcut your character can't actually manage or how much time it actually took you to do. 

This is why my homebrew system does NOT give players a set probability of success. It gives them 5 possible Action Depth choices. If you want a high probability of success, it will cost you a lot of action economy in the form of a high AP cost. If you are willing to accept a lower probability of success, the AP cost is actually lower.

Specific example to see that in action? Sure. Say your pool is 2d10s and 2d8s. If you pay 4 AP and buy a default action, this action will on average produce a little more than 1 success on average. 1.35 successes to be exact. If you increase the AP cost by 1, you reroll one of the d8s, and you will on average add 0.375 successes (this is a system where you roll low, so the best dice are the smaller dice). You can repeat this process of spending 1 more AP to reroll one more die all the way up to your last die, at which point you have spent 8 AP and functionally doubled the average result of the roll.

(If you'll note, there's even diminishing returns here; the d8 produces on average 0.375 successes, but the d10 only produces 0.3.)

Because you had to spent more AP on your action, you will have less AP left to spend on other stuff like moving or reloading or drinking potions or such.

My point is that giving players a set chance of success is a touch backwards. The number of things they want to do informs their risk tolerance, and the player's risk tolerance is what actually sets their odds of success. It isn't something which exists in a vacuum.

Generally:

Untrained: 0 to 30%
Basic trained: Start at 60%
Best trained: 95%

Assumptions:

1. There's always a 5% chance to fail on any check, no matter how good you are.

2. There's no need to make checks for tasks that automatically succeed or fail.

3. There's also difficulty modifiers and degree of success to consider, but that's outside the scope of the question.