Quote from: jhkim;548294Now let's take a native Pacific Islander - a player character from my last night's Call of Cthulhu game - who has never seen a car.  What is his chance of successfully merging onto the highway?  Well, he's got above average reflexes (6), and since the skill scale is 1 to 10, I guess he has a 1 skill.  So he's got an 80% chance to drive a car and merge onto the highway successfully.  

I think that is significantly over-estimating his chances.  

No, only gross mechanical skills like climbing or swimming may be attempted with skill 0. Its common sense stuff really.

Quote from: jhkim;548294Difficulty 22 is something definitely tougher than that.  

Now, let's take someone with no special driving skill but above-average reflexes: reflexes 7 and driving skill 5.  He can succeed at that stunt 10% of the time.  That also seems a stretch.

Ah you're dragging me into a threadjack about the system I use here - in this case the skill would not be driving, but stunt driving. Its far enough away from any normal driving maneuvers that it deserves its own skill, as would say a particular martial arts move versus say "use blade".

Quote from: The Traveller;548295Ah you're dragging me into a threadjack about the system I use here - in this case the skill would not be driving, but stunt driving.

Like walking and tightrope walking.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;548296Like walking and tightrope walking.

Exactly.

Quote from: The Traveller;548295No, only gross mechanical skills like climbing or swimming may be attempted with skill 0. Its common sense stuff really.

This is exactly what I was talking about with the exceptions.  The GM steps in and says things like "No, you can't roll for that" or "You succeed automatically" in order to override the basic system results.  

My claim is this:  The islander Koko should be able to go from being able to do absolute nothing with a car, to having a small chance of doing a simple task, to have a small chance of being able to merge onto a highway, to having an 80% chance to merge onto the highway.  

The simplest way to represent this would be through him having a very low skill, and then that skill rising.  Within your system, he will jump from being unable to do anything at all with a car to having an 80% chance to merge onto the highway, with nothing in between.  You could simulate something by the GM overriding the system ("Well, you've had one driving lesson now, so you're still technically skill zero, but I'll give you a chance to move the car across the parking lot.")  

Quote from: The Traveller;548295Ah you're dragging me into a threadjack about the system I use here - in this case the skill would not be driving, but stunt driving. Its far enough away from any normal driving maneuvers that it deserves its own skill, as would say a particular martial arts move versus say "use blade".

Let me quote to you the example that you yourself used for a driving task: A top class driver ... would only have a one in ten chance of successfully completing an almost impossible task, like doing a wall of death stunt with a medium sized van along the side of a building.

In any case, the particular example doesn't really matter.  Give me an example of a difficulty 22 driving test.  Whatever it is, it's going to give non-sensible results.

Quote from: jhkim;548309This is exactly what I was talking about with the exceptions.  The GM steps in and says things like "No, you can't roll for that" or "You succeed automatically" in order to override the basic system results.  

My claim is this:  The islander Koko should be able to go from being able to do absolute nothing with a car, to having a small chance of doing a simple task, to have a small chance of being able to merge onto a highway, to having an 80% chance to merge onto the highway.  

The simplest way to represent this would be through him having a very low skill, and then that skill rising.  Within your system, he will jump from being unable to do anything at all with a car to having an 80% chance to merge onto the highway, with nothing in between.  You could simulate something by the GM overriding the system ("Well, you've had one driving lesson now, so you're still technically skill zero, but I'll give you a chance to move the car across the parking lot.")  

Sorry, miscommunication there. Without copying over the full corpus of the rules I can't enunciate every nook and cranny in advance, and this aint the thread for it. If you have the skill, it runs the gamut from 1 to 10. If you don't, its zero.

Quote from: jhkim;548309Let me quote to you the example that you yourself used for a driving task: A top class driver ... would only have a one in ten chance of successfully completing an almost impossible task, like doing a wall of death stunt with a medium sized van along the side of a building.

In any case, the particular example doesn't really matter.  Give me an example of a difficulty 22 driving test.  Whatever it is, it's going to give non-sensible results.

An exampli gratia to illustrate the point. Had I known we were going to cross swords over it I would have used a different example. There are also things like skill specialisation, vehicle customisation, and luck scores to take into account. If someone has focused a large portion of their lives on succeeding at one particular stunt, they are going to be good at it. Doesn't mean they will be any good at any other stunt, which is where specialisation comes in.

Quote from: jhkim;548294Well, let's keep in mind what kind of stunts trick drivers can do for a daily show - like jump a car 30 feet in reverse.

From your own link:

Quotethis show tells you that when he goes in the background(earlier in the show) they switch cars, both go forwards but one has the frame on backwards so when he appears to be driving in reverse he is just looking forward out the back window.

I am a big fan of Steffan O'Sullivan's "your skill is your skill" approach, because trying to fold in attributes results in wonky results like GURPS IQ-as-god-stat where one point in a skill jumps our prospective Vanuatuan to a par with Bo and Luke Duke.

As for all the driving metaphors, there's very little point in arguing about how likely a success or failure is until you've defined what those terms mean.  Is a failure to successfully merge onto a highway overshooting into the middle lane and having to swerve back, or is it a twenty-car pileup?  Since you're talking about a binary pass/fail check, defining your two possible results matters.

Quote from: daniel_ream;548319From your own link:

Bam, plus five vehicle customisation.

Quote from: The Traveller;548313Sorry, miscommunication there. Without copying over the full corpus of the rules I can't enunciate every nook and cranny in advance, and this aint the thread for it. If you have the skill, it runs the gamut from 1 to 10. If you don't, its zero.

My point is that you are lumping a wide range of actual skills under the label of "skill zero". At his original skill zero, the pacific islander native Koko has never seen a car before.  He should have no chance of even backing it into an alley to keep it out of sight.  There should be different level of "skill zero" where he has some chance of simple car tasks, but still has much less than an 80% chance of merging onto a highway on his own.  

Quote from: daniel_ream;548319As for all the driving metaphors, there's very little point in arguing about how likely a success or failure is until you've defined what those terms mean.  Is a failure to successfully merge onto a highway overshooting into the middle lane and having to swerve back, or is it a twenty-car pileup?  Since you're talking about a binary pass/fail check, defining your two possible results matters.

I did define success as being "without incident" - by which I meant without causing any sort of accident or report-able traffic violation.  I would presume that failure would mean any of a range of possible incidents.  Let me go over my point again.  Let's consider several characters:

1) A native Pacific Islander who has never seen a car
2) Someone who has never driven, but grew up around cars and has seen how they work
3) Someone who has driven every day for years, but is not notably skillful
4) Someone who is a top professional stunt driver

I'm claiming that there are things that are easy (over 75%) for #2 that will be hard for #1 (under 25%).  Likewise, there are things that are easy for #3 that are hard for #2.  Similarly, there are things that are easy for #4 that are hard for #3.  

Quote from: The Traveller;548313An exampli gratia to illustrate the point. Had I known we were going to cross swords over it I would have used a different example. There are also things like skill specialisation, vehicle customisation, and luck scores to take into account. If someone has focused a large portion of their lives on succeeding at one particular stunt, they are going to be good at it. Doesn't mean they will be any good at any other stunt, which is where specialisation comes in.

That's fine by me.  I hope you'll also do me the courtesy of not harping on my backwards jump example.  I'm still asking my question - define for me a regular Difficulty 22 driving task.

Quote from: LordVreeg;548069So any skill system worth a shit that wants to tackle this has to address this.  Nesting skills (with basic versions being needed for subskills) solves this problem nicely.

Quote from: The Traveller;548072True, but nobody is saying a massive skill level difference won't carry the day almost without exception, most rules cover that. So the highly skilled are already covered (maybe not in D&D?), but in most real life situations outside of pro sports and science experiments, randomness comes into play a lot more.

The 'nested subskill' approach is basically what you were using already in the Driving/Stunt Driving example earlier. I do like skill nesting myself rather than stratospheric skill bonuses and DCs (I'd rather someone who want to be a rocket scientist takes Aerospace Engineering as a skill a la Palladium, rather than d20 systems's approach where you need Build Mechanical Device +37 and can then also fix anything).

Quote from: jibbajibba;548079Likewise I have always been a bit crap at racquet sports. When i was a kid I could play a game of tennis against a couple of my mates who played tennis a little. They woudl always win, not occassionally always. They weren't semi-pro tennis players they were 15 year old kids with a bit of natural talent and some practice.
There are lots of sports where someone a little better will always win. Pool, tennis, squash, boxing the list is extensive.

Skills are similar. I work with a lot of coders a good coder will alwys produce better code than a crap coder. I used to make my own furniture. Learnt it from a book, was alright but then I worked with a mate who was a trained cabinetmaker and the gulf was huge. He wasn't Chipendale but he had 2 years experience and 3 years of training.

I would say in real life different skills and challenges work out different but its closer to 20% talent 70% skill and 10% luck than 1:1:1

Just to comment - again tying it back to the other thread which I think discussed this - how a system uses skill checks is also important. A slight shift in skill can make a substantial difference across multiple checks. If 'critical failure' on a Drive roll allows a second Drive check to negate a pileup, it will happen much less frequently. A racketball contest played out shot-by-shot would means the higher skill % character is much more likely to win. Usually skill contests don't get run in this much detail (unless you happen to like 4th Edition...) but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Edit: cross-posted with BSJ

Actually, a follow-up as I think about it.  

I think the implied tiered skill system effectively gives a wider range of skill.  

i.e. Suppose that there's a basic "Understand Technology" skill, and a certain level of that is required for the "Drive" skill, and a certain level of the "Drive" skill is necessary for the "Stunt Driving" skill.  

By tiering skills on top of each other, you're creating a wider range of skill capability than just a single range of 0 to 10.  

I think such tiering could satisfy what I would want out of balance between skill and randomness.

Quote from: jhkim;548324He should have no chance of even backing it into an alley to keep it out of sight.

That's correct, and is the standing rule.

Quote from: jhkim;548324That's fine by me.  I hope you'll also do me the courtesy of not harping on my backwards jump example.

Meh, after rpgnet man, this place is a warm day on a sunny beach.

Quote from: jhkim;548324I'm still asking my question - define for me a regular Difficulty 22 driving task.

Hard overtake on a deep bend maybe? If uncontested.

Quote from: jhkim;548329Edit: cross-posted with BSJ

Actually, a follow-up as I think about it.  

I think the implied tiered skill system effectively gives a wider range of skill.  

i.e. Suppose that there's a basic "Understand Technology" skill, and a certain level of that is required for the "Drive" skill, and a certain level of the "Drive" skill is necessary for the "Stunt Driving" skill.  

By tiering skills on top of each other, you're creating a wider range of skill capability than just a single range of 0 to 10.  

I think such tiering could satisfy what I would want out of balance between skill and randomness.

yes, this is what I was saying in mine one incomprehensible way earlier, to you and Mr. Johnson's credit.

Quote from: LordVreeg;548069and there are some very very simple solutions here.  Some, more basic skills, have  a large component of native talent that incorporates into success.  More advanced skills (such as said quantum physics problem) require much more grounding in the discipline; with experience and knowledge being much more critical ingredients into success.

So any skill system worth a shit that wants to tackle this has to address this.  Nesting skills (with basic versions being needed for subskills) solves this problem nicely.

A solution I've been looking at is having the thing that are handled by a large component of native talent being handled by attribute rolls and those things that require knowledge being handled by skills, and handling things such that tasks that can be performed with natural ability require an attribute roll but someone will levels in a real skill appropriate for the task either doesn't need to roll or only needs to make a DFU roll (only the very worst result creates a failure or failure possibility) and if it's a task that requires levels, a person without the skill rolls as unskilled while a skilled person uses their skills.  That way, everyone has a chance to climb trees, for example, but not everyone can climb cliffs.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;548328The 'nested subskill' approach is basically what you were using already in the Driving/Stunt Driving example earlier. I do like skill nesting myself rather than stratospheric skill bonuses and DCs (I'd rather someone who want to be a rocket scientist takes Aerospace Engineering as a skill a la Palladium, rather than d20 systems's approach where you need Build Mechanical Device +37 and can then also fix anything).

Nested subskills are awesome but take a lot of time and effort to put together, if one has the time to invest in the milieu I'd say go for it! They don't affect ongoing gameplay in any material fashion, just add a nice spin of flavour and maybe some strategy. If chargen has a lifepath system, they also tie nicely into that, a bit like WHFRP. I would imagine they lead to long lists of skills as well, which doesn't suit everyone.

The system I use can't really be gamed by adding +50 bonuses somehow and then use driving skills to perform brain surgery, again its a common sense thing like any system. Similarly no matter how high you roll to hit with "use blade" you can't mimic the effects of the "inverted crocodile" martial arts skill.

Quote from: The Traveller;548431Nested subskills are awesome but take a lot of time and effort to put together, if one has the time to invest in the milieu I'd say go for it! They don't affect ongoing gameplay in any material fashion, just add a nice spin of flavour and maybe some strategy. If chargen has a lifepath system, they also tie nicely into that, a bit like WHFRP. I would imagine they lead to long lists of skills as well, which doesn't suit everyone.

The system I use can't really be gamed by adding +50 bonuses somehow and then use driving skills to perform brain surgery, again its a common sense thing like any system. Similarly no matter how high you roll to hit with "use blade" you can't mimic the effects of the "inverted crocodile" martial arts skill.

well, that is the truth.  And I am kind of insane that way.
I've invested decades, so it's worth it.
And ther rest of your assumptions are pretty right on, to a a degree.  I think we are clsoer than I thought on this.
I just have found a few things that work well for simulated this in terms of long-term character growth.  Most of my campaigns really go on and on, so having unique and varied character growth as the normal expected play style requires certain investirure on the other side.