I'm posting this to gather opinions. I hope I frame my question correctly.

There's one area in particular I'd like to discuss where there's different schools of thought on skills. Some people like to roll for results, other people prefer to talk it out. Character skill versus player skill - and many hybrids of the two.

I like both.

Let me narrow the query. Sometimes there's situations where it's not clear what skill best applies. Would you give a +1 bonus to the player who guesses the correct skill? Would this encourage more talking-through-it while allowing skill point investment to be meaningful?
Or is this kind of a gimmick?

Example: the players are investigating some kind of organic machine. It's clearly a living organism, but it has gears, dials, and levers in addition to skin, muscle, eye stocks, and mucus. The players are confounded. What skill would be used to operate this thing, to get it to do what it does? Nature? Technology? Biogenics?

Let's say for now the GM allows only one skill to operate this thing. The players are now asking questions to figure out how it might work before deciding to make a roll, so they can get that +1 bonus for guessing correctly.

Does this pull the players into the game, or out of it? Is this how it would actually occur in play?

Quote from: Ashakyre;957886Let's say for now the GM allows only one skill to operate this thing. The players are now asking questions to figure out how it might work before deciding to make a roll, so they can get that +1 bonus for guessing correctly.

Does this pull the players into the game, or out of it? Is this how it would actually occur in play?

This sounds like a guessing game.  I run accross them as a player often especially if the DM is running a module.  I find them incredibly tedious.  

I run permissive games.  All of those skills will work if I am the DM, if you have more than 1 roll them all each success tells you more.  

Finally anytime you put up a skill gate like this you need to ask "what happens if they fail the roll?  Also how often do the NPC inhabits have to pass through this gate if its often there is probably a cheat.  

In your organic machine example the cheat could be a near by wrench for one of the sprockets, a chart for weekly production of slime, an order for 16 tiny horrors to be delivered to the orphanage.  Or an electro prod for when its being difficult.  I don't know its your machine.

But like I say I am a permissive DM I assume competent charcters and I hate guessing games.

When I hear.the term guessing game I think of giving random answers until you get the correct one. Yes, that's tedious.

Here I'm talking about 1 chance to guess. Just 1. And you have to use the description of the room / machine / whatever to help you get the right answer. But if you're wrong you still get to make the roll, just without the +1 bonus. Not that I've clarified, does that still sound tedious?

I could go either way. I'm just trying to gather opinions.

Quote from: Ashakyre;957886I'm posting this to gather opinions. I hope I frame my question correctly.

There's one area in particular I'd like to discuss where there's different schools of thought on skills. Some people like to roll for results, other people prefer to talk it out. Character skill versus player skill - and many hybrids of the two.

I like both.

Let me narrow the query. Sometimes there's situations where it's not clear what skill best applies. Would you give a +1 bonus to the player who guesses the correct skill? Would this encourage more talking-through-it while allowing skill point investment to be meaningful?
Or is this kind of a gimmick?

Example: the players are investigating some kind of organic machine. It's clearly a living organism, but it has gears, dials, and levers in addition to skin, muscle, eye stocks, and mucus. The players are confounded. What skill would be used to operate this thing, to get it to do what it does? Nature? Technology? Biogenics?

Let's say for now the GM allows only one skill to operate this thing. The players are now asking questions to figure out how it might work before deciding to make a roll, so they can get that +1 bonus for guessing correctly.

Does this pull the players into the game, or out of it? Is this how it would actually occur in play?

The "guess the right skill and get a +1" is a gamey reduction of something that could make sense, but is lame if it's just a random guess like that.

I would start with an understanding of the thing, which would naturally lead to ideas about what skills might be applicable and what the mods for each would be. I may likely even start by rolling if someone has a really appropriate skill to figure something out. I would then play out the PC's encounter with the thing, describing it to them, having the players roleplay and/or narrate their PCs' investigations of it, answering questions, and allowing "my PC will try to use their Foo skill to figure it out". Some actions like "I try to take it's pulse" or whatever might also lead to rolls for partial info based on skills and GM-invented modifiers and appropriate info being given. I would allow multiple people to try multiple skills, but trying multiple times often leads to cumulative penalties and/or developing inaccurate theories.

Quote from: Headless;957898This sounds like a guessing game.  I run accross them as a player often especially if the DM is running a module.  I find them incredibly tedious.  

I run permissive games.  All of those skills will work if I am the DM, if you have more than 1 roll them all each success tells you more.  

But like I say I am a permissive DM I assume competent charcters and I hate guessing games.

I'm like you--even when running games that say you are only supposed to allow one skill to work, I'll usually allow any relevant skill. (Yes, I will allow a career as a ballerina to give your character a bonus to maintain their balance.)

Quote from: Ashakyre;957886Example: the players are investigating some kind of organic machine. It's clearly a living organism, but it has gears, dials, and levers in addition to skin, muscle, eye stocks, and mucus. The players are confounded. What skill would be used to operate this thing, to get it to do what it does? Nature? Technology? Biogenics?

It seems to me that PC that had Nature, Technology, and Biogenics skills should have a good idea how to deal with this thing rather than needing to blindly guess. If anything, I would be looking to give some kind of synergy bonus rather than setting up the player to need to guess.

The "only one guess" thing seems arbitrary and gamey to me too. "You examine the biological component of the machine and fail to understand it. What? You want to study the mechanical parts now? Sorry. The rules won't let you do that!"

I'd think you would get better results examining the machine from a variety of angles rather than limiting your approach to just one.

My main problem with this approach is that is encourages players to focus on their character sheets too much. I find a game works better when players think about what they want to do, then look at their character sheets to check their chances of succeeding. It results in more creative play than scanning your character sheet, looking for your best skill, then thinking of a way to use it.

I agree with Headless and Baulderstone. It seems gamey and arbitrary to pick only one skill.

In reality, probably many different skills will apply to differing degrees, and it seems like a very subjective judgement call which applies most. Also, it will depend on the exact game-specific definition about what is covered by a given skill.

To bring in player skill, an alternate approach is to have some things that explicitly are not covered by character skills. So if you want the players to engage in tactics, just don't have a PC skill for "tactics". If you want the players to engage in puzzle solving, don't have a PC skill for "puzzle solving".

Quote from: Ashakyre;957922When I hear.the term guessing game I think of giving random answers until you get the correct one. Yes, that's tedious.

Here I'm talking about 1 chance to guess. Just 1. And you have to use the description of the room / machine / whatever to help you get the right answer. But if you're wrong you still get to make the roll, just without the +1 bonus. Not that I've clarified, does that still sound tedious?

I could go either way. I'm just trying to gather opinions.

It's still a guessing game.  I as the player have to guess what you as the module designer was thinking when you planned the room.  It's not as tedious since there is no penalty for failure but its still a bad habit.

Here's the thing about the module designer.  And let me be clear.  FUCK HIM!!!!!!!   Or her, what ever.  

I'm not having a converstion with him.  He didn't invite me to his house.  I didn't bring him pizza.  We're not playing ping pong later and I don't coach his daughter at little league.  

Once the designer gives the module to the Dongenon Master, or referee, he should fuck right off. The players and the referee are having a conversation and what ever they come up with, how ever they experence the world in real time is going to be better, realer than what ever the designer masterbated up all on his own.

Sorry, wandered off on a tanget there.  Bottom line don't make your players guess what you are thinking.  Help them to experience the world, and let them help you do the same.

Quote from: Ashakyre;957886Let's say for now the GM allows only one skill to operate this thing. The players are now asking questions to figure out how it might work before deciding to make a roll, so they can get that +1 bonus for guessing correctly.

In most any game I'm likely to play or run it's the GM's prerogative to decide what skill rolls are asked for and when. Skills generally aren't powers that are turned on and off and the GM should be aware if some knowledge or capability... or background experience... of the PCs has bearing on the issue at hand.

Ok, so this idea is coming back with a pretty hard "no."
Helpful.

So how do you make your skills have an element of both player and character skill?

To be fair, I don't think he's saying one skill only to identify whatever, he's saying one skill only to get the +1 in order to encourage more discussion going for the +1 instead of just hitting the drop-down menu of skills in order.

Quote from: Ashakyre;957963So how do you make your skills have an element of both player and character skill?

The player's plan determines bonuses.
The character's skill determines overall chances.

A good plan could be "figure out in a logical sequence what buttons do something, documenting what I'm testing and having the rest of the party scan for changes to the machine or environment, both with regular, IR, UV, and magical site" or "use a spell that lets me view the past of the device and see how someone else operated it".

A bad plan is "I start pushing buttons to see what happens".

Quote from: CRKrueger;957969To be fair, I don't think he's saying one skill only to identify whatever, he's saying one skill only to get the +1 in order to encourage more discussion going for the +1 instead of just hitting the drop-down menu of skills in order.

Basically yeah. I could go either way if a particular situation allows mutlitple skills or only one. But yeah, the way you phrased it, yeah.

Quote from: Ashakyre;957963Ok, so this idea is coming back with a pretty hard "no."
Helpful.

So how do you make your skills have an element of both player and character skill?

Player skill really comes down to the players coming up with creative uses for skills. If your players are fighting an automaton, a player with Mechanics might ask if he can use his skill to find a way to more effectively damage it, rather than just going for a basic attack. Alternately, he might want to use his skill to disable the thing but in a careful way that makes it more valuable for study and salvage.

The only thing you can do to encourage player skill is to make sure skills are somewhat loose in definition. Conversely, you can minimize player skill by making sure that every skill and power in the game is rigidly specific in what it can do to make sure nobody gets away with doing something clever.

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