Symmetrical Skill Checks

Symmetrical? Ambivalent? Not sure what the best term is for this idea, but here’s the idea.

Problem: Too many skills on the character sheet.

What’s the difference between Perception, Investigation and Insight? Am I Deceiving or just Negotiating? What skill does my opponent roll to oppose me?

How many skills should an RPG have, anyway? Does it need skills at all?

You can certainly role-play without skills on your character sheet. Some games only have ability scores. Ghost/Echo has no ability scores but has one skill per character (“the thing you’re good at”). Do skills make the game fun? I’m going to say: yes. It’s more than just getting a bonus. The fun is in playing to your strengths: choosing your character’s actions to bring those bonuses into play. A character that’s good at talking their way out of things is going to approach a situation differently than a character that’s good at fighting. That’s role-playing, and that’s what we’re all here for.

But you can definitely have too many skills in a game. I’m looking at you, Call of Cthulhu (you too, Trail).

Solution: Symmetrical Skills

When someone tries to Deceive you, what do you roll to oppose that? You roll your Deception skill. When you try to Sneak in, which of the enemy’s skills are you rolling against? Their Sneak. The idea is, if you’re good at something, then you’re good at sensing or opposing when someone else does it.

This should cut the number of skills roughly in half, right? You only need Sneak, not Sneak and Perception. You only need Deception, not Deception and Insight.

The One-To-Many Problem

I’ve already thought of a problem with this approach. If I’m Negotiating with someone, I don’t know whether they’re Negotiating or Deceiving. We could end up rolling Negotiation vs. Deception. Actually, is that a problem? It is if I rolled Negotiation but my Deception bonus is actually better. Maybe I just roll the dice and the GM picks which of my skill bonuses applies? Sounds like that would slow the game down. And wouldn’t work in a dice-pool game.

If I’m searching a room, should I roll Stealth vs. the hypothetical GM character(s) who might be hiding from me or might have hidden some object from me? But what if there’s nothing hidden here and I’m just trying to notice details of what’s in the room? Maybe we still need a Perception skill. Or maybe the GM will just take my flat roll and ignore my Deception skill bonus.

I think the idea of a symmetrical skill system has promise, but needs work.

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Story-Level Items & Interventions

Read this synopsis of play and notice how very different it feels from your typical D&D session.  My discussion of story-level magic items and other “interventions” follows.

Session 6: Three Visions

Gorunx, Ioun, and the Pirate Captain hold a secret audience with Anatola, revealing to her the results of their “visit” to Niblocus and Panur. The group is unanimous in their belief that the warring gods are best destroyed, or, failing that, left somehow locked away to attack and kill each other. Anatola’s powers have been on the decline, but she perks up when she hears of Ioun’s dimension-traveling skiff.

Gorunx, Ioun, the Pirate Captain return to the Sea’s Call, and from thence, launch Ioun’s skiff at the close of day. Anatola sets light to mystic herbs and then, with Ioun’s aid directs the boat towards the Cosmis (aka Karmic) Maelstrom. When they arrive at the massive, planar whirlpool, Gorunx, Ioun, and the Pirate Captain experience separate visions:

Gorunx imagines that his companions on the skiff have been replaced by goblins who proceed to attack boats containing Mugabe warriors with slings. When the vision ends, Gorunx finds that they are in possession of six blue stones which the goblins were launching from their slings.

Ioun has an encounter with the “Fathomless Shadow”–a giant squid who can be called up from the depths and whose “milk” (a black inky discharge) has the power to neutralize Niblocus’s fiery blood.

The Pirate Captain encounters a giant sea crab or spider whose head is crested by two “horns” with the power to summon the Fathomless Shadow. Using a dagger supplied by the vision, the Pirate Captain climbs on top of the crab-spider and cuts off the horns. When the Pirate Captain returns from the dream land, they find themselves still in possession of the mystic dagger.

Upon their return to Kumberbo, Anatola reveals that there is a legendary monster (or god?) names Shora off to the west who makes her lair in a dangerous, treacherous archipelago. The trio sets off to investigate, hoping that Shora will match up with the crab-spider of the Pirate Captain’s vision.

Robbie Boerth, from a private Discord channel, posted with author’s permission

The vast majority of magic items in D&D play are (I’m going to call them) “incremental magic items”.  They improve your characters effectiveness incrementally (a little bonus), or they give a small new ability that’s non-specifically useful (like clairvoyance or flight), or they let you do something specific a limited number of times (usually a spell effect).

There’s a reason for this: it’s so PCs can pick up magic items here and there without affecting the ongoing story too much.  Each item is a little power-up.  This steady drip of rewards is fun for players who like to watch their characters grow in power.

But it’s not very interesting (to me), and more importantly, it doesn’t simulate the fiction that we’re trying to model with this game.  Consider the One Ring from Lord of the Rings, a world-shaping enchanted item that falls into the hands of a level-1 hobbit.  Or the Greek myth of Perseus, to whom the gods lend Hermes’ sandals (flight), Hades’ Helm of Darkness (invisibility), and Athena’s shield, so that he can slay Medusa.  Or the god-made swords in Saberhagen’s Book of Swords.  Or The Ship That Sails Over Land and Sea in Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné… or the dimension-traveling skiff in the AP above.  Each of these items becomes the focus of a quest or the linchpin of the story.

The way these items appear in “play” differs from your typical incremental item, too.  Incremental items, you tend to find after defeating a challenge.  You often don’t know what you’ll find until you search the corpse or open the chest.  You go “What’s this?  Oh, cool,” put it on your character sheet, and move on.  A story-level item, on the other hand: first you hear whispers about it in legends, or from some wise (and scary) ally.  It is the only solution to an otherwise insurmountable problem you are facing.  Then, acquiring the item requires undertaking a quest, or bargaining with an entity of great power, or is a misfortune in itself.  The story becomes about how you deal with the item, or how you acquire it and what it enables you to then do.

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How To

I want to play more games that feel like the synopsis above!  Fast-paced stories that involve wondrous and hugely consequential magicks.  How can we do that?

Why do we hesitate to introduce such world-changing magic items into our games?  Because role-playing games are GAMES.  We know how to let a game progress through combat: a carefully balanced set of rules and challenges.  Advancing a story by winning battles feels gamey and fun.  Whereas just waving a magic wand to get what you want… doesn’t.

So how do we “balance” having an all-powerful item in the game?

• If the item will automatically solve the PCs’ problem, then acquiring the item must involve serious Risk, Cost, Dilemma, or Obligation.
• Or the item may be the cause of the PCs’ problem, or it makes “a” big problem “their” big problem.

Think of it this way: our stories run on conflict, danger, uncertainty.  If the item automatically solves Conflict-A, then Conflict-A is not what fuels the story.  So, what is Conflict-B?  Conflict-B is getting the item, or bringing the item to where it can be useful, or it’s all the problems that just possessing the item causes.  Like that.

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Not Just Items

We can generalize this discussion from magic items to include other mega-powerful advantages, like favours from gods or the support of mighty rulers.  Let’s call them interventions.  How can we introduce such all-powerful interventions in play, while maintaining the fun, game-like aspects of our RPGs?

We need some new techniques and best-practices.  Here is what I’ve come up with after a bit of brainstorming; but this is not the final word, it’s the start of a discussion.  What do you think of these ideas?  Have you seen any of these succeed (or fail) in play?  What else can you think of?  Let’s talk!

Using Story-Level Interventions in Play:

(Where “intervention” may be an enchanted item, a favour, an ally, etc..)

1. The intervention should be specific in use.  Not a +10 sword, but: the only sword that can slay the ancient dragon Ixferyx.  Not that the god Alphariel will do favours whenever you want, but that Alphariel will put a sleep charm on Betariel this one time, so that you can sneak into the Underworld. And She demands a service of you in return.
2. Tie the intervention to the situation.  These aren’t random magic items!  The intervention is key to dealing with (or creating) the problem the PCs face.
3. Foreshadow the intervention early in the game/story, maybe before the PCs acquire it (but afterwards can be fun too, right Bilbo?).  This gives you time to build up atmosphere around it: excitement, awe or dread.
4. The intervention presents its own challenges.  Either acquiring it is monumentally difficult (e.g. the Golden Fleece), or to bring it to bear on the problem is a massive undertaking (The One Ring), or getting it or using it has serious consequences (summoning Betelgeuse), or maybe the intervention creates its own problems (Stormbringer).  Think: Risk, Cost, Dilemma, or Obligation.
5. The PCs will use up the intervention, or lose it by the end of the story.  It doesn’t become a permanent addition to their arsenal.
6. Using the intervention is consequential.  It changes the situation or the world, whether or not its use successfully solves the problem.  Don’t make getting or using the intervention a checkpoint on a railroad.  Rather, make it a fork in the road.  One of several possible interesting things is going to happen.  Play to find out what.

Story-level interventions are actually pretty common in movies and other static media.  First, the author tells us that the enemy is completely invincible or the dire fate is all but unavoidable.  Then we are told about this one thing that could allow the hero to save the day.  Now the hero just has to go and get it.

Other examples of story-level interventions:

• On only one day of the year, the last light of the setting sun will illuminate the invisible keyhole in this door (The Hobbit).  This one was kinda weak, because we didn’t even find out about this until they were at the door and trying to open it — and it just happened to be Durin’s Day.  If the dwarves had known about this from the start, and were rushing to get to The Lonely Mountain in time for sunset on Durin’s Day, that would have been exciting!
• Emperor Elric’s cousin has kidnapped his betrothed and fled Melniboné with his army.  Elric’s only hope of getting her back alive lies in summoning the Chaos lord Arioch and binding Melniboné in the service of Chaos for another generation (Elric of Melniboné). Arioch aids Elric in this situation, but becomes an unreliable and demanding “ally” (master?) thereafter.
• Indiana Jones’ father is mortally wounded; only the Holy Grail can save him, which is locked behind a series of deadly puzzles that nobody has ever been able to solve (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 1989).  This situation comes up pretty late in the story, but that gave the authors plenty of time to build up the impossibility of finding the Grail!

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Travel – The RPG

Random idea for a campaign. Or an RPG, I don’t know.

Session-1

You are young-adult humans, all of the same generation, all in the same village. We spend the session coming up with stories about other places in the world that we’ve heard about. The Dramojh fortress at the top of yonder mountain, where the Hikili invasion was finally halted. The great stinking city of Zandria, where they say you can hear every language in the world, and see the temples of 1000 gods. The cliff-caves of Tothran where winged people have dwelled since the time our holy scrolls were written. Latnia, where legendary Eraklos fought the gods – once the centre of a mighty empire, now a ghost-town of marble monuments, they say. Etc..

Samarkand, by Richard-Karl Karlovitch Zommer (1866–1939) – Christie’s, LotFinder: entry 5146250 (sale 7684, lot 349, London, 26 November 2008), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19321607

Session-2

You pick a destination, or a direction, and as a group of wide-eyed level-1 characters, you set out to discover the world. Which legendary spot do you want to see first? Which strange people? Will it be like your grandparents’ stories, or completely different?

Yeah.

I love exploration in fantasy RPGs, but I think what’s missing is the anticipation that you get when you travel to a place you’ve heard and dreamed about your whole life. When I went to Athens and Istanbul I was fucking beside myself with glee. I still ache to see the Silk Road for myself.

For a game, I don’t know if it would be more fun to make up a bunch of places and legends and then go there and see how much is true and how the GM has tweaked it. Or to read a really polished and well-written almanac about a fantasy world – not factual stuff like a GM’s setting book, but rather “this is what you have heard about these places since you were a kid”, so there’s still lots of room to be surprised. Like reading all the Greek myths and then going to modern-day Greece (or Medieval Greece, at least).

Yeah. This is the game that retired-me is writing while I work my 9-5.

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