When Skills Fail
It surprises me (sometimes) how many people voice support for the "no skills" approach to D&D. They're pretty much all old-schoolers; not too many 3rd/4th Edition or Pathfinder players among them.
A common thread running through many of the arguments against skills is that they make things too easy; GMs and players who rely on skill rolls are lazy. This argument is a bit odd on its face, since roleplaying is a leisure activity. I see no reason to bind it in philosophies that make the process strenuous.
That aside, I've observed many campaigns that appeared to depend heavily on skill rolls but in fact relied on GM/player interaction more than either the GM or the players let on or possibly were even aware. This has been true not only in D&D but across many different games, including some that use skill rolls to resolve just about everything.
You know what I'm talking about, For the game to advance from A to C, characters must accomplish B. That task might be finding a door, unlocking a chest, spotting a bloodstain, bending a bar/lifting a gate, persuading the victim's lawyer to let you have a look at the will, etc. The player with the key skill rolls 1 on the check, and the GM reaches for his inhaler.
Several things can happen at that moment. One is, the GM manufactures a reason to allow a second roll: "You didn't find any secret door on the east side of the room. Roll again for the west side." Another is, the GM turns the failure into success but makes it sound as if it could have been much better: "You find a secret door but you can only pry it open about a foot. You'll need to strip off your backpacks and pass them through one at a time." A third is that the challenge passes to someone much less capable: "The elf rogue couldn't find anything, but what the heck, everyone else give it a shot." Inevitably the one-eyed, hook-handed barbarian who doesn't even like doors rolls a 20, saving the day and making Houdini Dorfinder look like a fool.
A fourth option is that the GM slips into the skill-free zone without realizing it: "You didn't find a door, but you discovered a stone in the mosaic that seems out of place." Someone says "I press the stone" and quelle surprise! A door opens. Intentionally or not, another group of players has just experienced the awe and mystery of the OD&D Limits.
A Beneficial Blending?
In kicking around all these ideas, a way to blend old and new occurred to me. That is, treat skill rolls as insta-finds but keep the notion that if you search long enough (traditionally, 10 minutes per 10-foot square), you'll find what you're looking for. This addresses a separate problem I have with skill rolls -- setting the bar (DC) so low that someone is guaranteed to jump over it. If that's your approach, consider just having the players do two minutes of wrist exercises before the game and dropping the pretense during play. Too many times have I witnessed this exchange.
DM: Thorstein, you found the secret door!
Thorstein's player: Really? I rolled a 4. (yawn).
As always, 10-minute searches have meaning only if the GM values time in an old-school way, and this approach won't appeal to people who dislike skills on principle. It does allow GMs to set skill roll targets high enough so that a successful roll means something while still allowing success through sheer doggedness and increased risk.
Labels: analysis, perception
Patrick Mallah August 17, 2012 at 2:58 PM
I consider myself an old school player (since 1984) and yet I love skill rolls a lot more than most old school players. I've even tried to tinker with the rules in the past to make a class-less skill-based version of D&D. I think your examples for perception are limited here because you are trying to incorporate too many variables.
As a GM, if I want my players to find the secret door there is no roll whatsoever. I only ask for rolls for things when failure is interesting, and in your example if I think the adventure can continue without the PCs finding the secret door than I might ask for a roll. I think it really depends on the dungeon, and the dictates of the GM or of the plot. If the characters NEED to find a secret door to solve the mystery, then they should simply find it. Maybe it was left open, or maybe it's existence is obvious. If it's just a room with treasure and doesn't further the plot, then I see nothing wrong with calling for a roll (or rolling in secret) and letting the dice fall where they may.
But I do ask for perception rolls from the whole group even when the secret door or clue MUST be discovered to further the plot. In the past when I've called for these perception checks for the whole group the rolls merely determine who gets to react to the discovery first.
Steve August 17, 2012 at 3:22 PM
That's where we have a bit of a disconnect. I get what you're saying and I've done it myself many times, but I have to wonder -- If I wanted and/or needed the characters to go through the door/find the spent shell casing/notice the person watching them, then why did I make it secret at all? More and more I find myself veering away from secret doors as story elements toward secret doors as puzzles. The trick isn't finding the secret door; it's figuring out the right place to look. Once you've narrowed that down correctly, you'll find the door, given sufficient time. But first, players should arrive at the point where they realize, "we've missed something; there must be a secret door here somewhere."
That's a bit off track for the larger skills question, but not entirely. If they realize, "we can't stop the ogres without the reclusive wizard's help," then do I a) let them march to the wizard's hut and make a Diplomacy check, or b) let them march to the wizard's hut, outline a general argument they're going to present, and then make a Diplomacy check, or c) outline a very specific argument they're going to present and only if I consider it a weak case have them make a Diplomacy check? I'd like the players to take the extra step of figuring out how they're going to win the wizard's cooperation, not just that they need it. That doesn't contradict your statement in any particular; it's just to clarify my view.
Peter D August 17, 2012 at 8:26 PM
One reason to make it secret and then allow them to find it automatically is to explain why everyone else hasn't just found the door. It's no different, really, than putting up a trapped puzzle door and handing the PCs the secret notes that tell them exactly how to disarm it. Or an unopenable door plus a magic key that opens it, etc. Sometimes the "secret" part is merely explaining why it's not been found by others, even if the players possess something (whether knowledge, an item, or just GM fiat) that lets them succeed where others failed.
Steve August 22, 2012 at 10:45 AM
Good point about explaining why a door hasn't been opened before now. I've done that many times myself.
Adventure games should never bottleneck to the point where they rely on one specific action being resolved to drive play onwards. If finding a secret door relies on a roll of the die that cannot be repeated there need to be other options for continuation of play. However, I see no reason why characters cannot spend hours searching the same wall for a secret door, or for that matter spend hours trying to pick a lock.
I've found that this is where the passive perception check comes in handy. It allows me to design secrets that I want to be found: 'The rogue's passive perception was just enough to find it' and secrets that are bonuses for good rolls or clever players. DC 30 if you're just 'searching the room' but automatic if you specifically say you're looking under the giant portrait.
-C August 18, 2012 at 11:14 AM
Yes. Secret doors are puzzles. Or should be. They are in my game and it works awesome.
Passive perception is a skill tax, that basically resolves into DM Fiat, as The Dad Hatter notes. You shouldn't want any outcome in dungeon exploration.
Guy Fullerton August 21, 2012 at 10:39 PM
"[The skills make things too easy] argument is a bit odd on its face, since roleplaying is a leisure activity. I see no reason to bind it in philosophies that make the process strenuous."
Perhaps it's easier to appreciate the skills-make-things-too-easy viewpoint by considering _other_ leisure activities, like rock climbing, chess tournaments, toastmasters, working out, drawing/painting/illustration, martial arts, creative writing, yoga, poker, etc. These are all leisure activities, certainly, _and_ they are also strenuous. Gaming is no different.
Easy gaming is like riding a roller coaster; anybody can sit down, click in, and go on the no-effort ride. But I prefer gaming that's a little more like learning how to do (and eventually mastering) a 720 degree + tail grab trick in the half pipe of the snow terrain park.
Interesting perspective, as always. I need to think on that a bit more.
Doctor Futurity August 27, 2012 at 9:35 AM
I think it's a misnomer that skills are an "easy button" or can create artificial plot walls (i.e. you fail the check and miss the clue). Arguably one of the reasons you include skills in a game is to help define what your character is and can do; perhaps the problem lies in the fact that all too often gamers play characters that are by definition outside the scope of knowledge and ability of the player. If I role up a wizard, that character already has built in expectations that I can't meet in real life (like casting a fireball), so by extension it seems logical that he's also able to perform alchemy and can read ancient languages or some similar skill set, two other features about which I am unlikely to be familiar with in real life. The problem seems to arise with a very specific style of game play that is designed to task the player, not the character (puzzle-based dungeon gaming).
It reminds me of my college years when I briefly played with an avid Runequest GM who took this to an extreme: one could not, say, mount a horse and ride (rolling a skill check); he required the player to narrate how he hitched the saddle, buckled the straps, mounted the horse, and then how he conducted himself on that horse. Even growing up on a ranch and riding horses, I was unable to satisfy this GM's demanding descriptive requirement; and more over, in playing a game about fantasy adventurers it seemed that the GM had missed the forest for the extremely meticulous trees.
So for me, at least, skills are a shorthand for "I don't know this stuff, but it's fun pretending to be a person who does, and here's a mechanic to simulate what I don't know." It also serves for the reverse: "I may know all about this period of ancient history, or be a mechanical engineer, but my character is dumb as an ox and wouldn't know what to do with a pulley and lever let alone figure out how to operate this secret door, so the limited skill set keeps me in character."
Simon August 31, 2012 at 11:33 PM
>>You shouldn't want any outcome in dungeon exploration.<<
You shouldn't, but if you are running a poorly constructed linear WotC adventure where the PCs HAVE TO find the secret door or the adventure ends, there is a lot of pressure on the GM that they do so! A while back I ran Dungeon 155's 'Heathen', an atmospheric retake on 'Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now'. Getting to the dramatic finale with the Kurtz analogue in the Inner Temple requires the PCs to locate a secret door. It's a completely pointless obstacle; miss it and the adventure ends.
-C September 1, 2012 at 1:27 AM
Is this really the idea? "They are making me!"
I assume that DM's are creative. That they won't be concerned with the way the adventure says it has to be, but instead use it as a toolbox.
And in the end, if they have to find the secret door to save the town, and they don't, then the town doesn't get saved.
It's a bad adventure, and speaks to the skill of the designer. It should feel bad. So should anyone who encourages such behavior by writing crapsack modules.
Writing or buying obviously. Stupid phone.
Steve September 1, 2012 at 1:34 PM
My only reservation in this regard is that DMs shouldn't need to fix things before an adventure works. Adjusting to fit your players and your campaign is fine. Adjusting to make the adventure playable should never be necessary if the publisher is charging $ for the product. Decades ago I got tired of reading reviews that concluded "this is a pretty good product if you take some time to fix it." If I have to fix it, then it's not a good product. WotC has occasionally been guilty of dead-ending adventures, as was TSR, but I'd say that overall their track records are at least as good as any other publishers' and better than most.
jbeltman February 11, 2014 at 6:46 PM
I was thinking, I would be annoyed if I was a secret door builder and people could find my secret door just by spending more time looking for it.
Skills vs. Skilz
Setting the Hook
Adventure Notebook: Hive of the Vampires
Adventure Notebook: Frozen Hall of Secrets
A Problem of Perception
The Tongue-Tied Bard
Valuing Time
I'll Take the Low Road
Adventure Notebook: The Burned Library
Pity the Gelatinous Cube