Old, New, In-the-middle School: I Don't Understand (Part 5)

When I was a kid, there was a TV commercial for Kinder chocolate eggs where a child asked his dad, as he was leaving the house, if he could get a present when he returned. The dad agreed, and the kid said, "I want a toy, a surprise, and some chocolate..." At that point, the dad smiled and replied that it wasn’t just one present but three! In the end, the dad came back home bringing the child the chocolate egg, solving what seemed like an impossible request... Well, many discussions about old-school and new-school RPGs remind me of that commercial: there's a problem that seems unsolvable… Can't it be solved? Most of the time, the author explains that it looks like there's a solution, but in reality, it's just an illusion... Let me go through some of these (un)resolved issues.

Topic#5: Player’s skills vs. Character’s skills

I believe this is the only topic I have fairly clear in terms of content. However, it is part of the “why?” series because I can’t quite understand the debate between the two factions: those who want to use character skills and those who defend player skills. To get everyone on the same page, I’ll simplify the discussion in these terms: there are RPGs with rules where the character must face the challenge in the game (i.e., there’s a puzzle to solve and my character has an Intelligence of 18, so I roll for Intelligence to see if they solve it); if we support this faction, we’re in favor of character skills. Alternatively, the player skills faction wants the real abilities of the player to solve the challenge (i.e., in the case of the puzzle, the GM reads it out, and the player must solve it at the table in real life).

Since I have my own opinion, which I’ll explain shortly, I’d like to focus on one aspect of this issue: those who support player skills can only do so within certain limits. The limits seem obvious, but I’m not sure they are: the skills in question could be mental (reasoning) and social (interacting with other characters in the game). They certainly can’t be physical skills (I have trouble imagining the GM asking the player to bend a metal bar to see if they can free their character from prison). Some supporters disagree because player skills also include abilities like searching or using the senses (namely Perception in my game), and here I have some doubts because I don’t see how a player can resolve these challenges: we often hear about the famous 10-foot pole and the idea that there’s no need to have the character search for a trap if the player declares they’re testing the ground with a 10-foot pole. As a game design solution, I’d say we’re off the mark because the player hasn’t used any of their own skills: a test is needed, and it’s enough for the player to declare at the start of each session that their character uses the pole in every situation, and the problem is solved... So, I don’t understand two different points of the argument: first, I don’t understand why searching for a trap can be solved with player skills with the pole as proposed, and this wouldn’t be possible for picking a lock (any locked door or chest would then be useless…). Secondly, I don’t understand why it’s so awful to use character skills when the character has stats defined for this reason. If I understand correctly (though I admit I haven’t put too much effort into this since it’s not a particularly interesting topic for me), the debate is again related to the old school model: bitd, it was done this way, and therefore, it’s better to continue doing it.

That said, I’ve still taken a stance after making design choices in my game mechanics. As always, I don’t think I’ve adhered to either faction and have made a choice far removed from these arguments simply because I defined the mechanics without considering this topic. In VI·VIII·X, challenges are always resolved with character skills except those based on reasoning and social interactions (which isn’t so strange given what I explained above!). The basic reasoning behind this choice is that in an RPG a player cannot replace their intelligence with character’s one, and the same applies to role-playing interactions with other characters. In other words, it’s impossible to play an intelligent character when you’re ‘normal’; maybe you can play a ‘dumb’ character, but I assure you, even that is quite difficult. Obviously, the reverse is true: I can’t resolve an observation challenge with my own player’s sight since it’s within a fictional world. As a result, I believe my approach is simply rational; it may or may not be liked, but it’s easy to explain and, above all, easy to manage during play. Obviously, supporters of both factions won’t be satisfied because my choice is a hybrid that doesn’t fully satisfy either side, but since I don’t understand why these factions exist, I will neither express an opinion on the matter nor change my model.

I don’t want to be a philosopher, at the end of the day I just want to play RPGs and have fun!

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