The Gaming Den

OK, why do we need skills?

I'm serious. Every game I've played has a Skill system parallel to an Ability system, and each of those systems are set to different power levels for no discernable.

The skill systems I see break down like this:

A. Duplicate an ability from the Ability System. Ex. DnD Hide and Invis.

B. Get used as an excuse for the DM to give you information about the plot and are otherwise completely useless. Ex. Every RPGs Knowledge skills.

C. Get used as some kind of extra way to be better at normal things when you have equal stats. Ex. DnD Rogues get all the pussy because they have high skill point totals and the ability to take 10 much to the chagrin of the inhumanly charismatic Sorcerer.

D. An excuse to not use stats at all. Ex. Yes in DnD, being strong and agile don't make you a good climber. Climb skill does.

E. Way of being crappy at things when you are high level. In Shadowrun, you can be a powerful mage who has intiated several times and mastered lots of arcane tricks, but you still are bad at casting spells (so people make the no-brainer choice of always maxing that skill).

F. Round out the RPG aspects of your character. Ex. Shadowrun has a honest to god Magical Teaparty part of your character where you can get skills like Play MMOs and Baseball Stats.

G. Build a mini-game where none is really needed. Ex. DnD's profession and craft rules. Seriously, why are you baking bread for profit when you should be stabbing orcs for ass-pennies?



Ok, so why have skills at all? Why not just have Abilities and a three stat system like Str, Speed, and Will? Heck, if the DM wants to give you information we can skip the die roll and you just get it or just default it to a stat?

Generally abilities are fixed or expensive to change and skills can be changed/improved more easily. Some systems are the reverse (e.g. Shadowrun) but I think that's the norm.

If you could change/improve abilities significantly you'd take away this motivation to have skills.

Also, your point F matters. Even if it won't matter much in game some people want to be better at riding/stealing/plot exposition or whatever.

I like that there are abilities and skills used. It allows to make different characters.

Ex: I find it sound that there is a climbing skill - just because you are strong and agile doesn't mean you should be an expert free climber without any training. People should not all be the same - the sorcerer with inhuman charisma should not be better at fast-talking than the rogue who does that daily.

I am also not a fan of the game picking my skills for me - no "Oh, my character is level X, that means he has no learned how to climb, swim, dance and recite battle poetry expertly". Even high-level characters can be "bad" at something - relatively speaking. They're still better than average people. But there's no need to have everyone be as good at climbing just because they have the same level, we don't do that with spellcasting or swording either.

Give me choices where to focus my character.

For the knowledge skills, there is more than binary options - knowledge skills can grant clues, and show weaknesses of foes.

Regarding the concerns of B and F, you can basically combine them, since they're in part the same thing. Avenues by which your character can get hooks into adventures. But you can still have them as Abilities, more or less. Just grant a high number of let's call them "Background" points or whatever which people can use to acquire abilities which mostly serve to note on their sheet that they've had an interesting past. Award mroe when appropriate.

Mostly, the thing is that Skills are just another Ability system. In some games they're the only real Ability system (GURPS kinda comes to mind). In others, there are other Ability mechanics, and you shold probably use those instead, or alternatively fold the other Ability mechanics into Skills. Either way, it works out.

The only reason to have skills is if it is important that a character at a given level be able to have a variable amount of skill in a variable number of abilities while still being level appropirate. This means that if you want skills, three things need to happen:

1] A character with 5 Climb, 5 Jump, 5 Sneak and 5 Charm needs to be just as powerful as someone who has 20 Charm.
2] There needs to be a reason for the characters to let the 5 Charm guy do some of the charming instead of letting the 20 Charm guy do all of it every time.
3] Degrees of success. It can't be the DnD way of "Roll over the DC and you win, Roll under it and you lose", It needs to be "Roll 10 and you get some free cheese, roll 20 and you get a ride in the cart with the cheese, roll 30 and you get the cart, roll 40 and you get the cart and the farmer's daughter and he becomes your personal driver.

K wrote: B. Get used as an excuse for the DM to give you information about the plot and are otherwise completely useless. Ex. Every RPGs Knowledge skills.

Its handy if the DM has no clue/preference how much information he should give.

K wrote: C. Get used as some kind of extra way to be better at normal things when you have equal stats. Ex. DnD Rogues get all the pussy because they have high skill point totals and the ability to take 10 much to the chagrin of the inhumanly charismatic Sorcerer.

Its also a way to get more granularity (is that the word?)

K wrote: D. An excuse to not use stats at all. Ex. Yes in DnD, being strong and agile don't make you a good climber. Climb skill does.

In DnD strong gets you an advantage to an weak guy (with the same rank in the skill)

K wrote: E. Way of being crappy at things when you are high level. In Shadowrun, you can be a powerful mage who has intiated several times and mastered lots of arcane tricks, but you still are bad at casting spells (so people make the no-brainer choice of always maxing that skill).

Thats right, maybe give classes with no-brainer/must have skills automatically the maximum?

K wrote: F. Round out the RPG aspects of your character. Ex. Shadowrun has a honest to god Magical Teaparty part of your character where you can get skills like Play MMOs and Baseball Stats.

Thats better than DnD, where those skills (craft, profession) costs real resources. But yeah, thats an argument against skills...

K wrote: G. Build a mini-game where none is really needed. Ex. DnD's profession and craft rules. Seriously, why are you baking bread for profit when you should be stabbing orcs for ass-pennies?

Dont look at the DSA skill system, its worse.

K wrote: Ok, so why have skills at all? Why not just have Abilities and a three stat system like Str, Speed, and Will? Heck, if the DM wants to give you information we can skip the die roll and you just get it or just default it to a stat?

Only Abilities are probably to abstract for many (me included).
How about Abilites Str + Skilltraits like:

• never done before
• trained
• expert

so not every Bodybuilder is an superb climber?

K, you said it yourself with entry "C" -- it's to separate characters who have received some training in a field with characters who have not received that training (e.g. Alice has lots of practice riding a horse and Bob has not).

Now whether you call that training an "Ability" or a "Skill", who cares?

K wrote: A. Duplicate an ability from the Ability System. Ex. DnD Hide and Invis.

To give a character another avenue in which to attain those abilities since they are not given to them. In DnD getting Invisibility via spell is optional so rogues should have the "option" to do it before them (low level) and better than them at higher levels (hide in plane sight > invisibility)

B. Get used as an excuse for the DM to give you information about the plot and are otherwise completely useless. Ex. Every RPGs Knowledge skills.

To give a mechanical measure of success vs failure to decide where the plot may go depending on if you were successful or you failed at something.

C. Get used as some kind of extra way to be better at normal things when you have equal stats. Ex. DnD Rogues get all the pussy because they have high skill point totals and the ability to take 10 much to the chagrin of the inhumanly charismatic Sorcerer.

Allows skill based characters to shine in their domain. (Though the sorcerer can always out do the rogue in this field with a few spells here and there)

D. An excuse to not use stats at all. Ex. Yes in DnD, being strong and agile don't make you a good climber. Climb skill does.

To allow specialist to out class those who are just naturally gifted. IE I do this for a living but you're just more naturally gifted.

E. Way of being crappy at things when you are high level. In Shadowrun, you can be a powerful mage who has initiated several times and mastered lots of arcane tricks, but you still are bad at casting spells (so people make the no-brainer choice of always maxing that skill).

A tac that keeps those who want to be great at one thing unable to expand into all other territories. If the tax wasn't there and just repeated use put you where you needed to be there would be enough skill points to put into things you took no time out of your adventuring life to master. So a use base skill system would be preferred but then you'd still end up far ahead at casting and few other things anyway because you spent so much time using that skill.

F. Round out the RPG aspects of your character. Ex. Shadowrun has a honest to god Magical Teaparty part of your character where you can get skills like Play MMOs and Baseball Stats.

The option should be there if that's how you want to play I guess...

G. Build a mini-game where none is really needed. Ex. DnD's profession and craft rules. Seriously, why are you baking bread for profit when you should be stabbing orcs for ass-pennies?

I have seen people take on the professional/business racket of the game with some seriousness. I at one point wanted to be a roguish business man who had a started and operated a number of businesses.

Ok, so why have skills at all? Why not just have Abilities and a three stat system like Str, Speed, and Will? Heck, if the DM wants to give you information we can skip the die roll and you just get it or just default it to a stat?

I think the best reason is to keep specialists ahead of those naturally able. Even in systems (such as GURPS) where your attribute to everything you do you still have a point system that says your life time of training and experience makes you better at it then Adonis over there.

I don't have an argument for keeping social skills however as I often eschew the skills if good role playing is present but some people will feel better if there is an actual mechanic so that success or failure isn't totally in the hands of the GM.

Well I think another reasons for skill systems on top of attribute systems is that historically many RPGs have assigned abilities largely randomly to each PC (roll 4d6, drop lowest), but let the players then pick their character's skills (4/level if BBN) - giving a least an illusion of customization.

Of course, I don't think that's an especially good reason to continue such things - you could move to point buy attributes and allow selectable abilities without any randomness at all.

Josh_Kablack wrote:Well I think another reasons for skill systems on top of attribute systems is that historically many RPGs have assigned abilities largely randomly to each PC (roll 4d6, drop lowest), but let the players then pick their character's skills (4/level if BBN) - giving a least an illusion of customization.

Of course, I don't think that's an especially good reason to continue such things - you could move to point buy attributes and allow selectable abilities without any randomness at all.

This.


Skills that are powers, should just be powers.

"silver tongue" is an ability you grab. the fighter grabs it, or the wizard grabs it; the rogue could have "bitter cynic" and make people feel bad instead of lying to them.

skills should just be things that a character can do. powers are things that change what happens in game, beyond what people expect.

seriously "super athelete" and "mortal library" should be things a player can pick as their powers. Climbing a mountain gets you tired, but it gets everyone tired; and some mountains will just kill or drain or damage a PC.

That might be a good way to have PCs have abilities that their characters don't have. They can 'use' an ability they don't have, but it drains a power level for that scene/act.

So, you can have stories, like the wizard and fighter scaling a mountain; and being exhausted and helpless at the end of it, and they need to recover before they can face the big bad; or duel each other.

sorry for the cross ideas.

A. Duplicate an ability from the Ability System. Ex. DnD Hide and Invis.

Skills vs. Abilities are usually 1.) cheaper to purchase and 2.) less binary. If you have invisibility, people can't see you (that's kinda what invisibility MEANS). If you have the Hide skill, they might see you, depending on how observant they are and how sneak you are.

B. Get used as an excuse for the DM to give you information about the plot and are otherwise completely useless. Ex. Every RPGs Knowledge skills.

Uh...so? I have no problem with this simply being backstory instead of skills, personally.

C. Get used as some kind of extra way to be better at normal things when you have equal stats. Ex. DnD Rogues get all the pussy because they have high skill point totals and the ability to take 10 much to the chagrin of the inhumanly charismatic Sorcerer.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. That said, I don't have a problem with it. Skills are simply another investment of character power, and if you'd rather invest your power in getting tail rather than kicking ass, that's a reasonable choice to make (depending on the game).

D. An excuse to not use stats at all. Ex. Yes in DnD, being strong and agile don't make you a good climber. Climb skill does.

I'd say rather they cover areas where raw stats are too general. Just because you're strong you aren't necessarily a good climber, and the strongest dude in the world might not know how to swim. If you wanted stats to describe everything you can do, you either end up with an ass-ton of stats (basically, stats = skills) or you end up with major generalists who can do tons of stuff that they don't necessarily need to (i.e. you have an awesome Dex, so you're always good at picking locks and three-card monte, even if it's not appropriate to your character).
Frankly, I think GURPS's default skills system covered this reasonably. If you were strong, you were probably okay at climbing shit. If you were a trained climber, you were good. If you were a strong trained climber, it was easier for you.

E. Way of being crappy at things when you are high level. In Shadowrun, you can be a powerful mage who has intiated several times and mastered lots of arcane tricks, but you still are bad at casting spells (so people make the no-brainer choice of always maxing that skill).

For many things, I would say there has to be a default level of "yeah, you can do that". For things like climbing, jumping, etc. this is good. Likewise, for class appropriate skills (the example you gave), this is good.
But some things should simply be optional. There is no reason high-level characters should be awesome blacksmiths unless they made blacksmithing a part of their character.

F. Round out the RPG aspects of your character. Ex. Shadowrun has a honest to god Magical Teaparty part of your character where you can get skills like Play MMOs and Baseball Stats.

This is fluff and should be treated as fluff. Really.

G. Build a mini-game where none is really needed. Ex. DnD's profession and craft rules. Seriously, why are you baking bread for profit when you should be stabbing orcs for ass-pennies?

I don't feel these should be mini-games where you roll dice to collect dimes. But they can be useful for RP sometimes...if your character is a blacksmith, the plot may really call for a time when you need to repair something or make a fucking sword. If the cart breaks down and your character has Wheelwright proficiency, that can be cool. Or if you need to sail the ship because you killed the whole crew of pirates, it's nice if your guy has Profession: Sailor.
You can just handwave this and say "yes, of course your dude knows how to sail a ship, he's not a dumbass"...but depending on power level and how everyman you want your PCs to be, this may not be satisfactory.

Grek wrote:1) A character with 5 Climb, 5 Jump, 5 Sneak and 5 Charm needs to be just as powerful as someone who has 20 Charm.

Alternately, just design your skill system so that differences that big aren't possible. This ties with keeping things on the RNG, so I'd say it works better.

2) There needs to be a reason for the characters to let the 5 Charm guy do some of the charming instead of letting the 20 Charm guy do all of it every time.

Why, necessarily? I generally let mechanics change my oil, and if there's heavy lifting to be done I call on my big friends with the big muscles. I see no problem with letting people have niches that they usually deal with.
The only reason to "force" the 5 Charm guy to do some charming is either because you want to screw him (because he needs 10+ Charm) or because it's a valid plot device (maybe his really charming buddy is drunk, or a prisoner, or under some sort of spell, or whateverthefuck.

3] Degrees of success. It can't be the DnD way of "Roll over the DC and you win, Roll under it and you lose", It needs to be "Roll 10 and you get some free cheese, roll 20 and you get a ride in the cart with the cheese, roll 30 and you get the cart, roll 40 and you get the cart and the farmer's daughter and he becomes your personal driver.

This I would agree with, though I would personally limit success (to a varying degree, depending on overall level of PC power). I don't like "outrageous" successes, where you can convince people who hate you to lick your boots, make them believe they are a tree, or leap up to the moon.

Judging_Eage wrote:Skills that are powers, should just be powers.

"silver tongue" is an ability you grab. the fighter grabs it, or the wizard grabs it; the rogue could have "bitter cynic" and make people feel bad instead of lying to them.

Doesn't this makes things too binary? "You can either climb mountains or you can't", with little/no variance as to how high a mountain you can climb.

If you want to persuade the guards to let you go instead of arresting you, there are 3 ways to handle it:

1.) If the PLAYER makes a good argument, they go free. If not, they go to jail. I think this is fairly shitty, but some people like it.

2.) If you have the "Silver Tongue" ability (or the "Whine Effectively" or "Flash Cleavage" abilities, or whatever), you go free. If not, you go to jail.

3.) Everybody has some chance of persuading the guards, based on choices they made in character building/development. If they make a success (based on whatever system you have), they go free. If not, they go to jail.
This is usually a skill system, and IMO, the best way to resolve it. You can do it with straight abilities, but generally abilities/attributes are more stable than skills, meaning you either don't improve them or improve them fairly slowly...this makes for a more static character. If that's what you want, hey, cool.

The main advantage of skill systems is for people that want broad abilities to be static and specific applications of those abilities to be fluid.

(also, not sure who's quote tags are jacked, but please check)

K wrote:A. Duplicate an ability from the Ability System. Ex. DnD Hide and Invis.

As long as they're equivalently worthwhile and function differently, I don't see any reason why this isn't a workable setup. You can duplicate an ability, but change its mechanics in the ability and skill systems. So while the ability system might be super reliable and decently powered, the skill system offers the potential for more or longer uses but is more prone to failure. Both systems should move towards 'we don't care about this ability anymore' as you level, which already happens in DnD with the take 10 rule and increased durations from increasing CLs. You weren't really posting when I wrote this skill mod, but it's an example of what I mean.

K wrote:B. Get used as an excuse for the DM to give you information about the plot and are otherwise completely useless. Ex. Every RPGs Knowledge skills.

Knowledge skills that indicate what you know are dumb and should die in a fire. I want the commoner who lives in the library for all 60 years of his life to know more than the character who got to level 4 and put ranks in knowledge skills. There are some divinationey things that can be done with them, but 'skills as plot device' needs to go away.

K wrote:C. Get used as some kind of extra way to be better at normal things when you have equal stats. Ex. DnD Rogues get all the pussy because they have high skill point totals and the ability to take 10 much to the chagrin of the inhumanly charismatic Sorcerer.

If the rogue spent levels getting good at making people see things his way and the sorcerer didn't (and didn't take any spells to help him), why is this a problem? Surely the rogue sacrificed other things to get it, and the sorcerer got other things in its place?

K wrote:D. An excuse to not use stats at all. Ex. Yes in DnD, being strong and agile don't make you a good climber. Climb skill does.

It's not an excuse to not use stats. Early on, stats mods are on the order of skill mods, and the two are largely interchangeable if you just want to be decent at something. What it does do is put a higher value on levels and the resources that you get with them than on your initial stats, so that the guy who has a few levels and has invested in the skill is better than the guy who is just strong and agile.

K wrote:E. Way of being crappy at things when you are high level. In Shadowrun, you can be a powerful mage who has intiated several times and mastered lots of arcane tricks, but you still are bad at casting spells (so people make the no-brainer choice of always maxing that skill).

This is pretty much true, but I honestly don't see a way around it in a system where you have limited resources to spend each level. You could probably minimize the problems it causes by writing decent retraining rules, allowing the skilled classes to completely change out their ranks in one skill for another week of prep or whatever. It's not as good as just memorizing a different spell for the day, but it's better than we have.

K wrote:F. Round out the RPG aspects of your character. Ex. Shadowrun has a honest to god Magical Teaparty part of your character where you can get skills like Play MMOs and Baseball Stats.

This is all well and good, but anything that doesn't add to your power at each level should not cost you any of the resources you acquired at that level. They can live in the game, but they don't get to cost skill points.

K wrote:G. Build a mini-game where none is really needed. Ex. DnD's profession and craft rules. Seriously, why are you baking bread for profit when you should be stabbing orcs for ass-pennies?

While I'm not opposed to additional group mini-games (like a working social one), single player die rolling mini-games that require an investiture of your leveling resources and don't add to your power at that level should die in the same fire as 'how much you know' knowledge skills. And any skills that stop being level appropriate after a certain point shouldn't be advancable past that point, if they exist as skills at all. Hell, I'd only allow them if there were solid retraining rules available, so you could pick them up if you wanted to spend some down time with them but you wouldn't be trapped in them.

K wrote:Ok, so why have skills at all? Why not just have Abilities and a three stat system like Str, Speed, and Will? Heck, if the DM wants to give you information we can skip the die roll and you just get it or just default it to a stat?

Largely because of my answer to A. If you don't want skilled characters on different mechanical systems from ability characters, you probably shouldn't keep it because it's not useful. Unless both characters have equal access to both systems, in which case you could relegate second class abilities to the skill system and keep the real ones in the ability setup.

As to the DM just telling you things he wants you to know, he should do that. What you know should not be a function of your skills in a level based game unless it adds to your personal power in a specific, measurable way that fits with spending your power in any other pursuit.

In my experience a skill system is something that sounds good in theory but in practice just ends up slowing things down and being pretty boring.

It's either MGuy at this point, or I have no idea. Korwin already checked his tags.

Edit: luls, post 2500.


On skills being binary or not..... it's just an other system, and it slows down learning the game.

That's one thing we need to keep in mind, we probably want to invite people to play our game who have never played before.

Multiple systems prevent that from being easy.


One idea for characters to use a power they don't actually have, would be for them to lose a power that they normally do have. Temporarily.

The ability 'gained' is seriously a single attempt or use of the power; while most abilities are usually at-will.

So, the fighter can bluff his way past the guards; but for the rest of the act, he's all jittery from having lied, and can't perform some of his normal combat abilities.

This is more ideas that I'm poaching for my -4uccess system ideas than anything else.

It's Korwin actually. He has an extra {/quote} tag at the end of his bit on point D.
See, right there.

Judging__Eagle wrote:On skills being binary or not..... it's just an other system, and it slows down learning the game.

That's one thing we need to keep in mind, we probably want to invite people to play our game who have never played before.

Multiple systems prevent that from being easy.

I cannot in any way deny this. But it's all a matter of what you want.
There are simple systems with very few rules that you can learn quickly...and the only drawback is that they are very simple. I happen to like a fair degree of complication in my games, and the corresponding reduction in "learning curve" is something I'm willing to live with.

In addition to the problem of binary in the sense of "you can do it or you can't", it's also binary in the sense of "you can do it all the time, to anyone" or you can't.

Not only does a binary (you have a power) system not let people without the power do stuff, but it doesn't give much variance in use for people who DO have the power. If you have "Silver Tongue", does that let you bluff the Elite Palace Guard just as easily as the Local Town Watch? What about the King's Cunning Advisor? Can you convince the guard to let you go? How about to give you a phone call? How about to let you go and let you borrow some money?

This is basically the age-old granularity problem, and it all depends on what your personal comfort level is.

Your variant, by the way (gain a power by losing a power) would probably work just fine...it's a fairly elegant way to avoid getting bogged down in too much detail.

I want to second Tarkis's comments about the knowledges and side elements that don't add to power. But while I support it, I fear that the only way to get rid of them and still have the other option would be to create yet another system through which those mechanics can be handled. Some people will want to do those things and they will want mechanics for it beyond let the DM decide (though I am always in favor of the let the DM decide choice)

Why, necessarily? I generally let mechanics change my oil, and if there's heavy lifting to be done I call on my big friends with the big muscles. I see no problem with letting people have niches that they usually deal with.

Because, then the 5 Charm guy has wasted 5 skill points and isn't contributing 5 points worth of stuff to the party because he never actually gets to use his 5 skill points. I worthwhile system, I think, would be "Add up the total number of Climb points in the party, plus 1d20. Divide by the number of people going up or down the mountain this trip. Consult the table to find out the degree of sucess."

I think we should get rid of charm. I have no idea why we can't just RP conversations. *sigh* but I suppose there'd HAVE to be a mechanic for people who like to use them.

MGuy wrote:I think we should get rid of charm. I have no idea why we can't just RP conversations. *sigh* but I suppose there'd HAVE to be a mechanic for people who like to use them.

Having your PC try to charm the guards by you (the player) charming your DM makes no more sense (and is no more balanced) than having your PC win arm-wrestling matches by you (the player) arm-wrestling the DM. Or to go to ludicrous land, having your PC wrestle a hydra by you (the player) trying to put your DM in a half-nelson.

When a guy wants to play Dolf McMuscles, the 20 Str barbarian, he expects his character to win arm-wrestling matches regardless of his own personal strength. And when a guy plays Don Juan the Charming, the 20 Cha bard, he expects his character to charm the pants off of people, regardless of his own abilities at smooth talking.

I said before: playing a game of "convince the DM" is a perfectly valid way of doing things. I personally find it a shitty one, because it completely negates one of the aspects of roleplaying...to wit, the ability to play a character with capabilities different than your own. I have plenty of experience being me; I occasionally like to be different people.

Fair enough. I have had people at the table who just don't know what to say at all and would rather rely on a roll. It's just that I'd rather it not be so easy as a single roll to rock the foundations of changing someone's opinion. The small stuff such as charming the bar maid or talking a farmer into letting you sleep in the barn aren't a big deal but what about higher DC attitude changes? The whole famous Diplomacy trick where you can get your greatest enemy on your side after talking to him/her for a minute? That's where most of my concerns are.

MGuy wrote:Fair enough. I have had people at the table who just don't know what to say at all and would rather rely on a roll. It's just that I'd rather it not be so easy as a single roll to rock the foundations of changing someone's opinion. The small stuff such as charming the bar maid or talking a farmer into letting you sleep in the barn aren't a big deal but what about higher DC attitude changes? The whole famous Diplomacy trick where you can get your greatest enemy on your side after talking to him/her for a minute? That's where most of my concerns are.

In that sense, we agree entirely. I honestly don't think you should be able to persuade your greatest enemy over to your side, period.
If you want to allow it, it should probably require multiple rolls, IMO.

I think Josh is the winner here. If you already have ability and stat customization, skills are completely useless.

K wrote:I think Josh is the winner here. If you already have ability and stat customization, skills are completely useless.

So you're revolutionizing the game by renaming "Skills" as "Abilities"? "Hey guys, I don't have the Ride skill any more, I have the Ride ability! It's totally different!"

Until you define your terms, you're just playing word games.

Loss of granularity is bad. Maybe people want to play characters who are bodybuilders, but not good climbers. Or who are good climbers, but not too strong. I'd rather not be pigeonholed into stereotypes.