Big Skills

[Username17]

I can think of at least one mechanic where you can have traps that have potential negative consequences, that can be partially or completly avoided by high Trap Finding skill or whatever, but without dice rolling - that is, traps always trigger in your presence, but their damage/effect is reduced, corresponding to your Trap Finding skill.

Now you'll say "but that still leaves the agency in DM's hands, because he determines the lethality of the traps, and thus without dice, he can just decide that everyone dies the instant they step into the hallway", but I'm pretty sure that they can do that in the dice-rolling system, already - by setting the DC high enough.

No. The issue is that in such a situation the fail state is the only state, which means that the game either lacks tension or the MC shits all over the players with nothing in between.

Roleplaying is slight of hand, with the goal being to present the levels of risk as being much higher than they actually are. This way the players feel good for winning while still feeling good that they faced actual risk. Certainties are shit, because they don't feel like risk. The goal is to have iterated probability virtually weed out TPKs while still having real chances of setbacks and keep the floating specter of catastrophe alive.

If traps are just consistent damage, they serve no purpose. If clues are automatically found, they serve no purpose either.

You're trying to preserve the fiction that players could lose while preserving the actuality that the players win. And to do that you give a series of real chances of failure, but have iterated probability come in and save you. The chances of not finding each clue is very real, but the chances of not finding all of the clues is virtually zero. Eliminating random elements works at cross purposes to that. It's giving the game away by showing the players exactly how hug box and consequence free things actually are. Or it's you being cruel and setting their character sheet on fire for lulz, with nothing in between.

RPGs persist in being fun because failing 35% of the time is really quite significant and will happen often enough that it feels like failure is a real and common thing. But that failing 35% of the time seven times in a row is something that happens just 6 times in ten thousand.

-Username17

[Sergarr]

No. The issue is that in such a situation the fail state is the only state, which means that the game either lacks tension or the MC shits all over the players with nothing in between.

Roleplaying is slight of hand, with the goal being to present the levels of risk as being much higher than they actually are. This way the players feel good for winning while still feeling good that they faced actual risk. Certainties are shit, because they don't feel like risk. The goal is to have iterated probability virtually weed out TPKs while still having real chances of setbacks and keep the floating specter of catastrophe alive.

If traps are just consistent damage, they serve no purpose. If clues are automatically found, they serve no purpose either.

You're trying to preserve the fiction that players could lose while preserving the actuality that the players win. And to do that you give a series of real chances of failure, but have iterated probability come in and save you. The chances of not finding each clue is very real, but the chances of not finding all of the clues is virtually zero. Eliminating random elements works at cross purposes to that. It's giving the game away by showing the players exactly how hug box and consequence free things actually are. Or it's you being cruel and setting their character sheet on fire for lulz, with nothing in between.

RPGs persist in being fun because failing 35% of the time is really quite significant and will happen often enough that it feels like failure is a real and common thing. But that failing 35% of the time seven times in a row is something that happens just 6 times in ten thousand.

-Username17

OK, so we're actually talking about the necessary for game balance (as in, the balance between the players, the DM and the game world consistency) RNG here and not about the "star trek trivia check or bust" kind of RNG. Good to know.

And, uh, I... don't think that "iterated probability" works well in that direction. While it certainly can do that, it's in no way or shape actually supported in the rules. See, in order to give player more chances at winning here, DM has to invest more work, for each new encounter DM has to generate - and it's seriously more work than it would take to reduce players chances at winning (which is as easy as spawning more monsters to fight). And it's purely a DM's fiat that they'll give you more chances to actually move forward in this skill-defined scenario. While it is socially customary to allow to do so, this is getting dangerously close to the "monks are balanced because DM gives them an amulet of Tiger Shapeshifitng" or "fighters are balanced because they always get a Sword of Domination +5 way before they should by WBL, and there's always a convenient tower nearby an unfriendly dragon" territory.

And, as little I've read of TGD, I think I've seen enough people saying that this sort of gameplay is badwrongfun to see why there would be a desire to move away from the "DM will always provide an opportunity" paradigm towards the more rules-defined one. I can certainly see how the gameplay delineated above is good - after all, that's how good table-top games use RNG - but it needs more explicit aknowledgement in the rules themselves. They must demand the DM to give players a lot of chances, and to never give players "pass this check or get fucked" challenges. Because otherwise the DM's will think that it's not bad to give players "star trek trivia check or bust" and ruin the collective storytelling experience. I mean, PL certainly think that there isn't any other way, and while it is PL, who has made a "social system" where spoken sentences are like Dominate spells, he doesn't seem alone here in the belief that if you give the DM a way to fuck you over with a single bullshit check, they will, sooner or later, fuck you over with a single bullshit check, either by accident or by nefarious intent.

And, given what I've read about 2e D&D and grognard DM's, they're not exactly wrong here.

[Starmaker]

And, uh, I... don't think that "iterated probability" works well in that direction. While it certainly can do that, it's in no way or shape actually supported in the rules. See, in order to give player more chances at winning here, DM has to invest more work...

The work is already done. In 3E/3.5E, a level-appropriate encounter for parties of 4 characters of level X has Challenge Rating X, which feels superficially "fair" by design. But a CR X encouter is actually one NPC of character level X. A "fair" fight in D&D is you outgunning the opposition 4 to 1. An actually fair fight, a mirror match, is CR X+4, something the players are told to run from.

[ETortoise]

Sure, you could make Search just like Wall of Stone where it normally worked without a dice-roll, but did have a roll in a combat situation where you are being damaged while Searching, trying to Search without provoking AoOs, or when trying a combat application of Search.

That means that in 99% of situations where you use Search, there would be no check, just a player desire to use the ability. At that point, you need to ask yourself if the 50 words in your gaming book to write that mechanic is worth that mechanic since it's providing really very little. I'd argue that you shouldn't.

But if you didn't write those fifty words then, when characters asked to search a room MCs would tell the player, "I dunno, roll a D20." In the absence of specific rules many MCs will default to rulings they pull out of their butts.

[Kaelik]

Sure, you could make Search just like Wall of Stone where it normally worked without a dice-roll, but did have a roll in a combat situation where you are being damaged while Searching, trying to Search without provoking AoOs, or when trying a combat application of Search.

That means that in 99% of situations where you use Search, there would be no check, just a player desire to use the ability. At that point, you need to ask yourself if the 50 words in your gaming book to write that mechanic is worth that mechanic since it's providing really very little. I'd argue that you shouldn't.

But if you didn't write those fifty words then, when characters asked to search a room MCs would tell the player, "I dunno, roll a D20." In the absence of specific rules many MCs will default to rulings they pull out of their butts.

No, in the absences of a rule about how if you try to search when someone currently has a sword in your eye you have to roll a search check, people will default to the actual rules for search, the ones that say "PCs always find everything they look for." (Or you know, specify what things the Search skill finds, and what you have to invest to find those things.) Because there is no reason to spend 50 useless words on telling people that you have to roll dice when being literally stabbed in the face, when you can just write the rules that do all the things search does.

[Sergarr]

The work is already done. In 3E/3.5E, a level-appropriate encounter for parties of 4 characters of level X has Challenge Rating X, which feels superficially "fair" by design. But a CR X encouter is actually one NPC of character level X. A "fair" fight in D&D is you outgunning the opposition 4 to 1. An actually fair fight, a mirror match, is CR X+4, something the players are told to run from.

Yes, the system is rigged already. The problem is that it's not rigged enough: you need a shitload of exp in order to reach high levels, and so the small chances of dying in each encounter (which always exist, because insta-kill spells are a thing) will, iteratively, stack up, until you finally die - and death de-levels you, which means increased chances of dying (since all your party members are now higher level than you, your character is now probably the weakest link), which means de-leveling again, and so on, until your character is stuck at level 1.

If you could somehow stack "lives" in D&D Mario-style, to work as some sort of ablative shield against dying, it would be much less of a problem, because then you could then make it iteratively acquire said "lives" in every battle, and balance it out so that it would take a huge string of bad luck to suddenly die, but there isn't any such thing. At least, outside of Char Op.

And so, the DMs are forced to make big scary monsters much less aggressive than they should (otherwise it's nearly impossible to retreat in D&D against equal-level opponents - and yes, this means that the advice to "run away from fair fights" is useless), and it's kind of bad for overall game integrity, because people will start to ask "hey, why is this bad guy not using his OP teleport to destroy us immediately", and then the illusion of fairness is ruined and the game is reduced to socializing DM into allowing you to win any and all fights from now on, even if it doesn't make any logical sense (why would a dragon fight on the ground against a guy with a sword).

I think it's a bad thing to allow that kind of stuff to happen. Either make it so that you can almost always tell when you're close to death, and back off to try another approach (i.e. extend the hit point system to cover the "insta-kill" area) - or take away the huge, ridiculous penalties for dying - or make it clear that the game expects your characters to fucking die in a ditch 99% of the time, and that you should always prepare a replacement character, in case your current one dies to some random "lol u dead now" encounter/spell. Otherwise there's going to be a lot of broken expectations.

[Kaelik]

The work is already done. In 3E/3.5E, a level-appropriate encounter for parties of 4 characters of level X has Challenge Rating X, which feels superficially "fair" by design. But a CR X encouter is actually one NPC of character level X. A "fair" fight in D&D is you outgunning the opposition 4 to 1. An actually fair fight, a mirror match, is CR X+4, something the players are told to run from.

Yes, the system is rigged already. The problem is that it's not rigged enough: you need a shitload of exp in order to reach high levels, and so the small chances of dying in each encounter (which always exist, because insta-kill spells are a thing) will, iteratively, stack up, until you finally die - and death de-levels you, which means increased chances of dying (since all your party members are now higher level than you, your character is now probably the weakest link), which means de-leveling again, and so on, until your character is stuck at level 1.

If you could somehow stack "lives" in D&D Mario-style, to work as some sort of ablative shield against dying, it would be much less of a problem, because then you could then make it iteratively acquire said "lives" in every battle, and balance it out so that it would take a huge string of bad luck to suddenly die, but there isn't any such thing. At least, outside of Char Op.

And so, the DMs are forced to make big scary monsters much less aggressive than they should (otherwise it's nearly impossible to retreat in D&D against equal-level opponents - and yes, this means that the advice to "run away from fair fights" is useless), and it's kind of bad for overall game integrity, because people will start to ask "hey, why is this bad guy not using his OP teleport to destroy us immediately", and then the illusion of fairness is ruined and the game is reduced to socializing DM into allowing you to win any and all fights from now on, even if it doesn't make any logical sense (why would a dragon fight on the ground against a guy with a sword).

I think it's a bad thing to allow that kind of stuff to happen. Either make it so that you can almost always tell when you're close to death, and back off to try another approach (i.e. extend the hit point system to cover the "insta-kill" area) - or take away the huge, ridiculous penalties for dying - or make it clear that the game expects your characters to fucking die in a ditch 99% of the time, and that you should always prepare a replacement character, in case your current one dies to some random "lol u dead now" encounter/spell. Otherwise there's going to be a lot of broken expectations.

I think all of this is a waste of time in this thread. You are at best disagreeing with a specific implementation of Frank's point about iterative probability.

Even if you were 100% right about the specific threat levels and death chances and XP gain of 3e, that still wouldn't have any effect on the concept of iterative probability assuring that the PCs fail sometimes, but because each individual failure does not foreclose victory the PCs still win by iterative probability.

Nor, frankly, does it have much to do with the argument about how some skills are better defined as things that always succeed. Frank's point, without addressing it specifically at all, at least is a general argument for rolls in some situations, but even if you were 100% correct about everything you said, it would still have nothing to do with the use of the search or knowledge skills.

[PhoneLobster]

The "iterative probability only for skills" angle is just a transparent re branding attempt for "just make them keep rolling until they succeed the star trek trivia check" defense of trivial skills "mattering" because it rather obviously failed, but they need to keep using it because they don't HAVE anything else, hence a typical Frank rebranding attempt.

[virgil]

The "iterative probability only for skills" angle is just a transparent re branding attempt for "just make them keep rolling until they succeed the star trek trivia check" defense of trivial skills "mattering" because it rather obviously failed, but they need to keep using it because they don't HAVE anything else, hence a typical Frank rebranding attempt.

Funny how implementations become bad when you only think of them being used in a bad way. But nuance and math are generally pretty foreign concepts for PhoneLobster.

[PhoneLobster]

Really now? Lets look at the naunce of "itterative probability knowledge skills".

Option 1
They fail a bunch of the time. It's OK though because the failures don't matter. Any information which does matter is provided regardless of none, some, or many failures.

Option 2
They matter and a failure would be a big deal excluding actual information that matters. Iterative probability tells us the game eventually inevitably ends in "you failed a star trek trivia check, GAME OVER!".

Rebranding by remembering the word "iterative" doesn't change the outcome one fucking jot. SAYING math (without doing any I might add) also changes nothing. Either the checks don't matter or the content they exclude doesn't matter, you STILL don't get another choice.

[MGuy]

The "iterative probability only for skills" angle is just a transparent re branding attempt for "just make them keep rolling until they succeed the star trek trivia check" defense of trivial skills "mattering" because it rather obviously failed, but they need to keep using it because they don't HAVE anything else, hence a typical Frank rebranding attempt.

Funny how implementations become bad when you only think of them being used in a bad way. But nuance and math are generally pretty foreign concepts for PhoneLobster.

So what implementation do you have in mind?

[Kaelik]

So what implementation do you have in mind?

The one where he makes vague dismissive comments about how easy it is to make a perfect game that has not flaws and then he never actually does it, because it turns out, he isn't light years ahead of everyone else in the race to a perfect RPG, he's just a an asshole who when he climbs down off his high horse, is in the same swamp of RPG ideas as everyone else.

[norms29]

Sorry PL, I don't why this ...

The "iterative probability only for skills" angle is just a transparent re branding attempt for "just make them keep rolling until they succeed the star trek trivia check" defense of trivial skills "mattering" because it rather obviously failed, but they need to keep using it because they don't HAVE anything else, hence a typical Frank rebranding attempt.

is any different from this...

The "iterative probability only for skills for combat" angle is just a transparent re branding attempt for "just make them keep rolling until they succeed the star trek trivia check the monsters are gone" defense of trivial combat skills "mattering" because it rather obviously failed, but they need to keep using it because they don't HAVE anything else, hence a typical Frank rebranding attempt.

[MGuy]

Sorry PL, I don't why this ...

The "iterative probability only for skills" angle is just a transparent re branding attempt for "just make them keep rolling until they succeed the star trek trivia check" defense of trivial skills "mattering" because it rather obviously failed, but they need to keep using it because they don't HAVE anything else, hence a typical Frank rebranding attempt.

is any different from this...

The "iterative probability only for skills for combat" angle is just a transparent re branding attempt for "just make them keep rolling until they succeed the star trek trivia check the monsters are gone" defense of trivial combat skills "mattering" because it rather obviously failed, but they need to keep using it because they don't HAVE anything else, hence a typical Frank rebranding attempt.

You should be sorry because the combat thing has been brought up AND fucking answered a number of times now.

[ishy]

So, in your mind, anything greater than a minor inconvenience to the player characters needs to be alleviated by GM fiat?

Oh for fucks sake. YES. The "major inconvenience" of a monster you cannot defeat is NOT something that should happen because someone failed a star trek trivia check.

That is the whole fucking point. If you NEED that information to fight that monster and win then that means the game NEEDS to give out that information. That means it either needs to be a non-random mechanic that guarantees success OR you use the "just keep throwing out trivial checks until they get it" technique most people, including the idiots who think the rolls actually mean something, actually use in practice.

How are you NOT getting this?

Since monsters are mostly impervious except for their specific weaknesses, it certainly sounds like you need that info to be able to win. But I don't see why you'd need to win.
Say there is this situation: the Tarrasque is on its way to Chicago, if you don't manage to stop it Chicago will be destroyed.
Seems like you could fail and still have significant consequences, but the game can still go on?

[PhoneLobster]

Say there is this situation: the Tarrasque is on its way to Chicago, if you don't manage to stop it Chicago will be destroyed.
Seems like you could fail and still have significant consequences, but the game can still go on?

Well. You can have no way to defeat the monster and win, but, you COULD, maybe, just go home without fighting and try and forget about it.

While survivable for the PCs... that's not a good game outcome for the players.

[SlyJohnny]

It's not a zero-sum thing. Maybe you retreat and do research to figure out what the monster is vulnerable to. Maybe you fight, and just throw different shit at it until something works (which makes the fight tougher than it needs to be). Maybe the guy who took max ranks in knowledge: Star Trek and sensed this was a really important role and so spent an Edge to get it right gets to feel good about that decision.

If there's no element of risk and no chance of failure, where's the fun? Obviously you should be able to stack the deck in your own favour and pick the optimal path to success by being shrewd and engaging with the story, but if your character is never at risk and there's no chance you'll ever fail something you set out to do, what's the point?

How much "agency" do you actually have in a world where everything you do is successful and none of your decisions to improve the odds in your favour actually matter?

[virgil]

So what implementation do you have in mind?

The one where he makes vague dismissive comments about how easy it is to make a perfect game that has not flaws and then he never actually does it, because it turns out, he isn't light years ahead of everyone else in the race to a perfect RPG, he's just a an asshole who when he climbs down off his high horse, is in the same swamp of RPG ideas as everyone else.

No, I'm not saying it's easy to make a perfect game. That's PhoneLobster's schtick.

He's *stupidly* narrowed the value of "Star Trek Trivia" checks, making a slew of assumptions along the way. I am certainly not advocating for puzzle monsters immune to everything except for lemon juice or whatever, let alone hiding this factoid behind a skill check paywall. But you can have a future fight's difficulty influenced by a skill checks beforehand. Restricting negative consequences to less than too tough of a fight decidedly does not mean the failures don't matter unless you are being a reductionist arse where we can bring up the combat analogy.

Iterative probability skill checks apply to the whole concept of investigative plots, which have been discussed before. At minimum, we know Gumshoe's application doesn't meaningfully use dice, and we know that method is bad. It's a comparatively complicated matter of overall adventure design, and isn't something you can trivially add a paragraph to the Search skill to incorporate. But sure, reduce the concept of investigation-themed adventures to meaningless cut scenes until the fighty-bits start running.

[Sergarr]

I think all of this is a waste of time in this thread. You are at best disagreeing with a specific implementation of Frank's point about iterative probability.

Even if you were 100% right about the specific threat levels and death chances and XP gain of 3e, that still wouldn't have any effect on the concept of iterative probability assuring that the PCs fail sometimes, but because each individual failure does not foreclose victory the PCs still win by iterative probability.

Nor, frankly, does it have much to do with the argument about how some skills are better defined as things that always succeed. Frank's point, without addressing it specifically at all, at least is a general argument for rolls in some situations, but even if you were 100% correct about everything you said, it would still have nothing to do with the use of the search or knowledge skills.

1) How is "disagreeing with a specific (but widely used in practice) implementation of a plot-crucial game mechanic" (which I don't really do - at best, I'm pointing out possible failure modes, which may arise due to rules not being clear on whenever DM has to provide multiple ways to solve any given "plot-necessary" problem or not) a "waste of time"? Do you, per chance, have anything better to tell us, the mere plebs? If yes, then just fucking say it, instead of criticizing other people for attempting to have a fucking discussion.

2) Iterative probability can mean what you've said it means. But it also means that the PCs win battles almost all the time, but because even a single lost battle usually means a complete party wipe (since retreating in D&D is fucking impossible), the PCs will still eventually lose by iterative probability. How the fuck do you not know that second meaning? Like more than half of Google results on TGD "iterative probability" use that one. The first time I saw the words "iterative probability" used to describe PC's inevitable victory in spite of random failures was actually in this very thread.

3) You are right here; I focused mostly on the general "rolling" part, because that's what everyone is talking about in this thread.

4) Also (this is not directed to you, Kaelik), PhoneLobster, there are definitely more than one kind of "winning" in RPGs, and so saying that "the way you reach the win condition doesn't matter" is like saying "it doesn't matter how you've killed the Big Bad Guy, as long as you've killed him", and that's like, wrong. There's a reason why people play different classes and use different spells instead of the game-theory-optimal ones all the time.

[Kaelik]

1) How is "disagreeing with a specific (but widely used in practice) implementation of a plot-crucial game mechanic" (which I don't really do - at best, I'm pointing out possible failure modes, which may arise due to rules not being clear on whenever DM has to provide multiple ways to solve any given "plot-necessary" problem or not) a "waste of time"? Do you, per chance, have anything better to tell us, the mere plebs? If yes, then just fucking say it, instead of criticizing other people for attempting to have a fucking discussion.

1) Because it's not about the D&D skill system or any hypothetical replacement in any way shape or form on any tangential level?

I mean, if I made a post that was just "4e SUCKS" 500 times in a row in every thread, I would be correct in every single thread, but it would also be a waste of time, and completely unrelated to the thread topic. If you want to have a discussion about how you hate CR or D&D 3e monster balance, or what ever fuck ever else, you can have that in some thread at least tangentially related to that, instead of trying to hijack a skills reform thread.

2) Fuck right off you idiot, I've done more work to reform skills in this thread than everyone else combined because unlike every other person I did more than zero work (I think technically Spongeknight can argue that he put 30-45 entire seconds worth of work into reforming skills for what that is worth, which is at least non-zero which makes him the clear second place choice). If you are going to complain about how unfair it is for me to criticize you for having a discussion (a completely off topic discussion) because I should have to earn that right by doing design work, then you can fuck right the hell off with that argument and save it for any of the million threads I post in that I am not undisputed champion of doing the most actual design work in the thread.

[MGuy]

Fantastic now that you have come to the point where your failure at Star Trek trivia means about as much as a missed attack in combat ( meaning it doesn't matter) then still have nothing to argue with PL about because you have done the thing where individual rolls don't matter. Which I will reveal to you, isn't something PL is against ( necessarily) since he's said over and over and over again that that is one of your only two options. Congrats. If you want to argue with him you have to produce a 3rd option that has not appeared throughout this entire thread. Personally I don't really see a reason to force a roll for Star Trek trivia skills and have yet to see anyone provide a reason why it should be rolled as opposed to letting the player that got that skill to just benefit from it.

[virgil]

Stating that dice are meaningless if they can't result in GAME OVER is very much a point of contention. As it stands, Search should already meet the litmus test of approval from the anti-dice crowd; the Take 10/20 rules applicable to large swaths of the skill system already take out dice from most situations unless time is a significant factor.

[Sergarr]

1) Because it's not about the D&D skill system or any hypothetical replacement in any way shape or form on any tangential level?

I mean, if I made a post that was just "4e SUCKS" 500 times in a row in every thread, I would be correct in every single thread, but it would also be a waste of time, and completely unrelated to the thread topic. If you want to have a discussion about how you hate CR or D&D 3e monster balance, or what ever fuck ever else, you can have that in some thread at least tangentially related to that, instead of trying to hijack a skills reform thread.

2) Fuck right off you idiot, I've done more work to reform skills in this thread than everyone else combined because unlike every other person I did more than zero work (I think technically Spongeknight can argue that he put 30-45 entire seconds worth of work into reforming skills for what that is worth, which is at least non-zero which makes him the clear second place choice). If you are going to complain about how unfair it is for me to criticize you for having a discussion (a completely off topic discussion) because I should have to earn that right by doing design work, then you can fuck right the hell off with that argument and save it for any of the million threads I post in that I am not undisputed champion of doing the most actual design work in the thread.

1) I tried having a discussion about skills, on page 8 (replacing skills with spells). It's no particularly my fault that everyone ignored it and continued the "RNG" discussion. Should I have continued to try talking with a fucking wall, after that?

2) Even if you did, 90% of your posts in this thread consists of perpetuating the "RNG" discussion by being a vocal less-RNG supporter against Frank and deaddm, which is, as you've said it yourself, a "waste of time". And I'm actually having a hard time finding out where have you done this "design work". There were all of the "Wall of Ice/Wall of Stone" posts (which had nothing to do with "reforming skills" actually, since these are spells). There was one mention of "just fucking buying a search ability" at page 5, but design work requires some actual concrete numbers and examples - so it doesn't count.

Maybe I'm a fucking blind idiot, yes, but I just don't see where all that "undisputed champion's worth of design work" is.

[Kaelik]

1) I tried having a discussion about skills, on page 8 (replacing skills with spells). It's no particularly my fault that everyone ignored it and continued the "RNG" discussion. Should I have continued to try talking with a fucking wall, after that?

I don't care what you do, as long as you take your complaints about the CR system to a thread about the CR system, instead of about skills.

2) Even if you did, 90% of your posts in this thread consists of perpetuating the "RNG" discussion by being a vocal less-RNG supporter against Frank and deaddm, which is, as you've said it yourself, a "waste of time".

No you colossal fucking idiot. The "Should every single conceivable skill always have an RNG" discussion is about skills. The part that is a complete waste of time was where you said:

"The CR system is broken, Monsters are too strong, and monsters are too fasttttt. So the PCs always die!"

Notice how that is not at all related to skills in any way and you could just whine about how you hate the CR system in a completely different thread that is actually about it.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I would love it if Frank and deaddm backed down from their "dice grant agency with magic powers" argument and just admitted that random elements don't grant agency and exist to provide an adjudication of actions when you want them to both be able to succeed and to fail on a single identical task, and then we could talk about which skills should have a failure and success state both be possible on the same action, you know, like that huge post I made that then everyone decided they couldn't read. I would really love to have an actually productive conversation.

But at least when Frank says that Dice have magical agency granting powers that convey agency where it wouldn't otherwise exist, he's at least talking about how that is why all skills need rolls, and not about the CR system and complaining about how Demons can teleport.

[Sergarr]

OK so evidently it's me who's a fucking blind idiot and hasn't read his own posts properly. Well, off to the barrel I go.