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Design Diary 2 (Patreon)

Published:
2020-05-05 00:38:28
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2026-06
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Watch as I struggle as to whether to include skills.....or not.

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Design Diary 2

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Jeff Hollis

Great video, PDM! I agree with your view that more skills equal more crunch, and that can be problematic when designing an RPG. Have you considered an approach like that of Barbarians of Lemuria? Each character has one or more background career/professions, and the character therefore possesses the overall skill set that each career provides. For example, a character with the mariner career might know sailing, fishing, the use of ropes, and a bit of international trade.

Karl

How would you get a skill? You’d train for it. You’d find a mentor, take a class, hunt for some specialized knowledge.... I’d make one aspect of an ability score a skill. Like, you’re a bard and you have a high presence (or CHA) score but you’ve gone to Madam de Torville’s school of charm, and so now you’re able to pass as an upper class twit. Plus three on persuasion of nobles, royalty, and high society. You’d have to pay for the training in time and money or maybe a capstone quest ala ICRPG. It’d be in keeping with the class and could be a collaboration with the player.

Enrique Rivadeneyra

Hello Prof, Thanks for share. I can't give you any advice since im relatively new playing/Dming, but maybe I can recommend a game that tick all boxes for you ( from what I have seen from your channels) it's called " Barebones Fantasy" by DWD Studios. It's light, the characters have 4 stats, capped max level, generators, very small bestiary with rules for make your own etc. I think it's one of the best games with an "osr" style of play/feel. Hope you can find it helpful and like it.

GegaHub

It's a tough question but I think it boils down to how you see your game being played. I think there is the answer. I feel any system should be fuzzy with a lot lot of skills, meaning there are a lot of things one can try to do, but their is a more professional linked skill set that takes intensive learning. Being a Mage is a skill set but those skills certainly don't appear on a D&D5e character sheet as they are very specialized. With that said, would you just ignore common skills like riding or swimming and focus only on more academic type skills? Aaaaand I'm starting to go down a rabbit hole as well. Okay, how do you see your game being played?

lawrence gong

Barbarians of Lemuria uses a Career system, which implies certain sets of skills. It definitely relies on the player and GM knowledge of the genre and a healthy dose of negotiation. I've never played it, but I find the idea kinda fascinating.

Jay

Thought Provoking Video. So many questions to bake the noodle. I like how you did not really get in the weeds on skills with Classes. It was more like the Ranger and Druid knew how to track animals and what berries were poisonous. Perhaps Categorizing them as Mundane Skills, Complex Skills, and Professional Skills. Then assign them a simple degree of Proficiency such as Basic, Expert, and Master. When it comes to using such skills, the DM will likely assign a Target Number at the Basic ability level much like Room TN’s and can be modified by -3 for Expert and -6 for Master if a roll is Required. I find that not every skill requires a roll in every situation. Again, does cooking a regularly prepared meal require a roll. I say no. Picking a simple lock with Basic Proficiency may or may not. Perhaps the roll only determines how long it takes to pick the lock. In any event, I see no need to get too detailed here. People tend to modify the rules to house rules anyway so you could make some optional rules for skills as well.

Golden Egg Games

I would include skills as it gives the players a few more ways to interact with the game and helps you define your classes/backgrounds. I think 5e is got pretty close to a list that covers many things but does not get to in the weeds. I think long skill lists are cumbersome and slow play. If you want to game to flow the shorter list is better. Forbidden Lands/Alien also has a short skill list that is even lighter than the 5e list. If you are gonna use skills you gain a couple from your background and from your class. There should be a way to gain them after character creation as well. I guess you could build choices at certain levels. For example, at the third level, this class can choose between skill X and Y. Everyone at level X can choose any skill you spent time learning. You could also have them gained in a downtime benefit. A problem I note in 5e with skill modifiers is the math does not work out well. Proficiency in a skill gives you +10% to +25% improvement which seems more like a rank amateur than a skilled pickpocket. I think if I used a light skill system, it would mean you were pretty skilled. Like most things, you would just succeed, and if a roll was required maybe an ability check in a skill you are proficient you just get advantage. That makes the benefit substantial and easy to remember at every level. Maybe a skill also lets you modify other resource management aspects of your game or downtime results in your game. An example would be for each of you that has survival skill you add one space on your journey roll. The tool mechanic in 5e is also a great idea. It lets you add some simple mechanics without adding news skills.

Jay
>>36371076

EXAMPLE – Bard Archetype MUNDANE SKILLS: Play Instrument (Flute) – Expert Sing – Expert Language (Elven Spoken & Written) – Basic Read (Common) – Expert Write (Common) – Expert Stealth (Hide Shadows/Move Silent) - Basic COMPLEX SKILLS: Basic First Aid (Stitch Up Wounds) – Basic Melee (Sword – Rapier) – Basic Brew Potion (Simple) - Basic PROFESSIONAL SKILLS: Spell Casting (Bard Spells) – Basic

MSN2012

I have some issues with 5e coming back to D&D after a long time away - think 1e/2e. Now, a fighter or thief can suddenly use magic at third level? The wizard spent years studying, but these guys just woke up and knew it? If I were DMing, I think I’d require some sort of timeout / quest / etc. to tell me how the character gained these skills. But I digress on a related tangent. I’ve seen a model that includes very basic outlines, similar to ICRPG or XDM. Background + class = what you’re good at. No skills per se. If your background or class plausibly give you proficiency at a task, add your bonus. If not, no bonus. If the task is not reasonable for an average person with your experiences to do, either it’s a solid no go or you get a penalty / higher target number. Similar to Traveller (first edition or T4 are what I’m familiar with) So, first aid anyone can try, some are trained and get a bonus while other can try but get nothing added or a penalty. Anyone can probably give driving a try, but flying a jet is going to go badly. So, my fighter who was a city watch member before the town was destroyed by an earthquake-locust plague-black death could do fighter things like fix his armor and police things like be intimidating with a bonus but might only have rudimentary experience riding a horse so he gets neither a bonus nor a penalty and has no exposure to sailing (his being a landlocked city) resulting in a penalty or being unable to attempt a related task. No specific skills, just common sense and negotiation at the table. “DM, I should get to apply my bonus because this is a routine task for an engineer.”

Chad

I got inspired by the numenera/Cypher system this week and made a system loosely based on it. And in this system characters have powers which can be anything from abilities, spells, and skills. A PC when making a check may invoke one or more of these powers, if the power is applicable, to reduce the difficulty of the check.

Terry Street

I really like Lamentations of the flame princess skill system but it does use a d6 not a d20, which might be confusing to new players

Terry Street

I always get stuck on skills when trying to design a new system. Skills? Or No Skills? After lots of thought on this I think we as DMs lean toward less skills or no skills, anything to simplify the process but I think players want more skills and they want to differentiate their character any way they can and skills help to set your character apart. But, like you’ve said and many others have written, every time you add something it slows things down and makes things a bit more complex

Graham Kane

I'm totally biased in favour of simplicity as my players are all new to D&D. This is the main reason I favour older editions over 5E and the skills and proficiencies just seem overly complicated. For me it's a simple matter of the DM and players discussing whether or not a character should have a skill in the task involved. To me this seems more roleplay friendly, I like the thought of a player saying something like "you remember that time my fighter spent 3 weeks trying to escape from the Goblin prison? Well he should get a bonus trying to pick this lock!"

Theron

I'm seriously considering an ability based system where attributes are just another skill choice. Each ability is rated as mediocre (d4), fair (d6), etc. and the resolution is d20+ability die. If character does not possess the ability, a straight d20 roll is used. Abilities would be infinite (acrobatics, melee, strength, agility, locks & traps, archer, dexterity...) and only the selected abilities would be on a character sheet.

Theron

My main challenge is that at least one of my players, after 18 months of play, still can't distinguish a d4 from a d6! And I color coded them for pete's sake.

Austin Harleson

I prefer the idea of the DM adjudicating rolls based on the ability score modifiers of each character and their backgrounds. If they’re trying to use perception, they roll wisdom and add their modifier. If the thief wants to pick a lock, they roll dexterity and add their modifier. If the fighter wants to pick the lock, the DC is much higher than it would be for the thief. I think you covered this really well in The Secret Every DM Must Know when you start mentioning the problem with proficiencies. It inspired me to run my newest campaign without skills or proficiencies, and it’s been a much, much simpler affair to keep the game moving.

Karl

Suggestion: You have Skills. Medicine, Animal Handling, Acrobatics, whatevs. When a class is picked, there is a pool of skills, some class-specific, some optional, that you start with. Those are known as Prime Skills. A Ranger automatically gets Animal Handling. A Fighter Automatically gets Athletics. A Wizard automatically gets Lore. So there are innate class skills, and a pool of chosen class skills (medicine, seafaring, etc.). Every class starts off with two or three innate class skills, and can also pick one or two or three chosen skills. They get those at level one, and at that moment those are known as “Prime Skills” for that character. Nominally, that’s it: 4-6 “Prime Skills” for each PC. They’re all +3 (“easy”) in ICRPG talk. As a character levels or trains in-game those Prime Skills could become Alpha Skills (tier 2) at the GM’s discretion. Level-up bonus? Awesome point turn-in? One of your Prime Skills is now an Alpha Skill. Automatic success (again, at DM’s discretion). Prime = Easy, at level one Alpha = a Prime Skill that’s “leveled up” to Automatic (within reason) If someone wants to LEARN a skill, that’s do able in-game. That’s called a Learned Skill. Once learned, the PC gets the same first tier “easy” bonus. BUT that learned skill is NOT a Prime Skill, and will never become an Alpha Skill.. Only Prime Skills will ever have the potential to be better than “easy.” This way, someone can learn Diplomacy, let’s say — but the class features of a Bard or Cleric keep their supremacy because they have Diplomacy as a Prime skill, and can upgrade it to Alpha. Learned skills will always just be tier one. The thief has Acrobatics at first level as a Prime, and at fifth level, as a level up, asks the DM to grant the Alpha tier (and goes and trains at the Circus or whatever). His fighter buddy goes with him and learns Acrobatics too, but tier one is as high as the fighter can go. The best of innate class talents while including a bit of choice.