Why I stopped using skills and feats
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- Building characters can be fun, but time consuming. Try this instead.
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But Daniel, how can game companies flesh out their splatbooks with such a simple and effective system? :D
Pretty pictures?
Why fill pages upon pages with rules when you can have lore, maps, generators and drawings? Rules should be concise and clear, and lore and description should have flavor but not give much detail, it's a prompt to imagination, not a novel.
AI Art, as far as they eye can see 😄@@BanditsKeep
Anything we attempted in AD&D was a roll under a stat. This made stats important and raising them came only from magic. Something I prefer.
Nice
That's what I'm thinking, in a way.
This is a great system - Barbarians of Lemuria does something very similar in character creation. You set your base stats then distribute points between up to 4 prior careers. Just having the career (even with zero points in it) means you can attempt or know things appropriate, and if you have points in the career you add that number of points to attribute rolls relevant to something the career would be able to do. Elegant, simple and very focussed on giving the character depth - You're not just a warrior you're a Slave/Gladiator/Mercenary/Bounty Hunter -- and your character history is there baked in from the start.
That’s awesome - I really need to get that to the table
Barbarians of Lemur is definitely under rated. It's quite simple as a system but is surprisingly robust and well thought out. I love it!
I go back and forth. I like just using Attributes to deal with "skills" and thrown skills and feats out. I also like skills as it can add flavor to the world you are playing in. Like in Star Wars D6 having the skill "starship piloting" gives a lot of flavor, you know what the setting is just by the skill set. I think there is a happy medium somewhere. I see where skill and feat heavy has it's place but can have way to much bloat and then where having no skills and feats gives freedom but then you just feel like a drone or a copy of everyone else that might play the same class as you.
I use Skills in 5e by following skill-based systems like Traveller for my inspiration.
First I use the following Skill Difficulty Levels for my skill tests...
Easy Tasks = DC 5 (75% success on 1D20)
Average Tasks = DC 10 (50% success)
Difficult Tasks = DC 15 (25% success)
Formidable Tasks = DC 20 (5% success)
Impossible Tasks = DC 25 (0% success without Expertise)
Then I modify the Proficiency Bonus so that...
1) Non-Proficient Skill use = roll with DISADVANTAGE + any applicable Characteristic Bonus.
2) Basic Proficiency = roll with no Proficiency Bonus but add any applicable Characteristic Bonus.
3) Expertise = roll with Proficiency Bonus+ any Characteristic Bonuses.
4) Mastery (only awarded by Class Ability or Feats and requires you to have Expertise) = add ADVANTAGE to any Expertise Skill Test.
I use this for Skill AND Weapon Proficiencies with all weapons being able to be learned at either Basic or Martial Proficiency (the Weapon version of Expertise) and all Weapon Feats Requiring MARTIAL Proficiency to obtain. I do give the semi martial Classes (Bards, Clerics, Druids, and Rogues) one or two Martial Proficiencies with non-martials getting only Basic Proficiency. Please note that Basic Proficiency will NOT improve as the PC levels up. They only practice those Skill and Weapon Proficiencies enough to avoid the DISADVANTAGE penalty.
For sure
In the version of D&D you usually talk about, there aren't feats and skills anyhow.
I play (and have played) many versions of D&D and other RPGs. Currently I am running OD&D which as you say does not use these things for the reasons I speak about.
The simple straightforward old school approach actually makes the most sense from a storytelling perspective.
I agree
Giving the character advantage on things that link to their background could be a quick solution.
That is exactly what Diogo Nogueira’s games - Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells; Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells; Dark Streets & Darker Secrets - all do. A character has a “Concept” boiled down to one sentence that injects their background, and they can articulate that if it is applicable they get Advantage.
For sure
@@Finniganmydog Cool!
Barons of Braunstein have "Background" is 20 words about character past
In my home brew, I have the players roll on this simple chart:
BACKGROUND (d10)
1. Gutter Trash 2. Peasant Farmer 3. Sailor/Fisherman 4. Craftsman 5. Guide/Scout 6. Men at Arms 7. Clergy 8. Merchant 9. Scholar/Mystic 10. Minor Nobility
Characters are assumed to have personal experience related to their background and can add +1 when making checks related to those experiences.
Awesome
When I run 5e, it's hard to get away from skills and feats, it's threaded throughout the game, and players expect it. "Character builds" is a part of that play style. Call of Cthulhu's mechanics are centered around skills instead of class. More and more, Dungeon Crawl Classics is my jam, and it IS liberating to handwave skills, and not having to try to shoehorn activities into arbitrary categories, or make the character sheet a strict menu of options a player can take.
For sure
Skills yes. Feats not in my experience
I told my friends I was thinking about running my next dnd game with no feats and no multiclassing because it was honestly getting old seeing the same tried and true choices, the joke multiclass characters that get super upset when they die (Melee dwarf wizard with no armor or defensive spells like shield or mage armor) and I was tired of having players who didnt know how to play 5e because they use feats or house rules to ignore everything. (Pole Arm Master+ Sentinel; Sharpshooter to ignore cover rules+massive dmg; skulker feat being pointless/ignored because everyone wanted perfect vision in darkness with darkvision).
Instantly I got immediate push back from everyone. Some suggested I didnt know how to handle power gamers. Others couldnt understand why a DM would hate their players that much. Even others said I might as well take away magic items too and ban the artificer class completely.
Needless to say I couldn’t run DnD anymore for anybody after that so I quit being a DM. Ive just had it with players that expect every optional class/feat/rule that favors them to be used whether it fits the story/setting or not but anything to do with keeping track of ammo or rations is just ignored.
@@The-0ni Your friends were right. It seems like you just wanna make players weaker, seemingly specifically martials since all the example feats you gave were for martials. Players do things that are effective, and they will always do things that are effective. Removing options from them like multi classing or feats, limits what they can do, so of course they wouldn't like it. It's like them telling you that you can't run certain creature types because they're tired of seeing the same old enemies.
@@Masachere Interesting! I had no idea that Skulker was such a popular martial feat!!! I guess my friends were wrong then too about making darkvision able to let people see perfectly in darkness.
Also! Believe it or not but players actually do have a say in my campaigns which is to include what they fight. If my friends are tired of seeing goblins and undead I can always use dragonborn or cultists. I am not inflexible like they are choosing the same thing over and over and over again. I quite literally have a friend who plays the exact same elf ranger every damn campaign because he hates character creation.
I’m really glad you can pick and choose what you want to form your opinion of me. Unfortunately I have the full picture and can gladly say my friends were wrong. Believe it or not martials are not the only player type of character class and some people don’t care about being just as strong their friends or else why don’t we just entirely eliminate all but one class and all but one player race choice so we can all play the same character and all be equally strong.
At the end of the day I can have my opinion and they can have theirs and I recognize that they both are ways to play DnD. They were wrong because they attacked me and said thats not DnD.
Another great video, Daniel. I think this works best when we don’t give quantitative value to aspects of the background and we just allow the character to do something if it is consistent with their background and not too specialized. This makes the background exist more as a part of the character’s history before they became an adventurer and play out more in the game’s narrative, which is what we want obviously, rather than the player focusing on why they have a +2 modifier and not a +3 modifier for the skill or background or whatever. But I am sure others have made more quantitative systems work, I just find that I am not good at handling them when I DM.
We used to love in Moldvay that the only thing in the classes was stuff associated with adventuring, like combat (what armor and weapons you could use and how quickly your combat table advanced), magical abilities like spell casting, and dungeon relevant specific skills (the thief skills). Literally everything else was up to the player and the DM to work out. Want a Conan fighter? No problem. The fighter class handles this. Want a knight type fighter? No problem, the same class can handle both of these divergent archetypes just fine because things like the background are separate from what the character does well in terms of adventuring, which is what the class describes. These two characters are going to look and act quite differently, but when it comes down to specifically what it is they do well as an adventurer, the answer is they both fight well. In this way they are the same, which is why their class is the same, while their background that is not a part of the class is very different from each other.
For sure
Oh my god, thank you. It's the perfect video in the time of need.
I'm converting a bunch of Pathfinder players to Into the Odd(it's also my first time running the system) and this saves me a lot of thinking and gives me inspiration on how to actually award situations during the game
That’s great! Let me know how it goes, I really like Into the Odd
There was a time when I REALLY loved systems with skills. I even loved feats for a while, but realized 95% of feats should be a skill check instead.
Somewhere along the line, I started going with simpler systems, and I've found that a character having a simple background was the best way to handle skills. There are so many interesting things you can do, and not just with a background that leads directly into adventuring (like a pickpocket, mercenary, etc would). If a character grew up in a family of woodchoppers, that character probably has all kinds of interesting knowledge about plants, animals, and fungi. They probably have some skills climbing trees, hunting, or moving quietly in a forest. I have to credit a GM running 13th Age at GenCon for showing me how wonderfully simple and creative a game can be with background skills.
The other thing I love with a simpler system is that characters can gain knowledge, abilities, etc narratively, instead of picking them from a list when leveling up. If a character wants to learn some fancy sword technique (maybe granting some situational bonus), they need to seek out and train under a master. The simple system's rules might not have something like that in the book, but that's OK. The system is just the framework to modify and add to as we see fit.
Less is more, for sure. Unless one wants to indulge in crunchy excess. That said, I think my days or that indulgence are over.
I just commented above how I use background, career (which can certainly reinforce the background), passion, and weakness as the keywords to flesh out a character. And, when someone wants to learn a fancy technique, like you mention, they can do so by adding a word to simple phrase beneath one of those categories. Total worlds equal to their character level… it’s working out pretty well.
Tons of roleplaying comes from the passion and weaknesses, and players have been surprisingly inventive using them to drive the plot/game forward.
@@patrickrobles1036 Those are some fantastic ideas!
Awesome - I love the idea of PCs seeking mentors and trainers in game
Preach, dude! I use skills (but not feats) in one of my 5e games because my players are accustomed to skills. I would happily do away with skills, but I don't want to push them too far out of their comfort zones too quick.
However, for my weekly beginner D&D sessions where I teach new people how to play, I run it more or less as you describe. This works very well for fifth edition gaming.
Awesome
They'll get perception check withdrawal symptoms if you're not careful.
I tried to run 5e like this last night. The system definitely fights you on it, but you biggest issue is how it slows you down when a check is required as people try and justify them getting a bonus. I absolutely prefer systems without skills, and I will use this as my reason for moving this group to something else.
Whenever a players struggles to squeeze out a bonus I just smile and move on 😊
Now I'm developing som O5R rules and one of them is based on this concept. Thanks for sharing!
Nice!
I began with Shadowrun (2e) so I also call classes Archetypes because that’s what they used to encompass class and background.
Cool
I use a streamlined version of the 5e background where you get the skills, languages, etc. but you don't get any kind of concrete crunchy special abilities from it. Instead you know stuff that your background would reasonably know. This works well if you are just trying to figure out what the character knows or if they would know something without tying a specific skill to it. Another good thing is that the player thinks in terms of what would their character know if they were a real person vs what is on their character sheet. The players get a decent feel for this after a while and it becomes part of the roleplaying experience.
Awesome
I prefer backgrounds/archetypes because they can provide opportunities for the Judge to be magnanimous when players are brainstorming their course of action.
Skills, on the other hand, can be discouraging on account of a no-skill-no-chance mentality that can be hard to avoid.
Indeed
Why did you become an adventurer?
I sucked at herding goats so I figured, why not?
Exactly 😂
In my Lamentations game I had the players roll on a large medieval occupations chart a couple times and then pick from there. One rolled Falconer and so I gave him 2 points in the custom skill falconry and the other rolled a Needle Maker so I gave him an extra point in the tinker skill. I do like having some kind of skill list but prefer a very reduced one like in Lamentations. Great video, great content.
That’s a great idea - the simple d6 system of LOTFP is really good IMO and as you have shown, easy to add to and adjust
Love this idea of former profession! I know it's built in to some games, like DCC, but I like the idea of using it for my OSE game. I've run games in the past where -- and I never asked a player to do this -- players would provide mult-page backgrounds. I used to like this. But my thinking now is that this is just too heavy. Just give a brief description of a former profession and let the adventuring become the background. Good stuff, Daniel. Thank you!
For sure
13th Age handles this the best I've ever seen. Typically you get 8 background points to apply, as you see fit, across your background. So if you were a street urchin who was taken in by a kindly mage and ended up being a quick study, you might do +3 Street Rat, +5 Scion of Thaylamar or whatever. Then, when something relevant comes up, if you incorporate that background into your action/roll, you get to apply it as a bonus. Being a Street Rat is gonna let you do stealth and pickpocketing likely, spot a mark and so on, but its probably not gonna fly for something like disarming traps and the like. Being an inducted Scion of Thaylamar probably means you can mind your manners with the aristocracy, but isn't gonna give you great insight into the historical troubles of the nation you're in or whatever. It hits a good balance of flexibility and discrete meaningful effect.
That sounds really cool
For all of its faults, Whitehack does this well too. You have 'groups' which act in much the same way; freeform descriptors which tell you what your character is/was.
I found it highly abused and people just writing backgrounds that cover everything they can think of
@@Arnsteel634 sounds like an issue that needs to be handled in session 0/pre-game discussions about what people want to play and are interested in doing. There is substantial wordcount spent on guiding background choice including recommendations within each class description.
@@Arnsteel634 Yeah, that's an issue that can happen. IIRC the book actually says "don't do that" but some people always will. In general though, I find that those are either trying to push buttons, or shouldn't be at the table in general.
Awe yes, the glorious days of secondary skills! This is the route I am taking with my next campaign.
Yes!
That it's to be considered that pcs aren't masters in their previous job is something I've never thought about, but it makes perfectly sense and I'm going to have that included in my approach. Thanks, Daniel, interesting as always.
I believe that point is where the “balance” comes in - pick a “powerful” background but know you won’t get the full benefit of it
Hi Dan. Good stuff you have here. I like to use a combination of the Secondary Professions table in 1E AD&D (and Hyperborea) and the talents from Tunnels and Trolls. If a player with a Secondary Profession can be useful in a situation (or if he can convince me, the GM), I'll let them try it. If there's a die roll involved I'll give them a +1 to+3, depending on the situation.
Nice
Daniel, just wanted to take a second to thank you for all your amazing content. You are, without a doubt, the best OSR/Old School RPG youtuber, and I look forward to every single one of your videos. It was a blessing to find your channel. No shilling, obnoxious advertising, engaged with the community and comments section. Hats off, sir.
Thank You! I really enjoy making these videos and engaging with my community here - such an inspiration reading how people play
It is curious, when running fantasy / medieval / etc. setting people seem to be a lot more apprehensive about doing this and kind of freestyling it, but when running a modern scenario its the most natural thing ever that anyone can imagine. "My character is an electrician" "I am a soldier" "I am a nurse" people really do it without you telling to..
I have had people even laugh at me when suggesting this for the non-modern settings.
I guess its because its harder to really pinpoint what you should and should not be able to do based on your background if its not based on modernity.
Got to continue the negotiations.. :D
I think for non modern stuff thinking more broadly as archetypes works well vs “jobs” in modern
Love this! I’ve actually been doing this for a while now. If something else comes up and it seems like a character might know something, that isn’t directly related to their background, like the guy who was a farmer, “does he know how to swim?” It’s possible that near the farm was a lake or whatever, so I might have the player roll a 1d6 and high he knows how to swim, low he doesn’t.
Perfect!
So my game isn't exactly DnD, it's a heavily homebrewed thing I've been making piecemeal for years that's essentially its own game by now
I do something that I think melds the two systems. I ask players to have a character concept that they base the character they're building on, which can be an image or a profession or anything else. Then, an idea I stole from FATE, if the player asks to do something their character *should* be able to do based on their concept, I let it happen and have the character mark down that skill or ability or whatever, at low rank, because you're still a beginner.
My system is levelless, so the way characters progress is by taking their money and buying improvements to themselves, either through training or magical rituals or mutations and cybernetics, or learning magic, or whatever else. These things then get added to the list, at low power.
Now, the thing that limits characters just taking lots of skills and abilities right off the bat is that the more of those traits you take, the more expensive learning new things becomes. This originated as a way to balance humans vs demihumans, because if each benefit taken increases the cost of training by 5%, it becomes less appealing to be a wild demihuman with a million special powers. Even if you do that, and enjoy it, humans will rapidly outpace you on trait gain. I've found that it honestly works fine either way, some players don't mind playing a more-or-less static character who takes a ton of racial and professional traits, and doesn't bother learning lots of new things, while others love to build a character up over time by adding new powers and traits and such. I'm all about variety at the table, so I love this dynamic, and it's worked well for me!
Kind of off-topic, but I figured it's tangentially related and wanted to share!
That’s pretty cool - is the world a mix of fantasy and sci-fi?
@@BanditsKeep Yes! It takes place in what I like to call the "post-post-apocalypse." The Shadowrun/Numenera Age of Legends has happened, where people used high magic and technology to create a golden age. Then they ruined it by causing a Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead-style apocalypse where magic and technology went wild and everything got nuked and the entire multiverse collapsed in on itself. That was all thousands of years ago. Now, the Mad Max era has started to come to an end; City States are starting to rise up, and petty kingdoms try to dominate the wandering tribal groups. In the center of it all is the Spire, a techno-magic relic of the Age of Legends, where the Adventurers' Guild is based. The Spire wants to gather magic and tech and recreate the Age of Legends, "but right this time."
All characters start at level 0, and seek to do something that proves their worth to join the Adventurers' Guild, which kind of opens the game up. I wanted a setting in which I could do whatever I wanted, and this seemed to hit all the right marks. I'm still workshopping it, and of course there are things I had to leave out, like the Rift Storms that sometimes come and change the face of the world and cause weird magic effects, but it's got room in it for technos and magi both, and both of them have to roll to see if something goes wrong every time they do anything, lol
@@MoeMoeKyun206 awesome
The algorithm suggested this video to me a few weeks after I watched your video about skill checks using 2d6 tables. It makes my mind ponder a system that uses basically 3 tables for Untrained, Adept, and Expert skill tables to see if you succeed.
That could work!
Dungeon Crawl Classics does a similar thing, where you begin as a 4 level zero characters with their own professions and items that match their profession
(That character number gets whittled down QUICKLY in a character funnel adventure by way of death...)
Indeed, those funnels can be super fun to run or play in (on occasion)
While I understand why some people enjoy this style of game (as many of the comments show there is definitely demand for this) I just don't enjoy this in the context of DnD.
At the end of the day, DND is also a game that heavily focuses on combat. Many of your examples of background skills would be not really apply in combat.
I greatly enjoy the tactical combat aspect of the game and cutting out feats might not be the best idea.
I can see that for sure
So I use open D6 which is normally skill based, but I also added professions which are very road based incorporating culture and occupation. So you could have 1D in knight, viking or pirate. All would have fighting ability but their profession would give them skill in particular weapons based on the culture and occupation. Individual skills are like specializations in this this system on top of the occupation. Makes for a nice small stat block that conveys a lot of info
Sounds cool
Awesome video though I dont think you need to take away skills/feats to do this. Instead of choosing between clear mechanical benefits or creativity, why not both?
I think its up to the players to be creative and the DM to be open minded, at my table if it makes sense then I allow it.
I had a player with the Outlander background & Alert feat, he wanted to help the party look out for spots in the gorge where they could get ambushed. It made sense, his character was familiar with the wilds/nature, had proficiency in perception, played a ranger and could never be surprised due to the Alert feat. So the party occasionally had advantage on perception checks through the gorge.
Someone with the Athlete or Tough feat could visually 'size-up' an NPC to get basic info on their physical stats/skills or the barbarian using STR instead of CHA to intimidate (which is a common homebrew).
I'd like to think that feats & skills are there to flesh out your character even more, not limit what they can do. A sailor with the Actor feat, Deception & Insight skills will be very different than another sailor with the Tavern Brawler feat, Athletics & Sleight of Hand skills. Both are sailors but have very different stories.
Indeed, if it works for you, awesome
In games that are built around not having enumerated character skills, I do still sometimes like feats, since in those games they lean a lot more heavily on flavoring the character. Sometimes the feat that gives +2 to sneaking or somesuch still lingers in the form of a +2 to dexterity, but more often than not you get cool stuff that makes your character mechanially stand out, like your fists now do damage like weapons, or you can roughly communicate with animals. Maybe I'm a lot more fond of feats, though, since I'm also fond of classless systems, and honestly, classes often are just predetermined clumps of feats that expand as a character advances.
Sure, I’m a classless system you’d need something like that
I really like the background system. My only concern is if a player chooses a guard or other fighting-related background, it would be narratively logical to give them a small bonus in a fight, whatever system you use, but this seam unbalanced. What kind of advantage would you give to an exguard-type background and, if you don't give him a bonus in a fight, how would you justify it?
We use Advantage (AD). You can get AD from multiple sources and you can roll 3, 4, or more d20s if you want. We also allow you to sub a d6 for one or more d20s. The d6 adds to the result of the d20 roll. My players still usually roll 2 d20s so they can add the d6 (or multiple d6) result to the best d20 result.
An ex-guard should get AD on rolls to find hidden weapons, search carts or wagons, maybe even Perception in general. After all a guard has to remain alert to danger and be wary of anything that looks too good to be true.
On the RP side a guard should have AD on CHA rolls to interact with judges, sheriffs, anyone in law enforcement. Street people generally only like guards when they need something. So Disadvantage if the PC gives off the 'guard' vibe. Merchants and business people are probably the same. They like the guard when they need something and dislike them when taxes are being collected or they're doing something naughty.
Might consider working other sy into the backgrounds too maybe have magical backgrounds, martial backgrounds, clerical, etc. Each with small bonuses for some unlocked abilities. Idk just a thought.
Knowing the typical routine of guard shifts, knowing what guy are don’t get enough of (maybe fresh fruit) - knowing beat taverns they are likely to hang out in etc - I would not add combat bonuses personally
Fighting is not a profession, it's a skill. So when a player comes up to you and ask for a "fighting-related background" you shouldn't lean on the fighting skills alone, but on all the other skill sets required in order to be competent in such a profession. For a soldier it could be marching for long periods of time, tactics and drilling, etc. For a city guard it could be shaking up suspects, watching for signs of trouble and navigating the city's legal system. For a monk it could mean fasting, meditating and knowing the right prayers to appease angry spirits. For a gladiator it could mean playing the audience, knowing the properties of exotic weapons and lubing yourself so you become extra slippery! And so on.
@@JavierGaspoz That's a lot of good ideas! But as you said, fighting is a skill, so technically, a gladiator background should also receive a fighting skill bonus. My problem is that I don't want to give a fighting skill bonus to fighting related background, but I don't know how to justify it although it looks narratively logical.
Desert sinkhole = sarlac pit.
Yes!
Geezer here...
For my homebrew....
Everyone comes from somewhere. That does not mean they learned anything getting where they are.
If the player expends a feat, that character will have familiarity.
Expend 2 feats and its skills and connections (in field). In some cases a material benefit can be gained.
Gaming on.
Not sure I agree with not knowing stuff 😂 you’d be surprised what you remember from your youth, even if you didn’t like it 😊
@@BanditsKeep Geezer here... Just my experience, met plenty of folks with whatever as a "background" that were less than incompetent. Kids from the farm that could not help livestock at calving or growing a crop. People with years in the shop, still not worth trusting to run a broom. So yes, everyone has a background. If a player wants actual skill, guild contacts and so on. It's going to have a cost in character build.
Gaming on.
We use an 2E system with proficiency slots. But, am about to start up a BX campaign, old school, and I think this will fit that feel much better, Daniel! Thanks once again for inspiring me with so.ething cool for my own game. Rock on \m/
Awesome
I like having some simple X-in-6 skills, for which I use the Lamentations of the Flame Princess system and Specialist class, but I also add on to that with this background system and I assume competence if something relates to their background.
Makes sense to me
We build simple system around this. You have broad archetype, like "soldier", "thief" etc and it have value, and you can enhance it with XP instead of leveling up. If you find yourself in situation requering check, for example climbing a wall, you can just say: "as a thief i know how to do this, there is noumerous time i climbed on walls and run the rooftops avoiding guards" and you add your archetype value to the roll. If you think another archtype can do this as well, but with a stratch, you can add half of your value to the roll. Like: "as a hunter i have no problems to climbing on trees, walls is a different story, but i have general idea". Recently we start to use more cpecific archetypes as an optional choice. Like "landsknecht" - good with zweihander, brave, bad sosial interactions and reputation. Some specific rolls get even more advantage, and some rolls would be suffering.
Now i'm working on ellimination most of battle rules and replacing them with this type of checks to unify expierience coz battle is not so special activity for an adventurer after all, and should be as close to other activities as possible.
I'm writing a game and originally I adopted a background system as the one you describe, where characters get advantage on rolls related to their background. Unfortunately I found out players didn't used them, so I decided to drop backgrounds for skills and feats. Of course, this depends on the players and their gaming experience. Me and my players are used to modern dnd, so for them is much more "natural" to use skills instead of vaguely defined backgrounds.
Makes sense - if you try it again, maybe have them list a background and then several bullet points in a format similar to skills to get the mindset going.
In my BX hombrew they roll 1d10 for background: 1-4 rural (choose a terrain), 5-7 urban (choose a trade), 8-9 dward, 0 elf
Cool
This is something I go back and forth in with my own game design. In my current project I've kept skills, but they're exceptionally broad: Attack, Discern, Elicit, Know, Reckon, etc. The broadness of the skills is inspired by Kevin Crawford's Stars/Worlds Without Number, but simplified just a bit further. Characters' backgrounds, Class and eventually experience define the context those skills are most effectively used in. Unfamiliarity with other specific contextual applications carry a penalty. I haven't had a chance to playtest yet, but I like the conceptual middle ground of it.
An ex-City Watch investigator might use Reckon to assess the scene of a conflict to get information, but a Ranger would use that same Reckon skill to plot a safer course through a span of wilderness. Either could attempt what the other is doing, but that would carry a penalty. The magnitude in difference between their Context (the Ranger ranges because their a misanthrope who doesn't generally like people or understand them, for instance) is meant to help the GM adjudicate what an appropriate penalty is.
I like that!
This is a fantastic topic! In my own OSR i wanted to use d20 roll high but handwave specific skills using background and class. The target numbers for checks are based on the challenge of the task and how integral it is to your background and class often not needing to roll.
Now I'm wracking my head with OSE whether I want to take it in this kind of more generalized direction as there are already thieves' skills for which I use d6, getting lost, hunting, foraging etc. So I'm trying to figure out if it would make sense to unify these systems somehow.
Just have them choose backgrounds that are not related to the mechanics already in game, or give them some advantage if you do. This I would not do for thief skills through - at least not all of them - could be their background is “pickpocket” or “locksmith” and they get a bonus in that one skill I suppose.
@@BanditsKeep Good idea! I wouldn't want to restrict backgrounds to strictly non-mechanical areas as there are things like hunting and foraging which could be central to some civilian backgrounds. In one of my current games for example there's a halfling poacher. I'm also fine with not writing those down right away and coming up with the ruling on the fly. A grave robber might have some usual knowhow as well. I might have to change things up a little if I end up having power gamers... 😅 We also have a knight class in play and that's kind of a background in itself and gives clear indication to various "skills". I'm also experimenting with the d20 roll under ability score but I'm not sure if I'm going to keep using that. It's handy for those rare ad hocs though.
I ended up giving up on special feats / traits simply because I couldn't remember what they mean and no way I could keep any kind of synergies in mind. I definitely prefer using the archetype system... you know what you based on your history. I like simple 2d6 + skill systems, or dice pools where perks simply modify the pool based on their applicability--no need to memorize rule-changing feats. Minimalist gaming is about all I have time to remember these days. :)
Exactly
Savage worlds: you grow your characters skills and abilities
Hinderances help flavor your characters weaknesses
And a career?
So I'm currently writing a ttrpg (because it sounded fun), and in the earlier drafts of the system I had a skill system. Overtime I realized that frankly it was kind of boring and would 100% require effort from the GM to make skills that are useful in the campaign without incorporating a massive list. In the end, it wasn't worth it, and I replaced it with a system where a character gets so many careers, which grant bonuses to any roll where said career seems applicable.
Now, I do actually like feats (at least feats that are functionally extra class features) because I think some character building is fun
Nice! So the feats are class related?
@@BanditsKeep I haven't actually gotten that far. I'm waiting to finish designing the classes before I tackle anything around them. The last time I designed something, then designed stuff around it, then changed the something, it was a hellish experience, so I'm trying to make sure everything is set first.
Myan, we're on the same wavelength. Need to check (and possibly mention, or at least feedback me) about my DRY World, now on itch and drivethrurpg
I have not read or played in that world
This can work great, and I've had DMs who tie the background profession into ability checks (roll under STR, INT WIS etc). Using the example of your miner trying to build the supports for the ceiling out of some tables; the DM may rule that he make a roll under DEX and use the margin of success (or failure) to narrate how good the supports turn out. A pc with no experience in building supports or knowledge of tunnels would have to make that same DEX check but the target would be to roll under1/2 or even 1/3 of their Dexterity score. :)
Nice and simple way to adjudicate the situation for sure
I've thought of splitting up the Greyhawk supplement Thieves skills this way. Instead of having a thief class, give everyone chances to have a couple of the thieves skills (I was an urchin, I was a burglar, I was mountain climber etc). Aren't all adventurers graverobbers and thieves?
Good point!
I watched D&D grow from the Basic/Expert Sets then AD&D, then 2nd Ed, etc... and in my opinion each new edition tried to fix problems that didn't really exist. To me, it was mainly to create and sell more and more expanded rulebooks. I stopped paying attention when 2nd Ed. started publishing the "Complete xxx Handbook" series. I never saw the need to complicate what is essentially just a group storytelling system with a bunch of rules that try (and mostly fail) to address every little detail in every situation. Common sense and compromise (such as what is exactly described here) replaces 90% of those new mechanics.
For sure
100% agree. This is not only simpler and faster, it's also more flavourful, and much more flexible than skills. Moreover, it can trivially be added to almost any system.
Barbarians of Lemuria does something similar, but a bit more mechanised.
For sure
Dungeon Crawl Classics has a really good background system for building characters. Mighty Deeds of Arms is a fantastic mechanic that totally replaces all combat feats. The skill system is also very unspecified ( on purpose) so it's easy to tailor to each table. It's a fantastic system that I will absolutely endorse every chance I get 😂
Sure DCC is great
You can even make it a random roll - example is 20 Professions from Ruins of Arduin
Ruins of Arduin is a very underrated OSR Game
Indeed - many a list of careers out there!
My character was a noble, schooled in the highest education in the land, trained with weapons, obstacle courses, horses, falconry, Poetry, music and oratory skills, read scripture studied religion and magic the finest education anyone had the privileged to offer before his family was wiped out by the assassins from an enemy noble house leaving him penniless and impoverished on the street where he took up subterfuge stealth and pick pocketing to survive with the local youths.
The reason why you use skills and feats when making characters it limits how "good" your backstory is. And what I just listed could of been used to describe any cool game of thrones character... But it also would of made me more skilled than anyone else in the party.
That sounds like a pretty cool background for a higher level character - perhaps if you join the campaign at 5/6 level (in an OSR type game, maybe 8th in 5e), could be interesting. That being said, it is much to elaborate for a low level adventure in my games. “I was part of a noble house that was wiped out” would be enough to have flavor and a reason to adventure.
We started doing this the first time the fighter's weapon was damaged by a monster and required repairs. "As an experienced fighter, wouldn't I know how to maintain and repair my gear?"
I’d say you would (at least to a point)
I could see some edge cases where people could unwittingly pick a background that isn't relevant or someone knowingly abuses it. For example, someone who wants to have a humble farmer background vs someone who's background was as the apprentice to a sage that studied all the monsters of the realm ... one of those two is going to have a more relevant skill set in most games. And yeah, you can police the choices ... but that has its own pitfalls. For me skills handle all that. There's nothing wrong with either method, and one of the great things about that this game is that we can kind of make it what we want it to be.
Apprentice is not an expert - I don’t think that would be a problem at all, in fact I have had such things before and they are fine. The player choosing farmer is doing to because they think it is fun, that’s all the matters
I use a 2e style proficiency system mostly, and every skill comes with lore and connections in the setting, not just the practical ability
Nice
Great idea if you want to totally change 5e. As a dm, I dislike feats, but the players love them.
Some players definitely like the building process, for sure
Do you use level 0 funnels? They seem to be a way to give the characters a backstory without much effort and then it can impact their character too.
I have but it’s not my favorite way of playing
How are the players allowed to branch out in their skillset when levelling under such a system?
When they do stuff they get better at it - also once they are adventuring they are adventurers they don’t get better at blacksmithing etc
I do not use classes. Instead I use a modified version of Talislanta's paths.
I’m not familiar with that system, I’ll have to check it out
This method make me thinks of Risus, the entire system is based on that philosophy.
Nice! I’ll have to look at that
These days I tend to get given 10 pages of background where the character has pretty much done everything, and has relatives who are powerful magic users, rulers of kingdoms, or are some form of dragon. "Heh, my Aunt Gladys is a Silver Dragon (see page 6, paragraph 3) who's a specialist apothecary, surely I'd be able to brew some magical potions!"
Not only have I never seen one of the fabled 10 page backstories at any table I've been at/seen, but I also really question how anyone thinks that's how backstories work. They are to explain how you became an adventurer, not chronicling all your past solo adventures
I think a part of it is that I play with people with basic grasp of writing, story structure and TTRPGs, and arent kids
That feels like a bit much - Maybe discuss what the backstory should contain before the players make PCs?
Remind your players that glory is ahead of you, not behind you. Also, a session 0 is a DMs best friend.
In 5e, feats are optional, and there’s an optional rule in the DMG to have proficiencies based on background. I’m fine with feats, but I will definitely be pushing to use the optional (official) skill rules if I ever start another 5e game again.
Indeed - though I wish 5e had placed all the optional rules in the DMG. Where they are now, players tend to assume they will be used and I don’t blame them
@@BanditsKeep For sure and same. It’s definitely not my preferred system at this point…
well... i always prefere running skill based systems... ever had any love for d&d other than the settings of birthright... still doing a current d&d 5e campaign with some friends but it is by the book and scenario (mines of phandelver for a new player and two veterans)
That’s cool, different styles are what make this hobby great IMO
@@BanditsKeep yep, there is so much good content out (and yours is great) that the systems become somewhat less important than the story
Your skill is whatever it took to be 1st level. I will use your goat herder in the mountains as a example, if the player says their skill is that then good luck, I'm sure your character will be a good goat herder. This is especially true when any learned spells are involved your childhood was spent learning magic or how to commune with your god to receive spells. That's true even for thieves, assassins, or even fighters, they are learning their basic abilities. The character is most likely rebelling against what their parents do for a living. Plus considering how dangerous adventuring is (or at least it should be), any additional skills would be minimum.
So you would not consider any skills gained from the previous life?
@@BanditsKeep No, I would, but they would be minimal. I'm not sure about the age of people in 5e, but in 1st addition you started out as a teenager, basically your skills would be limited at best.
I am similar to you, I don't like skills, and well for the design of my own game I have abandoned the concept of rolling for the capabilities of character altogether.
How do you handle combat?
@@BanditsKeep Exactly the same way. I guess I have to elaborate on how my system works, since I took departure from how most RPG systems handle things. The core is that the players roll a few dice, which can show negative, neutral, or positive results, and the players then decide how they frame these as effects on their characters or in the scene. They can even do that for situations in which their character is not even there. Thus it is not about the characters but about the narrative that gets created. That means even a player who has a pacifist and thus is not engaging in combat can still make effects happen which would be framed as luck or otherwise that help their character out to prevail in such situations. This gives the players the liberty not having to be concerned about what their characters are capable of doing, but lets them always focus on who the character is.
One thing we did with Secondary Skills in AD&D was to roll a percentile to see how good you were in your secondary skill. This gave you a baseline to roll when you needed to use that skill.
In the post apocalyptic game Aftermath!, your skills sort of told the story of what you did before the end of the world. My one character was a mechanic and driver being that he had those skills as well as welding and some other related skills.
I would rather have a short backstory for a character so that I can play that character as an individual and not just a paper full of statistics.
That’s a great idea! Would you add a bonus or could a player be 1% at their skill? That would be both hilarious and sad 😂
@@BanditsKeep I'd go with the 1%. Kind of says "I sucked at my job", so no wonder they became a ____!
Just imagine trying to make that roll. I know that I had one character with like 17% animal husbandry. He did a lot of walking.
Thats how dungeon cral classic dose it
Indeed
I use an expanded roster of skills and lite feats to add a layer of horizontal progression to the game so the players don't feel like they aren't advancing when it takes them six months of real time to gain a level :) This is a major flaw with core 5e - you must advance at the core rapid pace or else sacrifice a sense of progression by limiting xp / milestones in some way. But in a normal core game where I'm not running a major campaign yup I'd be totally behind something lite like OSE.
Had the players advanced faster before in 5e (and thus were used it a certain pace?)
@@BanditsKeep Yeah they are 5e only players. On top of that I didn't recognize this problem until they were 4th level and you know how fast the first two go.
@@theredgem that makes sense, I ran a longish investigation through levels 4-5 and into 6 so I guess my players didn’t notice the slow down as the pace of the game shifted at the same time. Cool solution though!
I never used skills and feats.
🙌🏻
A great one Daniel! 👌
Thank You!
Excelent
Thank You!
Love it!
Thank You!
I used to use NWPs and such for my 2e and 1e games, but eventually got fed up with it and just went exclusively with Secondary skills. If needed, I do a variable d6 skill check against an attribute (usually intellect) for some skill they might possess. Fast and easy.
Nice - I really liked NWP in Oriental Adventures for flavor but we never really used them so much while “adventuring”
I'm also using a background approach to skills. The simple way i do it is actually using a 5e -ism the proficiency bonus. If what they are doing is relevant to their background, they get to use their proficiency bonus (if a roll is even needed).
I will mention, im also trying to introduce OSR to folks who really like the "character building" aspects of some other roleplaying games.
Nice!
In the system I'm writing, I have a brief list of some main skills that might apply to medieval adventurers. These are fairly broad in scope and give a +5 to a d20 roll against a DC assigned by the GM. Other BROAD skills not included that may apply to the PCs can be added as needed. Super simple and every character is still encouraged to try anything, but based on the character's background and progression they can get a quick little bonus. I've found it doesn't slow down or hurt the game and strikes a nice balance without being stupid or overkill :)
Tl;dr I'm doing something similar to what you described but it's listed on the character sheet lol
Cool!
I say "choose 3 things you ate good at" and to me its -13 like the old Champs system and their "competent normal". I mainly run B/X or 2e. I also want a delineation as to rural and urban background and lastly, I consider the man of action vs. the man words and thinking. Traveller is skill based as a system and background is a different set of tinkering there. Much of this is a question of how, why and when you call for a rng and the expectations of the players.
True
Definitely into a skill system and feats more than not.
But i have gone out of my way to make a knowledge mechanic for 5e.
Its worked well enough and looks like this. A character can know a number of things equal to 1 + int mod(minimum 1). This doesn’t have to mean they must or have to know X amount of things just that they’re capable of knowing a number of things.
A knowledge roll is always made using their proficiency bonus x2. So with a PB of 3 they’d roll with +6.
That’s assuming they have to roll at all. If I believe they’d easily know the information i just tell them. But doubling the proficiency bonus means no one has to put points to a knowledge specific stat. The bonus will always be good because they just know about the subject.
That’s a great idea - see what I did there? 😊
Good topic. Except for thief skills, I have players roll ability checks (which works fine mostly) and have them give some narrative reason why their character would get a bonus or penalty. PCs in my game generally have minimal/no backstory, but the character develops a history as we play- thus allowing a PC to grow into the campaign story. At least in theory this is how I would like it. Depends on the player too of course.
Nice
I once played an old human character who was a highly decorated general and was suddenly thrust into the adventuring life for reasons outside his control. Just going by, "your character knows whatever makes sense for his background", It would be hard to simply say he has only basic knowledge of warfare when he would realistically be an expert.
How did you handle that?
This is actually how I do my personal games. I don't like the gamey-ness of most skill/feat systems and in my solo campaign that's currently how I'm running it.
I'm a player in my main group and they play 5e which is fine but I feel my immersion breaking down into a game of actions and abilities.
I can understand that
I find that I really like skills because its let's players think "Would I be good at this? " because not all Druids are good at nature. Maybe a Wizard is absurdly good at Deception, which isnt typically associated with the class, but really tells you something about that character, and what the player wants.
Most backgrounds wouldnt nessecitate or suggest any skill or competency of deception, for example.
I still use backgrounds, context and what I know of a character to adjust DCs for the PC
Feats, however I agree, tend to suggest "you cannot do this unless you have this feat" which is limiting
Genuine question though: Doesn't a limited skill list or limited background list also cause the same question: Wouldn't/Couldn't I........? Pls explain. 👍🤓
@@retrodmray So, I never mentioned Backgrounds(Game mechanic), and that's because, and I'm really suprised more people font know this, in base 5e, (I'm assuming that's what you're referring to) there are really simple tools for making Backgrounds. It's literally the easiest thing to homebrew in the system, so, no, neither I nor any player in 5e has ever felt limited to just what Backgrounds are in the book. In fact, backgrounds are frequently ignored, as they exist as inspuration/tools for new players who may be less adept at coming up with personality, flaws etc.
As for skills. The skill list in 5e, PF2, etc is pretty complete actually. I've seen Sleight of Hand be used from anything from picking pockets, to cheating at Poker, doing surgery, doing a magic trick or picking a lock and more. Certain skills like Insight are less versatile, but that's okay given how well they serve their role.
In fact, I'd say much like how OSR games thrive off of class simplicity, IE you dont need Fighter Subclasses, like 5e has, when the Fighter class is so simple is encompasses all of them, then skills do the same. They're broad and specific enough to be helpful, but not so much as to be unhelpful. Unlike Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, etc games with a bevy of skills, in those games, a skills use is SUPER defined and limited due to their quantity.
Tl;Dr less is more, and they have just about enough
@@retrodmray Oh, also, PF2 has "Lore Skills", which allow you to be really good at a specific thing, if you want. If I REALLY wanna be good at Plumbing, I can be
Gotcha....thnx 🙂 And I used to run 5E for 2 yrs and my family still has me running them in PF2E as well. I'm not the fan of PF2E, they are, but I suppose you're right there to a larger extent. As for 5E, it just wasn't our bag for several reasons, but it's yours and your group's, then that's cool.
Thnx for nice reply....refreshing. 👍
I can see that, but I would say certain backgrounds hint at deception- gambler and merchants, maybe actor?
My thing of late, other than class, has been background, career, passion, and weakness. I’ve shoehorned it into several systems and it works well.
Been messing around with either roll under relevant stat or something akin to the d6 Thief skills.
Cool
I've always wanted to play an alchemist but noone would indulge that haha, obviously weak in combat but looking for reagents to make the best potions, hence the adventuring 🤔 would be interested on your take, honestly I don't know how I would run it, old school of course
Sounds fun to me
Started with AD&D2ndE, then mix in Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) vampire, werewolf, mage concepts into our AD&D following up with WotC D&D3rdE system.
With 3rdE, we just removed Gp cost to create magic items with Xp cost. So magic items didn't Need to be made from gold/silver and had a more folk/ghost story approach of .. everyday .. items could be made magical.
Spell components just removed Xp cost for casting spells, function as metamagic feats, and having added potion effects which a mage could not just cast on the fly.
Examples, in the right location, Gunpowder will only cost cp/sp to produce but to transport gunpowder it raises the cost into gp value.
A given set of herbs have to be process fresh to brew into an ointment and cannot be stored as dry herbs. So they have to be simmer down with alcohol and made into an oil which is added into a potion crafted. Fresh herb grants a 1d2 ability bonus to a given trait stat. As an alcohol oil grants a 1d4 bonus as a consternate which can be good for a year or so, brew as a magic potion grants a 1d6 bonus and good for 10d10 years.
Other added effects, spells cast on the fly or from scrolls only last a few tens of minutes/turns, potions on the other hand last for hours/days. So making a Potion of Strength on the mage's day off from adventuring during down time used during combat will last and work with more benefit than a Strength spell cast on the fly.
Strength potion, basic oxen/bull blood soup cooked with vinegar, alcohol, strong herbs and channeling some of the mage's Xp to empower it as a potions.
A jarred meal ration with extra effects.
Wild boar grants Con bonus with temporary hp with maybe a barbarian rage effect.