How, where, when and why to incorporate skill checks?
Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 10:11 pm
Hello!
Let’s have a discussion about skills, yes?
Should characters have any idea what they’re finding in the wild without a skill such as Find Contraband or Weapons Engineer or something else that i’m forgetting.
Maybe it’s a stupid question, but the implications of these little details can be the difference between playing Everquest/FFXI or playing WoW, if you catch my drift.
Outside staple Northern Gun weapons, which would be known to people like AR-15s and AK-47s are known to the laymen’s or our society, why would anyone recognize items found on the field?
I’m running a game of RIFTS for an imaginative group of newbies and I’m keeping it very old school and grounded. The first drop i’m planning to leave my Wilderneas Scout is the solar powered snipe rifle in the NG1 book.
But just because he can fire it, why should I tell him what it is?
But does this add to the game or take from it? Not this specific example, per say, but the general GM or Gaming philosophy behind thinking identifying this stuff would be a skill check.
On the flip side, if a Hovercycle is automatic transmission, why couldn’t anyone jump on it and go? Actually, that’s probably a bad example because I can picture that going terribly.
But an Automobile or regular motorcycle, on the other hand— Where is the skill check needed there? During difficult maneuvers? Then does that mean without the skill even attempting a maneuver is impossible? Maybe home brew it to 50% the lvl1 starting point of the pilot skill?
The real question, honestly, is how much do you DEPRIVE your players because of lack of skill?
Let’s have a discussion about skills, yes?
Should characters have any idea what they’re finding in the wild without a skill such as Find Contraband or Weapons Engineer or something else that i’m forgetting.
Maybe it’s a stupid question, but the implications of these little details can be the difference between playing Everquest/FFXI or playing WoW, if you catch my drift.
Outside staple Northern Gun weapons, which would be known to people like AR-15s and AK-47s are known to the laymen’s or our society, why would anyone recognize items found on the field?
I’m running a game of RIFTS for an imaginative group of newbies and I’m keeping it very old school and grounded. The first drop i’m planning to leave my Wilderneas Scout is the solar powered snipe rifle in the NG1 book.
But just because he can fire it, why should I tell him what it is?
But does this add to the game or take from it? Not this specific example, per say, but the general GM or Gaming philosophy behind thinking identifying this stuff would be a skill check.
On the flip side, if a Hovercycle is automatic transmission, why couldn’t anyone jump on it and go? Actually, that’s probably a bad example because I can picture that going terribly.
But an Automobile or regular motorcycle, on the other hand— Where is the skill check needed there? During difficult maneuvers? Then does that mean without the skill even attempting a maneuver is impossible? Maybe home brew it to 50% the lvl1 starting point of the pilot skill?
The real question, honestly, is how much do you DEPRIVE your players because of lack of skill?