Roleplaying games have come a long way from their roots in 1974. Far from sticking to its wargaming roots, the RPG genre has embraced its literary potential in several key areas. One of the easiest to spot in this regard is skill systems. When Gygax and Arneson created the first RPG, it was only slightly removed from the wargames that birthed the rules. The three classes were the only real distinguishing traits outside of ability scores.
Skills became a way to individualize characters and proved them with noncombat capabilities. This proved fortuitous as it vastly expanded on not only the storytelling potential, but also the types of puzzles and challenges. Regardless of one’s position on which edition is the best, one has to admit that skills went a long way in encouraging players to see roleplaying games as interactive fiction. It also did not hurt that the phrase “fantastic medieval wargames campaigns” no longer appeared in the subtitle in the “advanced” edition of Dungeons & Dragons that came out in the late 70s.
Note that skills were and still are predominantly not combat orientated. This isn’t to say they do not have any application in a fight. Skills are versatile enough to work in combat because the character’s knowledge is being utilized in an ancillary, but beneficial way. Take for example a skill for rope use. The ability to tie knots does not confer a combat bonus, but if the character has enough time to prepare the area he can set some sort of trap, albeit one where pulling on a rope would spring the surprise. If the system has a separate skill for traps the victim has to trigger, the character still needs the time to prepare, but he only needs to maneuver his opponent into the trap.
The time spent rigging the area is outside of combat. However, the payoff is in the fight as the opponent suffers some hardship or another. When skills are used in combat, it is under duress that a character performs such actions. Penalties are often applied to the chance of success, which not only means there is a greater likelihood of failure, but also that the results may be less than optimal. Now, if skills were designed to express greater nuance in one’s combat techniques, why would a penalty be assessed to use them in a fight? This is additional proof that the skills are not a further refinement of a game’s combat rules.
So, as skills are a way to personify a character outside of hostilities, they give players a way to limit their characters to a more believable level. This is not a bad idea no matter how cinematic of a style of play you are aiming for. Limiting a character’s noncombat abilities means other members of the group receive equal play time as the center of attention. Like combat, the members of the adventuring party continue to complement each other, just in other areas of the game. The goal is to have fun in the interactive environment by sharing in the story’s telling.
One final point to cover in the use of skills: how realistic should they be? This question includes not just the number of skills, but also the divisions between neophyte and expert practitioners. The fewer the number of skills, the less realism the stories through that game system will contain. Both of these can be combined to create a game that comes awfully close to reality. The problem that can arise is one rooted in the definition of what each gradient confers on the practitioner and the list of skills needed to cover all of the relevant divisions, the larger the lists not only in the rules, but also on the character sheet. The key is to find how much realism or cinematics the game supports and the types of stories one wishes to tell.
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