I’ve been stewing on skill systems in tabletop roleplaying games and how the gameplay experience is enhanced or diminished based on various implementations of skill systems. In particular, the use of ranked skill lists, which are so common in TTRPGs, discourages active engagement with skills as a tool to differentiate characters.
What are Skills?
Skills, as I’m defining it, are a set of different actions within a game used to approach challenges and are all resolved with a common resolution mechanic. A broad definition, but that’s the one I’m using for now1.
A skill is typically one or two evocative words that describe an action that your character can do. Some examples from games in my library:
Dungeons and Dragons 5e by Wizards of the Coast: Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Arcana, Athletics, Deception, History, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Performance, Persuasion, Religion, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Survival
Blades in the Dark (skills are called Actions) by John Harper: Attune, Command, Consort, Finesse, Hunt, Prowl, Skirmish, Study, Survey, Sway, Tinker, Wreck
ARC by Momatoes: Academic, Culture, Observe, Tactics, Charisma, Guile, Impose, Insight, Acrobatics, Coordination, Physique, Weaponry, Artistry, Survival, Tinker, Trade, Arcana, Focus
Skills may not be called “skills” in a game. For instance, in Deathmatch Island by Tim Denee, skills are called Capabilities (Social Game, Snake Mode, Challenge Beast, and Deathmatch) and encompass a category of skills. Mechanically, it serves the same purpose. If I mention a game with a mechanic that I consider a skill system by a different name, I’ve included the name of that mechanic in parenthesis.
Why Skills?
Why do we design games with skills? I’ve highlighted a few key goals I believe skills are used in games. Afterwards, I discuss how well different skill systems implement these goals.
Skills act as prompts. A well-named skill influences how a player engages with the game. A skill called, “Investigate” has different implications than a skill called, “Snoop,” even if they both have the same general definition. One evokes a character methodically examining a scene, while the other implies a casual, meddlesome sort of examination.
Skills differentiate characters by what they can do (well). If every character is equally good at all skills, then there is no point in having skills. Separation of abilities is what makes characters interesting, identifiable, and varied. Skills give each character their own moment to shine. Similar to skills acting as prompts (which conveys how a character does something), skills define the range of actions a character can do in the game (what a character can do).
Some games define a character with a skill as meaning they have achieved training or mastery in that skill. Other characters can still use that skill, but with no mechanical benefit. Other games define a character with a skill as meaning they are the only ones who can use that skill; if it’s not on your character sheet, you can’t use it. This distinction usually correlates with specific skill systems.
Skills convey importance. Actions that are all categorized as skills implies a similar level of importance, or use, in the game. An action that isn’t a skill, meaning that it is resolved in a different manner mechanically, implies a different level of importance. An obvious example being combat. A game that has “Brawl” as a skill implies that violence is only one of numerous ways to resolve a challenge. While a game that has its own chapter devoted to combat tells you that fighting things is going to be a big part of the game compared to your skills, which all share an equal amount of time in the book.
Skills reduce mental load. Having a collection of actions all resolved with the same resolution mechanic simplifies playing the game. This benefit can be outweighed by the amount of skills a player needs to keep track of.
Implementing Skills
I broadly categorize skill systems based on the following: Lists vs. Freeform and Ranks vs. Binary. I’ll discuss how I define these categories and the implications they have for the play experience.
Lists
Skill list systems provide a comprehensive collection of actions that characters can do. A player or GM picks from a skill list and finds the one that best matches the action described, resolving the action with the resolution mechanic. All the games mentioned above are examples of games with skill list systems.
Implications
Skills on skill lists have defined boundaries of what a skill can or cannot do. Even if this is not the case and the skills are broad categories of actions, skills are defined exclusively2 in relation to other skills on the list (e.g., “this skill doesn’t cover this action, because it is a defined example of what this other skill on the list covers”).
Good skill names convey the tone of the game while being flexible enough to accommodate a variety of actions, and good skill lists magnify these benefits. When done well, a skill list can convey so much about the game in just a few words.
Typically all characters can do any of the skills on the list, but only if you have training in those skills (as signified through a ranked or binary skill system), are you going to mechanically benefit from using that skill. Related to this, if an action doesn’t appear on the skill list, the assumption is that such a skill is not narratively significant in this game, or it simply cannot be done in this game.
Because of this prescriptiveness, skill list systems can be easier for beginning players to use, as everyone playing has a shared understanding and expectation of which actions fall under which skills. Beginning GMs also benefit, particularly when running pre-written adventures. If a skill check or test is required, the pre-written adventure includes the specific skill needed (e.g., “A lock picking skill check will open the chest”). But such guidance may unintentionally imply that the challenge cannot be solved another way, thus no longer describing how challenges can be approached, but prescribing the only way a challenge can be approached (e.g., you could bash open the chest, you could convince the guard to give you the key, etc.).
Skill lists–particularly long skill lists–can be a burden to new players and GMs in that there can be 12+ different skills to keep track of. A character sheet with a good layout, combined with evocative and memorable skill names can help alleviate this burden, but any time spent scanning a list of skills is less time actually playing the game.
As with any skill system, skill list systems are meant to give each character a moment to shine. However, the perceived comprehensiveness of skill lists may result in players not striving for the spotlight, but shirking it or simply not engaging with the spotlight. If an athletic challenge confronts the party and one character is not skilled in athletics, then the player may sit back and disengage, “I’m not good at this, someone else that’s good at this skill can do it, then I’ll come back to the game.” Another consequence is players attempting to negotiate with their GM’s in using a skill when its application may not fit with the narrative in order to get maximum mechanical benefit (“Can I try to use my athletics skill to intimidate the guard by flexing my muscles?”). Often games discuss the broad applicability of skills, but if that’s the case, the benefit of using skill lists lessens. If the method for characters to find their moment to shine is to find a way to justify using what they are already good at, then any other skill on the character sheet is wasted space. That’s where freeform skill systems come in.
Freeform
A game with a freeform skill system has no comprehensive list of all actions that a character can do. Instead, characters are capable of all actions conceived by a player. The presence of the skill itself signifies mastery over that particular action. These games typically have unique skills that apply to each character; no two characters have (or rarely have) the same skill. If a character has the skill “Sneak” that doesn’t necessarily mean none of the other characters can sneak, it simply means that this particular character is better than average. Some freeform skill system games do imply exclusivity, meaning that if you have a certain skill, like “Mathmology” (thank you Troika!), then you’re likely the only character who can do that.
Examples of games with freeform skills: LONGSWORD (Repertoire) by Viditya Voleti, PSYKERS (Traits) by Logan Dean, Plasmodics (Nuances) by Will Jobst.
Implications
Skills may be assigned depending on character creation choices, or made up by the player. The lack of a definitive skill list may make it harder for new players to engage with the game, especially if the players are required to make up their own skills, rather than pick from a set of options. One can argue that having pre-set skills in a freeform skill system is in itself, a list of skills. That’s true, but such a list is meant to convey intention, not to prescribe.
Without a definitive list to compare skills against one another, it becomes harder to differentiate skills. Freeform skills may be defined explicitly or implicitly, but it becomes more difficult to enforce limits without other skills to compare against…but maybe that’s not the point of freeform skill systems.
A freeform system without clear definitions of what encompasses a skill means that more often than not, multiple skills can justifiably be used to approach the same challenge. The focus then becomes less on what skill you are using, but how you use that skill. Your character is the only one with this skill, so you might as well find as many ways you can use that skill. The skill aids in describing how actions are made. This may seem “broken” (whatever that means in TTRPGs) or encourage “min-max”” behavior, but player behavior already trends towards making the most use out of what your character is good at. Freeform systems acknowledge and embrace that behavior.
Having only the skills you have mastered on your character sheet means you spend less time thinking about how your character is bad at most things, and more time thinking about how your character is good at these specific things. The focus is on what you have, and takes away anything that distracts you from that.
For this skill system, “sharing the spotlight” isn’t giving each character their own challenge that requires their specific skill, it’s giving each character their own method of overcoming the same challenge.
Ranks
Skill systems with ranks assign values to skills to signify level of proficiency. Ranks can be filled in circles, a numerical value, or a die type. Ranks convey the likelihood of success when using that skill.
Examples of games with skill ranks: Slayers by Spencer Campbell, The Wildsea by Felix Isaacs, Triangle Agency (Qualities3) by Caleb Zane Huett and Sean Ireland
Implications
For skill list systems, ranks mean that multiple characters may have the same skill, but one character is definitively better at it than another character. This means if they both encounter the same challenge as a group, and only one skill check is required (we don’t want everyone to be rolling Investigation checks, we’ll be here all day), the character with the highest ranks gets to engage with the mechanics. There may be some slight bonus with the second character helping, but this results in an arms race where if players invest in a skill, they expect to be the best at the skill. Having just a +2 to a skill doesn’t mean much when your fellow player has a character with the theoretical maximum of +5 to a skill. And are you even going to bother using–or acknowledging–a skill with +0 bonus?
Disengagement with the narrative doesn’t occur as frequently if skill checks have to be made individually (i.e., all characters make a skill check for the situation) since having a +2 is still better than a +0, even if your fellow character has a +5. The chance of your success is still better. Additionally, being forced to use a skill in which you are bad at can result in some narratively interesting consequences, but may leave a bad aftertaste4.
Binary
In direct contrast to a skill system with ranks, binary skill systems have no additional metric or value to measure the skill. You either have the skill, or you don’t. Though it’s important to note in some games, if you don’t have the skill, that doesn’t mean you can’t do it, it just means you don’t have a mechanical benefit by doing it.
Examples of games without skill ranks: Spire by Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor, Inevitable (Reputations5) by Zachary Cox, Cloud Empress by Watt
Implications
Binary skill systems benefit most from being tied to resolution mechanics that don’t require mathematical procedures (e.g, adding/subtracting bonuses). Instead the presence of a skill means you add an additional die to a dice pool. In this way, you may not necessarily be making a skill check, but the skill itself is aiding you in a greater action (i.e., you can make actions without skills).
Binary skills systems are easy to understand and implement (I have it or I don’t), but may be more difficult to interpret (how well can I do it if I have the skill vs. if I don’t?) without relative ratings that ranks provide.
Concluding Thoughts
Skill systems are a method to convey how characters interact with the game while providing avenues to differentiate characters. Depending on when and how a game decides to call upon skills, a skill system can either enhance the experience, or detract from it.
Particularly important questions to ask are, “when does my game call for a skill check?” and “who is required to make the skill check?” If the game has no skill checks, consider, “how do skills impact what I want to do?” When we answer these questions, it becomes clearer as to how the skill system best “shines a spotlight” on each character.
There are benefits to ranked skill list systems, namely, its ability to convey tone of the game and how a character is supposed to engage in the game. However, ranked skill list systems do a poor job of spotlighting characters as players are often focused on only acting with those particular skills they excel at, and tuning out when their poor skills come into play. Players gravitate towards hyperfocusing on a few areas of the game where their skills are most relevant to the point of it becoming a passive exercise (“did the GM say athletics check? I’m up.”) or attempting to justify all their actions with the use of a few skills
If that’s the kind of behavior players exhibit, then I think a freeform skill system (and to the extreme, a binary freeform skill system) does better at actively encouraging players to engage by justifying the use of your few skills in any way they can. The main goal of the skill isn’t necessarily to improve chances of success, but as a method to describe how a character acts–what makes them different.
Ultimately, I want players to approach challenges with their skills, not feel like they can’t do something because of their skills.
Footnotes
- Arguably, Moves in Powered by the Apocalypse games also fit this definition. I consider Moves more involved than Skills, in that their triggers are often extremely specific and their resolution varies considerably depending on the type of Move. Some of my analysis and implications for skill systems also apply to Moves, but Moves themselves don’t fit neatly into the categories I’ve defined in this post. If pressed, I’d say that Moves are mostly ranked skill list systems with a dash of Freeform skills. I have a lot of thoughts about Moves that I’ll save for another day. ↩︎
- Blades in the Dark explicitly says that multiple actions (the game’s version of skills) can be used for the same goal. This is different from a typical skill list system, and actually enforces one of the points I make later on about skill list systems actually encouraging players to disengage because they don’t have the right action for a situation on both a narrative and mechanical level. Instead, what BitD is doing is telling players that there isn’t a right action for the situation, and you can justify the same goal with a different action so you don’t feel mechanically disadvantaged. ↩︎
- Ok, technically, Qualities and Quality Assurances are explicitly described as not being an inherent or developed skillset, but mechanically they serve the function of a skill system. It’s an example of a game with a numerical rank in the skill without it being a game with the typical +X skill format. ↩︎
- This is what games with reaction rolls or “saves” effectively do. Forcing a barbarian to make Charisma saving throws is a common tactic for GMs when trying to find “weakpoints” in a character. ↩︎
- Reputations are interesting in that they not only represent skills that a character is good at, they can also represent skills that a character is bad at, depending on context. Reputations are adjectives, rather than the typical nouns or verbs that skills use, which help convey how they can be both a benefit or a detriment. Typically a skill that a character is worse than average at means the player will avoid a situation where that skill comes into question at all costs (how many heavy armor fighters with disadvantage to stealth have we seen volunteer for the scouting mission?). But by making a skill both a benefit and detriment, depending on context, Reputations make failure (or at least, difficulty) more engaging and narratively important. ↩︎