Posts made by The Sands

@faraday My apologies. I didn't mean to say that is what you have said verbatim. I am saying it seems to be how you are operating and then added why I believe it is a false syllogism.

@faraday We're getting our wires crossed because you're operating under what I believe is a false syllogism.

Everything written in the book is a rule.
Something is written in the book.
Therefore it is a rule.

Using that logic everyone who fails to conform to their character cliches are quite literally cheating because they are not following all the flavor text.

@thenomain Nope. Not at all. The point of the discussion is 'are those rules?' This is why the statement 'it's semantics' can't be regarded as an answer to the problem.

You can feel free to keep talking about how people aren't 'playing by the rules' without supplying any proof that they actually are rules or refutation of the arguments made, but ultimately that's not very helpful either.

@faraday said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

Whether or not they're "rules" is a matter of semantics, as @Thenomain pointed out, and ultimately irrelevant.
Because your problem isn't that it's flavor text. Your problem is that it's broken flavor text. It's flavor text that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense in context with the dice mechanics, nor general common sense. Like any other broken rule, it falls to the GM (or staff, in the case of a MU) how to remedy it.

To be clear, it isn't a matter of semantics. Apparently some people quite literally want to say you can't drive a stick-shift car unless you spent two points in Drive.

And this is my problem. My problem isn't that the flavor text is broken. I'm fine with broken flavor text. I look at it and go 'huh. That's stupid' and then move on. However, apparently some people want to say 'no, you can't do that, it's cheating'.

@faraday Seven years of medical training after two years of pre-med. It actually takes 9 years generally. Meanwhile 2 dots is 'College: Premed or paramedic' (which in this context appears to mean you've completed premed, not are currently enrolled since at least most Knowledge skills have two dots as 'College' and 3 dots as 'Masters'.

2 dots in Computes in the meantime apparently means 'You know your way around various applications and the Internet' (apparently only people who have completely Master's coursework are able to handle command prompts).

And I do apologize but in this context what's being discussed is quite definitely whether the fluff descriptors for oWoD (there are no fluff descriptors in nWoD) are 'rules' as some people want to maintain or just descriptors meant to give people some kind of idea as to what the dots represent. I know there are games where the skill descriptors are quite important. We simply aren't discussing those games.

@faraday said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

Just as I would have a hard time buying someone with Dex-1 Piloting-5 claiming they were an elite fighter pilot. I believe that sheets and backgrounds should hold together in a logical fashion.

This is less about what people claim (I would agree with you that during approval the ST should at least ask how this happened) and more about how the system functions.

This is about saying 'you can't do something with a 6 die pool that someone else with only a 4 die pool can do because their Skill is higher'. Not that they have a specialty that they need. Not because they have a license and you don't. Literally saying a character with a lower die pool and no other modifiers is allowed to do something a character with a higher pool cannot attempt.

Either way - a GM's job is to use the rules to enable other players to have fun and tell a good story, not to be a blind slave to said rules and allow situations that defy common sense.

Ok, but can you honestly look me in the eye (metaphorically) and tell me that they skill descriptors were intended to be 'rules' and not 'guidelines'? They are so hysterically badly written that it says that a General Practitioner only has to go through 6 years of school and that driving a stickshift requires the same rigor to master as a college (pre-med) degree.

@jennkryst said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

If we want hyper realism for surgery, you will have plenty of teamwork dice and equipment bonuses and specializations and merits. So it's more than just Int + Medicine.
So....
ETA - If we want Hollywood realism (as is my suggestion, since it makes the most sense with other rules, too) then yeah, let whoever use whatever.
Edit 2 - without going too POLITICSy, remember that Ben Carson - the man who thinks the Pyramids were grain silos - is also a world class brain surgeon who invented at least one revolutionary surgical proceedure. So massive Int is not a requirement.

Honestly, though, the purpose of this thread isn't to talk about how difficulty it is too make a realistic system or how we would House Rule a game to prevent these examples. It is really a question of whether the rules really support a Storyteller coming in and saying 'you know, even though Alex has the same die pool as Bill I'm going to assign a penalty to Alex' (beyond the obvious rule of ST fiat).

In fact I actually should slightly reverse my position on one point. If a Storyteller wants to say 'you have to have 3 dots of Medicine to be a licensed doctor' I can actually get behind that to some degree (except see my next post) because to become a licensed doctor you have to graduate from an accredited medical school, undergo a residency, and then pass your boards. A character with Intelligence-5 and Medical-1 might have the same skills as a doctor but they have not gone through all the steps required to receive their license. That said, I still do not support the idea that the Intelligence-3 Medical-3 character is more skilled than the Intelligence-5 Medical-1 character. They have the same pool and should be capable of undertaking the same tasks.

@faraday said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

Do you really think the authors of WoD intended the guy with Medicine 1 + Int 4 to be able to do brain surgery just because he's got 5 dice? Or the guy with Piloting 1 + Dex 4 to be able to fly a space shuttle? I really don't. As a GM I would have absolutely no problem telling those characters: "Lol, no." And I daresay my players would agree with me.

What is being discussed is two characters with equivalent dice pools but one of them is not being allowed to attempt an action, not someone with a pool that is simply too low (because it is only 5 dice) who is attempting an action.

Thus this is a strawman argument unless you would let someone with Medicine-4 + Int-1 do brain surgery.

Would you?

@insomniac7809 said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

I mean, if (I probably wouldn't do this, but) if I were STing a scene, and an Int 5 Med 0 guy was trying to perform open heart surgery on another character, I'd have zero problem saying "no."
"But I have three dice!" Yeah, and no medical knowledge. You can't just crack 'em open and work it out from there.
"But would you say do the same thing with guns?" I mean, maybe? The basic use if guns is pretty straightforward, you point the bang-bangs at the bad mans and they fall over. That's the point of guns. If we're talking about Dex 5 Firearms 0 picking up a high-powered sniper rifle and trying to nail one of those "wind speed, bullet arc, angle of the earth's rotaion" shots, then yeah, I'd probably give the same "try again or find someone who knows what they're doing" answer.

That's a terrible example. It is already covered in the rules as written, is not ambiguous, and is not what is being talked about (that being a character with 1 point in Medicine and Intelligence-5). It looks like either you are trying to sucker me into the trap of saying they should be able to when they are expressly forbidden, meaning you don't feel you can win your argument legitimately, or you don't actually know the rules that well. (I'm not saying either of these is the case, merely that that is the appearance you are giving).

Now you could decide that as open heart surgery is pretty damn difficult everyone attempting it has a 6 die penalty, but that's a penalty that affects everyone. It doesn't just affect the person with low skill. Apparently an open heart surgeon is someone with a normal pool of about 8 or 9 dice, and that's fine, it isn't something a very large percentage of doctors can achieve. Likewise in your argument about the person attempting to pull off the 'impossible shot' you should be applying penalties that wind up exceeding the die pool available to the untrained person. The expert still has those penalties as well, however.

Which leads us back to 'Situational Penalties'. They are penalties that are based on a situation, meaning they are external to the standard (Skill + Attribute) resolution. The person using Seduction on someone completely unattracted to them (because of things such as incorrect gender) has a modifier because of circumstances external to them (that being that the other person is not attracted to their gender). A person shooting at long ranges has a modifier because the target is far away. Even something such as a surgeon being Blind is a valid situational modifier because the condition of being Blind is external to the Intelligence + Medicine pool.

@thatguythere said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

So then by that logic in a game using WoD 1.0 whether a character is attracted to the attempted seducer is irrelevant, it would just be a presence + persuasion with maybe a modifier due to the last of attraction, because that is your rules as written standard.

No, because the fact that Seduction is being used on the 'wrong' target is a situation. It is not tied to 'I don't like how you got 6 dice so I'm going to apply a penalty'.

@thenomain Absolutely, and I'm not suggesting that they aren't.

That is not the subject being discussed. The subject is 'should skill descriptions be treated as rules?'

@lithium said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

Firearms is a bad example to use here, because not knowing to lead? That's called rolling badly because you're not using that many dice.

Except I am rolling just as many dice as someone with Dexterity-3 and Firearms-3. This is a penalty only the people with Firearms-1 are being given (and is the equivalent to the penalty being given to the person with Medicine-1). Just to be clear, I'm not in favor of such a penalty. I'm pointing out that applying o ne to the person with Medicine-1 is not in keeping with the core of the system and you would never do such a thing to a person with Firearms-1.

Situational modifiers are something that are supposed to be given by the ST not by the players, the PC's can pitch something, and the ST can go yeah ok, or nope, not gonna fly. In the same vein, if there is no ST, if a player pitches a situational modifier, other players have the ability to go: Nope, not gonna fly in this situation.
Now I also agree a specialty is a specialty and you should only get one since... it's a specialty. Once you start overlapping them you're not specializing, you're now diversifying so that defeats the point of a specialty.

True, but they are suppose to be given by the ST because of aspects of the situation (it's dark, people are shooting at you while you are trying to do surgery, you're using a gun with a misaligned sight, etc.) They aren't suppose to be applied simply to represent a character's ability to do something because there's already a mechanism that represents that; their dice pool.

But I also agree, this shouldn't be in the mildly constructive area either.

I started the thread in this forum simply because the subject was taking over another thread in the forum and people wanted to return to the original subject. I would be happy for it to be moved to a more appropriate forum though I'm not sure which one that would be.

@thatguythere said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

Edit: Over in the social skills section you mention seduction shouldn't be able to work in some situations, yet in the write up for seduction as an action in WoD 1st edition there is no mention of the a target needing to be attracted to the seducer, having a significant other is listed as a bonus for the resistance roll though doesn't negate the attempt either, wouldn't a GM deciding a seduction didn't be just as arbitrary as my medicine example?

In that context I'm talking about designing a system. I'm saying that when you write up said system you should take these things into account.

@thatguythere Overall I like that setup. It still preserves autonomy of action while allowing the social skills to have value. I'm not sure I would agree with everything in the setup (I might be tempted to require a Willpower roll before an Intimidated person can even initiate combat and I think the Seduction could still use work because it continues to have problems that people can just use it in completely inappropriate situations) but I think the concept is sound.

@thatguythere said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

One rule I have seen in most games and definitely in every WoD one was that the GM/storyteller is the final arbiter of things. No if someone disagree they are free to leave the scene or in the case of table top the campaign.

And on those grounds you are absolutely correct and I do not disagree with you in the slightest. The GM/Storyteller is the final arbiter of things.

The Storyteller also has the ability to say a character spontaneously combusts, breaks down weeping when someone looks at them funny, or turns into a frog. Your ruling, while valid, is just about as well supported by the rules (meaning it is primarily supported because of the rule that says the ST is the final arbiter rather than some actual non-fluff rule that can be pointed to).

I would most likely leave the campaign as you have now fallen into the category of someone either abusing your position or someone who has already made up your mind how the story goes. Either way, not a good Storyteller.

I'm not saying you're a terrible person. I think you have fallen into one of several possible patterns that people fall into (I hate that I'm losing the argument so I'm going to invoke ST fiat/I want the story to run this way/I'm fed up with this guy so I've developed an unconscious bias against him). However, I would not find it enjoyable to continue playing in a game with such an arbitrary nature.

And because I do want this to be constructive I will say this; evoking the 'I am the ST' clause to arbitrarily throw out penalties is not good. If you really want the levels of skills to mean something, that's absolutely fine. However, you need to apply it consistently. You need a House Rule that says 'certain tasks can't be attempted if a skill is deemed too low'. That needs to be a House Rule because there's nothing in the actual rules that implies anything remotely close to that. It should also be applied consistently, meaning that yes, it is just as likely that someone with Dexterity-5 and Firearms-1 will not be allowed to take a shot when they actually have enough dice because their Firearms skill is too low.

I recognize that Emerson said "consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" but inconsistency leads to staff abuse and favoritism (both perceived and actual).

Is the WoD system flawed? Sure. Can you try and patch the flaws with house rules? Absolutely (I might be inclined to have a house rule saying at least 1/3 of your pool has to come from your Skill and then tweak the rules for when you lack the skill). Such a system, though, isn't what we're talking about right now. What we're talking about right now is if the system as written (not as you would like it to run) supports the idea that a Storyteller should (not can, but should) say you can't undertake an action you actually have the dice to attempt or that they should assign penalties just because they feel a skill is too low.

@ganymede said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

@the-sands said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

No. I still think they are fluff. I am trying to illustrate why it is silly to say they are 'rules'. Because as 'rules' they make absolutely 0 sense since you have to combine them with Attributes.

Going back to my first point, there's still absolutely nothing constructive about what you're stating here. It's your opinion -- I get that -- but so what?

To my second point, call 'em fluff, I'll call 'em garbage, and we're otherwise on the same level of apparent disdain.

Sorry. That was a reply to Lothario.

@ganymede said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

That said, frankly, I don't like "situational modifiers." I think they are garbage. I've seen them abused more times than I can count. "Oh, I'm wearing a nice dress -- +2 to my Socialize roll!" "Oh, wow, I'm wearing the make-up of Hollywood stars -- +2 to my Presence roll!" And so on, and so on.

Situational modifiers absolutely have their place in the game. You used Obtenebration on me and I can't see? That's a situational modifier right there. There's quite a few abilities in the game that are almost completely based around granting people situational modifiers (positive and negative). Range modifiers, cover, even injuries are basically forms of situational modifiers

A Storyteller deciding the hand out a situational modifier penalty because your skill is too low, however? That seems to be someone either abusing their position or someone who has already made up their mind how the story is suppose to go. Either way, not a good Storyteller.

The case of positive modifiers for makeup and things is a little wonky. In WoD/CoD there are a lot of ways to get bumps from gear and equipment. It's just the way the system is written. Players shouldn't just get to decide that they get those bonuses though, IMO. That should be handled through some kind of system such as equipment purchases.

No. I still think they are fluff. I am trying to illustrate why it is silly to say they are 'rules'. Because as 'rules' they make absolutely 0 sense since you have to combine them with Attributes.

@lotherio said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

I don't think skill descriptions are fluff. This is more rules lawyering for statistical advantage, but saying skill desc is fluff doesn't have weight.

So then you're saying a person with 2 Dexterity, 2 Strength, and 2 Stamina is an Olympic Medalist just because they have Athletics 5? After all, it's the rules! Man, the MMA circuit must really suck in your world because with my 6 die Brawl skill I'm also apparently a serious contender with my Brawl-4. It's the rules! So when I play in your game can I complain that I'm not able to pound 99% of the game to mush with my 6 die pool? After all, I'm an MMA contender! They must be cheating!

Yeah. I really don't think you want to try and say those are anything more than maybe things to give you some kind of vague idea what a skill level means when paired with a roughly equivalent attribute.

@thatguythere Sure, both guns work the same, but the guy with only 1 dot in Firearms doesn't know how to lead his target. He doesn't know how to adjust for range or windage or recoil (at least according to your logic).

Your guy with Drive-1 doesn't understand about loading the wheels. He doesn't know about skidpad performance of different vehicles or the difference in performance between front-wheel and rear-wheel drives. Guess we better give him a penalty as well.

I can continue this argument to every single skill if you would like.

Good lord, even if you lack a skill you can attempt an action and as long as you have enough dice with the untrained penalty that you might succeed your allowed to roll (e.g. if I have Dexterity-5 and Firearms-0 and I want to shoot at something where I have a -3 die penalty I get to do it. You're not suppose to turn around and say 'no, you lack the proper Firearms knowledge to account for all the difficulties of the shot and automatically miss' (you can make me futz around with having to find the safety if that gives you a feeling of power before I that the shot, but you're not suppose to make me automatically miss) and you sure as snot aren't suppose to turn around and say 'yes, your pool is 6 dice and there is no penalty but I'm just not going to let you'.

Oh. Sorry Alex, even though you can perform absolutely as well Barry I'm not going to let you do it because you're Int-5 Medicine-1 and he's Int-3 Medicine-3. Yes, I realize your pool is actually two points higher than Carl since he's Int-1 and Medicine-3 and I'm letting him do it, but suck it up.