Re: Official Errata Suggestion/Discussion Thread (changes you'd like to see made)

[Zarhon]

Well, perception on its own is already a super-skill. It not only allows you to detect absolutely anything with any of your senses (you can even detect magic with it, if you take the racial, and don't get me started on crits), is absolutely essential to do anything (due to essentially telling the DM what you can and can't see or notice around you, and thusly what you are and aren't allowed to interact with or do), but it also includes the comprehension/recognition of whatever you "notice".

The way I see it, perception should really be about how good/trained your basic senses are, or how well they can tell out details, but NOT the direct comprehension or understanding of such details, unless the skill involves a specific search for something that would lead to such. Sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste. Anything further than that should be delegated to skill that comprehend what you notice, such as history, or streetwise, or arcana.

Spotting a liar with perception, for example: it shouldn't be that you can auto-tell if someone is lying, so much as notice clues on their state: Seeing a fragment of a grin, them being nervous or waving their arms, sweating, or such.

The act of comprehending/interpreting these should be given to streetwise (from experience of how creatures work or how liars work).

Same goes with their words said themselves - streetwise can probably identify an inconsistency in, say, a liar's words, or tell that there is one. Perception shouldn't let you do that "by default", but it could give you hints that another skill might be needed, or that something is "off" when it shouldn't be.

Streetwise has very few uses, and might as well not exist, if it can be reproduced by other skills. Though a few of them can be useful (finding a fence or peddler, knowing where the prices are lowest...), in essence it is limited to streets or urban areas (and nature, though it doesn't fit the name). It should be expanded to things like "popular/informal/formal/less-known culture", "natural areas", "urban/civilized areas", "psychology in general"...

Possible names streetwise could be given:

"Informality" (informal experience or insights, lesser (or well-known) public knowledge, things not recorded or written down so much as 'word of the street', social knowledge, non-scientific insights, trivia, how a creature might feel or react to something said or done...)
"Urban/Natural experience"
"Popular & Informal trivia/exp"
"Worldly insight"

[Kindulas]

I have to agree with Zamuel personally. I've never liked Streetwise as a skill - no one agrees on what it does, most of its uses seem like they should be covered by other stuff, and it's just awkward as a skill. Insight and Perception are two things that go under Dan's "Why should these be different, because the term 'perception' can mean both" - but while the word can make sense for both, they're such different skill-sets, I think. Survival doesn't make sense as a replacement, because survival is more than just a "sense" thing - it often incorporates knowledge too. I want to see what Dan thinks, I suspect he won't agree with splitting Insight and Perception, since he went out of his way to merge them in the first place, but they still seem odd to me. Ultimately, I'm not hard-set in any opinion, but that's my leaning.

[Ramsus]

The thing you have to keep in mind is that nobody agrees on what any of the skills do. They're all intentionally broad and have tons of overlap. (This is the case even with systems with more specific skills, it's just a bigger headache in those systems when someone has a different view since that overlap is not the expectation.) It's largely up to the GM and players to make sure any skill isn't doing anything too strong and another skill isn't completely useless. By far, I've noticed that it's not that Streetwise or History or Endurance or whatever are not as good as Perception or whatever else, it's that people choose not to think up ways to use them and GMs don't force them to. Thus this misconception that they aren't useful.

Edit: Seriously, name almost any use of any skill and 90% of the time I could give you at least two other skills that could achieve the same thing.

[Kindulas]

To be fair, Endurance in paticular is up to the DM to make it useful 99% of the time, but I get your point. I just think streetwise is weird

[Hayatecooper]

>Seriously, name almost any use of any skill and 90% of the time I could give you at least two other skills that could achieve the same thing.

Stealth, hiding behind an ancient Crystal Empire lamp while being pursued by a changeling guard.

[Pingcode]

>Seriously, name almost any use of any skill and 90% of the time I could give you at least two other skills that could achieve the same thing.

Stealth, hiding behind an ancient Crystal Empire lamp while being pursued by a changeling guard.

Streetwise, put the lampshade on your head and vanish into the crowd.

Acrobatics, hide in the lampshade.

Arcana, create a zone of silence, kill the guard, then hide behind the lamp.

[Ramsus]

Easy. Acrobatics, Athletics, or Endurance to completely hide your body behind the lamp. Or History or Streetwise to know the way these guards patrol. Or mechanics to make a false empty lamp to hide in. Perception to keep track of where the guard is looking and not be there (this would be pretty darn difficult admittedly). Heal to have crafted a hallucinogen that would make the guard see things and thus not see you or something to make them drowsy and pay less attention (admittedly you might need another skill to deliver this concoction without them noticing). Persuasion and Arcana are the only ones you'd have to seriously BS for. (Though you did give me an incredibly narrow skill use and not something more reasonable like "hide/escape notice by a guard".)

[Kindulas]

Easy. Acrobatics, Athletics, or Endurance to completely hide your body behind the lamp. Or History or Streetwise to know the way these guards patrol. Or mechanics to make a false empty lamp to hide in. Perception to keep track of where the guard is looking and not be there (this would be pretty darn difficult admittedly). Heal to have crafted a hallucinogen that would make the guard see things and thus not see you or something to make them drowsy and pay less attention (admittedly you might need another skill to deliver this concoction without them noticing). Persuasion and Arcana are the only ones you'd have to seriously BS for. (Though you did give me an incredibly narrow skill use and not something more reasonable like "hide/escape notice by a guard".)

Um... Endurance to what?? How?

[Zarhon]

Um... Endurance to what?? How?

Probably to keep your body in an unnatural position, or to not scream in pain as your body is crammed like a boneless ragdoll into some small space. Or some other abuse of cartoon physics in relation to your body.

[Ramsus]

You say "cartoon physics" but... the positions some performers can contort themselves into and hold irl is amazing.

[A1C Bronymous]

And if the character has "contortionist" somewhere in its backstory, then that would be a good excuse. Otherwise, its cartoon physics.

[Zarhon]

You say "cartoon physics" but... the positions some performers can contort themselves into and hold irl is amazing.

Right, but those usually require endurance / sustained effort to keep those positions without injuring yourself, or as your body tries to re-assume its natural position (kind of like how those performers that "eat swords" fight against gag reflex).

Also cartoon physics since this kinda is one.

[ZamuelNow]

And really, I don't like the the train of logic here of: "we don't got anything that uses this stat, so let's remove it and replace it with something else and nerf a second stat just cause."

It's not as kneejerk as it might initial sound (one of my worries before posting).  It struck me as odd when I first looked at the system but I pushed it to the back of my mind, I was looking at it when LoganAura started another skill conversation a while back, and I've been dwelling on it for a while.  This isn't a change that should be made lightly and it needs to be discussed from multiple angles.  And "nerfing a second stat" has rather specific reasons why.

Insight and Perception are two things that go under Dan's "Why should these be different, because the term 'perception' can mean both"

This winds up being one of those sentences that starts with "In all due respect" but... In all due respect, that doesn't make any sense at all.  With this RPG system being based on My Little Pony and especially Friendship is Magic, Insight and Perception are two of the very stats you make a point of splitting.  Basically, take Rarity and Twilight Sparkle.  Twilight is great at picking up physical details but she doesn't catch most emotional reactions at all.  While Rarity can be blinded by her own vanity and greed, she reads others really well.  The system as currently designed means a Twilight styled player with high Perception picks up all of the emotional feedback that's entirely out of character for her.

The way I see it, perception should really be about how good/trained your basic senses are, or how well they can tell out details, but NOT the direct comprehension or understanding of such details, unless the skill involves a specific search for something that would lead to such. Sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste. Anything further than that should be delegated to skill that comprehend what you notice, such as history, or streetwise, or arcana.

Spotting a liar with perception, for example: it shouldn't be that you can auto-tell if someone is lying, so much as notice clues on their state: Seeing a fragment of a grin, them being nervous or waving their arms, sweating, or such.

I feel it's a bit of a toss up there and also comes down to the good of Freaky Knowledge.  "You see something on the far wall but have no clue what it is" while someone more specialized picks up the details.  As far as lying, that's generally an opposed roll.  It's just as much of an issue of how well they lie to how well someone picks up on it.  And even then, you don't know what the actual truth is. Also, you have to know to even roll Perception in the first place.

-Survival-

"Survival" can mean any number of things.  I actually think it fits far more as a Freaky Knowledge option that applies to multiple things than a standalone skill.  Especially since someone good at various survival abilities may still have various strengths and weaknesses in what they can do.  Plus, a FK means you're technically getting an even higher stat boost since it's applying on top of CM/training/Applejack of all Trades.

By far, I've noticed that it's not that Streetwise or History or Endurance or whatever are not as good as Perception or whatever else, it's that people choose not to think up ways to use them and GMs don't force them to.

This is a valid point to make and was one of the good things about LoganAura's previous thread.  I know in a campaign elsewhere I specified that History and not Perception is to be used for research with the reasoning that History is processing the info while Perception notices details with the book itself.  This is a smaller campaign with a dedicated historian so it works out quite well.  While there is imbalance between skills, there does need to be effort made to give all of them worth.

Streetwise, put the lampshade on your head and vanish into the crowd.

Acrobatics, hide in the lampshade.

Acrobatics, Athletics, or Endurance to completely hide your body behind the lamp.

Hiding in the crowd would be good on its own but the lampshade would actually make you stand out more.  One of the design reasons for giving Indiana Jones a hat is that it makes it easier for the viewer to spot him in larger crowd scenes.  Acrobatics makes sense but Athletics seems more of a stretch if someone's not a contortionist and Endurance doesn't make sense at all unless someone else forced your body into a position.  I find the fact that Perception was considered a stretch odd since it feels like one of the most sensible.  With the Crystal Empire being mentioned, that would note that a lot of things would be translucent and/or reflective.

As far as being specific, depends on a situation.  Broad situations are good for generalists while more specific ones are good for allowing people who focus on specific skills a chance to shine.

[Pingcode]

I'm tickled that 'Murder the guard, removing the presence of anypony to oppose your check' is a legitimate solution, though.

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

This winds up being one of those sentences that starts with "In all due respect" but... In all due respect, that doesn't make any sense at all.  With this RPG system being based on My Little Pony and especially Friendship is Magic, Insight and Perception are two of the very stats you make a point of splitting.  Basically, take Rarity and Twilight Sparkle.  Twilight is great at picking up physical details but she doesn't catch most emotional reactions at all.  While Rarity can be blinded by her own vanity and greed, she reads others really well.  The system as currently designed means a Twilight styled player with high Perception picks up all of the emotional feedback that's entirely out of character for her.

This is an easy and valid argument to make but it's also easy to take it too far. I'll just substitute a few words to demonstrate why it's not a no-brainer.

"Diplomacy and Animal-Handling are two of the very stats you make a point of splitting.  Basically, take Rarity and Fluttershy.  Fluttershy is great at communicating with animals but she doesn't do well with other ponies at all (unless there's a stare involved).  While Rarity can be flummoxed by dealing with animals, she's great with other ponies.  The system as currently designed means a Fluttershy player with high Persuasion does a good job talking to people as well as animals and that's entirely out of character for her."

We can extend this argument to talk about Intimidate being different than Diplomacy and a trained thief that would be great at lock-picking but wouldn't have any idea about other forms of mechanics. Or how about someone that knows a lot about Canterlot history but nothing about the history of the Everfree Forest? What that doctor in ponyville that knows about treating ponies but had no idea how to treat spike (two different kinds of heal checks)? 

The list can go on and on. Eventually we even run into the core attributes. If someone wants high Perception, they have to sink a lot of points into Sense - which also gives them high Persuasion... But that goes right back to Twilight/Rarity as you describe. A character that's good at noticing things but bad at talking to people doesn't have much support in the system. Shall we abolish attributes because of this and just have players allocate points between skills? That isn't necessarily a bad idea, it's something I've been considering for a while, but it's a further extension of the argument that needs to be considered.

Fundamentally, there will always be overlaps in skills. That overlap can be slightly annoying, but that's a smaller problem to deal with than having to exhaust a laundry list of skills, perhaps so particular that they include, "Knowledge: Oceanography". Luckily, Freaky Knowledge does exist for added customization. 

Note: Not saying that Perception shouldn't be broken up. However, the argument that it limits character options isn't super compelling. Having a core skill for "noticing stuff" is helpful for learning the game. It's easier than learning the differences between two different kinds of noticing-stuff skills. Since it's easier to learn and simpler to play, the only reason we'd break it up is if it's a too-powerful skill. Focusing on that question is your best bet to breaking things up.

[Paper Shadow]

Actually, you can make a Fluttershy. With Animal Magnetism you don't need Persuasion for animals. Intimidation is different to Diplomacy thanks to Imposing, Terrify and Villainous Laugh. A Thief can have low Mechanics but have the Thieves Tool Enchantment (and if you really want, Nimble Hooves). With the basics of Training and a Cutie Mark, plus Sharp Eyes and Eagle Eyes, you can make a character with +19 Perception but only +5 Persuasion...

Not really a counter-argument, just making some points about the examples given...

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

The system is definitely flexible enough to make a great many characters in a great many settings (it's used for Star Wars games, medieval fantasy, weird technofusion, various punks, dresden files and a lot more that I've heard of). Thankfully, those workarounds can be applied to just about any build. It's definitely a further problem with the argument of splitting up skills in order to allow more character options - as ways to make those characters often already exist.

Naturally, it's a lot more awkward to do it via so many talents and racial traits. Regardless, the perception argument still needs to be based on whether the skill is too powerful compared to the other skills more than anything else (having a single 'noticing stuff' skill is really helpful for easy learning of the system).

[SparkImpulse]

So, I'd like to point out that, for instance, older editions of D&D tried to have a moderately exhaustive list of skills, and it resulted in a very different roll playing experience. I think I know why: while the skills drew from base stats, the player could train in as many of them as he wanted, and training was continuous and cumulative. So there would be "dump skills" that never got trained despite being under a stat that was important for the player (A friend would always rely on that ... he'd get his team into something weird, realize there wasn't a good skill for that, or just wanted his players to feel awkward, so he'd call for a 'handle animal' check. At least once per session, with no animals visible to the PCs, he'd call for that skill).

AoH has very few skills, and almost no training. So their association with the base stat is emphasized. That's simply a design decision, and considering the "target demographic" of FiM is 6yo girls, making a matching RPG that's much-simplified is fine in my book too.

Although, I have to say Stairc:

This is an easy and valid argument to make but it's also easy to take it too far. I'll just substitute a few words to demonstrate why it's not a no-brainer.

Your example only suffices to prove that your system isn't designed to make distinctions. IMHO you've strengthened Zamuel's argument.

The question I'd want to answer, regarding a skill split like this, isn't "Can I play Fluttershy, or Twilight Sparkle properly within the constraints of this system?" ... but instead, does it feel enough like their world. "Can I play a pony?"

Again, this isn't a simulational system, just a "game" ... rules for roleplaying. The fact that the rules as they exist now allow for oddities like a Twilight who can read emotions well, is no worse than weathercrafting using persuasion or history. It's just a known limitation of the system -- shrug, and go with it.

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

Yes and no. The system clearly has some distinctions made already (there's more than one skill after all). The question is what list of skills provides an optimal gameplay experience. We want players to have lots of character options while keeping the system as smooth as possibly to learn and play (so it's easier to introduce new players and form gaming groups - plus keeps the gameplay smoother).

Learning more skills takes more time and can create more arguments about which skills to use in which circumstance. Naturally, we want to have as few skills as possible while still maintaining a good array of character options. I don't think that anyone's arguing that we should cut up ALL the skills into component parts for more realistic roleplaying. If Zamuel is arguing that, then my post certainly does strengthen his argument. But he isn't, as he thinks Streetwise should be consolidated into other skills. Unless I'm misunderstanding, of course. That's why my post illustrates that the argument would need to be applied to everything, including things that I doubt he agrees with, and would lead to an unnecessarily fragmented system.

Now to the Yes part. The system definitely can't let players make a Mane 6 pony exactly (especially Twilight) but it can, as you say, make a pony a lot like them that would fit in their world. Many of their abilities are present in the system. Faust wasn't making her series with balanced or optimal roleplaying in mind. We've gotta do the best we can. =)

[Ramsus]

Dan mentioned the idea of dropping the stats and letting the skills be allotted more freely, or doing something like that, and that is something I would highly be in favor of. The stats themselves barely get used (outside of checking if Yee-Haw! applies or such easily changed things).

Edit: Though we would need to be very very careful with how we then handle things like Specialist, Overachiever, and Best of the Breed.

As far as splitting up Perception goes.... this actually makes no sense. The senses you use to determine if there is a hidden wall over there and if that guy is lying to you are exactly the same. The amount of training and learning to know how to spot either of those things has a ton of overlap. Yes, you can irl be good at reading people and not have the skill to spot tracks but, that is the kind of distinction Freaky Knowledge is used for as, it's a very good example of just being specialized in a particular sub-skillset of something.

There was a mention of Survival and I have to heartily disagree with the idea that it could simply be a Freaky Knowledge. It basically covers everything Streetwise does but, in the wild. That's way too many skillsets to be a fair FK at all.

[Philadelphus]

As I like to remind people, just because your character has a high Persuasion or Perception doesn't mean they automatically have to be good at talking to people or "reading emotions". You can always role-play to the contrary. (It's a lot easier to play being bad at something despite stats to the contrary than the other way round!)

In regards to possibly dropping the Attributes, I remember having a knee-jerk reaction against it the first time the idea came up, but I'm starting to come over the idea. Simply having every Skill start at 5, and giving players 24 points to allocate between them subject to the restriction that a skill can only go up to 10 unless you add Training or an Expert Skill to it. In fact, you could reduce a lot of min-maxing by removing Training entirely and just giving people the equivalent number of skill points. Then the highest you could start a particular skill at would be 15 (with Expert Skill) rather than 18.

And on that note, do we really need to keep Specialist and Overachiever around? Literally the only thing they do is allow you to min-max your character more. I remember when they were donkey-exclusive and it seemed like a neat idea and you had to play a donkey to access it, but now I see tons of builds of every species with the two of them in place in order to start a specific skill at 20 (Arcana for a Magecraft user, like as not). It just seems like we could come up with cooler, less min-maxy options.

[Ramsus]

We should be keeping training. It helps keeps the lid on the skill caps and very importantly cannot stack. This means that in a stat free environment things like I've Read A Lot About It do not become a minmaxing playground. I think we don't have to actually remove Overachiever and Specialist, we just need to say you can only take one or the other. Best of the Breed would still be fine in that situation I think.

[Z2]

Is it really necessary to eliminate minmaxers?
I can understand not agreeing with their playstyle from a personal perspective, but should you really go OUT OF YOUR WAY to make sure they CAN'T play the way they want to?


Unless you are absolutely certain that the existence of attributes and specialist/overachiever (or any other aspect, really, removing content altogether is not something to be done lightly) are detrimental to the players - yes, the PLAYERS, not the system (though you should still make sure it isn't actually non-detrimental to the system either, if that is a factor) - you should not be removing them.

[Lapis-Lazily]

Min-maxing can be annoying, but I don't think Specialist and Overachiever are harmful. They provide slight min-maxing options, but the only skill right now that truly gets broken by min-maxing is arcana due to magecraft, and arguably persuasion, but magecraft is planned for a nerf. Touching these racials doesn't really seem necessary at that point.

[Ramsus]

We're talking about if we shift the system to functioning without Attributes. There would have to be limits on the minmaxing or you might as well just have players pick between 12s and 3s for every skill. And I don't agree with you Lapis, there are tons of other places were minmaxing breaks the game.

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