Forums of the Megaverse®

Really don't know what you mean by "misuse of skills".

i just tell the players what the skill "really" do and what type of info can be gained that way.. this can take place either in game or out of game.. this happens to me every so often.. just like how you have to tell people over and over agin that see aura does not allow you to tell what a persons alignment is.

I'd say it's a delicate balance, but it's not, it's just something many GM's do wrong.

Skills are things the Character knows how to do.... independent of the Player. This means... If the Character knows enough appropriate lore to effectively fight a beastie, then you tell the player whether tactics would be effective or not.

I had a GM who didn't understand this. He told us the date of the adventure. And went foreword, and then looked incredulously at me when I didn't realize that the date was the Fall Equinox. "You're the shifter, you should know this" he said.

He didn't quite understand that I'm a dorky chemist from Dallas. My character was the shifter, and if *the shifter* knows it, it's the GM's job to tell me. This is why the GM should have a good sense of what skills the PC's have, because oftentimes, situations come up which apply a skill that the player wouldn't know but the GM would.

Unless you want to roll an astrology check every day, just in case it's an equinox or something.

I wing it or hit the PC with a skill failure or backfire even if they succeeded the skill roll unless they explain how they are trying to hammer a square peg through the round hole.

twhaley wrote:I was gaming once, playing a trap-setting thief-type, and when it came time to set a trap the GM asked me to draw the trap on a piece of paper. I was kind of taken back. I thought "no, I don't have the trap building skill, my 'character' does". I've never build a deadly trap in my life, or at least I hope I haven't. But, it wasn't my campaign so I did the best I could to make him happy. As a GM myself, I've felt the other end of the stick, when players think the 'Streetwise Skill' or the 'Intelligence Skill' is actually the 'Tell me Things My Character Couldn't Possibly Know Skill'.

So, I'm just wondering how other GMs deal with misuse of skills.

Thanks, Todd

Play optionally tables like from merc's their one for bad things if they fail he he on a streetwise. Answer for roll-players.

You have to just tell them no or what they have to do to get that information. Suck has you find a person on the corner(streetwise rolled) that looks to be part of the gang you looking to wipe out. So what you going to do to get the information out of him about where the base is.
Or that is what I look at skill has keys to make story move.
Answer for role-players.

It is a fine line between what you should get from skill and what you should get from role playing.