Would you like to see skills in Cantr?

[evilhomer69]

I think that it would be really cool to have skills in Cantr. I know it would take major programming, but it would be nice to be able to specialize in something, and would give certain people advantages over doing somethings.

[Missy]

Erm. Well, there's already skills in Cantr. (I thought.) Your chars probably are already better at some things, compared to others.


In example you might notice some of your chars will hit an animal with a bare fist, for more dammage than some of your others would with a bare fist, etc.

[Bran-Muffin]

Yeah... we already have skills.

[Nick]

We should be able to know what we specialise in though, I think..

[Surly]

I'd rather that the whole thing was taken out.

Skills restrict one of the key fundamental reasons I enjoy Cantr... imagination is no longer your limit. Chance plays a large part too, and that sucks.

[Dee]

I think we should see our skills, and be able to improve them.

[SekoETC]

Umm, the problem with skills and special attributes is that we've been roleplaying some characters as strong, some as weak. And you can't blame one for starting a character with a special description if skills / personal attributes were not added yet at that time. After the personal differences were dealt randomly, your warrior characters may find themselves suddenly handicapped by the lack of strenght, and those considered to relay more on other things than muscle turn out to be masters in arms. That's just not natural.

A few examples if I may. Though maybe it's better I say them without the names.

Mr strong guy has always been described to be bigger than the others and people have accepted this, everyone expects him to chase thieves and sometimes help with dragging perhaps. After the skill change, the character can't get through a wooden shield with a longbow and later deals only 10 damage with a stronger weapon to someone who has no shield at all. His dragging skills are weaker than average (though, thank God, I've heard of weaker cases as well). But surprisingly, even though he's been hunting very rarely, he does... about 30 points of damage on the animals. I'd rather see the hunting and fighting skills switching places in this case, or being equalized to something in the middle. I know getting a skill boost on request doesn't sound fair but neither is cutting down the character's skills randomly.

Another character used to be a hunter as a girl. One day she noticed the damage she does to animals has lowered about 13 points if I remember right. This was a heavy strike to her ego and made her restrain herself from hunting for years. But fortunately doing fine damage on people. She has attacked the total of TWO people in her life, mostly keeping negotiation in greater value. But the fighting skill might come handy, thank you very much randomness.

Another character I've imagined to be wiry and relatively short, mostly relying on his wit and verbal skills. Then the skill change comes and I find out he's exellent in both fighting and hunting.

A pacifist character turned out to be a great hunter, doing 32 damage with a longbow on some animals. But she didn't hunt after that and never attacked any people either.

And don't forget the lady who's too weak to drag a notes under doors. It's a bit embarrassing but other than that her lack of fighting/hunting skills don't bother me so much.

Because of these things I'd like us to have some sort of a chance to affect what skills our characters get if they were spawned before the introduction of skills, and physical attributes should be made visible, so that we know if our newspawn is skinny or musclular, and we wouldn't embarrass ourselves with irrealistic descriptions. You must remember that raw strenght isn't everything, and everyone who plays roleplaying games probably knows that Agility is usually more important than Strenght.

[wichita]

The thing I like so much about the skills is that it adds another layer of realism to the game and makes it less formulaic. Granted, it may have not worked out for the older existing characters, but it holds a lot of opportunity for new characters. It does make it more difficult to play out a preconceived role imagined by the player prior to spawning, but it also gives great motivation for situational character development if you know what the character is good at and what he's not.

And just because he is skilled in something at spawntime, doesn't mean he has to be stuck doing that. Universities are full of people trying to do things that they are just naturally incapable of doing....most of them hoping to be Doctors! So your skill set doesn't define who you are, it just defines where your talents lie. Whether or not you decide to follow those talents is your decision. The same should hold true for characters.

If you want to maximize your gain you can analyze the crap out of your skills and perfectly tailor your actions to fit your skills. If you decide that your character really wants to do something else that he's really not all that good at, roleplay his struggle to make to success. I would like to know if skills are trainable. If so, I think that would alleviate a lot of arguments against it, because then you wouldn't be stuck trying to be the type of character you didn't want to be, it might just take you a bit longer to reach your goal.

If we play out this whole skill system properly, this could also work towards developing cultures like has been dicussed in other threads as we can get races to start to emerge based on skill set genetics. I know that has been discussed conceptually before.

[Surly]

Skills should be separated from weapon skill for this debate...

Skills are a good concept. But only if everyone has the same base, and those that are skilled go above that. Rather than the current system of making everyone worse, and the skilled are those that are still any good. It should be easy to improve skills, and not so ridiculously easy to lose them (if they are anything like weapon skill). Then skills would become an aid to RP, rather than a massive hindrance. You can pursue whatever you want, because everyone starts the same. If you then mine coal for 10 years, you would be very skilled at it.

Weapon skill needs far more thought. And a complete overhaul in my opinion.

[Nixit]

Rather than the current system of making everyone worse, and the skilled are those that are still any good

That's not true, as some are worse than before skills, and some are far better than before skills. It's not like you're either average or below average. I have at least two (maybe 3) that are above average in fighting.

[Surly]

As I said, combat should be addressed separately. I think in that circumstance the weapons should never do anymore damage than they did before. Having characters that can do 60 damage with a crossbow... it ain't healthy for the game.

I think the current system is half-right in that circumstance.

[formerly known as hf]

skills yes
visible - no

[Lumin]

If I'm working on a project, why should I have absolutely no indication of whether I'm good at it or not? How is that realistic. I'm sitting right there, I am doing the work with my own two hands, looking right at it, both feeling and seeing the results. Yet I have no clue if I suck at it or not?

Why is hunting and fighting the only thing we get indicators for? Heck, if we're so against giving the player vital information let's make it fair and do away with that too. "You hit a horse with a bone knife." It's fun not knowing anything about the character whose life you're supposed to be living, right?

(I'm just really, really hoping the wiki is a sign that the policy of keeping players in the dark might finally be beginning to change...)

[Surly]

Skills - no
Visibility - Well, if we have to have skills... make them visible. Admit the attempt to take away Cantr's uniqueness and create a stat-based RPG

[Lumin]

Skills - no
Visibility - Well, if we have to have skills... make them visible. Admit the attempt to take away Cantr's uniqueness and create a stat-based RPG

Exactly. I hate stats, I'd rather not see them at all, but since it looks like they're here to stay no matter what I'd at least like to know what I'm dealing with so I can try to RP around it. Nothing fancy, even a simple "You start to gather some potatoes. You feel a bit clumsy at it." would do wonders.