Skills in the Verve | TTRPG Devlog

[@SurinamElephant]

How do you manage skills like: - Puzzle solving - Logic - Memory - Subtle Lie etc ? Does that not impair the autonomy of the player roleplaying the lie or solving the puzzle presented to him? I always disliked dnd-ish systems that let you roll deduction or insight and then being presented the solution to a situation. I personally decided against any attributes that interfere on the roleplay of a character, but i am not final on a system that motivates or forces a player to accept or face self-harming choices, that are based on some mental factors like being uncomfortable or fear.

[@TheVerveTTRPG]

@@SurinamElephant this is a classic philosophical question for TTRPG s. In order to role play as an intelligent character, should you require the player themselves to be intelligent? We don't make the same requirements for playing a strong character. But as you say is it fun to max your INT score and then say "I rolled a 28, give me the answer" For the Verve I have made the skill system pretty flexible so a conductor (DM) can more or less run things as to their preference. And players are explicitly told to think about how they can use their best skills to solve the situation. E.g. climbing a wall can be a strength thing or a dexterity thing or an intelligence thing or a spirit (will power) thing depending on how the player describes their characters approach to the wall. To answer your initial question, My personal recommendation is you allow players to try and solve the puzzle or make a persuasive argument or tell a good lie, either in roleplay or through description, and the conductor can adjust the DC based on their judgement. That way even if a player isn't themselves smart or charismatic or whatever they can still have a go irl but if they have built their character to be good at those kinds of things they still have a chance.

[@SurinamElephant]

​@@TheVerveTTRPG The issue that i can see here, is a character roleplaying well AND having high intelligence or charisma scores, can result in either the bonuses provided by the roleplay to not feel meaningful or the character being to strong in those areas, winning every argument. It's like allowing the player behind to lower the DC on his strength check by doing 20 push-ups in IRL :D (funny idea tho) You're argument is obviously valid in that regard, that if one would keep it consistent a player would only be allowed to create a character that shares the physical attributes of its player, which would result in many combat incapable characters. I'm also not fully locked in on either direction, but for now i'm going with the characters attributes only describing their physical capabilities.