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In the case of your example, rolling a 1 or 20 doesn't mean any more than rolling a 2 or a 19 or a 3 or an 18. In 3.5 at least, there are no automatic successes or failures with skill checks. Regardless, in most rolls there is not an automatic success or failure. Sure, if they roll a 20 they're going to be confident that they have succeeded. But that's ...

I typically introduce a red herring to make the players think they're rolling for something else. Examples (from Shadowrun): An enemy cyber-ninja wants to sneak up on the party, and plant a tracker on one of the group's vehicles, to follow their whereabouts. I tell the group to roll Perception checks (audio-based). None of them beat the cyber-ninja's ...

Joe Normal For this disucussion, Joe is flat average stats for a human. He is competent in whatever it is you're trying, but not to elite nor professional (IE, Master's Level or equivalent) levels. For Level based games, usually assume level 1. Exemplars for Illustrative Purposes I refer to the following, so the precis is presented so you can follow the ...

For "uncertain" rolls (ex: you search for hidden microphones in an espionage game, how can you be sure you found all that were hidden?) I use a double roll: 1 roll is made by the active player. Another is done, secretly, by the GM, using absolutely the same type of dice, bonuses etc. If both roll a success, the GM gives full result (e.g.: lists all the ...

One answer comes from Dogs in the Vineyard, where the GM is expected to make it very clear to the players that, for example, the person they're talking to is lying to them. This philosophy asks the players to help manage the story, and moves their knowledge into helping to construct the game world. One answer comes from various ways of obfuscating the die ...

The most obvious is Warhammer FRP 3E. The dice pool is still functionally a numerical system, but on multiple axis: Do you succeed at the fundamental task? (Axe vs Swords) Do you have beneficial or harmful side effects? (Eagles vs Skulls) Or wild results (Sigmar's Comets vs Chaos Stars)? Or Cost Extra (Fatigue drops & Extra Time Hourglasses)? There is a ...

Get over your problem with making the roll secretly. I know that's harsh, but here's my reasoning. You have two choices: either let the players in on information their characters do not have, or keep the players in the dark as their characters are. If the players are in the loop, you might as well let them roll the dice. If the players are in the dark, ...

Fundamentally, you'll remove opportunities for advancement on the skill side of the character up to level 10. This will make combat, saves and feats the only options for expanding capability through the game. It will also make your players ability to predict the game at character creation even more important than usual. The biggest benefit to the game is ...

Let me start with a similar statement: "Another PC came up to me, and killed my character in one shot. I didn't like it, so I said he missed." In many ways, that above statement is identical in kind, if not in specific consequences to the one you proposed. The fundamental resolution mechanic is that the defending player in this or in the social setting has ...

This should be up to the players in the sorts of game systems you're talking about. Ideally you should be able to say: GM: … Nice roll, A! Okay B, roll to "defend"… B rolls. GM: Good roll. Close, but not quite close enough. Okay B, now use these numbers to guide your roleplay. Don't feel constrained by them, but do use them as inspiration. A, ...

In Burning Wheel, there are six stats rated 1 to 10† and hundreds of skills. Each skill is rooted (based) on one or two stats. For example, Sword has Agility as root, but Sculpting has Will/Agility as roots. To learn a new skill, you need a number of relevant stat tests equal to 10 - root or, if there are two, 10 - (average of the roots rounded down). ...

There's good news and bad news The good news is that, as you've probably noticed, the non-weapon proficiency system is very ill-defined and thus easy to replace. The bad news is that the skill system from 3.X works around a system of ranks vs. a target number (DC) that can be determined by all kinds of assumptions that 2e doesn't actually have. For ...

In case you really dislike hidden rolls, you may also try introducing (after having discussed this with your players, of course) an automatically take ten rule for such situations. This takes away a good deal of the variety and excitement resulting from extreme rolls, ruthlessly smoothing check results to their average, but also quickens and eases (social) ...

The best of the bunch... Mouse Guard: You have to have Level in successes, and Level-1 failures, in significant uses of a skill to have it go up. There is a limit of 24 skills per character (of a list of 50+). MegaTraveller: Unlike early editions of Classic, it has both in-play experience (use the skill enough, it goes up, but you can only gain a ...

You're going to trivialize stuff intended for lower levels, except in the case of failure. The particularly worrysome one would be something like traps, where the consequences of failure are based on HP and saves (both of which you didn't scale up). To provide any chance of failure to find/disarm a trap for a character with level 10 skills, you're going to ...

Trust your players. They separate player knowledge from character knowledge all the time. If they fail the check, tell them the character didn't get a sense the monster was lying or tell them something way off base, like the character gets the sense that this monster is the victim of a transforming curse and is trying to give vague hints about it. If ...

If you dislike hidden rolls just have each players roll a 100 times and list the results in order. Then make a hidden roll to mark where you start on the list and just cross off each result when used for a normally secret check. This way it is still the player who made the roll but preserves the secrecy of the result. It been my experience that the ...

This one is very good for settings like Cyberpunk where you may want to instill an atmosphere of paranoia. Occasionally, ask your players to make dummy perception rolls, without any real cause. If they roll really well, be prepared to give them an interesting but irrelevant detail. (You may even introduce future adventure hooks this way) This way, your ...

Ars Magica, especially the 5th edition, has a rather comprehensive learning mechanic. If you spend a season in study, you get a Quality score for that season. If you learned from a teacher, his skills at teaching and communications affect that score. If you learned from a book, the book's quality - and your own intelligence - affect it. If you just practiced ...

You could argue that any skill system which has five (or so) levels could be mapped onto the Drefyus model. White Wolf's Storyteller has up to five dots for skills; Shadowrun 4 typically limits skills to 6. (Edit: in fact, I'm almost positive that one of the SR3 handbooks listed what one typically did at different skill levels in a Dreyfus-like way--but it ...

The Ubiquity system does not have an exploding die mechanic, so it is not possible to roll more successes than you have in your pool. It does, however, provide many options to increase die-pools - most notably through the use of elements in the scene itself, or points which are reinforced via roleplay. In the example referenced, a hunter is tracking an ...

There are several ways of getting bonus dice to your dice pool Style points can be exchanged for +1 die per Style Point Skill Synergy can get a +2 bonus dice Teamwork can give an additional +2 per PC helping with appropriate skill or Skilled Assistant Talent Time (additional give bonuses; rushing gives penalties) Tools Note: Not all skill rolls are ...

BRP (essentially the core mechanics of Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest) have a "you've used a skill, tick it, you have a chance to improve during downtime" mechanic. This is (essentially) "fail a skill roll, you have one try", so the better you are, the lower your chances of improving. The Swedish "Drakar och Demoner" games (in at least some editions), while ...

There is the same 5% chance to roll any given number on d20. Technically the rules say that "if 1, then..." or "if 20, then...". So think outside the box: turn it upside-down, i.e. 20 fails, 1 succeeds. If you need proof after-the-fact, turn any die to either high or low, and reveal it after the fact. Use the same trick when the check requires a percentage ...

Burning Wheel requires using skills in a variety of situations in order to improve them. Skills are mainly improved during play, but you can spend downtime for tests in skills. Practice times vary wildly depending on the skill and the type of test (routine, difficult, challenging). Burning Wheel Revised (the current, easily obtainable edition) does not ...

I've seen several systems that incorporate skill use into advancement. Mouse Guard (and possibly Burning Wheel, but I've only played MG). It counts how many times you use a skill. You need a certain number of successes and failures before you can learn anything. I also saw a houserule in WoD that simulated something like what you're looking for. After ...

The only system I can think of that even sort of models characters 'getting rusty' is Classic Traveller. (I heard that the First Edition Exalted Lunar book's Storyteller chapter says that you'd get weak and flabby if you stay in cities to long, but I don't believe that it gives rules for this.) Classic Traveller characters in creation only get a choice on ...

To address the portion of your question about "getting rusty", I'd like to direct you to the answers to my question about "skill atrophy". Having scoured for good rules to govern this, I'm presently happiest with the FATE / DFRPG system of switching the places of two skills. GM approval is required, so you can't go to a bunch of fancy dress parties and then ...

You would break things. Many prestige class prerequisites, for example, are based on a number of ranks required in a certain skill, without it you'd be looking at PCs with level-inappropriate abilities and abilities that display erratic behavior. Balance aside, you'd be cutting away a significant portion of what you gain from level-ups, and level-ups are a ...

Bushido has a skill training system that works, experience counts only for a small amount of your skill (skills go from 1-19 and level 1-6 is added). BRP (RuneQuest & CoC) has system that mostly works the other way, you must have used a skill to get an improvement. There aren't many systems that manage loss and I can't think of one at the moment (players ...