Need advice on a "Larceny" skill. Help me settle an argument!

[Souju]

Background: My friend and I are developing a setting. He recently decided to try "reworking" my own system for...reasons.

To cut to the chase, here are the two documents currently WIP:

This is the version I came up with (the "original version"):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I1uTIIrVyLoIuw2DeH5SfFGae61uZVLI5jgKMFhYKlA/edit?usp=sharing

This is the version he came up with:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zxKkD2Z8DGJvHZjAXxlrlCagBMqKuTB9EgGN03WdRDo/edit?usp=sharing

Now that's just to set some context. While I'd appreciate feedback I really only have one question that's been eating at us (...for now): The skill Larceny.

Now, those familiar with Larceny from World of Darkness and the fact that I'm pretty much using World of Darkness as the basis for this system (i posted a few months back asking for advice on costs for things...stiiiil working on that.) probably have an idea what the skill entails, but just to be sure, taken from one of the WoD wikis:


This Skill entails familiarity with the tools and techniques for the sorts of physical manipulation typically associated with criminal activity. Picking locks, manual forgery, safecracking, simple hotwiring, various forms of breaking and entering, and even sleight-of-hand all fall under the auspices of Larceny. Larceny is useful not only for theft, but also for setting up “the unbeatable system” or deducing where a thief broke in.

Now, my friend insists that this skill should be under the Physique stat, citing his personal experience and a legal definition.

As you can see from my rule document, I believe it should be "variable," or at least involve dexterity in some way since things like safe cracking and setting up/disarming traps and security systems aren't completely physical activities.

So my question is: What do YOU all think?

[Reversefigure4]

Like several such skills, it can fit multiple attributes, and it's only a question about whether you want a variable more complex system or a simplified system.

Take Performance, for example, playing a violin solo in front of a large crowd. There's aspects of agility (using your fingers to hit the right notes fast and gracefully enough), education (knowing how to play the violin and being practiced), resolve (dealing with nerves from being on stage), and charisma (pleasing the audience with your charm). Change the scenario to Singing rather than violin, and endurance might be more relevant than agility, or irrelevant entirely (your endurance has to be pretty bad before you can't sing a single song). Yet DND mostly boils it down to Charisma, some systems use Most Relevant Stat + Performance skill, some unlink it to attributes altogether, and some require Violin and Singing to be totally different skills. All these methods work reasonably well.

If Larceny is about picking pockets, forging, deducing how a crime scene happened, etc, then hybrid makes sense... But for ease of play, you might decide to just go with Physical because the majority of Larceny checks are physically based rather than mentally based. It leads to some minor oddities like the world's greatest crime scene investigator also being very strong, but it prevents the world's greatest thief from needing to be strong AND quick AND smart to do his thieving, making it easier to balance against other skills.

[Kol Korran]

My take on it?
Manipulation. Criminal activity and skills mostly requires outwitting defenses that prevent you doing what you like. It's less physical actually, and mostly a mental attribute. A criminal first needs to be SMART about the way s/he approaches her activities- Choose the right target, devise a plan (evena simple on of how to distract a person so you can filch their stuff), extrapolate from clues, and how to bypass any challenge. Picking a lock is less a manual skill (though it may suprise some), and more a mental one of visualizing the mechanism and... manipulating it. Disabling a trap is likewise, and basically every larceny skill.

Being dexterous can sure help a criminal, but s/he HAS to be smart. Otherwise s/he will fail.

Yes, manual dexterity does come into it, but that is mostly the "learned" part of the skill. True, criminal activity does require some learning and experience, but to become good at it? You need the mind talent (=Manipulation attribute) for it.

I never quite agreed with Dexterity as the main attributes for such skills in D&D and later games. I do understand the reasonings though:
# Being mostly combat focused systems, and rogue types in the thick of it, and wearing mostly light armor, they needed something to help them survive.

# Individualizing rogues as THE dexterity class/ Archetype, while classes prioritizing mental stats were mostly spellcasters.

# Reducing dependence on multiple attributes.

Yet those systems didn't have the manipulation attribute, and this system does. Read it again. It is THE criminal attribute.

One last thing: Whatever solution you choose, I'd stay away from "variable". Players (and some GMs) require concrete and solid info about the basics of the game (and skills links are essential to the decisions made on character building). For better or worse, settle on an attribute, and go with it. Even if it's not a perfect fit. Clarity is more important that correct portrayal of the skill.

Good luck to you!

[Mastikator]

I think you should not formally attach skills to attributes, instead give guidelines for when an attribute is used based on how an action is taken. Larceny is a wide category and I can see multiple ways different attributes being used with larceny.
Picking locks is dexterity, manual forgery is perception, breaking and entering might be physique, etc.

[Maat Mons]

Since you said you were also interested in general feedback on your system…

I personally have never liked the triad of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. Strength and Constitution are basically the concept of physical might divided into offensive and defensive halves. If the offensive and defensive aspects of things are going to be split between two stats, then Dexterity should be divided into accuracy and avoidance. If a single stat is going to merge the offensive and defensive aspects of something together, then Strength and Constitution should be merged into might. In any system based on D&D, the first thing that should be thrown out is the D&D stat system, so it can be replaced by something not terrible.

If you go with, let’s say Strength, Constitution, Finesse, Agility, you can apply a very simple pattern to extrapolate equivalent stats for mental and social abilities. Strength is used to determine damage quantity and not, in and sensible system, to determine the likelihood of an attack connecting. Finesse is used to determine the chance of an attack succeeding and not, in any sensible system, quantity of damage. So, we can see that Strength and Finesse both govern the active side of combat (you’re attacking), and Strength governs magnitude, while Finesse governs probability. Constitution and Agility, meanwhile, both govern the passive side of combat (some is attacking you), and Constitution governs magnitude (of damage needed to kill you), while Agility governs probability (of an attack hitting you).

With the above system, it’s always abundantly clear which ability score you should be rolling for any given thing. You just need to know if the character is the proactive party or the reactive party, if the roll is an issue of chance of success or magnitude of success, and of course, if the action is physical, mental, or social. You just need 12 stats to cover each possible combination.

Under the system as-is, I’m very confused how it is that Willpower is “mental fortitude,” but Wisdom is the “mental version of Constitution.” Even if you have a clear idea of what each ability score does, you also need everyone else to have a clear idea of what each ability score does and, crucially, for everybody’s idea of what each ability score does to match up with everybody else’s idea of what each ability score does.

[Kurald Galain]

The question you should ask yourself first is, do you want "variable" skills in your game?

Personally I don't like them because (1) they slow down gameplay, (2) they encourage players to try to always use their best stat for everything (even when that makes no sense), and (3) people only rarely come up with a common and plausible "variable" skill other than Intimidate.
But of course, other people do like them. More to the point, from a design perspective your game should either have many variable skills or none (because it is clunky design to have two or three skills be the exception to an otherwise non-variable skill system).

Another approach is to split it between a mental "disable device" and a physical "sleight of hand" skill.


If the offensive and defensive aspects of things are going to be split between two stats, then Dexterity should be divided into accuracy and avoidance. If a single stat is going to merge the offensive and defensive aspects of something together, then Strength and Constitution should be merged into might.
If this is based on Whitewolf, then the triad goes Raw Power (str), Subtle Finesse (dex), Resistance (con). WW also does this with physical and social stats, ending up with nine total.

[Souju]

Since you said you were also interested in general feedback on your system…

I personally have never liked the triad of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. Strength and Constitution are basically the concept of physical might divided into offensive and defensive halves. If the offensive and defensive aspects of things are going to be split between two stats, then Dexterity should be divided into accuracy and avoidance. If a single stat is going to merge the offensive and defensive aspects of something together, then Strength and Constitution should be merged into might. In any system based on D&D, the first thing that should be thrown out is the D&D stat system, so it can be replaced by something not terrible.

...

With the above system, it’s always abundantly clear which ability score you should be rolling for any given thing. You just need to know if the character is the proactive party or the reactive party, if the roll is an issue of chance of success or magnitude of success, and of course, if the action is physical, mental, or social. You just need 12 stats to cover each possible combination.



I respect your opinion but I'm trying to keep it to 9 stats for mine, and my co-creator is trying to keep it to 7. If we did boosted it to 12 that'd be even more of a mess. Something I'd rather avoid. Aside from things like spells/arts and gifts, I don't want any category in my system to reach into double digit numbers in terms of associated stats. It's also why each skill type is limited to 7.

In my experience it's never easy to deal with this because things aren't really always neatly defined into "avoidance" or "accuracy." You can avoid something by accurately performing an action, or showing off your accuracy by avoiding something in just the right way. I personally believe this overlap is why nearly every system keeps Dexterity as it is.




Under the system as-is, I’m very confused how it is that Willpower is “mental fortitude,” but Wisdom is the “mental version of Constitution.” Even if you have a clear idea of what each ability score does, you also need everyone else to have a clear idea of what each ability score does and, crucially, for everybody’s idea of what each ability score does to match up with everybody else’s idea of what each ability score does.

Admittedly I'm still hashing out the exact wording (if you can't tell I can get rather verbose)
Basically Wisdom is intended to be "defensive," as in it lets you tank magical hits.


I'm starting to toy with the idea of, in the Version 1 document, just reducing all attributes down to 3: Physical, Mental, and Social.

[Maat Mons]

In my experience it's never easy to deal with this because things aren't really always neatly defined into "avoidance" or "accuracy." You can avoid something by accurately performing an action, or showing off your accuracy by avoiding something in just the right way.

I think you’re focusing way too much on the names I went with. The actual distinction is that one adds to your rolls, and the other sets the DC for rolls enemies make against you. I like to describe the difference as active vs. passive, active vs. reactive, or offensive vs. defensive.




I'm starting to toy with the idea of, in the Version 1 document, just reducing all attributes down to 3: Physical, Mental, and Social.

This is an idea I could get behind. Though the distinction between mental and social has always struck me as artificial. Really social seems like a sub-category of mental. But pragmatically, it might be worthwhile to have social skill as one ability score and all other mental skill as a second one. Basically, this is a good idea if social rolls are roughly as common as all other mental rolls put together.

Bear in mind though, I advocated for either splitting Dexterity or merging Strength and Constitution. You could have two stats each for the physical, mental, and social categories. The subcategories would boil down to power and skill, or gross and fine, if you prefer. You’d wind up with six stats, physical power, physical skill, mental power, mental skill, social power, and social skill. Still pretty straightforward which goes with what. Or, if you want, you could embrace the active/passive split, but not the gross/fine split. You’d still wind up with six stats.

[gbaji]

Another approach is to split it between a mental "disable device" and a physical "sleight of hand" skill.

I would lean this direction as well. Kinda depends on how specific or general other skills are in the game though. But having a single larceny skill cover everything from forgery, to picking pockets, to second story work, seems really broad to me. Of course, if other skills in the game are equally broad, then you might be stuck with that as a game balance thing.

I'm not super familiar with the game rules, does "variable" mean that the player gets to choose which of a list of stats, or the GM? Because if it's the GM, then that could work, since the GM might declare that this uses your larceny skill with the dex bonus applied for some things, or the int for others, or whatever. But if it's just "player always picks their best stat", then that's not a great way to do things IMO.

[warty goblin]

This is an idea I could get behind. Though the distinction between mental and social has always struck me as artificial. Really social seems like a sub-category of mental.

Spend a few years in a math-adhacent PhD program and I assure you, it becomes very clear that mental ability and social ability are very distinct things.

[Maat Mons]

I think that really just shows that abstract reasoning is separate from social skill. Math, science, and engineering don't represent the totality of mental ability, despite what many mathematicians, scientists, and engineers believe. And I say this as an engineer myself.

[Rikmach]

In my memory of the World of Darkness systems, the attribute applied to a skill *changed* depending on the context in which it was being used. Larceny is about criminal activity, so it'd apply to, say, mugging as much as fraud. But mugging might involve strength, but fraud might involve manipulation. Skills aren't "Linked" to attributes.

that said, no idea whether or not you want to run it that way in your system, though.

[Souju]

that said, no idea whether or not you want to run it that way in your system, though.

This is indeed what my original intention was pretty much for that reason.

Even the law counts "embezzling" as larceny in some jurisdictions, which notably can be pulled of just by lying or using confusing math.

Like I don't think the guys at Enron embezzling millions of dollars were built like Flynn Rider or even Arsene Lupin. They could have been, but that wouldn't have an effect on their rampant theft.

[Pauly]

Re: "Safe cracking". The original meaning is to use dynamite to open safes I.e. you crack them open like an egg. So that goes much more with INT or WIS than with DEX.

[Kurald Galain]

In my memory of the World of Darkness systems, the attribute applied to a skill *changed* depending on the context in which it was being used.

In theory, yes. In practice, it usually didn't (because most skills only make sense when combined with one or perhaps two attributes).

[Maat Mons]

I once tried to make a WoD-inspired system where every possible pairing of an Attribute and a Skill both made sense and would see frequent use. I managed a total of four Attributes and three Skills. Though there was a pairing or two that could be regarded as a little forced.

[Mastikator]

I once tried to make a WoD-inspired system where every possible pairing of an Attribute and a Skill both made sense and would see frequent use. I managed a total of four Attributes and three Skills. Though there was a pairing or two that could be regarded as a little forced.

I think if you force every attribute and skill to be combinable you run into a wall pretty quickly, but likewise if you force every skill to be connected to a single attribute you run into a different wall: some actions will not make sense and you might be forced to contend with too many skills or weird builds that lack verisimilitude. I can think of at least one very popular TTRPG that has this problem.
But if you disconnect skills from attributes and remain open to skills having multiple uses with potentially multiple attributes. IMO I think doing either is putting the cart before the horse. Actions draw from skills and attributes, you can do anything and what you try and how you try to do it uses a skill and an attribute.

[Kurald Galain]

I once tried to make a WoD-inspired system where every possible pairing of an Attribute and a Skill both made sense and would see frequent use. I managed a total of four Attributes and three Skills. Though there was a pairing or two that could be regarded as a little forced.
Please share which four attributes and skills? I'm curious what you ended up with.


if you force every skill to be connected to a single attribute you run into a different wall: some actions will not make sense and you might be forced to contend with too many skills or weird builds that lack verisimilitude. I can think of at least one very popular TTRPG that has this problem.
Can you be more specific? I'm familiar with a number of RPGs that tie each skill to exactly one attribute, and I'm not aware of any of them having too many skills for this reason or having weird builds for this reason (like, 3.0 does have too many skills but for a different reason, and of course any D&D clone has weird builds for other reasons).

[Maat Mons]

The attributes were Strength, Finesse, Wits, and Magic. The skills were Offense, Defense, and Utility.

[Mastikator]

Can you be more specific? I'm familiar with a number of RPGs that tie each skill to exactly one attribute, and I'm not aware of any of them having too many skills for this reason or having weird builds for this reason (like, 3.0 does have too many skills but for a different reason, and of course any D&D clone has weird builds for other reasons).

On one end you have D&D 3.5e with too many skills, I mean "use rope"? Really? I think it does have too many skills for this reason, it tried to simulate everything in the universe but didn't want to let skills and abilities be separated, so use rope was broken off from survival (or sleight of hand).
On the other side you have D&D 5e where actions become weird and implausible because the skill + ability score doesn't match what the character is actually doing (I am aware of the optional rule in the PHB that says the DM can use any ability with any skill, and it does fix that problem, but when I mentioned it here it became a contentious point of argument. Which gives me reason to believe that it's not often used, thus it's a problem. That is all I will say on that). An argument I see often on this very forum is the charisma (intimidation) conundrum. The big tough barbarian who is proficient in intimidation can never compete with the rogue or bard who is proficient/expert + has better charisma. It leads to ludonarrative dissonance, and I can see many skills suffering from this limitation.

GURPS is another example I've seen with too many skills. Yes I know it's the GM's job to cherrypick skills for their campaign but with so many skills available I think that job is too much for the GM, and the players will basically have to re-learn the game every campaign since it's entirely possible to end up with a completely new set of skills in every campaign.

-

A bit of a side-note.
The way I did it in my homebrew system was to make a list of attributes and skills, and then give examples of each skill being used with different attributes. For example the larceny skill had these (non-exhaustive) lockpick: agility, electronic lockpick: intelligence, hide evidence of crime: perception.
You might argue it should be a different for any or all, and you'd be correct, because it would depend on how you lockpick, how you hide evidence, how you pickpocket.
The point is twofold: 1) encourage a bit of MADness in all characters, 2) encourage the players to roleplay their actions. If a character has a high intelligence and low perception and wants to hide evidence they'll have to describe how they use their intelligence to do that. The best way to design a roleplaying game IMO is to align roleplaying with success. Players will always pick the path of least resistance, if you can make it so that roleplaying is the path of least resistance then you've succeeded as a game designer.

[Kurald Galain]

On one end you have D&D 3.5e with too many skills, I mean "use rope"? Really? I think it does have too many skills for this reason, it tried to simulate everything in the universe but didn't want to let skills and abilities be separated, so use rope was broken off from survival (or sleight of hand).
I do agree that Use Rope shouldn't be a skill, but it doesn't make sense to me to merge it into survival-but-dexterity.


An argument I see often on this very forum is the charisma (intimidation) conundrum. The big tough barbarian who is proficient in intimidation can never compete with the rogue or bard who is proficient/expert + has better charisma. It leads to ludonarrative dissonance, and I can see many skills suffering from this limitation.
Yes, I often see Intimidate touted as the example why skills should be "variable" with respect to attributes, but I'm not aware of any other skills having this problem. What other skills did you have in mind?

On the flipside of the coin, many DMs treat Investigation and Perception as identical skills, just using whichever attribute (of int or wis) the player prefers to use. I'm aware that the rules technically make a distinction between the two skills, but in practice this doesn't really make a difference.

[Mastikator]

I do agree that Use Rope shouldn't be a skill, but it doesn't make sense to me to merge it into survival-but-dexterity.


Yes, I often see Intimidate touted as the example why skills should be "variable" with respect to attributes, but I'm not aware of any other skills having this problem. What other skills did you have in mind?

On the flipside of the coin, many DMs treat Investigation and Perception as identical skills, just using whichever attribute (of int or wis) the player prefers to use. I'm aware that the rules technically make a distinction between the two skills, but in practice this doesn't really make a difference.
Off the top of my head here are a few contentions of my own.
Marathon and swimming checks should be constitution (athletics).
Many medicine checks should be intelligence or dexterity, for example diagnosis and surgery.
Predicting someone's next move should be intelligence (intuition) rather than wisdom (intuition) if you're trying to predict the actions of someone smart.
There are also more niche options like trying to use Thaumaturgy to open a barred door, which should IMO be wisdom (religion) check (as if a strength (athletics) check was made). (yes this actually happened in my game)

[warty goblin]

I still really like the Dark Eye approach of tying every skill to three attributes, pretty much nips the problem in the bud because if you think an attribute should apply, it probably does.

[Kurald Galain]

Marathon and swimming checks should be constitution (athletics).
Many medicine checks should be intelligence or dexterity, for example diagnosis and surgery.
Predicting someone's next move should be intelligence (intuition) rather than wisdom (intuition) if you're trying to predict the actions of someone smart.
Well, the only reason why Medicine is wis-based is because clerics are supposed to be better at it than wizards :smalltongue:

Personally I'm in favor of fast gameplay, which in this case means mapping the skill to its most common usage (and at least in my games, neither marathons nor surgery are common). But there is clearly a tradeoff to be made between fast resolution and more realistic rules; YMMV.

I would simply give barbarians a class feature to add their strength to intimidate rolls; I feel it shouldn't just apply to everyone with decent strength.

[Morgaln]

In theory, yes. In practice, it usually didn't (because most skills only make sense when combined with one or perhaps two attributes).

I'd say that the majority of WoD skills can be paired with at least two attributes, and many with three. For example, most knowledges can be paired with Intelligence ("do you know a specific fact"), Wits ("can you apply your knowledge in a useful way") or Perception ("do you pick up on relevant information"). Physical skills can often be paired with Strength (raw power), Dexterity (finesse) or Stamina (endurance). Anything social can usually be paired with either Charisma (use your force of personality) or Manipulation (take advantage of the character flaws of the other person).

Various skills will pair very differently depending on whether it's about your physical capabilites (e.g. pairing Stealth, Performance or Drive with Dexterity) or how effective your application of these skills is (Stealth or Drive with any mental attribute, Performance with any social attribute).

There's even things like Intelligence + Brawl to identify particular fighting styles or Dexterity and Linguistics to see if you can pronounce an especially unusual word, but those are admittedly niche applications.

[gatorized]

This is why I prefer systems where skills aren't tied to attributes

[Telok]

Not long ago in a WoD adjacent system I called for Tech Use + Charisma to craft an insult in binary, and Stealth + Wisdom for concealing by the PC stacking debris on themselves. In not too long I anticipate calling for Stealth + Constitution to hold still long enough for a 'hunts by motion sense' critter to get fooled.