Need help resolving a mismatch between my abilities/skills and their mechanical resolution

[u/Cruiser_Supreme]

Hi! I am currently trying to give my game, Regular Volk, some finishing touches. As I went through and created some pre-generated characters, I noticed a pretty serious mismatch between how skills/abilities are intended to be used and how they are actually resolved from a mechanics standpoint.

Skills: are actionable abilities, which you can execute with great reliability

When the outcome of an action is uncertain, roll 2d6 and add any relevant attributes and modifiers to the result. If the result meets or exceeds the Difficulty Score (DS) the GM has set for this action, you succeed.

Executing a skill always grants you +2

According to the above descriptions of skills and their mechanics, skills are actions that a character is particularly good at, reflected by the +2 modifier, which is added on top of other modifiers the character may already have (thanks to their stats, an item, or the situation).

However, not all of the skills really fit this resolution mechanic and I don't know whether I should rewrite those skills or rewrite the mechanics or both. Here's two examples of skills that already work well with the +2 modifier:

Gentle Giant: Soothe a small creature.

Mimicry: Perfectly mimic someone's voice you've heard before

Generally, the simple +2 modifier works great for skills that anyone could theoretically attempt, but which this character is just better at. Any character could attempt to soothe a small creature, but only the gentle giant will have the advantage here. Any creature could attempt to mimic a voice, but only the mimicry skill gives a character the ability to do it more reliably or more accurately.

Here's a few examples of skills that don't work well with the +2 modifier:

Life Bond: Take damage in place of an ally. Declare this before the attack is rolled.

Flash Mist: Create a small fog cloud.

Illuminate Weapon: Your weapon glows in the dark and illuminates the area.

Inspiring Command: Encourage an ally to grant them Might (3d6) for their next action.

I think there are two types of skills that don't fit the +2 mechanic; those that should just auto succeed, and those that are spells. Inspiring command is one of those auto-succeed skills. Perhaps one could argue that you have to find the right words and then roll to see if your words are inspiring. Flash Mist is one of those spells that only make sense to be attempted by magic users. All characters have access to some magic skills, but it doesn't make narrative sense for the human fighter archetype to suddenly create a fog cloud. So do you really need a +2 bonus to set yourself apart from all those who cannot even attempt to create a fog cloud? Should Fog Cloud then also auto-succeed or should it still be rolled for? It almost seems like the, like there are three tiers of skills:

1. Skills that could theoretically be attempted by anyone. These skills require a +2 bonus to set the character apart from others attempting, but being unskilled.
2. Skills that only this character could attempt. These skills are gatekept by the character's innate ability to use them, such as a spellcaster having access to certain spells. They don't require a +2 bonus to set the character apart from others who cannot attempt them in the first place.
3. Skills that should just automatically succeed. These skills could sometimes be attempted by anyone. Inspiring Command could be attempted by anyone. Life Bond seems more magical and tied to a character's innate abilities and archetype. Either way, these skills shouldn't really fail. Especially Life Bond is a choice to make a sacrifice for an ally, so why roll at all?

It's just a little bit of a mess right now. If you have Game Master, who feels comfortable running more rules-light games, this might not bother them at all. In an earlier version of the game, there actually was no bonus at all for using a skill. It was just "here's a thing you can do that other characters can't do," except it didn't make sense that other characters couldn't even attempt to soothe a smaller creature or mimic a voice; hence the later introduction of the +2 bonus.

How would you untangle this mess? It's important to me that the game doesn't accidentally become crunchy. Each skills is purposely phrased in a more open-ended way, so players can interpret them in the moment. There are no clear indicators of size, duration, intensity, damage, etc. And I don't want to add those. I also don't want walls of text for each skill that describe modifiers and dice rolls.

Here are some initial ideas I have:

• I could add "roll with +2 to..." to the beginning of skills that don't auto-succeed. But this leans on the crunchy side of things, as it adds individual mechanics to some of the skills. I'd prefer to have generalized mechanics, so players don't have to memorize more rules and special cases.
• I could clarify in the core rules somehow, like "if an skill is certain to succeed, no roll is needed." That's kind of already covered by the general rule that "When the outcome of an action is uncertain, roll 2d6," but "Executing a skill always grants you +2" sounds like skills always require a roll.

I think the first option would provide a lot of mechanical clarity at the cost of crunch. The second option would provide a lot of brevity and flexibility at the cost of clarity. Not sure where to go with this or if there's another solution to this conundrum that I haven't considered yet.

Thanks as always for your input and ideas!

(If it would help to check out the full list of skills, you can download a PDF from my itch page.)

[u/Prestigious-Emu-6760]

IMO if things don't fit your definition of skills then they simply aren't.

Like I don't see how Flash Mist is a skill or Life Bond. In many games those would be spells, talents or feats.

Does your game only have skills to shoehorn things into?

[u/Cruiser_Supreme → u/Prestigious-Emu-6760]

Yeah, so there's Gifts, which are permanent traits, expressed as tags. Examples include Evasive, Slippery, Clear Mind, Endurance, and Alchemy. They grant a simple +1 if you can narratively apply them.

And then there are skills, which include what you describe as spells, talents, and feats. The reason they're all lumped together is that characters are created by combining an ancestry and a curse, as well as selecting from archetypal skill lists. This allows for great variation and flexibility in a relatively compact game. If I split spells, talents, and feats into three separate categories, I'd have to greatly complicate the character sheet and the entire player handbook.

The only option I really see here is to split skills into those three categories, describe separate rules for each, and then just label each skill. It's just not very elegant compared to how streamlined the rest of the mechanics are. So I like the idea, but I wonder if there's a more compact way to go about it.

[u/Prestigious-Emu-6760 → u/Cruiser_Supreme]

Maybe a "tag" for skills - Active, Reactive, Passive. That way there's a broad determination of how a thing functions.

[u/Cruiser_Supreme → u/Prestigious-Emu-6760]

This is actually a great idea. And it gives me a somewhat related idea:

Skills actually already have a tag, namely which attribute score they use. I left this out of my original post for simplicity sake, but it actually looks like:

Mimicry (Wits): Perfectly mimic someone's voice you've heard before.

Now, instead of introducing new tags, I could just clarify the existing tag or leave it out altogether. The result could look something like:

Mimicry (Wits+2): Perfectly mimic someone's voice you've heard before.

Flash Mist (Soul): Create a small fog cloud.

Life Bond: Take damage in place of an ally. Declare this before the attack is rolled.

The presence of the tag declares that a roll is necessary and which attribute to apply. The presence of the modifier is self-explanatory. The lack of an attribute tag means it auto-succeeds.

Thoughts?

[u/Alcamair → u/Cruiser_Supreme]

it's not evident and intuitive, better use a tag or an entire new category as Moves or Powers

[u/Cruiser_Supreme → u/Alcamair]

How about:

Mimicry: Roll (Wits+2) to perfectly mimic someone's voice you've heard before.

Flash Mist: Roll (Soul) to create a small fog cloud.

Life Bond: Take damage in place of an ally. Declare this before the attack is rolled.