Skills Acquisition and Language Acquisition: Some Reflections

[nauta]

This has probably come up before, but it's something I've been thinking about, and since I'm a nerd, it's something I'm going to write about.  I'm putting this under 'code discussion', but it's not really a request or whatever, just some reflections.  Also caveat: I'm coming from a position of ignorance on the code and limited experience on the game, so grains of salts.

In Arm, you acquire a language by being around people that use that skill, and you improve on the language by using it or being around people that use that skill.  In other words, language acquisition in Arm is anti-innativist: languages are not innate, but we acquire them.  This is awesome.[1]  

By contrast, our other skills are innate: we are born with our skills (well, we come out of chargen with them), and have no chance of acquiring a skill, either through doing it, or through experiencing people doing it.  (Admittedly, some skills do 'branch' from existing skills, which means it's not /pure/ innativism, but some sort of weird variant on innativism.)

As someone who kind of sort of studies this stuff in their real life and who is a committed anti-innativist about skills, this has always kind of bothered me on the grounds that skills are unrealistic in Arm (languages, by contrast, are not).  Why can't I learn how to skin after watching someone skin and having a hand at skinning?  Why can't Jihelu learn how to parry after five years in the Byn, training his parry?  That's, after all, how we acquire skills in real life: that's the awesome thing about being a human being.

That said, I can absolutely see the reason why things are as they are: game play balance.  Restricting skill acquisition -- being innativist about skills -- forces players to band together in groups, where not any given one of them is the jack of all trades, and thus they have to rely on each other for certain tasks.  It encourages interaction.  It also balances things out, so that long-lived characters aren't ridiculous jack of all trades, masters of all.  (There's another mud out there that allows you to acquire new skills by doing them -- although I don't think it allows you to acquire them by experiencing others doing them -- and the results are predictable: everyone on that MUD has all the skills, and everyone on that MUD is self-sufficient jacks of all trades, masters of all.)  Likely, there are other reasons for it too.

So, over-all, I'm in agreement with how things are.  That said, would there be a way to find a middle ground?  I've thought of three proposals.

I. Case-by-Case Analysis.  We could allow a few skills to act like languages, and so we can just acquire them, by doing them, or experiencing people doing them.  I'm not optimistic about this solution, since the rationale couldn't be realism, since, while it is realistic that someone might learn how to 'hide' or 'sneak', we really don't want everyone in the game to have 'hide' and 'sneak'.  Perhaps you could limit them to skills that require 'objects' in order to improve?  Like I said, I'm not optimistic about finding an ideal solution here that couldn't be gamed, and my knowledge of all the skills is pretty tiny.

II. Jack-of-All-Trades-But-Master-of-Some.  We could allow PCs to acquire all skills, but those not in the guild/subguild would cap out at journeyman or apprentice or some suitable number.  The problem here is that this isn't really realistic.  But I guess it's more realistic.

III. Fuck Plato, let's do it! Make them all available, no (or few) caps (determined on a case-by-case basis), but make the time required for acquisition suitably huge so that it would take a few years of IG training to actually acquire the skill.  You could even tap the teach command here: have it report cases of teach to avoid abuse, but do allow 'teach' to give some benefit towards acquisition.  (After all, the number of long-lived characters out there is relatively small, although I don't have the numbers on it.  We'd want the system to be realistic: it'd take a few years to pick up one skill or two.)

Anyway, some idle incomplete thoughts.  Maybe I'll finish them some day.



[1] I do have some quibbles (perhaps more positively: dreams) with language acquisition in Arm.  For (1) and (2), unfortunately, I have no clear idea for a solution.

(1) Teaching a language is boring.  (I guess that's realistic!  Usually, if someone asks you to teach them cavilish that means they want to have some sexy fun times.)

(2) It's really hard to pick up a new language (or accent) if PCs aren't around, and it's jarring sometimes.  (Hypothetical: I've been living on the eastside of the rinth, with all these elves, for twelve years, yet since there are no PC elves, and I'm pretty sure spamming 'list' to the elf shopkeeper is frowned on, there's just no way to learn allundean; or, I've been stationed up in Tuluk as a Salarri for a few years, but I play off-peak, so no northern-accented sirihish for me; by contrast, that Kuraci has been barsitting for 1 IG year and has picked up allundean, bendune, and a dozen other languages, because PCs.)

(3) Wouldn't it be neat if... the random scramble that you 'hear' when someone speaks allundean and you don't know it were, in fact, not random?  Then you can have conversations like: Hey, what's the word for 'truth' in allundean?  And they can give a real answer, instead of spitting out a random string of words each time.  But that's almost certainly an epic bit of coding.

[Jihelu]

Yeah!
Why can't Jihelu learn Parry?
Also, I wanted to learn how to use swords as a (Redacted) ;.;.


The red tape in the game is both a comfort and pisses me off beyond measure.
As sometimes it makes for soothing situations.
Other times they tell me I can't make a painting because no coded skill.

This is why the russians are winning.


I feel like if you actually icly live somewhere for years at a time and you just happen to be off peak you should be able to ask staff.
I feel like in some circumstances one might reply in the thread or respond "Sure that makes sense"
Then I think "They will probably say " "no you can learn it codedly"

[Riev]

One time, through RP and not being a fuckwad (... Its happened before, sometimes i'm not an idiot) I was able to attain leatherworking on my Warrior/Acrobat (.... Yup. And he rolled low wisdom. Of course he survived everything)...

Unfortunately, Low-cap leatherworking is balls-awful if you don't have tanning. I think they granted the request, knowing I was an idiot for even asking!

[Jihelu]

One time, through RP and not being a fuckwad (... Its happened before, sometimes i'm not an idiot) I was able to attain leatherworking on my Warrior/Acrobat (.... Yup. And he rolled low wisdom. Of course he survived everything)...

Unfortunately, Low-cap leatherworking is balls-awful if you don't have tanning. I think they granted the request, knowing I was an idiot for even asking!

Whats worse.
When god answers or doesn't.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

If anyone could learn, via a very lucky dice roll, a skill they were in the same room to witness, everyone would have skinning and parry, and a couple of Kadian crafters would have steal. That's the only reason I don't like this idea, otherwise I'd have to do some thinking about it.

Of course... if it works the way that branching a weapon crafting skill does, where you only attain it once in a blue moon... I think I would like it.

[nauta]

If anyone could learn, via a very lucky dice roll, a skill they were in the same room to witness, everyone would have skinning and parry, and a couple of Kadian crafters would have steal. That's the only reason I don't like this idea, otherwise I'd have to do some thinking about it.

Of course... if it works the way that branching a weapon crafting skill does, where you only attain it once in a blue moon... I think I would like it.

Yeah, I think some skills might just have to be unlearnable (steal, for instance).

Perhaps you could have an (innate) skill called 'learn' that affects stun in the way scan/listen do: you'd have to invoke to get those dice rolls; or perhaps someone would have to 'teach' for any observational / practice attempts to take effect.

Ultimately, I'd weight observation very very low, and weight practice / teaching higher in whatever code/math jazz happens under the hood.

I also went up and bolded the word 'huge' in the original post: a factor of ten at least longer than it takes to pick up a new language. 

Again, the goal is realism without the loss of game play balance (and somehow buffered from twink abuse): so whatever magic happens, it'd still turn out that it takes quite a few years of steady practice and observation to pick up a new skill.

[Lizzie]

I've answered this question before - the basic question: Why can't anyone learn anything they want, just like in real life?

1) This isn't real life.
2) In real life, you -cannot- learn anything you want. You can only learn what is innate to you. What you have the -capacity- to learn. If you have no grace, then you are innately UNable to be a ballet dancer. No amount of skill will overcome lack of natural grace. The same for a piano player. You might understand music theory, and you might read G and F flef flawlessly. But if you lack dexterity and basic coordination, you will not become even a passable pianist. If you tend to kill plants, no matter how much you study on nitrogen mix vs. UV rays vs. whatever else - you should never attempt to become a horticulturalist. Or even a gardener.

If you have no patience for children, you will never make it as a teacher.

I could go on and on - but I posit that even real-life skills must be innate, if you expect to ever be even reasonably successful with them. You either have the ability to perform the task, or you don't, and no amount of education or "watching others" or apprenticeship will change that. If you DO have the innate skill, then yes - witnessing, education, practical application, are all going to help you become good at it. But not if you don't have the innate capacity to succeed.

[nauta]

I've answered this question before - the basic question: Why can't anyone learn anything they want, just like in real life?

1) This isn't real life.
2) In real life, you -cannot- learn anything you want. You can only learn what is innate to you. What you have the -capacity- to learn. If you have no grace, then you are innately UNable to be a ballet dancer. No amount of skill will overcome lack of natural grace. The same for a piano player. You might understand music theory, and you might read G and F flef flawlessly. But if you lack dexterity and basic coordination, you will not become even a passable pianist. If you tend to kill plants, no matter how much you study on nitrogen mix vs. UV rays vs. whatever else - you should never attempt to become a horticulturalist. Or even a gardener.

If you have no patience for children, you will never make it as a teacher.

I could go on and on - but I posit that even real-life skills must be innate, if you expect to ever be even reasonably successful with them. You either have the ability to perform the task, or you don't, and no amount of education or "watching others" or apprenticeship will change that. If you DO have the innate skill, then yes - witnessing, education, practical application, are all going to help you become good at it. But not if you don't have the innate capacity to succeed.

Yep, you and Plato and a slew of other philosophers; I don't really want to turn this into an innativism vs. anti-innativism debate.  But suffice it to say: if you are innativist about skills (as you are), then you won't be very attracted to the suggestion!

Some of your remarks do bring up a neat idea though: perhaps some of our basic stats (agility, for instance) could influence how -far- we advance in a skill: if you have crap agility, then don't expect to master stealing.

ETA: I'd also expect wisdom to play an important role: people with low wisdom will both learn new skills and progress in them much slower than people with high wisdom.

[Harmless]

I see guild as being nearly a reflection of the personality and bodily skills and abilities a character has.

When I make a merchant, I usually give them a build that is blatantly average, or below average for other uses; they have gangly limbs without much muscle, or a ponderous abdomen. When I make someone without scan, they have squinty eyes or are just not that quick to pick up on their surroundings. When my characters explain why they can craft this but can't craft that, it has to do with what they did with the years of their life until that point AND their interests.

In other words, I totally agree skills are not innate at all, but I just use a bit of hand-waving and hope other players have suspension of disbelief to believe there are good reasons why my PC can never learn to make them a special hat or why my PC simply never will figure out the art of throwing a weapon properly.

Some of your remarks do bring up a neat idea though: perhaps some of our basic stats (agility, for instance) could influence how -far- we advance in a skill: if you have crap agility, then don't expect to master stealing.

This is already true, as stats give a boost to certain skills, effectively raising the cap and giving a starting bonus.

[Dresan]

I would like to see a few more skills trainable the same way I hear people can currently learn the pilot skill.

Diirection sense comes to mind here. Guilds/subguilds should allow you to start at Journeyman or higher but you should still be able to train it to train it to journeyman or even mid-apprentice if you find yourself in harsh environments.

[Jave]

If anyone is familiar with the Harn pen and paper role playing game, I think they have a neat compromise between game balance and classless systems.

Basically, your skill cap in any given skill is based on a combination of several attributes (mind you we have 4 attributes in Arm, Harn has like 16 or something crazy). So while it is possible for your character to learn anything that naturally comes up in their life, their aptitude for it is based on the genetics they were born with. -- A bit like real life, seems to me.

It's not something feasible for Armageddon the way our code is currently set up, but it's the best classless system I've ever seen a game put forward.

[Lizzie]

If anyone is familiar with the Harn pen and paper role playing game, I think they have a neat compromise between game balance and classless systems.

Basically, your skill cap in any given skill is based on a combination of several attributes (mind you we have 4 attributes in Arm, Harn has like 16 or something crazy). So while it is possible for your character to learn anything that naturally comes up in their life, their aptitude for it is based on the genetics they were born with. -- A bit like real life, seems to me.

It's not something feasible for Armageddon the way our code is currently set up, but it's the best classless system I've ever seen a game put forward.

Not familiar with any pen & paper RPGs (not even D&D, never played it, or the Gathering card game, none of it; my first experience with RPGs was with BBs back in the days of DOS). But I really like the concept you've described. If Arm could do that, I think it'd be awesome. Barring that, I'm okay with how things are now, with guilds/subguilds/ext subguilds. I think there's enough variety that you'd have to go through hundreds of combinations before you've experienced every one of them. I like that you'll never be able to do X if you pick combination #4, because it means that if you happen to need something that only X can bring you, you have to interact with someone who has it. Or, if you can't find it, then you need to re-think your priorities and decide to need something else.

[Drayab]

I don't really care about realism (innativist or anti-innativist) in this aspect of the game. I like the status quo of the guild system because it supports the idea that people have to work together to get things done--it's good for the game.

[Jave]

Yes, the problem with a classless system in a role playing game is that people who live long enough turn the available skills into a gotta catch em all pokemon style quest for demi-god status.

You start to look for reasons to become a thief because hey, why not you already maxed warrior.

[ShaLeah]

Not gonna lie, I am a BIG fan of being able to learn 'anything' on Arm, always have been. Not mastering ANYTHING but if I'm good at music...ky shit then I can certainly learn any instrument, can't I? If I invest time and energy and learn from someone even if I'm sucky at it I can learn. I think the new subguilds move towards that sort of system already sort of.

Imagine every character choosing between intellectual, shadowy/thieving, magickal and physical affinities much like we choose which attribute we want to be better at. You have to match your affinity to your class for optimum success in your field, add the attribute mix into the blend, which always either fucks us or makes the characters in the long run and it would make for a more complex character with a lot more potential.

I've always thought that an assassin is just a wimpy warrior mixed with a wimpy burglar/thief so I'd rather mix the classes to have a longer list of things they can master rather than have a whole bunch of classes that can't learn anything else.  Imagine long lived characters becoming true masters in their primary class enough to be able to unleash that shadowy attribute and then be able to learn to skulk and backstab and shit! It's not gonna EVER really happen if in order to unleash that hidden potential of your affinity you have to have 100% mastery of all your class skills. Every single one. The simple OPTION being available would make me squee. I'd be picking affinities based on what I wanna turn into eventually and hope I max everything to get to the point where I -could- branch my other potential. Ermahgawd. Hotness.


FYI - I don't think any mundane should ever be able to learn magicks and no elemental should ever be able to learn anything other than his/her element cause there's a sorcerer for that.

[Rokal]

Yes, the problem with a classless system in a role playing game is that people who live long enough turn the available skills into a gotta catch em all pokemon style quest for demi-god status.

You start to look for reasons to become a thief because hey, why not you already maxed warrior.

Yeah, I seen this a lot. Another RP mud I play has a system where theres a total max of XP you can attain, and its a 'classless' system. xp is earned from rping, mainly, but the limit is high enough to let people develop into their ow n character, but limits them from becoming the best at everything/jack of all trades, and in my experience, it really works quite effectively.

[nauta]

Some continuation:

We could draw some distinctions between innate skills, acquired skills, artificially-innate skills and innate attributes.

An innate skill is one that is, in fact, innate: our 'skill' at seeing things or smelling things or learning languages: that's all innate.

An acquired skill is one that is, in fact, acquired: you might need certain innate skills and innate attributes to be in a position to acquire it (if I don't have hands, I can't acquire the skill of skinning), but such skills (a skill at typing on a qwerty keyboard, skinning, all crafts, juggling, etc.) are acquired (they are not things we are born with, even if the conditions for their acquisition are things we are born with).

An artifically-innate skill is one that is, in real life, acquired, but for game purposes innate.

An innate attribute will be things like strength, agility, etc, and maybe other things like dexterity, grace, patience.  In my view, innate attributes (except intelligence or 'wisdom') don't determine whether you can acquire a skill, nor do they determine how proficient you are at a skill (novice to master), but rather they determine how well you can do the skill (bonus or negative to the skill check) -- in most cases.  If your wisdom is under a certain threshold, you simply can't acquire (learn) some skills; but, arguably, if you have shit dexterity, you can still acquire and even become proficient at (on an intellectual level) that musical instrument even if you give shit performances.

Now, we could divide up the 'skills' in Arm into those that could be innate, those that could be acquired, and those that could be artifically-innate.

Innate:

o Perhaps most perception skills: scan, listen, peek.  (I'm inclined to argue that such skills are still acquired: you learn the proper technique for listening or peeking or scanning; but I'm also comfortable seeing them as innate or artifically-innate.)

Acquired:

o All crafting skills
o All (most?) combat skills
o Skinning
o Brewing
o Bandage
o Poison
o Lots of other ones, but it turns out there's no 'skills' list on the website

Artificially-Innate:

o Sneak, Hide

Since my proposals I-III were a confused muddle, here's a stab at a new proposal (again, not a request, just nerd talk here, although it'd be nice if the proposal turned out to minimize mutilation to the code, i.e., if it were easier to implement than not).

Again: the goal is to allow for coded acquisition of (some) new skills (acquired skills) in a realistic manner (after a huge amount of effort, training, teaching, practice, observation) while at the same time preserving the benefits of the class system (interaction; no long-lived masters-of-all; less or no pokeman-style focus on skill acquisition and more focus on RP).

IV. A Modest Proposal.  Actually, my proposal turns out to be just III. again up above, but with qualifications.  Ha!

[Case]

Weirdly enough, while most people can learn the basics or even do well at most things they try with work, most (huge majority most) humans lose their ability to acquire languages in their early teenage years. We lose the ability to mimic new sounds properly, and if their native language/s are divergent enough to a target language, hear sound differences. We struggle to adopt fluency in after this period, and basically cannot native fluency, furthermore,  native speakers are able to identify those not in the native speaking club trivially and without trying. Immersion helps but native fluency will not emerge.

This means Arm's language code annoys the fuck out of me. You don't learn languages by hearing the odd sentence/randomly, but accents IG are not randomly branched so are much more realistic. I'd love it if native language vs fluent language mattered in arm and if only linguists could shift their accents.

Languages in games, and rl, only matter as much as they are useful for identity or secrecy. Arm's systems act against both of those elements of language use, by people being unwillingly to risk others branching their tongue, esp templars, or by too easy to adopt as identity irrespective of nativeness, native accent and fluency.

[hopeandsorrow]

Oh how I wish character were more varied than class_assassin or class_pickpocket.

I completely understand the current system.  The first chance you give players to cheese something.  they're gonna cheese it.  Everyone will be a ninja-razor wielding-lock picking-weapons crafter with an affinity of languages.  Given time, it's just natural. 

Ideally I imagine a system with out classes but hard limits on skills would be best.  Instead of choosing guild_warrior You'd choose what skills you want for a character, via a point buy system, and you can only learn those skills.  Not sure how branching would work entirely, but I guess being able to choose a list of starting skills, and then a list of possibly branch skills, and go from there.

Sure you'll see some similar skills sets crop up now and then, but on the whole characters would be greatly more varied.
It sure make guild sniffing an impossible task.  It be nice to start with parry on a ranger or have a warrior who could scan.

The sub-guilds do a pretty good job but there are times it self feels limiting.  Do I want climb? OR Direction Sense? Do I want a craft skill? Or skip the listen grind by starting with sneak? Do I want subdue on a ranger? Or hunt on a warrior? 

Ranger, do I wanna miss out on some city stuff or city stealth? In favor of a craft skill that makes me more self sufficient and gives me something else to do.

Every character creation comes with these choices of how you imagine that PC interacting with the coded environment.  It's an inescapable fact.  Your guild will at some rate decide things about your character.  If their city bound or do the leave the gates? Are they cut out of military life or better spent in a crafting hall?

There isn't much variety, a lot of the combo's are reused because they get the most bang for your buck.  I'm thinking about ranger/thief ranger/thug like combo's or warrior/hunters.

It be nice, but perhaps broken.  If pc's had the option at character creation to select which skills they wanted for their PC.  Magick stuff would perhaps to remain strictly like the original guilds, with only a handful of points to unlock skills on the list.  While a mundane PC would have the entire mundane skill list to choose from.  This of course would require balancing to keep certain combo's from being entirely OP.

TL;DR
The current system is not with out merit, but I wish it allowed for more variety.

[Molten Heart]

If anyone could learn, via a very lucky dice roll, a skill they were in the same room to witness, everyone would have skinning and parry, and a couple of Kadian crafters would have steal. That's the only reason I don't like this idea, otherwise I'd have to do some thinking about it.

Of course... if it works the way that branching a weapon crafting skill does, where you only attain it once in a blue moon... I think I would like it.

This would be cool for magick(sorcery.) Witnessing sorcery is rare as it is. More powerful spells could be impossible to learn without first learning certain prerequisite basic knowledge. It'd give hanging out with sorcerers more of a benifit to balance the risks of association. It'd create situations where sorcerers may have friends and create antagonistic groups for other established groups to target these rogue abominable groups and destroy them.