Skill Systems and Thieves
One system that keeps creeping into roleplaying games is the idea of skills. Effectively, they are tools meant to show that some characters are better at certain things than others. The origin of full skill systems can be fairly easily traced back to the original D&D Thief class. Before thieves, there were only a few things characters could do (and they weren't officially skills) like listening at doors, being stealthy, and forcing open doors. All of these usually had a 1 or 2 in 6 chance of success. In contrast, thieves were given a list of special skills: climb walls, find traps, hear noise, hide in shadows, move quietly, open locks, pick pockets, and read languages. These skills got rated with a % chance of success and whenever a thief wanted to use one of their skills, they would roll 1d100. If they rolled at or under their skill rating, they succeeded! Fairly simple. The problem with Thief characters, and something people ha...