Is anyone else frustrated by players who never spec into certain skills?

I do a good amount of research into lore, in case someone asks the right question, or explores a certain area. I find that because often no one is proficient, I end up making the rolls easier than would otherwise be, because I don't want this research to go to waste. It effectively ends up that everyone becomes proficient...

We are starting a new campaign at level 5, and I want to encourage the new players in session zero to have varied backgrounds, combat roles, and skills. Right now, there is only one character who is proficient in Arcana and History (none are proficient in Religion), and he wants to reroll and effectively duplicate the role of the Stealth DPS that two players already have. I don't want him to feel like he's 'stuck' in a certain role because I want him to enjoy playing the character he wants to play but I want to encourage the players to adjudicate this themselves a bit, because I find that my players don't feel good about their character if they end up not feeling unique and special.

Quote from Rynegade >>

Is anyone else frustrated by players who never spec into certain skills?

I do a good amount of research into lore, in case someone asks the right question, or explores a certain area. I find that because often no one is proficient, I end up making the rolls easier than would otherwise be, because I don't want this research to go to waste. It effectively ends up that everyone becomes proficient...

We are starting a new campaign at level 5, and I want to encourage the new players in session zero to have varied backgrounds, combat roles, and skills. Right now, there is only one character who is proficient in Arcana and History (none are proficient in Religion), and he wants to reroll and effectively duplicate the role of the Stealth DPS that two players already have. I don't want him to feel like he's 'stuck' in a certain role because I want him to enjoy playing the character he wants to play but I want to encourage the players to adjudicate this themselves a bit, because I find that my players don't feel good about their character if they end up not feeling unique and special.

 

make magic items more scarce. And finding them depends heavily a lot on those kinds of things. Arcana is what’s used to tel the difference between a magic item and a normal one after all.

make quests and such have ways to be easier/harder. And have the ways to go about that hidden in some lore/information they can get via using skills like religion or history etc.

this way they aren’t being punished one way or another. If they want to be combat only focused. And their RP backs it up, they are giving themselves tougher and tougher Combats. Which is what they want to do anyways.

if they do other things for the other route. They shine in the finding of that stuff which makes other things easier etc.

basically, just create the opportunities to play to the strengths, but more importantly balance to the strengths, of everyone.

When making characters a lot of players, especially in D&D, tend to forget that their characters are people who grew up in this world and would have learned more than how to throw a spell or swing a sword, and backgrounds are there to kind of focus on that as well. 

Don't make the rolls easier. If there's lore connected to a certain area or enemy, and the characters don't do the proper research or have the proper skills, that makes the area more difficult to traverse ( like the Fire Swamps) and the enemy harder to defeat (they don't know anything about an NPCs immunity/ resistance to certain damage types).

Personally, I'd be a lot more bored with my character, and feel a lot less unique and special, if I was duplicating what 2 other PCs could already do. Why do you need 3 stealth dps specced characters in the group when one does the job?

Have you tried telling them about this? Sounds like a session 0 issue where you let them know what you’re planning to build and they discuss what they want to do. It seems like they want a different sort of game than you do, you all need to sort that out of character. 
Also, if none of this lore matters, why are you making it? I only think it must not matter, because it seems like the players are meeting your challenges just fine without knowing it. And if you’re giving it away to them, you’re not really encouraging them to take those skills. They know you’ll tell them no matter what they roll, so why spend a skill proficiency on it?

Which brings me to another way to do what you want. Make there be a mystery that will only really be solved by knowing things. Tell the characters to make their lore rolls and when they fail, tell them they don’t remember anything. Then allow those consequences to play out. 

It can help when creating characters to stress that they're actually good at things.

For example Wizards are studious individuals who should have a couple of Intelligence related skills. Clerics/Druids are wise/intuitive people who should have one or two skills from the Wisdom tree. Bards/Sorcerers/Warlocks/Paladins are charismatic people who should have some Charisma skills. Physical characters tend not to have as much in those mental stats so they're a little left behind out of combat. Remember that some abilities can be used with different stats of course. Intimidation, for example, could be a strength test for that big burly barbarian, just as most physical checks can be switched from strength to dexterity depending what kind of character is being played.

I think part of the problem is that people generally only get four skill proficiencies (When I play I always play Half-Elves so I do have a minimum of six). Physical characters will almost always take athletics, agile characters acrobatics, if you have a decent (14+) dexterity then stealth is generally a good idea. That leaves only a couple of skill proficiencies left over. Perception is always valuable, especially if you're capable of getting expertise on it (as Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, and Humans can do with the Prodigy feat). Then?

Remind your players too that (page 125 PHB) they can customize their background skill and tool/language proficiencies, so they don't need to feel forced into a particular background, or to take another skill they don't want, because they want a particular skill or tool proficiency. Just because you're a criminal doesn't mean you have to be proficient with gaming sets. You might have been a drug manufacturer, in which case you'd be proficient with the herbalism kit, or perhaps alchemist's supplies.

Encourage the playing of skill monkey characters like Rogues and Bards (especially Half-Elves). Once your Rogue has taken proficiency in stealth, acrobatics, perception, and deception, he still has four other skills he could be taking. If he's a Swashbuckler then he might be a charismatic man with a silver tongue. If a Scout, then he's at home in the wilderness with a knowledge of medicine and animals (in fact Scout gets expertise in Nature and Survival, so they're doing even better than a regular Rogue). An Arcane Trickster might have devoted significant time to the study of Arcana and History.

Set up situations for characters where those skills are actually useful, where they can look back and say, "being proficient in that skill might have made our course a bit easier". If you prioritize combat then combat skills are what they will prioritize. Certainly you never want a character to be bad at combat, but they should be good at something more than combat.

Things do matter however. One of the players with the criminal background for example made a religion check on Dumathoin to recognize his symbol, and I put it through the lens of a criminal, that dwarves used Dumathoin to signal to themselves that the treasure inside is trapped, while preventing raiders from plundering.

So I do try and make lore matter. What spells are being cast requires an arcana check, I let the soldier background know the most different way to siege an ancient castle with a history check.

I think they don't internalize this when they create new characters. Maybe just being super explicit in Session Zero is the best way to go? 

I even usually will do a session 0.5

to let them have a trial run of any situation that might come up possibly for their chars too. To see if they enjoy it (as well as how they play) on top of the session 0. Before diving into campaigns.

that way I have less prep work or improv from surprises during the campaign

Tell them during session 0 how important those skills could be in the game. 

GM: You see a statue of a dwarven figure, you think it is one of the gods. Anyone got Religion? No? OK, you don't know which god it is.

Also show that knowing this might have been valuable.

GM (speaking as an NPC): Did you rub the belly of Vergadain? No? You know? The statue of Vergadain in the first room? You rub its belly for luck. You didn't? Oh, wow, the final battle must have been difficult for you.

Skills are not D&D's greatest strength. First, you are stuck with only a few. Never learns more of them, and have almost no way of getting better in them (unless you are rogue or bard).

First and most important: If it is information you will give the players anyway, don't roll, just give it to them. If you spend a lot of time doing research in case someone asks the right question - don't bother about rolling, just tell them!

There's been quite a little good advice already, here's some things I do that might help you:

1. Don't allow for skill checks unless they are proficient. Works well for skills like history, arcana, religion, but can also work with a lot more skills in the right circumstances. Greenstone_Walker example of the Dwarven statue is a great example of this. I usually also allow characters to roll if they are not proficient, but has a relevant background or something.
2. Slightly kinder give disadvantage to those who doesn't have the skill in certain situations.

Haven't tried this, but might work:

1. Allow the players to change a skill every time they level up. That way they don't feel that stuck if they choose a skill they don't like, and someone might decide to take one of the skills you would like if they feel it seems relevant.

And of course the blunt trick: Say on character generation that you need one player with this skill because a lot of the plot revolves around it. Be certain to give him some cool information.

You basically have two ways to approach this: 1) you help the players understand your adventure as designed and how to build successful characters, or 2) you redirect your adventure towards what the players want.

I recommend option 2 if you want to keep your players happy and engaged. A simple way to do this is simply to make NPCs available that have the skills they lack. Another way is to think of the failure consequences for encounters/skills they're not prepared for. Maybe they lack the social skills to persuade the Ogre guards to let them into the slave pen, but maybe instead of leading to instant combat and death, it leads to an interesting chase where your players can use the skills they have to stealth or athletics out of harm's way and then double back into the chamber they wanted to explore. There's more than one way to overcome a challenge.

Put lots of social interactions in the game till they realize they need social skills. 

give a quest that is a social interaction. 

a noble is suspected of owning slaves, they are having a ball at their estate and the players must disguise themselves as esteemed guests and sneak away into the lower level/dungeon where they will then engage in combat with slavers and guards then free the slaves or bring back proof to the quest giver.

I point blank told my players during session 0 that skills like History and Religion and various languages and tool proficiencies would be useful, so some of them took some of those skills and it has helped the party. 

imo, if there is lore, and your character are rolling horribly (nat1s and such) maybe you can find another way to give it to them (evil monologue, something else like a diary of a previous adventurer, etc) or you can metagame tell the players after it's useful if you really like your lore. If the player's all seem to be taking the same stuff (proficiency in stealth or others) give them a good reason in game to divert from the norm ( e.g. have a guardian who only lets those who know it's name pass, insta hist check.) I've never really had this problem but then again up until recently, I didn't focus that much on lore, but I hope I helped! 

BigLizard,

I like a lot of what you're saying. I think I adapt to this by already funneling this information through the character's backgrounds. I think your conclusion in the end though about it being character centric is more due to WoTC trying to make the game more accessible. A player who does not get into roleplaying as much as others, will also not think of the right questions to even ask. When a roleplayer begins opining in character, I usually give the information relatively easily than just a lazy but experienced player wanting to roll a die. I will prompt a less experienced player with a simple ability check.

In the campaign book I just ran, it specifies that the players must pass a DC20 Perception Check to spot a magic item under some rubble, and that they can do this once an hour. After they failed their first check, I asked if they wanted to continue looking, and how. The fighter wanted to move rubble out of the way, so I had her roll an Athletics check to see how quickly they could do it, as they were under this time pressure. She (effectively, at my light prompting) chose the skill that she was good at to solve the simple problem in an alternate way.

If your having a really tough time getting your players to 'branch out', try tailoring the gameplay to suit them. Either that or you could put them in situations where they think "damn i wish i had arcana" or "damn i wish i was proficient in history". Like this they will learn from there 'mistakes' and try to branch out more. Getting them to use that stat relatively frequently would be a good place to start.

Just straight out Tell every character to roll X skill.

If everyone fails. Basically give everyone 3 different bits of information that’s relevant, 2 truths and a lie if they are proficient. 1 truth and 2 lies if they aren’t.

that way even on a fail, they get some information that they can work with or use as guidelines for what they think is happening.

if someone passes. They obviously get the information.

Man.  I hate being late to the boat on interesting discussions.  Let's see...:

@Rynegade: As has been pointed out, you have a few options.  You can try and stress that these skills will be useful and reward the players with lore/story, and also perhaps additional rewards or information useful to their fights.  Alternatively, if you have a tableful of people who are just genuinely not interested in that stuff?  Let them have their hyper combat-focused characters.  Depending on how your game is set up, you could attach an NPC to the group who acts as a quartermaster/secretary of sorts, someone who stays back at the town and does enough basic research for the team that they can know what you need them to know without revealing anything that should've required a proficiency.

If you want to do both - which is also valid - I would start working in custom traits to monsters in your game.  A lot of the time, this problem stems from the players feeling like they already know everything there is to know about D&D and so they don't need to 'waste' precious skill selections on knowledge skills.  Show them that this is NOT true and they may start taking an interest.  Don't do the usual metagamey shit though.  If you throw a troll at your players and they immediately bust out their fire/acid spells, don't complain at them for "metagaming".  That gets you nowhere.  Instead, throw a troll covered in primitive tribal war paint at the players, and when they Firebolt it only to watch the war paint start to glow  and the troll suffers no damage delight in their "WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS?!" reaction.  Find a way to let said players know (possibly through the Secretary NPC) "Oh, that?  Wow, I thought you guys knew.  Some troll tribes in the Vermaloc region have figured out how to create flame wards, after centuries of being burned alive by adventurers.  The ward can absorb a bunch of fire damage, and if it absorbs too much it explodes."

Finding ways to make knowledge skills relevant to combat is the best way to get combat players to take knowledge skills.  As for social skills?  Well...that's harder.  Generally, if a player doesn't want to take those skills there's no good way to make them want to, especially since social encounters are usually as much down to the players' negotiation skills rather than the characters'.  Social skills can nudge the game one way or another, but they don't trump actual social skills.  No matter how much shy/introverted/socially inept players may wish them to, unfortunately.

Just remember.  If your players 'stubbornly' refuse to take knowledge proficiencies, that's usually a signal that they don't care about deep, immersive lore, worldbuilding, or The Story Of The Game as much as you do.  They're trying to tell you "don't infodump us, just give us shit to stab."  The more you try and force it with that sort of table, the more your players will fight you.

@Biglizard: I can see where you're coming from.  But man, I would not want to play a D&D game where you could never, ever play against archetype.  Skill proficiencies is one of the strongest mechanical ways of describing your character's background (as in their actual upbringing and history, not just their mechanical "Pick these four things" capital-B Background), interests, and talents.  One of my favorite prototype characters is a street wizard - a cursed woman whose curse marks her as a target to most Official Magical Universities, so she's had to beg, borrow, scrape and steal for every piece of arcane knowledge she's obtained.  Her skill proficiencies are Arcana, Religion, Deception and Investigation, because she has a burning need to know both magical lore and fiendlore/demonology, and because she has to find those things outside an academy (and usually hoodwink someone into letting her have them).

If the game instead said "Okay, you're a wizard.  You automatically know all there is to know about magical lore, the history of the world, and stuff like that, but you have no idea how to people and you've got all the physical capabilities of a three-legged weasel", that'd be awful.  What about the Soldier battlemage who was his unit's artillery support, who had to be just as proficient with Athletics as his unit's swordswingers in order to keep up?  Or the court wizard who spent most of her days dealing with royal intrigue and had to be just as Persuasive, Deceptive, and Insightful as the typical bard if she wanted to keep her job?

I can understand the frustration when dice say no.  There's a better way than saying "Let's ignore skills altogether and just go with whatever suits your base archetype!", though.  A DM can say "If characters don't have any proficiencies in anything, they get [X] knowledge just by existing and being functional people.  If a character has [A] proficiency, they get [X] knowledge + [Aprof] knowledge for free, no dice roll, covering the things anyone with this training should know.  If they pass a check, they get [X] + [Aprof] + [Apass] knowledge, because they were fortunate enough to have researched just this thing in the annals of their history somewhere."  A system like that ensures that the training itself is fundamentally valuable, which in turn allows people to take off-archetype proficiencies and create interesting characters rather than being stuck with "you're a wizard.  You know wizard things, and ONLY wizard things, period."

Quote from BigLizard >>

My issue with skills as representation for backgrounds is that they are too vaguely defined and too wide in scope.  For example if your background is as a Wizard scholar who investigates and studies ancient lore you might have a high investigate skill.  But that also means your now Sherlock Holmes in everything including investigating a murders, searching rooms, and everything else that this skill covers globally which may very well trump and compete with a character who specifically has that back story (aka I’m Sherlock Holmes) and of course now the reverse also happens, so the Sherlock Holmes character is now also a master investigator of lore.

Without skills characters background become very specific and have greater impact on what characters are good,  you can have two characters both great at investigating but each with his own speciality based on their backstory.

skills also break the immersion by pushing for mechanical resolutions.  Oh the lore guy failed his skill check with a +7 skill, no problem, my fighter who knows nothing about lore will use his +2 investigate skill and try and hope I get lucky.  Boom natural 20, now you have a situation where the expert is a moron and the fighter is now our expert.  This kind of thing happens constantly in skill systems.

 1. There’s no natural 20 “boom” outside of combat. Edit: no PhB by rule. There can be “boom” but it is home brewed by DM discretion.

2. Without the skills “breaking” the immersion. You are basically in a low graphic hack and slash mmorpg. I’m fairly confident that after 50 years of doing this, if Dungeons and Dragons wanted to just be a low graphic hack and slash mmorpg they would intentionally design themselves that way. In fact, those very things were quite popular in the 1990s, they were called MUDs, (some were MUSHes and some were MOOs), but it was a Multi User Dungeon. A text based, dice rolling for damage, hack and slash. Where you didn’t really have skill checks, everything could be solved by killing something, using a spell, or having a magic item.

3. The other Sherlock Holmes in your scenario has the same problem as the 1 Sherlock Holmes you have a problem with.... but. To your point there... there are situations where multiple skills are used. Or. Where you’re supposed to use one skill. But as a dm/player you use the wrong skill. SPECIFICALLY in your example: the Sherlock Holmes investigating ancient lore. That sounds a lot like ARCANA and History. The Sherlock Holmes investigating murders, searching rooms, and “everything else” wel. Investigating murder is investigation or medicine. Searching the room is perception and investigation. Everything else... yeah maybe in this vague of all vague topics (as you ask for less vagueness and want specificity) can have some arcana and history. It seems like you just might not be calling for the right skill checks, or your DM isn’t calling for the right skill checks.

The DM has the final say.  If a DM wants skills to apply broadly, then they do.  If a DM wants to impose a penalty on the roll, or even say you can't make the roll, because you're a criminal investigator and not a researcher, then the DM can say so.

Players should never say the words "can I make an Investigation check to..."  A player should be saying "I start casing the room to search for clues" or "I'm going to go to the town library and try to figure out what information they have on...", or otherwise describing the action their characters take.  It is then up to the DM to assign a roll, if they feel the roll is warranted, and set the DC for that roll.  ANy other way of playing the game leads to bad habits that ends up in many of the very situations we've spent this thread decrying as negative.

Improve one's play, and issues start disappearing.  If your Sherlock Holmes-y investigator is not a researcher, then don't research.  If your scholar of the arcane does not have any criminology/CSI background, then don't CSI.  The fact that the character sheet says you're supposed to be able to does not mean you can.  Heh, if you can't, then don't.  Easy as that.