Roleplaying skill system

Intro

In most mechanics-based roleplaying games, outside of any specific tactical arena (such as combat for a DnD fighter, or talking/trap-finding for a DnD rogue, where abilities tend to be tightly defined and optimised), there's some sort of skill system which mediates acts like "drive fast" or "bluff a bouncer" or "climb a cliff".

In some cases, the skills shouldn't come into play, because the result should obvious, or irrelevant. However, if the GM wants to introduce some forking possibilities, and allow the characters to differentiate themselves mechanically, it comes down to a skill roll in most games.

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To Kill a Mockingbird

This is an interesting one. It seems like everyone was forced to read it at school, and is mostly still annoyed about that, but about half of people think it's great, and half don't like it at all. (Or maybe no-one likes it but me and the education system, I forget.)

I just reread it. I noticed that when I last read it, my impression from reading it at school lingered, which is seeing everything from Scout's point of view. But now, I see everything from all the adults' point of view instead, which gives a fascinating binocular vision on all the events. I remember Scouts painful first lesson at school, but now I sympathise with the poor, young teacher which I never thought to do at the time; and see a lot of the narrative with the Radley house imagining what young Radley would have thought of it

In retrospect, the English lessons about it were reasonably good, I was just at a stage of objecting to analysing books on principle because all analysis seemed either obvious, or nonsense. A few small questions raised in class however still linger in my mind: ( Spoilers. )