Richard Develyn:
> A good example, I think, would be Knowledgeable (a Lankhor Mhy devotee,
> say). If this devotee can use it as substitute to all Georgraphy, Mythology,
> Customs, etc (Language?) skills then there isn't an improvisation penalty
> high enough to stop it being worthwhile developing Knowledge and nothing
> else.
Oh, yes there is, trust me. ;-) *evil narratorly cackle!*
You're right that is theory, there is a problem here. Obviously if I have 'Do everything', it's 'appropriate' for, well, everything, so can't be disallowed, and after I've spent all my HP on it, that max -20 app-mod won't hurt, as I'll be the Divinity of Do Everything, with one ability at 5W6, while my puny fellows have foolishly split theirs acros five or so skills, leaving them at puny values such as 3W2. But since you'd be smacked around the head repeatedly long before you'd offset the -20, this would be hard to get away with...
In some cases, and I know David Cake will stalk and kill me for saying this, there might be a case for 'relativised' penalties on some ability uses. If you have a totally undifferentiated or marginal ability you want to know at some absurd difficulty level, then there might be a case for a halfway house between the -20, and the 'you can't do that', by, say, halfing the ability rating. Now, I do _not_ suggest you do this lightly: it represents, in at least a rough sense, a 'geometric' scaling down of the ability's effectiveness (halve Orlanth's ability, and a tribal champion can beat him up), but if that's the effect you really want, by all means do it. One might argue, for example, that the number of annoyingly difficult questions in the world really is geometric with respect to their precise level of annoying difficulty, so the penalty should suit the crime...
> That's why you have to curtail the development of generic skills as well as
> their use.
But if you 'curtail' their use, the development will tend to curtail itself, by the science of player memetics... (OK, there's no such science, but that doesn't stop Richard Dawkins from making a mint with such stuff, does it?)
Cheers,
Alex.
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