You're a Roleplayer Blessed, verily. ;-) I think you're right, in that Traits and Passions are themselves a somewhat blunt instrument, and the rules don't really have _very_ clear guidance as to what's an "appropriate" use. And they're _scarily_ easy to misuse; any time the ref. asks for an opposed trait roll, and strictly applies the results, then you have _at most_ a 25% chance of a "free choice" result, and then only if you have 10/10 traits. Perhaps a better system would be one where you always had a free choice at the "point of indifference", and only "extreme" values would ever "force" you to go in a given direction.
> Maybe it was because I've got 3rd edition and not 4th edition???
I think 4th edition is much the same as 3rd, except with Knights Adventurous and the magic system welded on.
Mike Cule, in reply to the flat-crit-from-2-to-20 syndrome:
> And it gets worse when the scores go over twenty and the chance of a
> fumble vanishes and the chance of a critical starts being ridiculous...
That's a more serious problem if it happens, but arguably it should be more avoidable, as increased crits is the only real benefit of a skill beyond 20, so the solution is to avoid the bastards getting their stats too Lancelot-like. Supposedly the once-a-year gain rolls should limit this, but I can't say if it works out like this in practice as I've never actually run a game. *sob*
Problematically,
Alex.
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