You won't get round me like that, Richard -- well, OK, maybe just a _taaaad_.
> Would the following rules variant be wthin the spirit of the game?
>
> While playing, you mentally split up your SPs into different pools,
> representing physical agility and skill, tactical advantage, or broken
> equipment and wounds.
Well, sort of; I wouldn't want to do this as a book-keeping exercise, but when you lose or gain SPs, it's important to describe how you gained or lost them, so that it you regain or "relose" them later, it's not in a way that No Make-a-Da Sense.
They don't have to be strictly fixed, though; just because your SP total has stayed the same, it doesn't mean the situation has, necessarily.
> So, if I'm at the top of a cliff firing arrows at you below, then I get
> a big chunk of SPs representing that fact. If I bet that, you can't
> counter unless you have some ability which works in this situation (e.g.
> heroic leap, run away, surrender, etc.).
The question here is, what are you doing that represents risking _all_ these points, in all fell swoop? If you're playing safe, and just sniping arrows at me from behind the cliff-edge, that represents a low-stake operation, so you should get gonzo-bonuses, but not huge SP swings.
> The main actual change to the rules would be to get rid of the automatic
> status points based on skill, instead having some written on the
> character sheet, and some assigned by the GM based on the situation.
This is somewhat similar to an earlier suggestion about "head starts" in races (and contests generally), so I think I broadly agree. Of course, bonuses/penalties to SPs, or to target numbers, it's six and half-a-dozen in the long run.
Slainte,
Alex.
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