'generic' skills

From: Richard Develyn <Richard.Develyn_at_...>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 14:19:20 -0000

I think certain keywords should be banned, keywords like 'strong',
'intelligent', 'charismatic' and so on.

Or I think we need to come up with some extra rules about them.

Here's why:

Consider someone (a) who takes the keyword 'strong' in comparison to someone else (b) who's got 'carries heavy loads', 'arm-wrestles' and
'knockout-punch'.

Give them each a skill level of 15 (on each skill).

The 'strong' person can do all three of 'carries heavy loads', 'arm-wrestle' and 'knockout-punch', but with an improvisation penalty. Assume that a narrator gives him -6. So skill levels are:

    (a) (b)
CHL 9 15
AW 9 15
KP 9 15

So far so good. But now (a) and (b) go through a series of eipsodes all involving these skills and amass a total of 48 hero points. They each decide to cement 24 points of skill additions. (a) sticks them all on 'strong'.(b) split them into 8 points for each. Now here's the problem: (a) has 'strong' 19w and (b) has three skills each at 3w. With the same improvisation penalities as before the skill matrix is now:

    (a) (b)
CHL 13w 3w
AW 13w 3w
KP 13w 3w

i.e. (a) is a hell of a lot better off.

Either we have to not allow 'strong' or we must give a higher cost to increasing it as well as improvisation penalties (improvisation penalties on their own are not enough).

Is there something I've missed somewhere which already deals with this? Is there another better solution?

Or what do you think?

Richard