Doyle Wayne Ramos-Tavener composes some guidelines:
> 2. If you pick an ability that can be used for many different purposes (like
'Strong' or 'Quick') you won't be able to use it in contests except with a heavy
improvisational penalty. Most of the time, you will use it to augment some other
ability.
>
> 3. If you pick an ability that is very narrow (like 'Hate McGuffin', or
'Summon the Seven Winds') you won't use these abilities in contests or as
augments very much, but when they are appropriate, resistances will be very low,
or will receive a substantial bonus to the ability.
If I were a player in such a game, presented with said guidelines, my main reaction would be "What do you mean by "heavy"?; how can we reach an empirical definition of "substantial"?"
My experience has been it's hard to adequately "incentivise" colourfully explicit and narrow abilities (or properly penalise overly broad ones), without seeming excessively arbitrary as a GM, due to the need to "juggle" these modifiers at time of use to an excessive degree. A more robust mechanic, that allowed the GM to make the magnitude of the "narrowness" (or breadth) more explicit to the players _at the time of choosing the ability_ would IMO be invaluable. (She can always slap on extra mods situationally _as well_, clearly.)
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