Re: Guidelines for choosing Abilities.

From: Jarec <jarec_at_...>
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 12:18:15 -0000

>
> >
> > Conversely, if they're _not_ capped, and rise in some manner with
> > the level of the ability being used, then I'd be slightly
hestitant
> > about doing so as a GM without making this "transparent" to the
> > players, in some manner.
>
> What we use here (and had been suggested on the list before) if the
> Improv penalty is beyond a certain level (-20) then the ability in
> question is simply not usable in that situation and they should try
a
> different one.
>

I think there is a lot of narrative scope for just making things impossible - that is to say impossible to your normal hero, disciples and extreme hero's are another matter.

eg. You can't climb the unclimable mountain (effective difficulty W4) so don't even bother trying. But to a known super hero (i.e. the narrator knows that they have climb 10W3) then you might allow them to try. Of course to other onlookers it would look like an impossible act (Wow how does Spider man run up that wall?).

Which raises an interesting point. To the untrained onlooker, i.e. basic initiates etc., characters using extremely high level abilities would probably appear magical. At some point a Humakti's sword skill would be so high that it would propably be attributed to magic not skill, kind of a credability factor. This could lead to interesting reputations - everyone things his bow is magical but he is just the worlds greatest archer type thing.

Just thinking out loud.

Jarec