Re: Worldscale (was Abilityscale)

From: Benedict Adamson <yahoo_at_...>
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2002 11:37:25 +0100


ian_hammond_cooper wrote:

...

> A humans Running and a Horse's Run Fast are different abilites.

...

Just to clarify: 'Run' is a different ability from 'Run Fast', but a horse's 'Run Fast' is NOT different from a human's 'Run Fast'.

All you can know about what an ability does is what it's name suggests*, so abilities with the same name must do the same things. The alternative is madness (and a game unplayable by newbies). Similarly named abilities do similar things, which means they are usually applicable in overlapping situations with a (small) improvisational penalty.

Thus, 'Run', 'Run Fast' and 'Run Long Distances' are three different but similar abilities (assuming that 'Run Fast' means sprinting over shorter distances). 'Run', being more broadly defined than the other two abilities should always be given an improvisational penalty (because a more specific ability is always going to be more appropriate for the particular situation it is being used in).

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