Re: Re: Big, Small, headaches....

From: Peter Larsen <peterl_at_...>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 15:28:17 -0600


At 8:58 PM +0000 3/19/03, Jane Williams wrote:
> --- BEThexton <bethexton_at_...> wrote:
>
>> Second, in my opinion every ability has an implied
>> "for someone like
>> you/ as you normally do things." So a male bison
>> rider with "big 13"
>> is big for a male bison rider, and his "close combat
>> 17" is "close
>> combat when you are mounted on a bison."
>
>Hang on, isn't that what keyword abilities are for? To
>describe "someone like you"? So all Heortling warriors
>have Brave 1W: it doesn't mean they're *all* unusually
>brave for a Heortling warrior, that wouldn't make any
>sense. They're all braver than whatever the default is
>taken as being. (And there's a interesting question in
>itself!)

        That's certainly my understanding -- somewhere, there is the average Jane/Joe who is "the measure of all things." Besides being human, there's not much to say about them; they have the default in every ability and trait.

        So Heortlings warriors are Brave 17 in relation to this abstract person, not in relation to other Heortling warriors. When I was about 10, I read a fairy tale concerning seven princes, each "taller than the next." My question to my mom was -- "did you have to line them up that way, or did it just happen, and, if the latter, what happened if they stood in a circle?" My mom, as I recalled, suggested the former was the safer assumption, as it is here.

        If a task is automatic for a Bison Rider, it should be similarly automatic for anyone with a sufficiently high Ride (Beast) ability, although the Narrator might rule that people from a background that did not emphasize doing tricks on beast back get a minus to their ability from lack of practice.

Peter Larsen

Powered by hypermail