> I would say "how much the hero's (or dog's) ability is a factor in
the
> story", otherwise I very much agree. I prefer this interpretation to
> boosting all stats in, say, AR (I'm not against that book, really,
I love
> it!) by a mastery to make them fit to a single scale (which has to
be
> redefined every time a new creatures shows up -- it's hard to keep
> consistency over all the products coming from the most disparate
people!).
Surely the whole point of a single scale is that it only ever has to be defined once. Your approach seems to be that abilities very often have to be modified (e.g. every time a troll fights a human), but that the rules and the creature stats don't bother saying when. I realy fail to see any advantage to doing things this way.
> I'm really afraid of the mastery runaway. :)
I don't see what any of this has to do with Mastery runaway.
Ultimately we all want to see final target numbers that are sensible for each contest. How high those should be is a seperate issue to how they should be calculated. I say they shouldn't need to be re-calculated at all so long as sensible numbers are chosen in the first place.
> Btw, the way your worded the subject line gave me the following
thought: in
> HW, there isn't an absolute zero, because I can take the contrary
ability
> and increase it.
And it will act as a flaw, resisting your use of it's opposing stat. A characetr with Small 13/Big 13 is just as big or small as a characetr with Small 13w/Big 13w. The two stats will act in opposition to each other, and the masteries will cancel.
The rules are there to cover situations likely to arise. Every set of rules has bizzare extremes and can be broken if your main aim is to break them, rather than enjoy the game.
Simon Hibbs
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