At 6:06 PM +0000 3/20/03, simon_hibbs2 wrote:
>
>if a Lunar cavalry
>> >officer finds himself challenged to a traditional Pentan game
>> >played on horseback, he gets a penalty. If a Pentan nomad gets
>> >challenged to traditional Lunar cavalry practice tests, he
>> >gets a penalty. In both cases there's a direct and obvious
>> >case for a modifier because the character is being deliberately
>> >stitched up.
>>
>> Exactly. If Pentans are known as better riders than
>> Heortlings, it's not because Pentans always get some sort of bonus
>to
>> Riding tests. It's because that Ride is a very common skill in
>Pentan
>> culture;
>
>yep, except I just realised the correct way to do this. In the
>case of the Pentan riding game, the Pentans use their Pentan
>Customs (or whatever) ability as an augment. If the Lunar
>cavalryman happens to have a high Pentan Customs ability, bully
>for him, they'll get a nasty surprise.
>
>No arbitrary penalty required, 'phew!
Much more elegant than my solution, I admit, although it does
mean that playing an unfamiliar cavalry game is likely to
disadvantage the non-familar character by only a few points, which
seems a little low (I doubt there are that many characters with a
Culture ability much above 1W). I suppose another option would have
the Pentans roll their Culture skill, augmented by Ride, Agile,
Daredevil Stunts, etc while the Non-Pentan would have to use a
different skill (likely Ride) with a penalty, which would make
unfamilarity much more of a liability.
Peter Larsen