On Lucky, that's just out of scope. The examples in the game included for character generation provide abilities that are of a certain scope. And the rules intend for that scope to be adhered to. No ability should be applicable in all situations. Also, an ability should say something about the character beyond what the ability name implies. For example, strong says that the character is wither big or works out, or is naturally strong, something that can be determined from it's use in play. Essentially, by employing the ability in play it should get defined. If you really trust the player to not use the ability in some cases, then you might allow it with the idea that it will be defined in part by when it's not used.
Second, there are no metaphysical abilities in Glorantha that aren't linked to some philosophy. That is, there are no "lucky" people, there are people who are "Blessed by Orlanth" or are "Mystically Inclined", or whatever. To include luck would be to create some overarching idea of a philosophy that isn't supposed to exist. The idea of the game is to look at cultural and religious differences. To allow "luck" would be to allow the player to avoid that. Essentially, what limits many metaphysical abilities are the belief systems that go along with them. So, I might allow Self-Confidence to replace luck, being a belief in oneself. In that case the ability has interesting ramifications. Luck doesn't say anything.
And that leads to the last point. Luck can't be used in a negative way. This is a good qualifier. If you can't think of a case where an Ability could be used for a negative case, then don't allow it. Strength is great for "Didn't know his own strength" sorts of situations. Religious affiliations have all sorts of strings attached as do Cultural ones. Even straight abilities like "Smithing" put the character in a position to be requested to do things, or even to get overinvolved in them. They make the character more interesting. Luck does not.
Dissallow this abiliity unless you discuss it with the player and really trust him to investigate it. I'm not going to call this abuse, but it does sound like a player who is looking for a Gamist advantage. Which the system is not supposed to allow. All abilities should be of approximately the same scope.
The Intuitive Leap I'm more sanguine about. That does probably fall into the criteria above, if only barely. One thing that limits this ability is that, as GM, you don't have to allow the player to roll for just anything. That is, if there's no way the character has enough information, you can just say that he can't roll at all.
That said, I'm not sure I see the disadvantage to allowing these sorts of rolls quite a bit. First, they may just fail, especially if you decide to make them difficult. Second, as long as the ability is used to advance the plot, I see no difficulty with it. You may want to discuss this with the player.
And, in acordance with my "negative use" criteria above, use it against the player occasionally. Have a really smart villain who learns that the character is highly intuitive. Then have them set up a situation where intuition will lead the character astray. Then when the character makes the roll, he get's the intentionally faulty information. This sort of battle of wits is fun stuff. OTOH, if you see this as a stretch, then perhaps the ability is out of scope for your game.
Lot's of mental traits can seem to be too widely applicable. As such some can simply be declared out of scope. I had one character with "Quick Wits" which seemed to get used a lot, and in retrospect which I might now dissallow. But it's more interesting to try to hash out in play what the ramifications of these abilities are.
In conclusion, allow lattitude, but do not allow complete freedom to choose whatever abilities. The rules are pretty clear on this for good reason.
Mike's list of ability criteria (if the answer to any of these questions is
no, then the ability is probably not suitable):
1. Does it match the scope of the example abilities?
2. Would you expect the ability to get investigated play (instead of just
rolled against with little explanation) such that the character becomes more
revealed by it's use?
3. Can the ability be refined in play by finding limits on it's use?
4. Does the ability have the potential to be used as a "fault" in some
cases, or at least leave the character beholden in some manner?
Mike
P.S. there's a power scaling fifth criteria as well that's somewhat unrelated. An ability has to make as much sense rated at 13 as it does at 5w5. That is, Destroy Planet 13 makes little sense. But Destiny to Destroy Planet 13 makes much more sense. Invulnerable 13 isn't as good as Resistant 13 (with Resistant 5w5 being "nigh invulnerable").
>From: "simon_hibbs2" <simon.hibbs_at_...>
>
>A character in my game has chosen two abilities for his characetr
>that are causing a bit of a headache for me.
>
>The first is 'Lucky'. I asked for examples of use, and he suggested
>that in combat an opponent that was about to kill him might
>trip over and miss, or he might 'luckily' guess a password, etc.
>Essentialy he could use it to help him in pretty much any situation
>where a lucky accident might help him.
>
>The other ability is 'intuitive Leap', which would allow his
>character to gues or figure out just about any kind of
>information he might want to know.
>
>I don't want to bias comments on this, but would anyone care
>to suggest how they'd handle abilities such as these?
>
>
>Simon Hibbs
>
>
>
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