Re: Re: Keywords: What Are They?

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 19:17:41 +0100

On Wed, Apr 07, 2004 at 04:14:19PM -0500, Mike Holmes wrote:
> >From: "flynnkd2" <flynnkd_at_...>
>
> >My group does use them. In fact they go out of their way to convince
> >me a new skill falls under a keyword so that it does start at 17 and
> >not 13. They also regularly make use of the keyword as a default
> >skill, especially if a warrior.
> >
> >I see the keyword as the default minimum competency level of someone
> >acting in that role. When you graduate warrior school you do so with
> >Warrior 17. etc.
>
> Cool, I agree. That's one more datapoint. And I've had another confirmation
> in private. So I think I'm not off my rocker thinking of these things this
> way. It's not at all equivalent to raise a keyword, and to raise all the
> abilities in a keyword the same amount. Which says to me that this is an
> important consideration in the value of increasing keywords using the saga
> system and other advanced experience methods.

It seems not unreasonable, and I'd certainly not question anyone's continuing attachment to their curved bar or similar support, but important consideration seems to me quite a reach. Strictly speaking, can something be a minimum competency if it's an ability that most people with that keyword don't have at all? And if one allows this, how frequently is it going to arise as regards putting an actual or even conceptual 'cost' on increasing keyword ratings? Giving some notional cost to this still seems conceptually useful to me, if only for the sakes of 'common currency', and perhaps countering RR's "thin edge of the wedge" worry.

This interpretation could also be argued to mean that if you increase a 'keyword rating', you _only_ increase the effective rating of those at that, minimal, rating, not the other abilities you've already increased separately. This has a certain attractiveness as regards descriptive parsimony, in theory, though I suspect players would write every ability on their own sheets anyway, for the sakes of having all the 'tags' there for reference.