David Dunham wrote:
> It's almost impossible to abuse, because everything has a rating. You
> should probably disallow something that's nearly universal
> ("extremely talented") because it can augment everything, but
> otherwise it's not a big problem ("talented athlete" is handy, but
> doesn't help in social situations). The only thing that I have second
> thoughts about allowing is iron equipment, because of its special
> rules.
And even lots of quasi-universal things are workable. A sorcerer in my game took "always finds a way to win" as an ability. He accepted that it was not applicable to everything, but was applicable in things that were games, personal conflicts with defined stakes, etc.
And then I used it against him as an augment on his "arrogant" when it would be better if he acted like he didn't know how to beat someone in a chess match. :)
Oh, another thing. If you have serious min-maxers, one of them may notice that since a keyword is NOT limited to the 10 or so abilities listed under it, but is potentially infinite (although a bounded infinity) that they might try to cram all kinds of things under it. Even if you rule that out, they might decide to cram all kinds of very similar things under it. (Warrior gives "tough, strong, resist pain, fight a long time, know weakness, know enemy" etc.)
In my last game, I made keywords work like affinities, and unless they had spent a point getting an individual skill under the keyword, they could only augment once with the keyword itself. It worked ok, although that game died too quickly due to my move for me to judge if it really held up over time.
> Most abilities can in fact be used directly, though possibly only in
> a few circumstances.
Even common magic, which is specifically augment-only can be used directly as a resistance sometimes.
> If you as Narrator want control over where players spend their HP,
> spend them for them! On our games, we hand out directed improvements
> -- at the end of a session, you receive 2 HP and +1 to Reputation as
> Bloodthirsty Killer (or to Irritated by Noblemen, or...). My criteria
> are to something that stood out, or something that doesn't usually
> get raised. My goal is to help broaden the characters.
I did that, too, but always kept some HP aside for them to use as they will.
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