Re: Starting APs

From: Mikael Raaterova <ginijji_at_...>
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 19:25:05 +0200

>Student has 'English Lit' of 17 and 'knows Henry V so well he could have
>written it himself' 5w.
>English exam comes up and the paper is about Oliver Twist. Student starts
>his essay with "The story of Oliver Twist can best be described by comparing
>it to Henry V........"
>
>Of course as a HW student he should have reversed his skills in the first
>place because specialism is much less effective.

One way to make specialism more rewarding (and get rid of unnecessary improv penalties) is this:

A specialized character (say, "Armwrestler" 18) armwrestles a generalist (say, "Strong" 18). I don't penalize the Strong guy (i don't care much for improv penalties), but i would give the Armwrestler a BIG bonus because of two things: a) he is using a narrow* trait as intended, and b) he has a 'skill-depth' advantage over his opponent.

This makes it far more rewarding to have narrow traits. (In Robin's draft, you got a bonus when you used specialized traits for the specific actions they were intended for. This seems to have been officially discarded.)

• I'd say a trait is Narrow if situations where it can be used appropriately occur no more often than, say, every other or third session.

-- 
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Mikael Raaterova        [.sig omitted on legal advice]