The more I think about this, the more uncomfortable with numerical rankings I become. It is one thing to say "Lancelot is a cracking good knight, generally acclaimed to be the best swordsman in all of Britain." It is quite another thing to say that Lancelot has a 20W3 Sword Combat or, for that matter, to say that Lancelot is *empirically* the Best Knight In Britain. That creates an atmosphere where my group will tend to play the numbers instead of feeling free to tell our story however we want to. "Lancelot can't be beaten, see? It says so right here." I know that isn't what you are saying, but it is the way things tend to go in my group.
Instead, what a PC thinks of Lancelot's ability is discovered in play.
Player: "So, this Lancelot guy... He's good?" Narrator: "That's what you have heard. Maybe even the best." Player: "So could I take him? I have a 10W2 Sword Combat." Narrator: "You are definitely competent, and you never know, but better knights than you have failed."
The narrator can say this not because he knows Lancelot's ability rating but because he knows that Lancelot's reputation as an unbeatable knight is one of his central defining qualities. Whether he is *actually* invincible depends on what kind of story you want to tell.
In my story Lancelot may turn out to be a regular guy with a really great PR department. Or maybe he won the last five tournaments in a row, but what has he done lately? Does he have a cold? A pulled muscle? Is he distracted by personal problems? Has been practicing, or resting on his laurels? (HQ doesn't normally depict someone loosing their edge. Ability ratings generally stay the same or rise. Ad hoc resistances, however, are flexible by nature.)
Maybe my character is egotistical enough to think... "OK, so Lancelot bested me last October, but I wasn't at the top of my game then. He just got lucky. I am young and he is getting older every day." Knowing the numbers, I am much less likely to do something really, really dumb - and entertaining.
-Kevin McD
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