Re: Re: Broad categories, Hunting

From: Benedict Adamson <badamson_at_...>
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 11:30:19 +0100


Nick Brooke wrote:
...
> Hunting is not a defined ability in Hero Wars, either. Hunters (key
> word) don't get Hunting (ability). This suggests to me that you
> shouldn't allow players to invent Hunting (ability). And that a
> narrator who does allow Hunting (ability) might also allow Warrior
> (ability), or Bureaucrat (ability), or any other abominations which
> are already well covered by keywords and DO NOT NEED "broad skills".
...
> But inventing Broad Skills to solve the problem of "Hunting" ability
> (which doesn't exist and shouldn't IMO be allowed) is OTT.
....

Hmm, perhaps we need rules that can handle abilities of any broadness or narrowness. At the moment we have a one tier approach. It seems the proposed new rule will be two tier: abilities are 'broad' or 'narrow'. Perhaps someway of indicating degree of breadth or narrowness would be better? The debate so far has focused on broad abilities, but in my experience narrow abilities are also a problem: witness the recent thread about 'Dragon-slaying Sword' as an ability. For such abilities to really work, narrow abilities must have a bonus, and the narrower the ability, the greater the bonus.

I'm told Greg wants descriptions of NPCs in submitted scenarios to have only a handful of stated abilities. Allowing abilities of any breadth might help doing so.

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