Re: Re: broad abilities

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 19:05:35 +0100 (BST)

> From: gamartin_at_...

> > I don't really think it is; for me, personally, I'd like to see
> > the broad abilities rules change _even if_ for some mysterious
> reason
> > we have to keep Close Combat (including karate, fyrd combat, lance
> > use, shinty, and sumo, evidently) as a "narrow" skill.
>
> Not sure if this is what you are saying, but I think having all those
> skills under one ability is a Good Thing.

My choice of "styles" was intended to flag that I thought this was a Very Silly Thing Indeed to have under one (narrow) ability.

> > the rules set in what's the norm for the "breadth" of abilities
> > (or for each class of ability, if this eminently logical rules
>
> To me, a non-sensical question. That is governed by how severe your
> improv penalty is. All of these abilities have exactly one point of
> information (the numeric value) and some bits of data (the actual
> words). A judgement is made of an objective modifier to the value
> based on the relvance of the subjective data to the circumstance and,
> it has to be said, the ingenuity of the player. ALL abilities
> are "broad abilities", and that ain't the Orlanthi all either.

You declare my question nonsensical, and then answer it on its nonsensical basis -- I'm somewhat torn as to which to respond to. It's clear to me (and implicit in your answer) that not all abilities are _equally_ broad; to say "all abilities are broad" is to either ignore this, or to encourage the "as broad as I can get away with" tendency.

As for the proposed solution: I've pointed out the problem with this elsewhere. A fixed-rated penalty always risks being "overtaken" by rapid escalation of the "over-broad" ability; an ad hoc, or worse, a progressively more severe one carries the danger of appearing "unfair" to a player who might feel it wasn't adequately conveyed to him that he was choosing an ability that would be "victimised" in this manner.

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