> Nick pointed out that the existence of keywords makes broad
> abilities problematic.
No, it makes abusive "too-broad" abilities easy to identify. Should I treat your character's write-in "Hunting 17" ability as if it doubled for all the half-dozen-or-so abilities on a Hunter's character sheet: when I pay 1 HP to increase it to Hunting 18, should I be effectively increasing each of those half-dozen abilities by 1? I would say not: I would find other ways to handle this hypothetical "Hunting" ability (preferably not allowing it; if it slipped in somehow, penalising it somehow as we've discussed earlier). YGMV.
But if you come up with a mechanical fix, take extreme care to ensure it isn't breakable, and doesn't disadvantage characters who have been created using the normal rules. (That is: if Hunting costs 3HP per +1, it's still a better bet than taking the Hunter keyword, as you increase more sub-abilities with each +1 to Hunting than you would by spreading your experience among all the abilities of the keyword). It seems to me that this will become an absurdly complex balancing act in less time than it takes to tell. So why bother starting down that road?
> Nick seems to be suggesting more than keywords being shorthand. He
> seems to be suggesting that abilities as broad as the area covered a
> keyword should not be permitted. That is, he is proposing a 2 tier
> approach ('keyword' and 'abilities' being different). Any 2-tier
> approach breaks the design.
The design *as published* includes keywords and abilities. The keywords are useful for examining what a Farmer or a Hunter or a Bureaucrat should be good at doing. If I want a write-in ability of "Farming 17", it seems only natural (to me) to look at the Farmer keyword and decide what is and isn't covered. And, equally, that it shouldn't equate to each and every ability on the Farmer keyword.
Cheers, Nick
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