>>From: "markmohrfield" <markmohrfield_at_...>
>>
>>My own take on it would be to make each bending ability an affinity,
>>but to make most of the feats rather broad, such as "Blast of Wind"
>>rather than "Blow down Foe." Also, each bender (except Aang) has only
>>one affinity, so while that affinity may have more feats than single
>>Gloranthan affinity, a given character wouldn't necessarily have more
>>feats than a Gloranthan character would.
>>
>>
>
>Hmm. I'm starting to think that the original idea makes more sense now. Each
>bender is Devotee, and has several affinities that are, of course, broad.
>Feats are then essentially "power stunts" to use the old Marvel RPG
>terminology, meaning techniques inside the affinity that they can use
>without penalty. But the character can still do anything they like, just
>with the standard penalty for improvising.
>
>
I wonder, really, whether the standard penalty for improvising should
apply. I feel like the characters do fall upon old tricks often, but it
seems like they do it out of long practice and effort, not because it's
difficult to improvise, but because they've devoted special energy to
optimising those tricks.
This is, I realise, splitting hairs pretty finely mechanically, but it makes an important psychological statement - improvising is effortless.
I might suggest making some split between characters (like rank-and-file Fire soldiers) who have a hard time improvising, and characters (like Aang and Katara) for whom improvisation is natural; that feels sort of right. This would replace the "can't/can use feats as active abilities" distinction between initiates and devotees, perhaps.
If you're really adamant about retaining the link between martial arts and 'bending as it appears in the show, it might be interesting to require that usages of the bending affinities be augmented (or themselves augment) appropriate mundane abilities; then the mandatory augment links implicitly define the limits of the affinity (Aang has to use things like "Running", "Leaping", "Soft combat style" (possibly, whatever comes out of his Air Nomad keyword?) with his Air affinity, which means that he can't fly with it or use it to make highly aggressive combat maneuvers), while the character has a lot of room to maneuver with improv. I don't know whether that's an especially good design decision, though.
-s
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