🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <KETIL.92Nov17152658@sandel.ii.uib.no> ketil@ii.uib.no writes:
>>>>>> On 16 Nov 92 18:51:16 GMT, (Spike) said:
>	Spike> 17" paper! Instead, how about setting it up so that
>	Spike> characteristics are the defaults rolled for skills.
>	Spike> Below characteristics are "broad" skills (Comp Sci,
>	Spike> Thief, Magic, Guns). Below these are sub-skills:
>	Spike> Programming, Debugging, Hacking; Pickpocket,
>	Spike> Lockpicking, Stealth and so on. This gives the players
>	Spike> a simple way to fine-tune the level of detail they want
>	Spike> in the game.
>
>I second this!  Yes!
>And if a character has a 'broad' skill but not the applicable 'narrow'
>skill, use the 'broad' skill at a disadvantage.

Me and my Cousin were designing a game using this idea.  Our skill tree went:
	Body   Mind    Spirit
Then, Body might be split up into:
	Strength  Dexterity  Quickness  Agility  etc.
Then, Agility might be split up into:
	Acrobatics  Stealth  Climbing etc.
Then, Acrobatics might be split up into:
	Vaulting  TightropeWalking  Landing  Swinging  Tumbling  Stunts etc.

The first level (Body Mind Spirit)  would be *very* expensive.
Each successive level would be a little less expensive.
For example, let's say our party encounters a trapdoor.  The GM might call
for everybody who fell thru the trapdoor to make a Landing roll (Landing
reduces the amount of damage you take from a fall).  Everyone who had the
"Landing" skill, used that value (ave. 135 or so) Everyone who didn't,
backed up one level, and used Acrobatics (ave. 45 or so) instead.  If they
didn't have *that*, they went back to Agility (ave. 15 or so) If they didn't
have *that*, they went back to Body (ave. 5 or so)

The main problem with this is "modularity".  If the group decided they only
wanted Level 3 realism, then the ave. chance for a skilled person to make
their landing roll would be 45 instead of 135.  You could get around this
by using scaled Difficulty Modifiers, but that sounds chutzy.

Another problem is that it leads to *very* messy character sheets...

>	Spike> Caveats: If skills are based on stats, costs (in the
>	Spike> point-alloc generation system :-) must be very
>	Spike> carefully balanced.  Otherwise, it is easy to run into
>	Spike> trouble as GURPS has, where it is *way* too
>	Spike> cost-effective to buy high stats and pump a few points
>	Spike> into a skill, rather than just buy the skill at high
>	Spike> level.

See the above.

[stuff deleted]

>--
> = Ketil Malde                     In real life:  ketil@ii.uib.no =
> = Nuke the whales!                    Honk if you love unicorns! =

bryan newell (va3@mentor.cc.purdue.edu)