[Torg] Stat/Skill balance

[Dominick Riesland]

On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 7:26 AM, Phil Dack <philipdack at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I'm thinking of going back to Torg in the next few weeks, but I want to toy with adjusting the balance between stats and skills. I'm thinking of keeping stats as they are, as I'm happy that in Cinematic World 7-13 offers enough of a range between Weedy and Heroic attributes (a 7-spread is the same as Ars Magica's -3/+3 and D20's -2/+4).
>
> However, I want to add a little more granularity to skills, so that Tag skills are perhaps +5 and characters as a result have more skills overall. Can you think of any implications this might have, other than needing to increase average difficulties by a couple of points?
>

That's about it. You're effectively starting the characters at a
higher skill rating than previously recommended but you were going to
have to do that later in the game anyway, as you don't want your new
players (or players replacing retired or killed characters) to feel
too weak in comparison to their companions. The only potential
imbalance is for Core Earthers who take the prodigy package, but this
will encourage more Core Earth characters, so that doesn't bother me
in the slightest.

> I also want to add a little more detail to skills. Or I think I do. I want to reflect abilities that perhaps don't take a huge amount of practice to become familiar with, but if you haven't done them before at all can be extremely challenging, and in many cases I think these are subskills of other abilities - I'm thinking of SCUBA use, parachuting and skiing in particular, although I'm sure there are many other examples (driving a manual transmission car, flying a light aircraft, a musician to pick up another musical instrument, learning a new area of general knowledge). Perhaps I could do this through binary specialisms - so that Scuba is a specialism of Swimming that you either have or you dont, and they cost a single PP to gain?

That is what R&E does with them (or, more precisely, allows you to do
with them).

> I'm also toying with less detail, as well as more detail, to go for a 3-tier skill system overall, to bring a narrative element into play. I'll illustrate through example:
>
> Group: Soldier +2
> (encompassing any skills the player can justify)
> Skills: Fire Combat +3, Stealth +3
> (reflecting that they're better at fire combat and camouflage than their other soldiering skills)
> Specialisms: Scuba, Tracked Vehicles
> (within the Soldier group, they've got specific experience of these two areas)
>
> I could complicate this further with Core and Peripheral skills. In the above example, the GM might rule that although learning Scuba within the Soldier group is perfectly reasonable, Swimming is Peripheral rather than Core. Unless the character has the Swim skill elsewhere on the character sheet, their ability is half of the Soldier score, or +1.
>
> Would welcome any thoughts.

It seems like too much work for too little benefit to me.
Balance-wise, it rewards snivelers who try to squeeze a size 12 foot
into a size 8 boot: "My character is your average joe, so of course
blending into crowds is part of Soldier skill."... "My character had
to squeeze into rain barrels to hide behind enemy lines, so of course
contortions is part of Soldier skill."..."My character has to pump the
females for information, so of course seduction is part of Soldier
skill." And so on. An otherwise playable character may be hampered by
a player who can't keep up on the justification angle.

When you add the Core vs. Peripheral distinctions, it puts the GM in
the role of the trying to herd the cats back into barn. Far better to
not let them out to begin with, IMO.

Dominick Riesland, aka Rabbitball
Speaker, 5-Color Rules Committee
Creator of the Cosmversal Grimoire
"There are always possibilities, my sergeant told me. But he never had
his possibilities torn away like wings from a fly."