[Torg] Stat/Skill balance

[Garrett Taylor]

Catching up on email, sorry for the lateness...

On 2008-07-21 at 12:26, Phil Dack <philipdack at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> [this might be easier to read]

Thanks.  I was thinking somebody had just a little toooo much coffee. :)

> [...] I'm thinking of keeping stats as they are, as I'm happy [...].

I followed an MB-like route and I split DEX into Agility (an Adrenaline
skill) and Dexterity (a Willpower skill) and redefined PER as Intellect
(Willpower) and demoted Perception to a Intellect Skill.
 
> 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? 

Ugh.  Ramping up DN's means that all NPC's will need to have their stats
tweaked as well, so as to not be totally incompetent in the jobs their are
supposed to be doing.  So the net effect is that everyone has more Skill
adds to throw at higher DN's. 

> 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, [...]

There are very few things that are binary - either you know nothing useful
about the subject or you know everything useful about the subject.  The
real trick to granularity ( and it's one I am still refining ) is to look at
what the goal of the 'skill' is.  I'll give you my take on each item below.

I suggest looking at the skills themselves and decontructing actions to fit
existing skills before adding more rules.

> SCUBA

People don't SCUBA just to SCUBA.  They want to see the fishes, float in a
simulated reduced gravity environment, go places that no one else can go,
recover objects, raise C'thul...err nevermind.  SCUBA is just an enabling
Tech that allows a human to act in a non-native environment.  There is a
difference in knowledge of how to use said Tech, depending essentially on
the depth you want to be active at:

    Surface -- Swimming: No addition help needed
    
    A Few Meters -- Snorkeling: Using a tube and mask / Breathing properly /
    Swim fins
    
    Down to 50m -- Reef diving: Simple compressed air tank and regulator /
    Weight and buoyancy / Depth gauge + air meters / The bends
    
    Below 50m -- Oil rig repair: Special air mixtures / effects of increased
    pressure on human beings / Safe decompression

Will an Olympic class 100m freestyle swimmer (Swimming +4) magically know
the best He / Oxy mix?

In this case Swimming is still a core skill. But using Survival( Underwater
) would be a better fit for learning how to operate underwater safely and
effectively.  I would map the above list to the Survival( Underwater ) adds
from 0 through 3 respectively.

> parachuting

Outside of knowing when to open a 'chute, the real skill is staying calm
while plummeting to one's death. :)

Seriously, parachuting is really two stages - properly orienting your body
for 'chute deployment, then steering a very poor glider to a safe landing. 
Body orientation is definitely DEX related -- I'd say Acrobatics is a
pretty good skill for the whole falling phase.  After deployment ( even
that can vary from good to bad ) your flying (poorly) so either Air
Vehicle in Torg or Vehicle Pilot(Glider)[Parachute] in my game.  To get
even sillier:

A: Clear conveyance ( ledge, tower, ballon, airplane, etc. ) - Jumping
B: Orient body - Acrobatics
C: Steer chute - Air Vehicles
D: Land safely - Acrobatics to reduce falling damage

Complication - Survival(Freefall) or something went wrong with
'chute. Tack on +2 to all DN's for the remainder of the trip.

Critical Problem / Setback -  Survival(Freefall) or start again. You only
get one more chance ( reserve 'chute ). Step A becomes Release bad 'chute -
Survival(Freefall). The rest of the steps remain the same...

> skiing

Also surfing.  You are using a Tech tool to minimize movement movement
restriction.  A core limitation is that after the initial impulse, the tool
is not automotive - the engine lies outside of the users control.  But the
user can use their body to otherwise control themselves.  My suggestion for
skills are Maneuver[Skiing] and Maneuver[Surfing].  A bicycle is a 
self-powered tool - the human provides the power constantly so those would
be Vehicle Pilot(Bicycle).

> driving a manual transmission car

Cars either speedup or slowdown and turn right or left in a dependable
fashion ( unlike backing up a semi, however ).  I see driving a stickshift
as either a specialization to overcome the technical limitations of early
Tech cars or to maximize performance in recent Tech cars. Outside of the
dramatic flavor, it's really not that important.

> flying a light aircraft

Air Vehicles for everything that doesn't roll, breath, float, or go into
space is a bit much.  I've reduced all the ** Vehicle skills to one Macro
skill that needs a focus ( like Science in Torg ) - Vehicle Pilot.  The foci
include: car, large truck, powerboat, sailing boat, motorcycle, airplane,
GEV, blimp, helicopter, oxcart, Gear, etc.  Specializations like dodging,
shadowing, ramming, and landing are available as well.

> a musician to pick up another musical instrument

First off, I made an Artist Meta Macro skill.  The Macro part just means
that there has to be a foci for the skill, metalwork, poetry, paint, food,
leather, stone, statuary, bonsai, trumpets, etc.  The Meta means that the
artist can 'embed' an Interaction skill into a work and the skill is the
limit on how much oomph the Artist can put into a work.  For example: Mike
has Scholar(Painting)(13), Artist(Paint)+5, and Charm(10). At the request
of his employer, he is to make a painting that makes people feel good.  If
all the rolls work out and he spends enough time he can make a painting
that will cause everyone who looks at it for one round to be 'attacked' by
Charm(10) with a maximum Success Level of Spectacular (5 SL's).  Embedding
Taunt and Intimidation totals are popular with modern artists.

Back to the question at hand.  The musician is learning how to to use a new
instrument - needing to learn the nuances of force (for a piano), breathing
(for a saxophone), or fingering (for a violin).  And that will limit his
ability to be 'artistic' and infuse the music with passion or fury or
sadness.  Artist(Saxophone) would be one skill while Artist(Violin) would
be another.

But that won't invalidate Language(Musical Notation) or Scholar(Improv
Jazz), so those skills may still help him in being a musician.

> learning a new area of general knowledge

Scholar(*insert area here*) to the rescue.  A house rule could say
Scholar(Area Knowledge)[Boston] becomes the minimum Bonus Number applied to
all Willpower skills totals regarding Boston and it's environs. Survival,
Land Navigation, etc.

> 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.
> [...example...]

I never liked career/class based skill groups all that much. The possible
number of combinations in just Core Earth alone would be staggering.  It
also leads to multi-classing ( Soldier / Doctor or Soldier / Accountant /
Basketweaver ) because there's always something a player wants his
character to do that he didn't think of at character generation...

To simulate a life before my Heavy Gear campaign took place, I had players
choose seven slots from predefined 'Career Paths' for their characters,
then buy up their skills after that.  So long as their characters met the
prereqs for a certain slot the players could choose any ( and as many )
paths they wanted.  Also, the players could earn more slots by providing
background stories, etc. The list is at:

<http://www.db.erau.edu/~taylorg/heavy_gear/sysops/character/career_guide.html>

One character tree was:
    Basic Training -> Military Training -> Gear Pilot
                   -> Police Training
    Brawling -> Martial Arts -> Master -> Sensei
             -> Fighter
    Survivalist
    Schooling

Another was:
    Basic Training
    Brawling
    Medic -> Pre-Med
    Troublemaker -> Gang member
    Construction -> Foreman 
 
Those career paths gave them a choice of starting skills (also listed at the
website above).  After chargen, normal freeform rules applied so that the
players could grow the character as they saw fit.

HTH,
-- 
-Garrett Taylor
Java Jackleg  /  Perl Pundit  /  Web Wrangler  /  SQL Stooge
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Daytona Beach, FL USA
Information Technology >> Middleware Services >> Development
<taylorg at erau.edu>            <http://blog.taylorkith.com/>
 
"If brute force doesn't work, you ain't using enough!"