[Torg] Improving Attributes in play: Edges

[Travis James Hall]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com 
> [mailto:torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com] On Behalf Of 
> Sam Frazier II
> Sent: Sunday, 16 November 2008 12:31 AM
> To: torg at justintimeadventures.com
> Subject: Re: [Torg] Improving Attributes in play: Edges
> 
> Well a teacher is defined as an individual with more 
> experience in the skill than you that can show you, from 
> their experience, something you didn't know before.
[...]
> It doesn't mean someone who sat you down in the class room.

No, you misunderstand. I don't mean I was the victim of a poor formal
education system.

Rather, it's a question of learning style. I am a poor audial learner.
Having a person there to tell me about something just doesn't work for me.
The experience of the teacher is a minor factor. I am a strong visual
learner. Given a good textbook, I can absorb knowledge at a surprising rate.

It's not even a question of whether I learn solely from my own knowledge. If
that was the case, a book wouldn't help me.

Torg (and a number of other RPGs) fail to acknowledge this. If I was to
include circumstances as a factor in improvement costs, I'd allow for any
appropriate assistance to count towards cheaper rates. With a detailed
enough system, I might allow for characters to have specified preferences
for learning modes.

> While the standard Torg Rulebook may only have 12 trained 
> skills, there are many more when you combine all the realms 
> together. Honestly I haven't looked at the brown covered TORG 
> Rulebook in over 10 years. Other books have a more complete 
> listing, and in the past few, we've used TORG R&E, and that 
> list is complete so

Even so, only 21 out of the 100 skills cannot be used unskilled.

That book does change the standard rule for learning costs, though. It notes
a third category of skills: those which are more difficult to use unskilled.
Such skills incur the higher learning cost for the initial add. If you
likewise double their learning cost, you have 57 out of the 100 skills
costing double. Some of the skills which originally could not be used
unskilled fall into this category.

On the other hand, though, the additions are usually cosm-specific and/or
special-power related, and as such characters will tend to have only a very
limited selection from amongst them. A couple aren't even really skills
(even thought I've included them in the count). The older skills tend to be
much more widely available, and desirable by a wider variety of characters.
After all, if you've got Ayslish magic, you hardly need Nile-Egyptian
mathematics, but everyone wants to dodge bullets.

The more critical questions are, how many trained and untrained skills do
the characters have in play, and at how many adds, and how commonly are
teachers available? Working out whether you have "shorted" yourselves is
fairly complex.

> ....I assure you there is use for this.

I didn't say you didn't have a use for it. I just said you may not have
increased the costs for improving your characters the way you thought you
had.

> >>What you're really doing is screwing over the mages and 
> priests. All four
> >>magic skills, Faith and Focus are trained skills.
> 
> And Martial Artists, Weird Scientists, Doctors, Occultists, 
> Psionists, etc, etc...It isn't screwing, it is investing. 
> Those skills are inately more powerful than the unskilled 
> brethren. Their results on the Effect Values are 
> significantly higher with a higher success rate. I have 
> enough experience playing to game (even under this appearent 
> House rule) to see that.

If you start from the assumption that the base game is balanced, you've
damaged that balance. If you assume the base game is not balanced, you may
have corrected the imbalance. Meh. Choose your poison.

> Dex based skill I'm assuming. After all Martial Artists, 
> Nile's Powers, All magic skills, Faith and Focus, Reality, 
> etc etc are combat skills.

I was referring to skills whose purpose is combat - melee weapons, unarmed
combat, dodge, fire combat, that sort of thing. Faith, Focus, Reality and
such are skills whose primary purpose is other than combat, but which happen
to be useful in combat. Yes, I know that players tend to focus on how skills
can be used in combat, and select skills accordingly. Nevertheless, I was
referring to a valid categorisation.

> Of course cross-cosm skills are considered trained too. 
> Energy-Weapons would be untrained for a Cyber Papist, as 
> would Computer-Usage for a Core Earther, but an Orrorshian 
> would cosnsider those trained skills. 

They have increased cost under the standard rules as well, though, at least
for the first add.

Travis Hall