[UA] Varying skill costs . . .

[Susan Dohnim]

>From: Liam Routt <liam at routt.net>

>Indeed this flexibility is what I think makes this aspect of UA so strong
>- the character skills are self-balancing, in that their relevance is
>appropriate to the characters themselves, not some artificial objective
>set of categories.

Huh? Self-balancing? You lost me here. The point of skills is to have a 
mechanic to do certain things within-game. Some skills allow you to do very 
few things, very rarely; others allow you to do lots of cool things all the 
time. Saying that they should cost the same because it might be as important 
to Granny that she knows a lot about cats as it is to the Entropomancer that 
he knows how to manipulate fate isn't "self-balancing" just because their 
level of desire is the same.

Because "balance" is all about what one character can do relative to what 
other characters can do. If one is relevant and useful in all situations, 
and one isn't . . . . well, sorry, but the cat-lover might just get a little 
bored.

One can argue that in some systems "balance" is less important. That's 
probably true in UA. But I'd still like it if it was easier to create a 
character that had two or three neat quirks, like being able to easily hold 
your breath for long periods *and* know three or four languages -- while 
still having some utility, like being a martial artist. But after you spend 
40 points into Hold-Your-Breath and 60 points in four languages (15 apiece). 
. . sorry, you're shit-outta-luck.

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