[UA] Varying skill costs . . .

[Shannon Prickett]

On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 06:37:13PM -0500, Susan Dohnim wrote:
> >From: "Matthew SPEIGHT" <mspeight at adelaidebank.com.au>
> 
> >In which case, it's up to the GM to make it relevant and avoid boring
> >the cat-lover. The player wouldn't have selected the skill if it wasn't
> >somewhat important to the character.
> 
> Don't be ridiculous! GMs have enough work as it is without having to make 
> "Cat Lover" or "Hold my Breath" into skills as relevant as "Charm", 
> "Notice", and "Struggle".

I think the burden of work for skill applicability should be on the
player.  If I've decided my character is heavily invested in "Cat
Lover", I have presumably reached some understanding with the GM as to
what the skill does for me and I will seek to find ways to apply it.

> That's not to say that they shouldn't give characters an opportunity to use 
> these unique skills --  just that it's going to be almost impossible to 
> make them even half as relevant as other skills. And what happens when 
> granny, with her Cat Lover: 50 rolls above her mind when making that check? 
> Ah, well. I'm sure something cat-centered will be important a few sessions 
> from now.

What happens when granny fails her Cat Lover check is that the player
holding granny's strings looks for new opportunities to apply the skill.
If Cat Lover is worth 50 points to the player, they must have thought of
some way it matters enough to the character that there's a coin-flip
chance of success, even during combat and other Major check intervals.

So maybe granny milks her Cat Lover for something like cat-like grace
when landing, cat-like acuity to weather, ability to mimic the sound
of cats outside of closed doors, but the one thing granny should
probably not reasonably expect is for the GM to make every tale contain
one or more cats.

But I thought the original question was why are some more skills worth
more bang for the buck and I'd think the answer there is, "Because."

Because most characters want to notice things, beat the tar out of
things, lie to the people they meet and tread water.  Correspondingly,
knowing that everyone has these skills, it's a lot more common to see
references to checks against these skills insofar as they're meant to
cover common game situations.

If more UA stories were conceived of involving Pedigreed Cat
competitions, Cat Lover might well Ascend to a core Mind skill.

There's a cap on how much oomph one can get from skills, even the common
skills, and that's the stat.  I admit that I don't see the problem in
some skills being more equal than others but I've never been one for
fairness.  

If I were being deliberately contrary and staying mundane, with no Adept
or Avatar path, I'd feel absolutely no qualms about pushing my stats and
useful skills with xp so I could play on an almost level playing field
with the juiced kooks.  I don't see anything wrong with being the best
darned human points can buy.

-- 
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