I've just done a bit of revision on the specialties/skills and abilities as presented in Kathanaksaya (http://home.comcast.net/~afrodyte/kathanaksaya), and I realized something about the character creation revision (http://home.comcast.net/~afrodyte/kathanaksaya/chargen.htm). Though I require that each abstract has an associated concrete, and I allow people to have several concretes for the same abstract and various abstracts for the same concrete, I give no systematic support for this. I'm wondering what I should do to make abstracts and concretes seem even more different. Here are some things I was thinking:
- Players may use additional abstracts with a particular concrete. Each additional abstract adds 1 to SP bid.
- For every 5 (or 10) full points an abstract has, you increase the SP bid by 1 when using the associated concrete in a bid.
- Redo abstracts and concretes so that you purchase concretes with the points you're allowed. The benefits of concretes will apply as one, some, or all of the options above. Each point put into an abstract would still be on a 1 SP for 1 point basis, but the concretes would be either 2 SP for each concrete, or some other number.
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The first two options, taken together, can make for some interesting things. From extensive playtesting, it did seem weird that some characters used a particular aspect to do a multitude of things, while others were generally ineffective except in very specific circumstances. This, of course, may have to do with the abstracts themselves, but I did see that I did not give any incentive to use or create more diverse abstracts instead of pooling everything into just one. Using those two options above, players may have to make a decision between versatility and power, which is OK by me. However, I am not sure how that would work out, and I'd appreciate a different set of eyes looking this over.
I am still unsure about the third option. While I believe I'd still rule that concretes must still have an abstract associated with it, I am not sure about making characters pay for them. Maybe the first concrete can be free (or the first concrete for a particular abstract). But, if I use the options above, I think it can work. That way, players can have more options that don't unnecessarily hamper characters with multiple concretes for a single abstract.
In the lack of a group of playtesters, I have to rely on how well it pans out theoretically, and as long as I only argue with myself, I'm going to be running around in circles.