ANSPC: Skill increases question (longish)

[Fade Manley]

(ANSPC refers to Amazon Ninja Space-Pirate Catgirls, which I've mentioned before in a few threads. It makes for unwieldy thread titles if I write the whole thing out.)

So. At the moment, this fluffy little game has a system that's coming together reasonably well. I have a resolution system, various ways of rewarding in-genre actions, some mechanics that make the group work together and some mechanics that let the PCs compete against each other.... It needs playtesting, but I'm liking what I have. There are a few separate reward systems built in to motivate players to keep playing, so I seem to be covered there.

However! At the moment, I have no system for increasing skill levels. Now, on the one hand, this game is supposed to be used for short campaigns (as one-shots, while possibly entertaining, would completely miss the use of the two main reward mechanics), so I might not need any way of improving skills after character creation. On the other hand, I do like to allow for some flexibility in such areas, and I'm not entirely comfortable with having players be stuck with whatever they came up with when they first made the character, without a chance to do a bit of tweaking.

Now, given that skills max at 12--I didn't include rules for modifiers to rolls (too much math for what I want to run very quickly)--and that a skill in someone's primary skill group starts at 7 even before character creation with its addition to skills, giving out skill points would make for characters maxed out in various skills very quickly indeed, even if it's just one skill point per session. After all, there are only 16 skills, and since most people will only be focusing on eight of those... Well, you can see just how quickly this could become overpowered.

Currently, I've thought of three solutions, neither of which I'm entirely happy with. One is the arbitrary "convince the GM that you ought to increase in that skill area" rule. One is the "you can't have any skill above 11" so that there's always some chance of failure rule. And one is allowing players to convert Loot points into skill points.

Now, Loot is the primary reward for the group as a whole; it's gained (and risked) by attempting various schemes, and can be spent to increase ship abilities, bribe higher-level officials, and the like. It's one number for the entire group. Now, if I let the entire group get a skill point by 'spending' a point of Loot on it, I'm back to the same problem of overly fast skill growth, and then some, as they could possibly spend multiple points of Loot in a single session. Or, the group could decide to spend a point of Loot on a skill point for one person, and vote on who gets it, but that adds another level of group dynamics that I'm not entirely comfortable with.

(I also considered letting players trade in Notoriety, a reward 'counter' that increases individually for each PC, for skill points. However, since Notoriety can be lost by failing skill rolls, gained by acting appropriately to genre, and because it's used as a 'vote' within the crew, this seems like it would be doing too many things at once with one mechanism. Not to mention it's a lot harder to justify losing Notoriety as you become more skilled in game than it is to justify skill increases in other ways.)

So...well, I could use some advice. I know that I don't technically
need a skill increase mechanism at all, but I'm thinking I'd like to allow for at least a few small increases here and there. Any suggestions to this end would be welcome.

[C. Edwards]

Hey Heather,

Have you considered letting the players earn re-rolls on a skill instead of actually raising the skill rating? You could even set the re-rolls at half the normal skill rating, maybe adding in the caveat that a re-roll success happens due to dumb luck instead of character skill.

There are quite a few possibilities. You can make the re-rolls a spendable currency or a permanent ability. You could even allow mutiple re-rolls on a skill, perhaps at an even more decreased capacity (1/4 the skill rating).

-Chris

[Fade Manley]

Actually, I hadn't considered handing out re-rolls. Hmm. It still wouldn't allow PCs to 'change' much in a mechanical sense, but it would offer more chances at success, if that seems important. I'll have to see if that makes players happier than not having it.