Skills, the grouping and arranging of - Responses?

[Shreyas Sampat]

Rich, that was a great post.

Autocrat, what I'm seeing here is a conflict between a system that demands extreme rigor, with its tiered skills and so forth, coupled with a very non-rigorous approach to design. This shows up in your skill tiers, particularly: a Title Group can be, by your set of examples, a set of situations in which the skills are relevant (Combat), a set of tools that the skills can be used on (Vehicle), a goal that the skills can accomplish (Survival), and the first case again (Social).

So how does anyone decide, with all these overlapping categories (I suppose that there's also a "Not Combat" group, a "Weapons" group, a "Killing" group, a "Chases" group, an "Escape" group, a "Travelling" group, a "Wilderness" group, a "Swiss Army Knife" group, and so on) where any skill belongs? It isn't good enough to define a group as "the group that contains its members," which is what you did in your earlier post; that means exactly nothing. Even the two-tiered Exalted system is so conceptually loose that it's rearranged with every new splat. The rigid taxonomy of skill divisions that you're aiming at can't be accomplished unless the players understand the taxonomy clearly. I feel like I have to point out that a system is a technical document at one level or another; it has to be approached technically, or the system is in your head and what's on the paper is something that might resemble the system, but isn't communicable to other people and so it doesn't constitute an actual game.

I may be tied to System Does Matter too hard, but I cannot understand how a designer of system that intends to be so deeply parametric (You hypothesize two randomizers and a non-randomized system! You suggest that the lower skill tiers can be simply discarded!) can expect to predict how the different combinations of parameters will interact in play, and if the designer can't make that prediction, then there isn't really any design going on.

I hope this doesn't discourage you from designing your game. I am only trying to say that, from your statements, it seems like there is a great deal of system in your head that you aren't communicating to us, and if you aren't going to communicate your system to a community of designers who are only trying to be helpful, then I how are you going to communicate it to a world of lazy gamers who don't care one way or another whether they play your game or All Flesh Must Be Eaten?

[M. J. Young]

I must apologize, Eero, for misspelling your name. I know I've caught myself doing it before. My inadequate defense is that it is (to me, at least) a unique name, and thus my eye tends to see it as a slightly more familiar word.

Regarding Multiverser, last I looked you could acquire it (and all the Multiverser books) through Amazon's various European stores. If you follow the link in my sig (to books), then from that page to the individual pages for each book, there are direct links to online sellers, including Amazon UK, France, and Germany. I don't know if there's a supplier more convenient for you, but at least you don't have to order it from across the pond.

If you have trouble getting it, let me know, and I'll see what I can do to fix it.

--M. J. Young

[Eero Tuovinen]

I must apologize, Eero, for misspelling your name. I know I've caught myself doing it before. My inadequate defense is that it is (to me, at least) a unique name, and thus my eye tends to see it as a slightly more familiar word.

Hey, no problem, let's not derail the thread, interesting though my name might be. I find it amusing, how could I get offended? You'd find it funny if you went to some other country and they called you "Dollar" or "Buck" because your name looked like it.

Regarding Multiverser, last I looked you could acquire it (and all the Multiverser books) through Amazon's various European stores. If you follow the link in my sig (to books), then from that page to the individual pages for each book, there are direct links to online sellers, including Amazon UK, France, and Germany. I don't know if there's a supplier more convenient for you, but at least you don't have to order it from across the pond.

Yup, but that's not what's stopping me. We don't use credit cards for anything here in Finland, so I have never got one. Therefore my overseas purchases happen largely when I get a big enough urge to loan someone else's. I just meant that I'll definitely look it up the next time my brother shops in Amazon...

[Jason Lee]

Now you see, what you suggested I have seen a lot, take Shadowrun for example, or Alternacy, or a host of others.  Yet I've noticed that they tend to either be really general and broad, with little actually stating what covers what, and relying on the players to decide, or they are open ended, and leave it to the players to decide what does what and how.
This is fine for people that have played and are used to RPG's , for newbies or those that prefer hard rules, it's of little use from my experience.

Newbies come in all varieties.  Often, they just want their character to be able to do 'Blah'.  If they can fill in a line with 'Blah', it's all the easier for them.

However, you refer to 'those that prefer hard rules'.  That's who we are really talking about isn't it?  If you have a newbie in this group, then he will be expected to conform to the groups tastes (as is natural with any social activity).

So, you need to ask yourself:  who is your target audience?  'Those that prefer hard rules' maybe?  (This is a bit of a trick question, because I think the best answer is 'Those like me, who prefer _____'.)

Also, you mentioned having languages as handled differently, yet all I hear is people moaning about extra mechanics, so many different ways of doing things, yet people keep generating different methods of handling similar stuff.
If you handle the other skills as 2 tier, why not languages?  If you give me some examples of how you use languages, it shouldn't be hard to figure  a simp[le 2 tier approach!

Oh, I can think of a two tiered approach just fine.  That isn't really the point.  The point is that sometimes the easiest way to do something isn't the same way you've done everything else.  This is very similar to the point often made about symmetrical design (that sometimes having three social, mental and physical whatevers is more cluttered than elegant).

I'm not saying you shouldn't strive for consistency.  I'm just saying that sometimes design goals and consistency are going to collide, and you should favor design goals.