Keyword Restrictiveness

[Mike Holmes]

A keyword includes within it everything that it "should" have in it. This is, to me, one of the features of HQ - you never have what I refer to as the GURPS Math Syndrome where players making up a character "forget" to take some ability that they reasonably would take merely because they didn't consider the entire list of abilities, and missed the one in question.

This is why GURPS relies heavily on templates. You'll find that the modern templates all include math skill. This works, except that given that nobody cares about math skill (until a need for it comes up in play), there's no reason really to have it rated individually. It's part of the character's overall education which is a result of their cultural upbringing, etc.

Well, this is how HQ handles it, too. Except that what's in a template isn't always entirely spelled out. Instead the idea is that one should be allowed to simply argue that a basic knowledge of the ability in question comes with a particular keyword.

(Another cool feature of this is that, if the player doesn't want the character to have the ability, they simply don't argue for it.)

The question for the thread is how lenient are you in allowing abilities to be argued in to keywords? The sample abilities both help and hinder in this process. That is, they tend to give an idea of the scope of the keyword, but they are neccessarily not all of the abilities (or the principle here is defunct). So it's always a question of what other abilities the keyword might include.

Here the samples can hinder. That is, some of them seem so obvious that the lack of the ability as a sample seems to scream out that the character should not have the ability. For example, and this came up in play recently, a player was surprised (as I've always been, too) to find out that there is no "Research" ability under the Scholar keyword. This seems like a conspicuous absence. Is Greg saying that research as such doesn't exist in Glorantha? That doesn't seem too unreasonable, actually. So you're informed by the keyword in what is there and what is not.

In the end you have to decide, however. In the example, I agreed with her that scholars should have Research (fits my game well). But I can see it being not such an easy decision in many cases. One worries about abuse of a sort of gamism type where the player will try to argue in as many abilities as they can.

Now I don't usually worry about this with my players, actually. But it would be an easy criteria to note whether the player was acting in a gamism fashion, or in another mode to decide if the choice was valid. Because, typically, I allow the player to be right in these cases.

What I find, however, is that players sorta plumb the keyword, and add dimensions to them that might not have been intended originally. It's especially easy to add personality traits that seem to be typical of the keyword.

At some point, however, I think you have to say no to this in order that the keyword not become Character X's Occupation instead of just Occupation X.

Does anyone see what I mean? Part of what makes the keywords useful in other ways is as a descriptor for NPCs. If they don't really typically all have an ability, then you're tightening the keyword in question to be very specific to the character. At which point you have to ask if extra abilities are needed at all? Can't you explain a hobby you have whittling in terms of it being part of your homeland? I mean you probably learned it from somebody, or it's indicated by having wood and knives present. Can't it go from Heortling to Heortling with a Whittling Hobby?

At what point do you say to a player, Hey, that's not under a keyword? How tightly do you reign players in on this? What criteria do you use?

Mike

[Eero Tuovinen]

Hmm... I never had any trouble with this. Truth be told, I never even thought to make example abilities for my keywords. If there's some reason I should, I'd be interested to hear it. As far as I understand, the keywords are just larger abilities with a scope specified in terms of culture and other SIS stuff instead of concrete activity.

You see, a multitude of games nowadays have self-definable abilities. Starting with Sorcerer and going down the list, they're in majority. This being the case, it's starting to be a part of basic rpg literacy to be able to balance implicit stuff. If a player shouts out "Dance!", the GM or whoever should be able to roughly estimate how important that's gonna be for the game. And when you know that, it's not difficult to decide if it's good for the game in question in terms of currency. What the criterions are, that's up to the game:
- In Sorcerer you have to decide whether something fits under a cover, where the cover is a "role" in the society of normal humans.
- In Dust Devils you have to decide whether a knack is "too wide", based on a list of example knacks on page 5.
- In InSpectres you have to decide if a Talent is suitably useful and funny, but not too useful. The basis is pretty much the same as in Dust Devils, a list of examples to compare with.

See? It's a part of basic skills with these games to make these judgements. It becomes instinctive to make them. That's why I don't use example abilities and figure everything out as we go along. If a player wants something to belong into a keyword, we can just figure out whether everybody with that keyword should have that ability. Easy.

If it doesn't work in HQ, I say we have a major problem with a majority of "Forge games" out there :D

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm... I never had any trouble with this.

Frankly it's not a huge issue with me, either. Just wanted to discuss.  

Truth be told, I never even thought to make example abilities for my keywords. If there's some reason I should, I'd be interested to hear it. As far as I understand, the keywords are just larger abilities with a scope specified in terms of culture and other SIS stuff instead of concrete activity.

Well, do you find the abilities listed in the sample keywords in the books to be a bad thing? Are they purposeless? I think you can get away just fine without pre-defining what's in a keyword - the as you go method requires this. But having a keyword predefined with abilities can be inspirational, or give an idea of scope.

In any case, as you use a keyword, it becomes apparent what abilities are in it. You still don't have to list them, but it can be a good mnemonic. Do warriors know how to tend a fire? Have I rolled for that before with Warrior?

Further, it becomes very important as soon as the player wants to increase an ability beyond the level of the keyword. At that point you have to denote the abilities in question and their new level, right? Again, having a list from which you can select things to advance can be inspirational.

- In Sorcerer you have to decide whether something fits under a cover, where the cover is a "role" in the society of normal humans.
- In Dust Devils you have to decide whether a knack is "too wide", based on a list of example knacks on page 5.
- In InSpectres you have to decide if a Talent is suitably useful and funny, but not too useful. The basis is pretty much the same as in Dust Devils, a list of examples to compare with.

See? It's a part of basic skills with these games to make these judgements. It becomes instinctive to make them.

I agree to an extent. I think part of what I'm looking for is what the objective criteria are that are being shortcutted by the instinct here.

If a player wants something to belong into a keyword, we can just figure out whether everybody with that keyword should have that ability. Easy.

Well, that's just obscuring the process. I'm not saying it's terribly difficult. But what is the process?

I'm hoping that by looking closely at the process we can learn how to use it more consiously, which may lead to better decision-making. Instincts are fine in many cases, but there are occasions where they fail me, at least. Either I get the wrong answer, or no answer at all.

Anyhow, from these answers and ones that I, in fact, have given to people before, I think that the process is mostly to compare the inclusion of the ability to the scope of the other samples that are available (again, another good reason to have the examples). Is there a parallel between how Occupation X includes Ability A that compares to the question of whether or not to include Ability B in Occupation Y? Then that might tell us to go for it.

In any case, I don't want to pick apart your speech, but it seems to me that you are what I'd call a pretty "Strict Constructionist" given the statement "we can just figure out whether everybody with that keyword should have that ability" (note that I don't think you neccessarily do feel this way, but it's one way that people do this). Basically it seems that you're saying that if the ability is not had by some people with the keyword, then it's not part of the keyword.

The question then becomes how much is "some?" The really strict construction would be to say that almost everyone with the keyword has the ability - that the people who might not have them might seem deficient, or at least unusual.

Less strict would be to say that this is just "typical" of people with these abilities. Meaning that the keyword really will vary somewhat from person to person. In this case, if the character has an ability that not everyone has, you have to consider whether or not there is some substantial portion of people who do have it such that it's reasonable to assume that the character in question has the ability.

The "loosest" version of this sort of construction would be to say that most anything goes as long as it has some "feel" that matches the group in question.

But, again, as I've pointed out, one can go with another construction that says that the keyword may simply be specialized to the character in question, and does not have to match much at all others with the same keyword. Indeed, though the hunter keyword in the book seems pretty broad, there are cultures to whom it would not apply as written. So we'd expect at least a cultural modification to the keyword to make it fit. Well, if you're localizing, why not make it cover basically anything that they player wants to say about the keyword.

The loosest method, of course, is just to accept whatever the player says should go in the keyword. I think that most everyone agrees that this is less than optimal, however. Less loose than this might be where the player has to at least explain how the ability comes to be under that keyword. For example, a player could argue that sewing falls under his hunter keyword as he personally tended to go out along hunting for long periods and had to learn sewing skills to keep his clothing from falling apart in the field (lots of soldiers know how to sew, actually).

In any case, I see players generally assuming this as the method oftentimes. Such a backstory explanation becomes their argument for why the ability should be in the keyword.

So you can see that there really are several different sets of criteria that one can apply. Again, I'm looking for what individuals do, and what they feel makes for consistency, while not being too restrictive.

Mike

[Eero Tuovinen]

Hmm, it's certainly a more complex issue that I thought. I'd always understood the keywords as just a shorthand-method for covering a field of indeterminate amount of singular abilities. I never thought that you could have personalized keywords at all. Like, in my game all characters with the keyword "Soldier" have all the keyword abilities by definition, whatever those abilities prove out to be. Keywords work exactly like a Master component in Universalis. Where did you get the idea of personalizing a keyword?

About example abilities: they don't bother me particularly, but they're certainly more bulk on an otherwise pretty streamlined system. Interestingly, I find the surprising and imaginative example abilities the most interesting, so it's pretty much the opposite of a simmy approach; I'd only list unlikely stuff, while another guy would only list the central and non-controversial stuff, so in the end we'd have completely different example abilities.

But anyway, defining keywords: I'm seeing two analytic methods for the defining, while still staying logical and functional:

The simmy one: as I already indicated in the last post, this is the one where keywords are defined as social and cultural groupings. So the keyword of "Carpenter" is actually "all the abilities that carpenters share". If you're defining keywords this way, you can check if a particular ability belongs in a keyword by answering the relevant question about SIS. There's still a degree of abstraction there, because carpenters from different places have different skills, but that's simulation for you, never perfect. The way to fix this is to make the definition more exact as time goes by - if ever a player suggests an ability that only Orlanthi carpenters have and others do not, the keyword can easily be renamed as "Orlanthi carpenter", and that's it. This way the keyword and the world stay consistent with each other.

The other one: as abilities are power, and somebody might want the players to have equal power, just define keywords based on how big keywords other guys have. So if it seems that one player has a better keyword, be more lax in accepting another's suggestions about his keyword, while tightening the reins on the strong one.

As far as I can see, those are about the only methods that I see any point in. Both are pretty simple, aren't they? You called for process instructions, but how do you give them for something this simple?

In any case I find it important that you can't really go catastrophically wrong in your decisions about what to include in the keyword, because the player who has the keyword is the one who takes the initiative in adding stuff to it. The player has no reason to suggest anything stupid, so the worst that can happen is a discordance between players about the sensibility or power of keywords.

Hmm... if there's any deeper logic in my decisions over this matter, then I don't see it myself. I've pretty much subscribed to your claims that power differential isn't a too important thing in HQ, so I've not tried to limit players based on resource management or anything like that. And as far as the realism or sensibility goes, I've not had anybody offer any abilities for a keyword that don't really fit. Of course, being that I don't stress that, I don't know if I even noticed such abilities.

As I'm considering this, I start to think that I actually play such a bastardized version of the game that my input has no relevance whatsoever. It's more like a fantasy Universalis without the explicit resource management.

[Valamir]

Keywords work exactly like a Master component in Universalis. Where did you get the idea of personalizing a keyword?

I think that's an excellent analogy.

Keywords and Master Components are VERY similiar.

The difference is that:

Keywords list examples of the kinds of abilities that may be included in the Keyword.  Master Components list exactly what Traits are part of the Master Component.

and that in Universalis the rules are very precise about how to decide going about determining what those Traits are (spend a Coin, Challenge, blah blah blah).  In HQ, determining the abilities is kind of left up in the air for the magic Keyword fairy to work out during play.


If I'm reading Mike correctly, he's interested in discussing what different methods players of the game have used to determine those abilities when its time for the Keyword fairy to make an appearance...since, unlike Universalis, the rules don't specify how to do that with any precision.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm, it's certainly a more complex issue that I thought. I'd always understood the keywords as just a shorthand-method for covering a field of indeterminate amount of singular abilities. I never thought that you could have personalized keywords at all. Like, in my game all characters with the keyword "Soldier" have all the keyword abilities by definition, whatever those abilities prove out to be. Keywords work exactly like a Master component in Universalis. Where did you get the idea of personalizing a keyword?

From the rulebook. It's never put in very explicit terms, but it's in there. As I indicated in this article: http://www.glorantha.com/support/na_keywords.html

Actually since writing that, I've found even better support for the notion. But it's pretty plain. Anyhow, going on with this discussion before you read that article is just going to be me saying a lot of "yup, what I said in my article."

As far as I can see, those are about the only methods that I see any point in. Both are pretty simple, aren't they? You called for process instructions, but how do you give them for something this simple?

The problem is that these methods don't say anything about the judgement calls about what abilities do count and what don't. They both only speak to general limits.

In any case I find it important that you can't really go catastrophically wrong in your decisions about what to include in the keyword, because the player who has the keyword is the one who takes the initiative in adding stuff to it. The player has no reason to suggest anything stupid, so the worst that can happen is a discordance between players about the sensibility or power of keywords.

Well, actually, in theory, a gamism based player could have a field day trying to get abilities in based solely on the "free" abilities that it gives them. Another thing that's important about listing abilities is that you can't augment with one not on the sheet. So not only can't you agument at default 6 (the putative reason for the rule), you can only augment with Warrior once. Whereas if you have all the abilities listed, you might find five augments for a particular situation.

And as far as the realism or sensibility goes, I've not had anybody offer any abilities for a keyword that don't really fit. Of course, being that I don't stress that, I don't know if I even noticed such abilities.

I'm really not worried about gamism. What I'm worried about is a sort of "creep" that I've seen happen. That is, again, players seem to "distort" for lack of a better term, the keyword in adding to it. Basically redefining it as they go to get in the abilities that they need.

I agree that this isn't terribly problematic. But at some point I think you have to say no, or the keywords become meaninglessly broad.

Mike

[Eero Tuovinen]

I'm really not worried about gamism. What I'm worried about is a sort of "creep" that I've seen happen. That is, again, players seem to "distort" for lack of a better term, the keyword in adding to it. Basically redefining it as they go to get in the abilities that they need.

I agree that this isn't terribly problematic. But at some point I think you have to say no, or the keywords become meaninglessly broad.

That again reminds me of redefining keywords, actually. This one could be an interesting mod for the game: instead of having the char-gen narrative normally, players write narratives for each of the character's keywords separately. And in the future, when the player adds abilities to a keyword... he rewrites and expands the narrative accordingly. This should work as a tool that ensures that whatever bloat happens, it'll always make at least narrative sense.

Just a thought, that. More importantly:

Well, actually, in theory, a gamism based player could have a field day trying to get abilities in based solely on the "free" abilities that it gives them. Another thing that's important about listing abilities is that you can't augment with one not on the sheet. So not only can't you agument at default 6 (the putative reason for the rule), you can only augment with Warrior once. Whereas if you have all the abilities listed, you might find five augments for a particular situation.

Wow, that part of the rules apparently works very differently from how I've played it. I really should read that book again at some point, interesting drift. In my game you can't augment with abilities from the same keyword as the main ability, and can only augment with one ability from each keyword. If a player wants to, he can "split" the ability away from the keyword, usually paying a hero point for it, and make it independent for augmenting purposes. This is of course only sensible for central abilities you plan to raise above the keyword value.

The above was largely because I couldn't see any sense in allowing augments from keyword abilities. I don't see any limits in the game for drawing new abilities from keywords, so allowing several augments from one keyword would essentially mean taking the ability as high as the player cared to raise it through trivial augments, wouldn't it? I wanted to handle abilities that are on the sheet and ones that are in the keyword only implicitly in the same way.

If you're playing it so that any ability written down can be used to augment, then I can see why you think that keyword definition is an important issue! Couldn't players just define zillions of abilities in that case, stuff like "Hit with the sword", "Battle trolls", "Use helmet", "Combat footwork" and so on ad infinitum? (Those are examples for a "Warrior" or similar, but almost any keyword allows infinite abilities, it seems to me.) Or don't you allow adding abilities at all without hero point expenditure or something, apart from those examples in the book? Even when they're clearly within the purview of the keyword? I'm getting confused.

--

As for the judgement call of what belongs in an ability and what doesn't... actually, that's a very general theory topic, it seems to me. How do roleplayers make these applicability decisions? Make no mistake, almost all games include just this kind of decisions about applicability. Even in D&D, the GM has to decide now and then whether some skill can be used in the way the player plans to. It's largely the same thing to decide in HQ whether Warriors should get "War-dancing" as to decide in D&D whether a bard can use Diplomacy to do X in situation Y. They're both properly about resource valuation, and I don't think any game gives proper advice about doing it. They just assume you know how to do it. Just almost the only way to do it, actually, because most rpgs include this feedback thing between the SIS and the mechanics. If we could decide whether an ability belongs in a keyword without making these judgement calls about the SIS, then the keyword would have hardly anything to do with the SIS, would it?

Thinking about it that way, isn't what you're asking just a question about "how do I explore the SIS"? You're asking how to determine whether the Orlanthi lumberjack knows about herbs, right? How is this different from the generic exploration question?

Hmm... one interesting method of taking the decision out of the imaginary and into the mechanics would be to make the player roll for it when he wants to add an ability:
1) The player makes his case for including the ability
2) The GM determines the opposing difficulty by (number of keyword abilities)x5
3) The player rolls against the difficulty with his keyword value
4) The degree of success determines how it is; perhaps the character can get an ability in the whereabouts of what the player asked, or he needs to learn the knack of it from somewhere, or it's just utterly outside the keyword. Or perhaps it's a complete success, and he gets the ability +5.

Is that even in the same ballpark with what you're thinking? It seems pretty obvious that I'm not seeing the dilemma here.

[Mike Holmes]

If a player wants to, he can "split" the ability away from the keyword, usually paying a hero point for it, and make it independent for augmenting purposes. This is of course only sensible for central abilities you plan to raise above the keyword value.

Yep, that's all very much drift. For one HP, according to the rules, you don't just "split" the ability, you actually raise it up by one from the Keyword level. Simply listing an ability that should be in the keyword is free.

I mean, I understand that you don't feel a need to list separate abilities for the keywords that people come up with, but do you actually prevent players from listing the abilities that come with stock keywords? That's very counter to the rules. When a player takes a keyword, normally they list all of the associated abilities (see every example character on the web site, for instance), and, again, are free to add any abilities that they can argue in for free.

The above was largely because I couldn't see any sense in allowing augments from keyword abilities. I don't see any limits in the game for drawing new abilities from keywords, so allowing several augments from one keyword would essentially mean taking the ability as high as the player cared to raise it through trivial augments, wouldn't it? I wanted to handle abilities that are on the sheet and ones that are in the keyword only implicitly in the same way.

Now you see the "problem." This is how the game plays, rules as written. That is, in theory, you can, in fact, add as many abilities to a keyword as you like whenever you like. Rather, you simply list the abilities that were "always there" but previously not listed (or even thought of). So, yeah, you can, in fact, in theory, add an infinite amount of abilities to a character to pump up a roll.

That's what this thread is all about. How do you limit that? First, there's the question of ability scope. HQ does have a scope range to abilities. They can't be too narrow, or too broad. It's a pretty wide range, actually, but it exists. "Start Fire With Flint And Tinder That Mom Gave Me On Dry Days" is simply too narrow. "Make Anything" is too broad. The range sits somewhere in between. So you can't just subdivide abilities to make more augments. They have to be reasonably sized.

And, then, the main point so far, the abilities listed have to make sense inside the keyword in some way. Such that the keyword is not itself too broad, and that the keyword has some definitive meaning that isn't being ignored in the process of adding abilities.

Practically speaking, I've never seen any player add any ability to augment in a contests. I have seen them add abilities to be the primary ability in a contest - in which case the keyword itself may have sufficed. The point being that nobody is trying to "game" the mechanism. But what they may be doing is adding abilities for free that perhaps they should pay for.

If you're playing it so that any ability written down can be used to augment,

To reiterate, this is the rule from the book. Your restrictions are completely ones that you've made up. Further, I think that the game plays better my way. Yes, it introduces this theoretical problem (which, as I've said, really hasn't been all that problematic). But it has strong advantages as well, IMO. That is, instead of simply pointing out in a contest that the character is a warrior, and that helps, you can see just how much being a warrior helps in a particular contest. That is, you'll get more support in one contest than in another, as more augments apply. So instead of "warrior" being a binary thing, there's a range of feedback that it produces.

Which also leads to better inspiration in narration, and a host of other beneficial effects.

Couldn't players just define zillions of abilities in that case, stuff like "Hit with the sword", "Battle trolls", "Use helmet", "Combat footwork" and so on ad infinitum? (Those are examples for a "Warrior" or similar, but almost any keyword allows infinite abilities, it seems to me.) Or don't you allow adding abilities at all without hero point expenditure or something, apart from those examples in the book? Even when they're clearly within the purview of the keyword? I'm getting confused.

Again, yes, this is the theoretical problem. In practice it doesn't happen at all - in part because, having the example abilities the idea of adding a new ability is just the idea of the keyword as the safety net. That is, you only add an ability when it occurs to you that the abilities listed really don't cover some important aspect of the occupation or homeland or whatever that's presented. That is, you don't add them to add effectiveness, you add abilites for completeness.

The real problem is that some players try to make their keywords more "complete" than others do. Basically looking to put abilities on the character, and not have to pay HP for them. Again, not a gamism process, more like:

1) Character should have X ability, the player feels.
2) The player can pay an HP for the ability, or they can argue the ability belongs to a keyword.
3) They try to get it in under the keyword to avoid paying the point, and because it's fun to expand your character's background in this way - instead of being a "random" ability, one can see where it comes from more easily (and automatically).

As for the judgement call of what belongs in an ability and what doesn't... actually, that's a very general theory topic, it seems to me. How do roleplayers make these applicability decisions?

Yes, it is a question that can be applied to a lot of gaming. But in this case, with HQ and how it's set up, there are a few notions that apply to it that are specific to it. For example, the idea that a keyword is descriptive of everyone who would be termed that occupation, or from that homeland, etc. If you take it that way, there is a very specific local criteria for whether or not an ability should be used.

For example, take the keyword Scholar, and the ability Research (per my real example above). If you use this model, what you do as a test is to say, "does every scholar in the world know how to do research?" Or, you can use the cultural specific keyword ideal - "does every Scholar in this culture know how to do research?" If the answer is no, the player doesn't get the ability without spending a HP to start it, not at keyword +1, but at 13. Huge difference.

I like this model, actually, because of the relative ease with which the decision can be made. And, in addition, because you say something definitive about the world with each such decision. The downside to the method is that it stifles creativity, and is really to some extent disallowing the player from making a custom keyword.

They're both properly about resource valuation, and I don't think any game gives proper advice about doing it. They just assume you know how to do it.

I agree that this is the case. But I don't think that means we can't analyze it.

Just almost the only way to do it, actually, because most rpgs include this feedback thing between the SIS and the mechanics. If we could decide whether an ability belongs in a keyword without making these judgement calls about the SIS, then the keyword would have hardly anything to do with the SIS, would it?

I don't understand this part at all. I'm not saying at all that we don't have to make judgment calls about the SIS. In fact, what I'm asking is about methods by which people go about making judgment calls about the SIS. I've already given two examples of how this can be done. At least I'm making progress despite your naysaying that it can't be done.

Thinking about it that way, isn't what you're asking just a question about "how do I explore the SIS"? You're asking how to determine whether the Orlanthi lumberjack knows about herbs, right? How is this different from the generic exploration question?

Uh, well, it's a specific application of "how to explore" pertaining to one specific part of one specific game. I don't need generalities, I need specifics.

Hmm... one interesting method of taking the decision out of the imaginary and into the mechanics would be to make the player roll for it when he wants to add an ability:
1) The player makes his case for including the ability
2) The GM determines the opposing difficulty by (number of keyword abilities)x5
3) The player rolls against the difficulty with his keyword value
4) The degree of success determines how it is; perhaps the character can get an ability in the whereabouts of what the player asked, or he needs to learn the knack of it from somewhere, or it's just utterly outside the keyword. Or perhaps it's a complete success, and he gets the ability +5.

Interesting. I'm always a fan of mechanical limitations. In fact, I often do think about putting on the same limit that you mention - one HP to "separate" an ability from the rest of them. That's very balancing, and puts the metagame requirements for justification on the player. The above method would make it a gamble, especially if a bad roll meant that the area in question was really a deficiency for he character who was being rolled for.

Note that to make it work with the rules as written, with all of the stock abilities listed, I think you'd have to tone down the difficulty to Abilities x2. Given that players will start with more than ten abilities from any keyword. And/or you could allow players to take only those abilities from the proffered list that they were most interested in, making the difficulty of adding more later lower.

Mike

[Christopher Weeks]

For example, take the keyword Scholar, and the ability Research (per my real example above). If you use this model, what you do as a test is to say, "does every scholar in the world know how to do research?" Or, you can use the cultural specific keyword ideal - "does every Scholar in this culture know how to do research?"

Mike, I'm not sure I have anything particularly valuable to contribute, but I have a question.  The bit above jarred me a little because I'd been assuming that the character had abilities from the union of the two (or more) keywords, but you suggest the intersection as one possible test criterion.  If you're using an intersection model, what does that imply about characters with more than normal keywords?  Which ones intersect?  Etc.  Finally, what criteria do you use when one of your players proposes to add one?

[Mike Holmes]

I think that the intersection method has a lot of "realism" behind it. As such, I think when using it, you use everything all at once in terms of what you know in-game. So, IOW, all keywords "intersect" with all of the others. So, for example, if there was some reason why your species keyword would make you a different sort of hunter, well, that should be considered.

Mike

[Eero Tuovinen]

I mean, I understand that you don't feel a need to list separate abilities for the keywords that people come up with, but do you actually prevent players from listing the abilities that come with stock keywords? That's very counter to the rules. When a player takes a keyword, normally they list all of the associated abilities (see every example character on the web site, for instance), and, again, are free to add any abilities that they can argue in for free.

No, I allow players to list any ability that belongs to the keyword under that keyword. That "splitting" cost is just for abilities for which you want to say "this is an important ability, not just part of the keyword package". This is important, because I disallow augmenting multiple times from abilities under the same keyword, as I explained. So an ability in my variant can be
1) Just claimed under a keyword, in which case it has the keyword value. This has no other significance than indicating for future use that this keyword really does cover this ability. This includes all example abilities of a keyword, as well as anything a player cares to list, as long as it's reasonable.
2) Claimed under a keyword and raised with hero points. The ability works just normally, except you can't augment it with other abilities that are in the same keyword. This is the first case, except that players only raise abilities they care about specifically. The ability is still under the keyword, and if the keyword is raised, the ability raises, too.
3) Splitted away from a keyword, or bought outside any keywords to begin with. These are the "unique" abilities of this particular character, and can be anything despite keyword limitations. They can also augment and be augmented freely, as long as there's only one ability from one keyword doing the augmenting.

Yes, I realize that it's not the way the rules do it (although I'm surprised that they really allow multiple augments from under the same keyword without indicating any way to limit it). My "fix" is there just to make the resources-popping-out-of-thin-air problem away. If you allow augmenting with abilities that cost nothing, then those abilities equate to extra resources for nothing, which tends to break games.

And remember, I don't fiddle these rules for fun. Mainly it's just that I read the rules last in the fall, and started the game just from what I remember. Apparently I remember the great majority of rules, as the game works, but some stuff I've figured out differently. So this has nothing to do with critiquing the actual rules, these differences are just my random (insofar as fixes made by a designer in his own right are random) patches for places where I see a problem and don't remember how the rules are supposed to go.

Now you see the "problem." This is how the game plays, rules as written. That is, in theory, you can, in fact, add as many abilities to a keyword as you like whenever you like. Rather, you simply list the abilities that were "always there" but previously not listed (or even thought of). So, yeah, you can, in fact, in theory, add an infinite amount of abilities to a character to pump up a roll.

Yes, now I understand why you'd like to have some hard rules for it. Well, the original question was how we handle it, and my answer seems to be "with extreme rules variants". Seems the most sensible, even if I stumbled on it by accident.

But is there any other ways people handle this? After reading too much of the original Issaries material I'm starting to get the feeling that the design team actually handles the matter by arbitrary GM fiat. That's how many, many things in their material is handled.

That's what this thread is all about. How do you limit that? First, there's the question of ability scope. HQ does have a scope range to abilities. They can't be too narrow, or too broad. It's a pretty wide range, actually, but it exists. "Start Fire With Flint And Tinder That Mom Gave Me On Dry Days" is simply too narrow. "Make Anything" is too broad. The range sits somewhere in between. So you can't just subdivide abilities to make more augments. They have to be reasonably sized.

Reasonable sized, but how about overlapping? If overlapping is allowed, it's still trivial to figure out enough abilities for anything, as long as the setting is detailed enough to support different focuses. Like that fighting example, where you can have separate abilities for particular foes, terrain, weapons, opponent's weapons, other gear, weather, formation, martial school, your own emotional state, your opponent's emotional state, special attack and defence techniques, blocking, dodging, grappling and so on... at least in a simple contest you're going to get to use one from each category most of the time, and most of those are valid for each roll of an extended contest, as well. What's worse, each of those abilities is perfectly valid in itself. There's nothing wrong in "Fighting against dragonewts", "Fighting with a sword", "Parrying monster attacks" and whatever other abilities a warrior cares to invent. The problem only comes up because the abilities can augment one another nilly-willy.

I don't know for sure, but it certainly looks like we're well on our way to deconstructing the whole idea of a reasonable keyword. The system certainly seems to require some resource-based limitation on either
a) augmenting with abilities, like I do
b) creating those abilities in the first place, which seems to be what you'd like

Anyway, of course it's not a problem in actual play. But that kind of laxness would bother me in principle, because allowing fishing for augments favors players who focus on finding new abilities. I don't think that a character with lots of abilities listed under a keyword is necessarily any better than one with few as far as the fun of the game is concerned, so it seems strange that the rules reward listing abilities. In practice I imagine the difference wouldn't rise to more than a +5 or so per contest before the other players got bored with the game slowing down and curbed the behavior, but still... it's a beauty flaw in a system that's been for a while the benchmark for generic, setting based conflict resolution.

If you're playing it so that any ability written down can be used to augment,

To reiterate, this is the rule from the book. Your restrictions are completely ones that you've made up. Further, I think that the game plays better my way. Yes, it introduces this theoretical problem (which, as I've said, really hasn't been all that problematic). But it has strong advantages as well, IMO. That is, instead of simply pointing out in a contest that the character is a warrior, and that helps, you can see just how much being a warrior helps in a particular contest. That is, you'll get more support in one contest than in another, as more augments apply. So instead of "warrior" being a binary thing, there's a range of feedback that it produces.

Yeah, but my system does the same on a personal level. Being a warrior always helps just as much, but some people, in addition to being warriors, have a bunch of "individual" abilities outside the keyword, which are still available for augmenting. So the degree of available augments is largely about the degree of commitment you the character have towards the keyword: are you just a warrior because that's your job, or do you have some warrior-like abilities outside the keyword, too? Is there personal passion in it? Do you even have the keyword, or do you just fulfill that role through your piecemeal abilities?

Well, at least it makes sense to me.

The real problem is that some players try to make their keywords more "complete" than others do.

Yes, this is clearly the crux of the problem.

For example, take the keyword Scholar, and the ability Research (per my real example above). If you use this model, what you do as a test is to say, "does every scholar in the world know how to do research?" Or, you can use the cultural specific keyword ideal - "does every Scholar in this culture know how to do research?" If the answer is no, the player doesn't get the ability without spending a HP to start it, not at keyword +1, but at 13. Huge difference.

Yep, and this is exactly what I mean by the matter being "too simple to analyze". I mean, what is the procedure for knowing whether Orlanthi, say, have researching scholars? As I see it, the process is general to all exploratory roleplaying:
1) Find out who has the credibility on the matter. Is it a sourcebook, a person, Greg Stafford or what? Ideally, this has been solved before the game starts, or the rules solve it. In the case of HQ outside Glorantha it's apparently Ralph's Keyword fairy who has the credibility. Inside Glorantha it usually seems to be a series of sourcebooks with Greg Stafford as the top man that resolves any tiebreakers. Unless the group's playing by YGMV and "your" in that guideline is not the GM, in which case go to step three.
2) Ask that credibility-guy how the matter is.
3) If no answer is forthcoming, either accept that it's a toss-up, or devolve into a hard core simulationistic argument.

This is about all that I can say, if the decision is really to be based in the SIS. As the imagined world doesn't exist, it's a tad difficult to ascertain whether all Orlanthi scholars can research, or if it's just a peculiar area of expertise for this particular one.

Be that as it may, I'm not really convinced that the "explore the setting" solution works for many Forgequest games, especially outside Glorantha. It seems to me that you could as well play it the other way around - first decide by a coin-toss whether the ability belongs to the keyword, and if it does, then retrofit the world so that it's always been this way. This is essentially how we play, and it's not been a problem, because we don't add anything too surprising into keywords. No Myth all the way.

Just almost the only way to do it, actually, because most rpgs include this feedback thing between the SIS and the mechanics. If we could decide whether an ability belongs in a keyword without making these judgement calls about the SIS, then the keyword would have hardly anything to do with the SIS, would it?

I don't understand this part at all. I'm not saying at all that we don't have to make judgment calls about the SIS. In fact, what I'm asking is about methods by which people go about making judgment calls about the SIS. I've already given two examples of how this can be done. At least I'm making progress despite your naysaying that it can't be done.

Hey, if there's progress, then it's good, right? And I'm not naysaying, I'm just not understanding what you're doing. I'm slowly starting to understand, though. You're looking for a method that doesn't break the rules as written any more than absolutely necessary, and that brings the decision-making process out from behind the GM's screen and into the open, right? You want something that doesn't seem too arbitrary, but is also according to rules. Which is a problem as the rules currently stand, because as far as I can see, they're very traditional about this matter: it's the GM's job to decide what the keywords mean, and that's that. Purely arbitrary, with the assumption that the GM holds onto the setting as a guideline.

How about this one: when a player makes an ability claim, he's given five minutes to dig up a source reference from the setting book that proves that this ability indeed is common to the keyword. For this he needs either three exceptional example individuals who share the keyword and the ability, or one run-of-the-mill individual, who has it. So if the book says that "Normal peasants in Fantasyland X tend to hunt with bows", then it's a proof. Or if the book says that "Orlantho the hero peasant was good with the bow... Dalathia the peasant sorcerer also used a bow... Makros the villainous peasant drew his bow..." then it's also proven.

Thinking about it that way, isn't what you're asking just a question about "how do I explore the SIS"? You're asking how to determine whether the Orlanthi lumberjack knows about herbs, right? How is this different from the generic exploration question?

Uh, well, it's a specific application of "how to explore" pertaining to one specific part of one specific game. I don't need generalities, I need specifics.

Granted, it can be a valid question, but only if there's some hooks in the rules to hang a system on. I think we've pretty much covered the hooks:
1) the keywords represent SIS concepts that exist objectively in the world
2) the keywords are a part of the player resources
That's not very much to base a decision on, is it? It seems to me that even the Keyword fairy fulfills both those priorities ;)

So yeah, houseruling it seems the best bet to get a tight, Forgey game experience with a minimum of bother. The ability spawning is like a leaking hole in the boat that is the HQ resource management system, and it just makes sense to plug the hole rather than learning to sail a boat full of water.

[Mike Holmes]

If you allow augmenting with abilities that cost nothing, then those abilities equate to extra resources for nothing, which tends to break games.

Well, it doesn't break the game. Because what it's more akin to is the breadth of an ability. Which you point out is common to all RPGs, really.

Yes, now I understand why you'd like to have some hard rules for it. Well, the original question was how we handle it, and my answer seems to be "with extreme rules variants". Seems the most sensible, even if I stumbled on it by accident.

But I don't like your solution at all. Rather, I like the rules as written here and don't want to change them. The thread is not about how to change the rules, it's about how to play well using the rules as written.

But is there any other ways people handle this? After reading too much of the original Issaries material I'm starting to get the feeling that the design team actually handles the matter by arbitrary GM fiat. That's how many, many things in their material is handled.

Well, that's explicitly the rule. That is, the rule says that a keyword contains all abilities that it should contain. And it's up to the GM to decide what that means. Actually, there is no provision, explicitly, for the player to argue in abilities. Just the implication that, since not all of the abilities are listed, that a player should probably prompt the GM to make such a decision if they discover a gap in the list.

Reasonable sized, but how about overlapping? If overlapping is allowed, it's still trivial to figure out enough abilities for anything, as long as the setting is detailed enough to support different focuses.

I believe that the examples are meant to indicate that abilities should not, in fact, overlap to any significant extent. I don't allow them to, in any case.

Like that fighting example, where you can have separate abilities for particular foes, terrain, weapons, opponent's weapons, other gear, weather, formation, martial school,

Uh, no. Again, most of these are too small.

your own emotional state,

This and gear are covered by situational bonuses. Not by abilities.

at least in a simple contest you're going to get to use one from each category most of the time, and most of those are valid for each roll of an extended contest, as well.

Well, yeah. If a roll doesn't include at least four augments, I wonder if it should have been made at all. See, to me, more augments is a good thing, not a bad thing. Few augments is a bad thing.

What's worse, each of those abilities is perfectly valid in itself. There's nothing wrong in "Fighting against dragonewts", "Fighting with a sword", "Parrying monster attacks"

See, these are precisely what I would dissallow. For example, using the "everyone with the keyword has them" rule, it's easy to see that not everyone has experience fighting dragonewts. So you don't get the ability in the keyword. "Fighting with a Sword" is, in fact, usually included in the normal list as Swordfighting. No, you can't take both "Melee Combat - Sword" and "Fighting with a Sword." They're the same thing.

I don't know for sure, but it certainly looks like we're well on our way to deconstructing the whole idea of a reasonable keyword. The system certainly seems to require some resource-based limitation on either
a) augmenting with abilities, like I do
b) creating those abilities in the first place, which seems to be what you'd like

Well, no. Again that would be changing the rules. I'm looking for a good GM process for making good decisions on what to include and what not to include. Decision-making principles.

I agree that a mechanical solution might be easier. But I already have that solution (like I said, I "invented" the one HP per extra ablity under a keyword long ago) and it's not what I'm looking for.

I don't think that a character with lots of abilities listed under a keyword is necessarily any better than one with few as far as the fun of the game is concerned, so it seems strange that the rules reward listing abilities. In practice I imagine the difference wouldn't rise to more than a +5 or so per contest before the other players got bored with the game slowing down and curbed the behavior, but still... it's a beauty flaw in a system that's been for a while the benchmark for generic, setting based conflict resolution.

You're missing the point. HQ does not promote powergaming. Or any sort of gamism. You said it earlier - there really is no need for power balance in the game. Since there is no "reward" for doing better in a conflict, there's no reason to create more abilities. And so players don't do this just in order to win contests. It's just not something that should concern us.

HP are, however, a reward. So players do hoard them. So, when it seems that the character should have a particular ability, they look to pay the smallest cost associated. This happens to be free, if they can "discover" that it should be in a keyword. So that's when they tack them on. Again, never seen it happen in a contest, not even once.

Yeah, but my system does the same on a personal level. Being a warrior always helps just as much, but some people, in addition to being warriors, have a bunch of "individual" abilities outside the keyword, which are still available for augmenting. So the degree of available augments is largely about the degree of commitment you the character have towards the keyword: are you just a warrior because that's your job, or do you have some warrior-like abilities outside the keyword, too? Is there personal passion in it? Do you even have the keyword, or do you just fulfill that role through your piecemeal abilities?

Well, at least it makes sense to me.

It's not insensible, or broken. Just less effective. Let me ask you a question. Are you one of those people who, using the HQ rules, raises the "individual" abilities up to 17, or goes even further and drops the keywords to 13 as well?

HQ is "setting based" IMO, because it forces you to find out where your character's effectiveness comes from, not from where he's unique, but from where he's just like everyone else - a part of the setting. No, player should not be allowed to ignore this and select a set of abilities that are all outside of keywords, relegating keywords to "just one more augment." It's very much what HQ is about that perhaps three or four of your automatically available warrior abilities augment in a certain situation. In this way we learn what the setting is about, and how your character relates to that.

I'm not against individuality - but individuality only means something in the context of the potential for conformity. It's not about how much you like being a warrior - it's about that you're a warrior, whether you like it or not. That there are some things about life that you don't control like who you are because of where you come from.

Now, I do like to allow players to actually control this by being able to build the keywords. So this is why I'm not fully on board with the "Everyone has it" keyword limits.

This is about all that I can say, if the decision is really to be based in the SIS. As the imagined world doesn't exist, it's a tad difficult to ascertain whether all Orlanthi scholars can research, or if it's just a peculiar area of expertise for this particular one.

I totally disagree. We decide things like this all the time. As you say, it's all of exploration. If you're saying that there's no "hard" answer most times, well, Eero, I'm not stupid. But that doesn't mean that we can't make credible and entertaining arguments about it. Or even just apply an aesthetic.

I mean Orlanthi Scholars doing research? C'mon, no way. Totally contraindicated by everything we know about them. Would ruin the whole idea. At least that's what I'd argue.

Note that I don't play in Glorantha, so I don't have to worry about a credibility guy. I just go off the aesthetics of the few texts that I have for the world in question. But I think it's amazing how much one can extrapolate from little information.

Because it's not about being "right" here. It's about producing the most entertaining decisions. I think that players want these limits, because, they, too, sense that without them, the system isn't doing anything here. So it's not a question of whether or not it's a good idea to have them, merely how to make the best decisions possible.

In any case, again, I have shown methodology, despite your insistence that there's nothing to say. So...

Be that as it may, I'm not really convinced that the "explore the setting" solution works for many Forgequest games, especially outside Glorantha.

Well, you obviously haven't played in my game.

It seems to me that you could as well play it the other way around - first decide by a coin-toss whether the ability belongs to the keyword, and if it does, then retrofit the world so that it's always been this way. This is essentially how we play, and it's not been a problem, because we don't add anything too surprising into keywords. No Myth all the way.

Nothing wrong with that. Sounds fun. To a large extent, when a player makes up a keyword in my game, it does "define" what the keyword is about. And, yes, sans loads of information about the keyword in question, sometimes "does everyone have it" produces little feedback. This is, in fact, another flaw with that methodology. Which is another reason why I don't settle for it, and am still looking for other limiters.

You're looking for a method that doesn't break the rules as written any more than absolutely necessary, and that brings the decision-making process out from behind the GM's screen and into the open, right? You want something that doesn't seem too arbitrary, but is also according to rules. Which is a problem as the rules currently stand, because as far as I can see, they're very traditional about this matter: it's the GM's job to decide what the keywords mean, and that's that. Purely arbitrary, with the assumption that the GM holds onto the setting as a guideline.

No, I actually like acting ex-cathedra on these matters. I like telling players, "No, that conflicts with the canon, pick something else." Or the like. Which doesn't mean that I'm out to squash player ingenuity or creativity - I say yes, far more often than I say no. It's just that I have no problems at all being the guy where the buck stops. It's my overall vision of the world that keeps it coherently entertaining, IMO.

I do agree that it would be good, however, to reveal the process to the players. Because then they'll have a good idea of what my judgment will be, and, hence by default for playing with me, what Keyword means for purposes of play. If they know what I'll allow, they'll know better what to ask for, and what not to ask for.

How about this one: when a player makes an ability claim, he's given five minutes to dig up a source reference from the setting book that proves that this ability indeed is common to the keyword. For this he needs either three exceptional example individuals who share the keyword and the ability, or one run-of-the-mill individual, who has it. So if the book says that "Normal peasants in Fantasyland X tend to hunt with bows", then it's a proof. Or if the book says that "Orlantho the hero peasant was good with the bow... Dalathia the peasant sorcerer also used a bow... Makros the villainous peasant drew his bow..." then it's also proven.

Might work for Glorantha. But not for my setting. There's far too little information out there, and, get this, I hide most of it from the players. Basically I work to keep player and character information somewhat equal. Actually in some ways it's a combination of laziness, and the notion that if I tell people stuff that their characters don't know that they'll go off on all sorts of tangents with it.

I specifically don't play in Glorantha, because there's too much information about it available. I don't want to be responsible for sorting through that much canon.

No, in my game, the arguments that players make are more aesthetic overall. Kaitaine is a big city with a relatively high tech level, so, "of course scholars there know how to research." That's the sort of argument that we make. Note that this is actually the argument I made on the player's behalf. It's not an adversarial process, it's an enabling one. Heck, sometimes I'll create or change canon on the spot just to allow something that seems cool.

But, again, this is part of the problem. If I always say yes, and always bend everything to fit, then where does it end? Do keywords mean anything? Well, that's an exaggeration, players always do make reasonable arguments, so keywords at least mean something in that light. But can we make them mean more by having better criteria?  

Granted, it can be a valid question, but only if there's some hooks in the rules to hang a system on. I think we've pretty much covered the hooks:
1) the keywords represent SIS concepts that exist objectively in the world
2) the keywords are a part of the player resources
That's not very much to base a decision on, is it? It seems to me that even the Keyword fairy fulfills both those priorities ;)

Don't know what the Keyword Fairy is. Are you saying that, since the world doesn't exist, we should just "make it up?" Again, that's like saying to make a cake, you should bake it. Yes, that's true, but it doesn't tell me how to make the cake, much less how to make a good one.

So yeah, houseruling it seems the best bet to get a tight, Forgey game experience with a minimum of bother.

And whatthehell is with this "Forgey" stuff. You're going to make us pariahs if you keep that up. I categorically deny that there is any such thing, and if there is, then I'm not a part of it in any way. I play like I like to play. End of story.

Mike

[Eero Tuovinen]

Calm down, Mike. I understand that this is important for you, but for me it's so far out in the wankeryland that I can only just follow what we're talking about. It's like this:
Mike: You know, I've been wondering, how do you guys roll dice?
Me: Well, we take them and toss them.
Mike: Yeah, but how do you do that? I'm looking for a system, here.
Me: I don't think there can be such a system, or at least it'd be a very deep question of physical mechanics. Therefore I think it's best just to toss them, which is pretty instinctive, after all.
Mike: That doesn't help me at all, and I'm quite nicely on my way to building such a system, thank you.
The point being, I'm not difficult or contrary because I want to be. So therefore there's little reason to get angry.

(And let's clear that "Forgey" thing while we're at it: I have many words I could use to describe certain qualities of game, but not nearly all of them are in common use. If I don't want to make this a discussion of what I mean by a "formalistic zero-sum system", I have to use words where you can guess the meaning. And I think you know quite fine which qualities of the HQ design are "Forgey" and which are not. Or you can guess from the context. In no case has it anything to do with the cultural politics of Forge being/not being a cabal, or whatever that reaction was about.)

Anyway, with that out of the way, let's go back and see if there's any progress to be made:

You said at the start of your last post that adding abilities to keywords is more about breadth of the keyword than resource gain. I agree that this is the case in actual play. But that's also why this is mainly a theoretical problem, because in actual play you can always fix the hitches of the system with a little bit of customizing. Like this:
Mike: You know, player-with-bloated-keyword, that "Hunter" keyword looks mightly bloated. What say you that we rename it as "Ranger", as that's obviously what you're visualizing there. We can also make those craft abilities independent while we're at it, so the keyword becomes again nice and trim.
player-with-bloated-keyword: Sure Mike, that sounds sensible! Good eyes, I didn't notice myself that a Ranger was what I wanted to play all along.
This is of course not helpful in finding a methodology, but that's the point; we're talking about a theoretical problem, not a practical one. And as far as theory goes, getting new abilities for free seems to be what this is about. My solution was to handle the keywords exactly like Ben Lehman handles character themes in Polaris, now that I think of it: I forced the rules to ensure that adding abilities affects only the breadth of the keyword, and not it's power.

But, to tell the truth, that part of the discussion has nothing to do with your original goals, am I right? So let's stop fiddling with how I play the game. We're looking for GM tools to use in evaluating keywords, yes? This is such a... deep topic, it's really difficult to say anything. The rules seem to agree with me that it's so self-evident that nothing can be said. Let's try, despite that.

As a sidenote, here's the real topic of the thread laid out clearly. If anybody is still reading, feel free to help us out:

Well, no. Again that would be changing the rules. I'm looking for a good GM process for making good decisions on what to include and what not to include. Decision-making principles.

I agree that a mechanical solution might be easier. But I already have that solution (like I said, I "invented" the one HP per extra ablity under a keyword long ago) and it's not what I'm looking for.

So that's what we're looking for here. Thanks, Mike, for helping me understand what the heck you're talking about. Here's another good point from the last post:

HP are, however, a reward. So players do hoard them. So, when it seems that the character should have a particular ability, they look to pay the smallest cost associated. This happens to be free, if they can "discover" that it should be in a keyword. So that's when they tack them on. Again, never seen it happen in a contest, not even once.

Here Mike's articulating the reason for his worry. I remember him saying it before, but apparently I still wasn't on the same wavelength at that point, because I didn't understand his problem. Let me reiterate in my own words to make sure I get it:

We want a tool of decisionmaking the GM can use to ascertain that his decision about an ability vs. a keyword is a good one. "Good" is apparently still in the air (am I right, Mike?), because it might hinge on the setting, character background, keyword bloat or something else. With such a tool we could be more certain as GMs that our decisions are correct ones.

--

Let me think....

think...

thinkery think...

--

Here's something that I believe to be withing the rules (because the GM has the sole authority as regards keywords, so he can enforce this), preventing keyword bloat, and still based solely on the SIS. Halleluja!

It goes like this: each keyword has a description, right? Amend those descriptions to conform with the chargen description rules: make sure that each description mentions all the abilities that the keyword bestows. So, like, if a warrior keyword had the ability "Impatient", the keyword description would say something like "Also, the honed instincts of the warrior make him very Impatient." Then warriors would also get "Honed Instincts", of course. Make sure that the description is at most 100 words long, if you want to. I wouldn't, although I'd figure out some other limits.

Then, when a player wants to add an ability, here's a simple, pretty strong method for finding out whether the ability really belongs to the keyword: the player has to recraft the keyword description to include the ability in question, in a way that keeps the description consistent language-wise and in accordance with the SIS. If he can do it, he gets the ability in the keyword, but if he cannot, then he won't.

How about that, I think it's very powerful. Although one might at times get slightly confused about Carpenters having a dancing skill, it's really easy to spot that kind of thing when it's embedded in a narrative: "When they aren't sawing and hammering, carpenters tend to dance the night away." WTF!?! goes the GM, and denies carpenters a dancing skill. Or, if he's unsure, he can take the whole description and answer the question of whether the reworked narrative still is in accordance with the SIS. If it is, then the GM should have nothing to complain about. If the GM cannot say, when the narrative is likely several paragraphs, I'd say he has a problem.

The theory here is that all abilities are connected with each other in each keyword by the virtue of belonging to the same concept. Thus it should be possible to narrate a logical description that mentions all those abilities in the places where they belong. The added benefit is that the GM can monitor very concretely how the conseptions about the different keywords drift or don't drift, by simply comparing earlier descriptions with later ones. Description length also becomes a good metering tool when considering important and not so important keywords.

Am I being helpful at all, or should we stop here?

[Mike Holmes]

Eero, I'm starting to think that you're here treating me like a charity case. I mean, if you find the topic "wankery" then why are you bothering with it at all?

Mike: I want to talk about how to decide what can be added to keywords.
Eero: Well, whatever, it's too simple to discuss.
Mike: Well, I'd like to try anyhow.
Eero: But, well, you shouldn't bother. Because there's nothing important here.

Basically you've been telling me that I shouldn't have bothered to start the thread at all. Well, that's just not very helpful.

But, hey, you're still trying, so, I'll still try, too.

The theory here is that all abilities are connected with each other in each keyword by the virtue of belonging to the same concept. Thus it should be possible to narrate a logical description that mentions all those abilities in the places where they belong. The added benefit is that the GM can monitor very concretely how the conseptions about the different keywords drift or don't drift, by simply comparing earlier descriptions with later ones.

I think that's a good method. Actually, if I required that players put in such narrative for the keywords, I could basically get them to write my world. Check out this Keyword here: http://random.average-bear.com/ShadowWorld/Amoatul

Very lilttle to start, and the player could add to it. Then, once they've gotten the narrative a ways, the criteria is if it sorta "flows" with what already exists?

Might work. OTOH, maybe a tad to artsy for me. That is, I'm not sure that I'm any judge of whether the narrative carries any good feel to it at all. Whereas I do have strong feelings about whether or not an ability makes sense in some cases.

Am I being helpful at all, or should we stop here?

Please do continue if you have something to add like the above. Also, if anyone else wants to jum in here, please do. I'd like to get some more perspectives.

Mike

[Paul Albertella]

Also, if anyone else wants to jump in here, please do. I'd like to get some more perspectives.
Mike

OK then :-)

Going back to your original question:

The question for the thread is how lenient are you in allowing abilities to be argued in to keywords? The sample abilities both help and hinder in this process. That is, they tend to give an idea of the scope of the keyword, but they are neccessarily not all of the abilities (or the principle here is defunct). So it's always a question of what other abilities the keyword might include. Mike

If you're using narrative method of character generation (which I love), then players can be allowed to add extra, personalised abilities to keywords, especially their Occupation keyword. Basically, they argue the case for e.g. Long Voyages from their narrative being a part of their Sailor keyword, and if successful they get that ability startin at 17 instead of 13. The case for adding subsequently acquired abilities to a keyword can be a little trickier, but I still think that it makes sense.

I'm also inclined to be failrly lenient with combo keywords, permitting e.g. a blending of two Homeland keywords for a character origimnating in one place but growing up in another. Again this makes most sense for Occupations: if a character's actual profession doesn't fit into one of the standard ones, I'm happy to collaborate with them to create a bended keyword that fits the bill.

To summarise my perspective: you can't just arbitrarily add abilities to a keyword "by arguing them in", but you can buy them (or define them in your narrative) and then argue them in - all at the narrators discretion, of course.

So... did I just restate the bleedin' obvious? ;-)