The Solar System discussion

[NickHollingsworth]

How about: Proficient, Competent, Capable or Experienced

Failing that: Able, Skilled, Accomplished, Adept, Good, Great, Practiced, Skillful, Versed, Adroit, Deft, Handy, Polished, Effective, Rounded or Adequate

Cheers

[Andrew Morris]

You gurdurn semantic wugnuts, you know what I meant. You are someone's apprentice. You're never someone's journeyman. That's the point of being a journeyman - it signifies you're qualified to do a task alone.

No, no. That's not it. In fact, yes, you are (usually) someone's (or some organization's) journeyman. "Apprentice" and "journeyman" both are part of the trade skills rank progression. First, you are an apprentice (usually in some form of service to a master and directed by a journeyman or master). Then, when you get the basics down, you become a journeyman and work directly for a master. Then, once you complete your master's work, you become a master yourself. It's all part of the same progression, and it's still in use in some trades today (like carpentry). The thing is, we like to muck up our language, so both apprentice and journeyman have come to have additional definitions tacked on.

[James_Nostack]

For whatever it's worth, Capable is good.  Better than a novice, not quite a journeyman type.

Incidentally the trade skills progression is a good touch for a fantasy game, so I suggest Apprentice instead of Novice, to keep the metaphor going.  So I'd suggest Apprentice, Capable (which doesn't fit, but... eh!), Journeyman, Master, Grand Master.

[First Age]

Incidentally the trade skills progression is a good touch for a fantasy game, so I suggest Apprentice instead of Novice, to keep the metaphor going.

Agreed, that was very much my thought on suggesting it - it fits the rest of the scale.

I guess you could have a lot of different names for the scales depending n the genre you were playing.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Here's what's going on with "The Solar System." I thought you guys might want to know.

The system - the first half of TSOY - has been completely re-written. It might be able to use a bit more stuff, which I'm going to try to fit in there, but it's already more than the original, and much more clearly written. No one will be happy with the ability rank names. (Seriously, people, Near isn't the sort of place where you do a lot of apprenticeships. I didn't get the sort of guild-esque language that kept getting thrown around. Anyway, I ended up with Novice, Competent, Journeyman, Master, Grand Master. Competent was the adjective that sounded most like it should be a noun; i.e. "Pete is a competent." Maybe "competente?" Anyway, that's what I ended up with.)

At GenCon this year, I will have a limited number of copies of a new TSOY. I will also have a little supplement for the original that clarifies the rules and makes the games match. If you've looked, you've noticed that the two rules systems' biggest difference is the dice roll, but otherwise, they work together just fine. So, basically, TSOY is splitting into two versions of itself. Which is an interesting business decision - we'll see if it works. I will not, however, ever reprint the original. There's 70 existing unsold copies, so after they're gone, that's that. I'm updating the old one just because I know some people's violent reactions to Fudge dice.

Oh, and wait until you see the new cover. The uncolored drawing I got today was jaw-droppingly cool. Just as my little game's growing up, so are our iconic characters, Violet and Oliphant.

[Darren Hill]

Then today I took a look at the numbers and realized that in resisted ability checks where the abilities involved differ by one (neophyte vs. greenhorn, for instance) the chance of a tie is around 50% (actually 56% if no modifier dice are used).
<snip>
Looking further, it seems this is the worst case scenario. If ability levels are equivalent the tie chance is around 10% and if they differ by two (say, neophyte vs. journeyman)  it goes down to 35% and lower as the difference in ability levels grow.
Andreas

I've run the numbers and it can be bad (that's where bonus dice come in?). But the situation is worst when both opponents have -1 skill: then it's 72%.
Skill       Draw
-1 v -1   73%
-1 v 0    54%
-1 v 1    32%
-1 v 2    13%
Increasing skills makes quite a difference
1 v -1    32%
1 v 0     23%
1 v 1     14%
1 v 2     5.5%

If these high draw chances for low skills are worrying, the cause is this: low rolls are cannot go below 0. A solution if needed could involve changing that.

[dyjoots]

At GenCon this year, I will have a limited number of copies of a new TSOY. I will also have a little supplement for the original that clarifies the rules and makes the games match. If you've looked, you've noticed that the two rules systems' biggest difference is the dice roll, but otherwise, they work together just fine. So, basically, TSOY is splitting into two versions of itself. Which is an interesting business decision - we'll see if it works. I will not, however, ever reprint the original. There's 70 existing unsold copies, so after they're gone, that's that. I'm updating the old one just because I know some people's violent reactions to Fudge dice.

Oh, and wait until you see the new cover. The uncolored drawing I got today was jaw-droppingly cool. Just as my little game's growing up, so are our iconic characters, Violet and Oliphant.

Exciting!  Are the complete updated rules going to be put online?  I dig the game, and I like seeing what you are doing with it, but I can't make it to GenCon, and for the same reasons I won't be in a place to ship things easily...

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Exciting!  Are the complete updated rules going to be put online?  I dig the game, and I like seeing what you are doing with it, but I can't make it to GenCon, and for the same reasons I won't be in a place to ship things easily...

They will, but I have to work out the licensing issues with Grey Ghost before I put it under Creative Commons. Unfortunately, they aren't e-mailing me back because they're, you know, so busy selling Fudge or something.

[Andy Kitkowski]

They will, but I have to work out the licensing issues with Grey Ghost before I put it under Creative Commons. Unfortunately, they aren't e-mailing me back because they're, you know, so busy selling Fudge or something.

Ouch.  I forgot about that: Fuge will be "OGL", but CC is about as restrictive as labor laws in Thailand...

If nothing else, you can just make NO REFERENCE to Fudge in the rules, and just suggest people use Fudge Dice to play your game.  That way, by not tieing TSOY into the Fudge rules, you're not stepping on toes by breaking away.  Thing is, of course, that would be kinda fucking around with Ann Dupuis and her crew.  Like big brother wiggling his fingers around at younger sister in the car "I'm not touching you!  Iiiiimmm noooot touching yeeeeeeeewwww!", etc.

There is that backdoor.  Hopefully you won't have to use it.  But even if you do, people will still end up buying Fudge Dice, so it won't hurt.

In any case, good luck.

-Andy

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Ouch.  I forgot about that: Fudge will be "OGL", but CC is about as restrictive as labor laws in Thailand...

If nothing else, you can just make NO REFERENCE to Fudge in the rules, and just suggest people use Fudge Dice to play your game.  That way, by not tieing TSOY into the Fudge rules, you're not stepping on toes by breaking away.  Thing is, of course, that would be kinda fucking around with Ann Dupuis and her crew.  Like big brother wiggling his fingers around at younger sister in the car "I'm not touching you!  Iiiiimmm noooot touching yeeeeeeeewwww!", etc.

There is that backdoor.  Hopefully you won't have to use it.  But even if you do, people will still end up buying Fudge Dice, so it won't hurt.

In any case, good luck.

Right now, the only reference to Fudge is in the acknowledgements of inspirations, which it was in the first place. Honestly, it'll stay that way unless I get some other word from GG. I wrote them not because I want the word Fudge on the game - I kind of don't - but because I think it'd be good for them. With so many years of missed release dates on some sort of Fudge-based setting game, I thought it'd be good publicity for them to have TSOY aligned with Fudge. My sales figures are still pretty good: I honestly think I probably sell as many copies of TSOY a month as they get of direct Fudge sales.

Anyway, it's a little frustrating to get blown off, as you can tell. I may end up putting the game under an OGL license. While I don't like it as much as Creative Commons, it's got no real problem. It's just kind of ugly in execution.

[dyjoots]

Anyway, it's a little frustrating to get blown off, as you can tell. I may end up putting the game under an OGL license. While I don't like it as much as Creative Commons, it's got no real problem. It's just kind of ugly in execution.

That's too bad.  I really like the Creative Commons License, and they way it lets people freely use the ideas from your game.  Aren't there several people already talking about writing settings for the original system?  I've thought about it myself, although that will probably be fruitless...

Anyway, returning to topic, I think it would be a shame to do something which you believe is "ugly in execution."

[Clinton R. Nixon]

That's too bad.  I really like the Creative Commons License, and they way it lets people freely use the ideas from your game.  Aren't there several people already talking about writing settings for the original system?  I've thought about it myself, although that will probably be fruitless...

Anyway, returning to topic, I think it would be a shame to do something which you believe is "ugly in execution."

If I go with the OGL, they'll still have that same ability.

[dyjoots]

If I go with the OGL, they'll still have that same ability.

Ok... sorry to steer the thread off-track for a moment, but I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to this.  What would the significant differences be?

[Remko]

If I go with the OGL, they'll still have that same ability.

Ok... sorry to steer the thread off-track for a moment, but I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to this.  What would the significant differences be?

Hiya,

I am certain there has been a discussion about the OGL vs CC license somewhere else (in the Publishing forum, if I'm not mistaking).

Btw I'm really looking forward to your updated version of TSOY, Clinton. Any dates, yet?

[matthijs]

(Is this the place to post editorial nitpicks as well? "Zeitgeist" isn't the same as "gestalt").