[freeroleplay] Attribute Advancement (was [Fringe] New

[Ricardo Gladwell]

On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 13:32 +0100, Samuel Penn wrote:
> On Wed, June 28, 2006 10:40, Ricardo Gladwell wrote:
> > Those changes are still possible but rather than modelling them by
> > increasing basic attributes, they are modelled with "core" skill
> > increases. So, to use your personal example above (if you don't mind :),
> > you increased your Athletics and Charm skills, but your basic physical
> > and social attributes remain the same. See my reply to Sam for more
> > details.
> 
> There is a problem with this.
> 
> Character A starts with a Strength of 5 and Athletics skill of 3.
> Character B starts with a Strength of 2 and Athletics of zero.
> 
> During the game, character B does a lot of intensive training. He
> can get his skill all the way up to 5, but he's never going to be
> as good as Character A since his dice pool for any Strength related
> activity is always going to be less than half that of A.

I probably didn't explain it very well but that is sort of the point of
the rule. The idea here is that attributes represent raw talent and
skills represent whatever you can build on that. Some people can train
for years and increase they physical ability but they'll never compare
to someone who has a natural talent for Strength and who trains.

The only problem with this is that developing your Athletics skill won't
improve your Strength when checking for damage to hit, for example.
Perhaps some sort of sympathy bonus could apply for related activities.

> Simply putting up the
> Athletics skill isn't going to be enough.

Enough for what? The Athletics skills can be enough depending upon the
range of difficulties you choose for your game.

-- 
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free RPG Community
http://www.freeroleplay.org/
president at freeroleplay.org