Quirky skills & spells

[PhilHibbs]

One problem that I can foresee in MRQ2 is that quirky skills & spells will be neglected, since IRs are a valuable commodity. Is this true in practice? Of course you will always get dedicated roleplayers who value style over substance, but I'm wary about (effectively) punishing people for having interesting characters.

If a character acquires, for instance, a magic feather that allows them use of a Fly spell, be it sorcerous or divine, that has its own Lore or Grimoire skill. Sure, it's nice to be able to fly, but joining the True Malkioni Church is a much better choice, if you're already a civilized Malkioni character.

 

[Vagni]

Tricky one to enforce.

Maybe insist at least one Improvement Point is spent on a skill not used in the last gaming session?

Perhaps penalise those who constantly bulk up the same old skills every time with reduced Hero Points?

...or just make sure they need that obscure skill next game to win some reward or other, when they see it fall out of their grasp they might get the message.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Tricky one to enforce.

Impossible to enforce, you mean?

Maybe insist at least one Improvement Point is spent on a skill not used in the last gaming session?

They are likely to use the skill, though, but won't want to spend points on it because "Craft (Fishing)" isn't really something critically important to solving scenarios.

Perhaps penalise those who constantly bulk up the same old skills every time with reduced Hero Points?

Great way to lose friends!

...or just make sure they need that obscure skill next game to win some reward or other, when they see it fall out of their grasp they might get the message.

And, which obscure skill should I pick on? Am I to be the judge of what kind of fun each character should be trying to have? Like you said, "tricky". I'm not looking to enforce anything, that's completely the wrong way to run a game in my opinion. I am, however, looking for ways to reduce the penalties built into the system without breaking it entirely.

One way might be to change the scale on which improvements are awarded. Instead of 2 IRs per session, maybe I should give more but reduce their individual value. So, if I hand out 10 IPs instead, and charge 4 for a regular improvement roll, and 1 for a +1 to a skill with no roll, but you can only spend on one skill once (so no 4 x +1!), and IPs can't be saved up (other than on characteristic improvements, which would be 4x cost to keep the scale right).

Or, maybe I'm being too concerned about a non-problem - the higher the skill is, the less you get from spending an IR on it, as you are more likely to just get the +1 whereas that 20% fishing skill is very likely to go up by more than that.

 

[simonh]

I've not thought this through completely but...

Each character can select 2 skills as 'Primary'. These can be improved every time there is an IR award.

All other skills and abilities can only be improved by IRs every other time.

Hand out 5 IRs each time instead of 2 or 3.

This way characters won't improve their main skills any slower, will get more skill improvements which should be popular, but those improvements will get much more widely distributed.

I agree with Phil that 'enforcing' and 'insisting' aren't the right way to go with things like this. Carrots good, sticks bad.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Vagni]

Tricky one to enforce.

Impossible to enforce, you mean?

Maybe insist at least one Improvement Point is spent on a skill not used in the last gaming session?

They are likely to use the skill, though, but won't want to spend points on it because "Craft (Fishing)" isn't really something critically important to solving scenarios.

Perhaps penalise those who constantly bulk up the same old skills every time with reduced Hero Points?

Great way to lose friends!

...or just make sure they need that obscure skill next game to win some reward or other, when they see it fall out of their grasp they might get the message.

And, which obscure skill should I pick on? Am I to be the judge of what kind of fun each character should be trying to have? Like you said, "tricky". I'm not looking to enforce anything, that's completely the wrong way to run a game in my opinion. I am, however, looking for ways to reduce the penalties built into the system without breaking it entirely.

One way might be to change the scale on which improvements are awarded. Instead of 2 IRs per session, maybe I should give more but reduce their individual value. So, if I hand out 10 IPs instead, and charge 4 for a regular improvement roll, and 1 for a +1 to a skill with no roll, but you can only spend on one skill once (so no 4 x +1!), and IPs can't be saved up (other than on characteristic improvements, which would be 4x cost to keep the scale right).

Or, maybe I'm being too concerned about a non-problem - the higher the skill is, the less you get from spending an IR on it, as you are more likely to just get the +1 whereas that 20% fishing skill is very likely to go up by more than that.

Yeah, 'enforce' was a bad choice of words, I'll put my stick away and get some carrots! :lol:

I don't think honestly think its a big deal, the players will probably settle into boosting a few obscure skills after the novelty of a few games sessions. But the 'charging for an improvement' idea could be workable too.

 

[Vagni]

Another thought is to allow them some time for training after each game session, not enough to boost that 70% combat style or Perception skill but just enough to boost a couple of 20 to 30% skills or the like.

The easiest way to do this is to change the time taken to train in a skill to a number of hours equal to the skill (in place of the 1 week stated in the Core rules) and then allow them 50 hours or so between each game session.

You would have to make some decisions on how much it would cost (too much and they won't bother) and maybe what skills they are allowed to advance.

I used to allow this in AHRQIII and the players used to use it to creep up their lore skills that were otherwise ignored.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Another idea would be to boost the IP scale up like I said earlier, charge the Crit% of the skill in IPs, and remove the % dice roll. With this increased scale, I'd replace Improvement Modifier with ½ x CHA - someone with 15 CHA gets 16 IPs, someone with only 7 CHA gets 14. Also I can dish out more 1-point spot awards for good ideas, good roleplaying, or good jokes. Also this would encourage people to save points up for stat increases, what else are you going to use that 1 leftover point for when you have no skills below 20%?
*Edit*: That should be, "I'd replace Improvement Modifier with ½ x CHA - someone with 15 CHA gets 18 IPs, someone with only 7 CHA gets 14."