[Design] Skills, specialisations and prerequisites...

[Lev Lafayette]

--- Carl Brown <catodon at whale-mail.com> wrote:

> Lev:The general principle (if it is sound) is that
> general
> skills lead to specialised examples, so rather than
> defaulting to a trait, one defaults to a lower level
> (and limited) skill. However, as you've pointed out
> for most characters too much specialisation is a
> pain
> - hence the real specialisation only kicks in at
> expert and master level. Basic and advanced skills
> are
> pretty broad.
> 
> Makes sense?
> Karl: Yeh, that makes intuitive sense particularly
> from someone educated in our system. I've got a Bsc
> (Hon.) and are working toward a PhD. ask me and a
> high school leaver with biology something about
> zebras and we'd have an about even chance but ask
> about contributions of chromatin in regulating gene
> expression and I'd be ahead. For those without
> formal education this might work too. A San would
> have a specialised version of botany for the
> Kalahari.
> At a meta-level should the game allow characters to
> have very specialised skills that might never be
> used. It may be better to have a biology skill and
> allow characters to have both broad and deep
> knowledge so that can get some use out of it. Again,
> if game are to be custom made no problem I curntly
> have a molecular biologist character specialising in
> Europan life thats getting a lot of mileage...

Just on that topic, I will have a biology skill...
Which would require specialisation at the highest
levels (advanced and mastery). You're right,
characters *might* develop skills which they never
use, but I consider that unlikely, as anyone who has
as skill level at 70%+ or even 90%+ is talking about
an area which they have specialised in. I would
consider it very unlikely (both in a gaming sense and
reality) that anyone would develop a skill to that
degree and not use it!

I should also make explicit that knowledges are
specific to context (or that a way of saying that
they're relative? <g>).. In other words, 'Chemistry'
in Traditional Societies is Alchemy, with further
specialisations in Transmutation, Panacea and
Generation... Interestingly these three subdisciplines
were common in both east and west alchemical
traditions...

All the best,


Lev

Lev Lafayette
lev_lafayette at yahoo.com.au
http://au.geocities.com/lev_lafayette


	
		
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