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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Philotomy Jurament" data-source="post: 2853578" data-attributes="member: 20854">Bah.  I'd much rather have a coarse granularity than a fine granularity.  A fine-grained system defines all sorts of skills and abilities (e.g. feats) that you must have in order to perform that action.  Fine grained is "lots of defined options you pick from."  A coarse-grained system gives you the freedom to allow those skills and abilities based on the DM's judgment and the character's background (or class).  Coarse-grained is broad and general, and relies much more on DM and player judgment than on rulebooks and lists.For example, say you want to create a fighter-type character.  You want him to be a from a noble family, maybe a squire or a knight in training.  In a fine-grained system, you'd select an appropriate class (like Fighter), pick skills and abilities like riding, heraldry, diplomacy, courtly manners, knowledge of politics, maybe some local history, maybe some leadership abilities, maybe some fighter-type feats like power attack or mounted combat feats, maybe some weapon focus/specialization feats, et cetera.  Chances are you won't be able to pick all of this stuff, and will have to leave some of it out.In the coarse-grained system, you'd pick a class (like Fighter), define your background, and choose some appropriate weapons.Now, during play, let's say you want to swing really hard, giving up some accuracy for the sake of extra damage.  With a fine grained system, the DM says "Do you have power attack?"  Don't have it?  Can't do it.  With a coarse grained system, this is up to the DM's judgment.  You can still do stuff like power attack under a coarse grained system -- it's not like you lose the possibility because there're no feats in the system.  It's just that the players and the DM decide if you can do it, rather than the rulebook and your character "build." How about recognizing the coat-of-arms of some knight guarding a bridge?  In the fine-grained system, the DM says "have knowledge of heraldry?"  Don't have it?  Too bad -- can't use that one untrained.  You're out of luck, even though your character's background indicates he probably *should* have it (just didn't have enough skill points!).  In a coarse grained system, the DM says, "Hmmm, you're a noble, make an Int check at such-and-such difficulty to see if you recognize him."  Or maybe just, "Oh yes, you recognize him right away.  It's Sir Jousts-A-Lot, the champion of last fall's tournament."  [Here, apologists for fine-grained systems will point out that you can do the same thing with the fine-grained system.  Yes, you can, but you just cheapened the value of the skill for all those PCs that bought it.  What's the point in spending the points on it if you don't really need it in play?  My response is that you don't need it, so why not use a coarse-grained system, since you're playing that way, anyway, apparently?]Coarse-grained doesn't limit players; it empowers them.  And it empowers the DM to rule on situations based on his common sense and judgment.  He's much more of a judge and less of a rule-looker-upper, bound to the book.There are pros and cons each way, I suppose, and there's no accounting for taste, but give me the coarse-grained system, any day.  As a DM, I like the freedom to exercise my judgment.  As a player, I like the flexibility and lack of constraints -- my character has the skills and abilities that make sense for him, and isn't shoehorned into a smaller box by the rules.  I like rules -- you need them to play -- I just don't like a whole bunch of them when they're not necessary, IMO.My $0.02, for what it's worth.</blockquote>

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