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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5655910" data-attributes="member: 2067">If you automatically advance in "ranks" with level, it exacerbates the difference between you and an untrained person, leading you to be able to do things that no one else can even try, which would seem to work against Mike's first point in the article, that is, giving all characters a decent chance to contribute. The difference between a Novice and a Master is even more harsh than the difference between a DC 10 and a DC 20. If you DON'T automatically advance in "ranks," then you're stuck capable of the same stuff when you're a legend that you could do when you're off the turnip truck. I don't see how you could do both? Maybe you advance EVERYONE a "rank?" Perhaps that could alleviate the problem, but when our platemail dwarf is balancing on a tightrope as well as our Acrobat did 3 levels ago... I suppose that's an issue with any "everyone gets better at everything" system, there's just a bigger grey area between "you can try this" and "you will probably fail."And then those who have the right Skill Rating still need to roll to accomplish the thing, no? And it's not like we wouldn't have different chances for success in that roll.I mean, if all it is is matching up DR with SR, then it's not complexity without payoff, but it is toothlessly binary. Either you Can or you Can't. There is no try. Which means that there is no drama or tension, it's either Off or On. Which is a much bigger problem than complexity without payoff, IMO!If it's something you want them to be able to do, it's not "impossible." If it's something you DON'T want them to be able to do, we don't need a rule for it aside from, "DM says you, being a human-like being, cannot tunnel through this wall for 30 feet in 6 seconds," any more than I need a rule telling me the chance for a quantum fluctuation causes me to spontaneously teleport into outer space each time I take a move action. Can these initial levels increase along with my natural ability? Is training just a +1 "rank"? Am I going to have to track the "effective skill ranks" for a host of different skills? Or can I just roll a dice and add some modifiers and get on with my life?A ruleset incapable of surprising narrative looses nearly all its appeal to me. I'm a lover of improv and I delight in unexpected directions, and the dice provide them. If I wanted to play Amber Diceless, I'd go play Amber Diceless. It's really not my bag. Then we're back to entirely "Mother May I" gameplay, checking with the DM to see if your idea is "clever enough" to warrant a reduction in skill. The alternative is to use player's ingenuity to optionally generate some ad hoc bonuses, if you'd like, but not to make the use of the skill depend on having a clever player...which this system, with its harsh divisions between "You can" and "You can't," doesn't well support.You don't think we'd have granularity for "easy for a Journeyman/moderate for a Journeyman/difficult for a Journeyman"?Right. D&D as I've been playing it uses this. I don't see the appeal of giving an "Impossible" rating to a thing, except to put a rulesey stamp on "YOU SHALL NOT PASS"It is waaaaay too light on the Random And Fun scale for me. Meaningful choices are all well and good, but rather than being the sole engine of success, they should, for my fun, be allowed to modify the chance of success. If chance doesn't play much of a role, for me, there's little reason to bother with it. Anyway, it seems like some folks really <3 that it's not a random system, and so I suppose for them not being surprised by success or failure is a positive, but to me, that's entirely too dull and predictable. Adventure is chaotic and unpredictable, and fun, for me, is resolving the chaos into a game along with the players. I guess there's certainly room for a system like this, but as long as I don't have to use it, that's fine. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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