Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
PC Limitations vs. Do Whatever You Want
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 8747385" data-attributes="member: 6704184"><p>So, what I did to solve the tension you present here, is to build an entire game. <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" alt="😂" title="Face with tears of joy :joy:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f602.png" data-shortname=":joy:" /></p><p></p><p>I don’t necessarily recommend it, though it’s been well worth the work for me. </p><p></p><p>The game and how it’s mechanics solved this issue for me and my group:</p><p>[spoiler]Specifically, I created a game that runs on skills, and has idiosyncratic restrictions for choosing skills, but they are fairly loose restrictions. There are 3 categories of skills (Physical, Interaction, Magical), each with about a dozen skills. Each skill has 3 specialties, like Aeromancy has: Aerokinetics, Echomancy, and Aerolocation. </p><p></p><p>You get 6 skill ranks from your Origin, 6 from Archetype, and 6 chosen without restriction. So, each character has about half as many skill ranks as there are skills in the system. You get 1 specialty rank per skill rank, and you can only have 2 ranks in a skill or specialty at level 1. (Levels exist mostly to gate such restrictions, tho you do gain a very small amount of automatic advancement from levels as well)</p><p></p><p>So, 2/3 of your skills come from limited lists, you can only specialize so much at chargen, and you cannot have all the skills. </p><p></p><p>And skills basically <em>are</em> the game. There are traits, but they largely create exceptions, modify skill use, or give you new resources like a team of experts you can rely on or a guy who fights beside (or in place of) you, or stuff like the ability to speak to animals. </p><p></p><p>Spells and techniques are active abilities that cost the games only real resource, and are basically packaged “advanced uses of skills”, and so can also be improvised. In fact, explicitly, if you see someone do a thing, and you have training in a relevant skill, you can try to figure out how to do it, and potentially eventually gain a new spell or technique. Same with improvised actions. </p><p></p><p>So, essentially, you can only be good at so many things, you can only specialize so much, and you only have total freedom in choosing those things for about 1/3 of your skills. [/spoiler]</p><p></p><p>TLDR: You can only be good at so many things, you can only specialize so much, and you only have total freedom in choosing those things for about 1/3 of your skills. </p><p></p><p>The part I think could really apply to D&D or a clone of it is this: </p><p></p><p>In my game, Quest For Chevar, the skills are “physics engines” with simple parameters and general descriptions, including what sort of things are a basic use of the skill, and what sorts of thing are advanced uses, and what requires true mastery (stuff you cannot do without attaining ranks that you can’t reach at chargen or even before a decent amount of advancement. </p><p></p><p>So, you don’t have a list of conjuration spells, you have the Conjuration <em>skill</em>, with a few paragraphs of text setting the parameters of said skill, and a set of resource that is recovered somewhat slowly, and you <em>can</em> learn or invent spells using that skill, or blending it with Evocation, or with Heavy Fighting, or with Computers. </p><p></p><p>So this limited but fairly broad selection of competencies, with a fairly free but still scope-limited and knowledge/power level gated system for using the skills, and a graduated action resolution using a success ladder with the ability to spend resources to Push checks up the ladder, and a “players always roll” framework, makes for a game that’s very friendly to improvisation, and gives freedom to choose your particular constraints, if that makes sense.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="doctorbadwolf, post: 8747385, member: 6704184"] So, what I did to solve the tension you present here, is to build an entire game. 😂 I don’t necessarily recommend it, though it’s been well worth the work for me. The game and how it’s mechanics solved this issue for me and my group: [spoiler]Specifically, I created a game that runs on skills, and has idiosyncratic restrictions for choosing skills, but they are fairly loose restrictions. There are 3 categories of skills (Physical, Interaction, Magical), each with about a dozen skills. Each skill has 3 specialties, like Aeromancy has: Aerokinetics, Echomancy, and Aerolocation. You get 6 skill ranks from your Origin, 6 from Archetype, and 6 chosen without restriction. So, each character has about half as many skill ranks as there are skills in the system. You get 1 specialty rank per skill rank, and you can only have 2 ranks in a skill or specialty at level 1. (Levels exist mostly to gate such restrictions, tho you do gain a very small amount of automatic advancement from levels as well) So, 2/3 of your skills come from limited lists, you can only specialize so much at chargen, and you cannot have all the skills. And skills basically [I]are[/I] the game. There are traits, but they largely create exceptions, modify skill use, or give you new resources like a team of experts you can rely on or a guy who fights beside (or in place of) you, or stuff like the ability to speak to animals. Spells and techniques are active abilities that cost the games only real resource, and are basically packaged “advanced uses of skills”, and so can also be improvised. In fact, explicitly, if you see someone do a thing, and you have training in a relevant skill, you can try to figure out how to do it, and potentially eventually gain a new spell or technique. Same with improvised actions. So, essentially, you can only be good at so many things, you can only specialize so much, and you only have total freedom in choosing those things for about 1/3 of your skills. [/spoiler] TLDR: You can only be good at so many things, you can only specialize so much, and you only have total freedom in choosing those things for about 1/3 of your skills. The part I think could really apply to D&D or a clone of it is this: In my game, Quest For Chevar, the skills are “physics engines” with simple parameters and general descriptions, including what sort of things are a basic use of the skill, and what sorts of thing are advanced uses, and what requires true mastery (stuff you cannot do without attaining ranks that you can’t reach at chargen or even before a decent amount of advancement. So, you don’t have a list of conjuration spells, you have the Conjuration [I]skill[/I], with a few paragraphs of text setting the parameters of said skill, and a set of resource that is recovered somewhat slowly, and you [I]can[/I] learn or invent spells using that skill, or blending it with Evocation, or with Heavy Fighting, or with Computers. So this limited but fairly broad selection of competencies, with a fairly free but still scope-limited and knowledge/power level gated system for using the skills, and a graduated action resolution using a success ladder with the ability to spend resources to Push checks up the ladder, and a “players always roll” framework, makes for a game that’s very friendly to improvisation, and gives freedom to choose your particular constraints, if that makes sense. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
PC Limitations vs. Do Whatever You Want
Top