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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5868539" data-attributes="member: 54877">It doesn't help you design classes directly, at all. What it does do (at least in theory) is show gaps in the mechanical framework or give hints where the mechanical boundaries might be drawn.&nbsp; And with at least two different categories of each idiom (stuff that doesn't use &quot;magic&quot; or &quot;spells&quot; versus stuff that does, you might have similar or different mechanics for each category.&nbsp;For example, a big gap it identifies for me is that there is insufficient mechanical support for non-magical &quot;strange lore&quot;.&nbsp; Whether we want to redefine something like &quot;alchemy&quot; as entirely non-magical or come up with some more robust &quot;lore&quot; mechanics than skill checks or something else, I don't know.&nbsp; Maybe there isn't anything good to put there, brainstormed gap notwithstanding. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />&nbsp;Another example is the mechanics for trickery under cunning.&nbsp; Do you use skills for non-magical and spells for illusion?&nbsp; That's the obvious answer.&nbsp; But maybe you want something with more heft here for non-magical trickery, too.&nbsp; Then, having done that, you find that illusion spells are an extension of that.&nbsp;That's theory of brainstorming.&nbsp; In practice, some of this will get you nowhere (and same is true of the OP and any other competing breakdowns).&nbsp; Then some of it might spark a neat mechanics or class, but the rest of the layout prove worthless.&nbsp; You push it as far as you can push it, knowing that some of it will need to be discarded.&nbsp;The advantage of doing something like this instead of mapping directly to known mechanics--such as social skills or 1:1 with ability scores or other such obvious mappings--is that you don't automatically zero in on prior assumptions too soon.&nbsp; The idea of the &quot;face guy&quot; however implemented, is a classic case of such mappings because the mechanics are easy and obvious.&nbsp; But then we find the &quot;face guy&quot; idiom to be rather strained, outside of some formula screenwriting or games that have it because they have the obvious mechanics. In anything less one-dimensional, if there is a guy notably more &quot;face&quot; than the other characters, it's a combination of social skills and reputations, relationships, insights, etc.&nbsp; &nbsp;Or in other words, something like what is in the OP is, IMO, more useful in where &quot;filling out the grid&quot; breaks, than where it works.&nbsp; This tells you where concepts are missing or insufficiently explored.&nbsp;One of the reasons my particular mappings are on my mind is that I've been tinkering around with what &quot;strange lore&quot; or &quot;cunning&quot; mechanics there could be.&nbsp; If I get something worth sharing, I'll let you know. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5868539, member: 54877"] It doesn't help you design classes directly, at all. What it does do (at least in theory) is show gaps in the mechanical framework or give hints where the mechanical boundaries might be drawn. And with at least two different categories of each idiom (stuff that doesn't use "magic" or "spells" versus stuff that does, you might have similar or different mechanics for each category. For example, a big gap it identifies for me is that there is insufficient mechanical support for non-magical "strange lore". Whether we want to redefine something like "alchemy" as entirely non-magical or come up with some more robust "lore" mechanics than skill checks or something else, I don't know. Maybe there isn't anything good to put there, brainstormed gap notwithstanding. :D Another example is the mechanics for trickery under cunning. Do you use skills for non-magical and spells for illusion? That's the obvious answer. But maybe you want something with more heft here for non-magical trickery, too. Then, having done that, you find that illusion spells are an extension of that. That's theory of brainstorming. In practice, some of this will get you nowhere (and same is true of the OP and any other competing breakdowns). Then some of it might spark a neat mechanics or class, but the rest of the layout prove worthless. You push it as far as you can push it, knowing that some of it will need to be discarded. The advantage of doing something like this instead of mapping directly to known mechanics--such as social skills or 1:1 with ability scores or other such obvious mappings--is that you don't automatically zero in on prior assumptions too soon. The idea of the "face guy" however implemented, is a classic case of such mappings [B]because[/B] the mechanics are easy and obvious. But then we find the "face guy" idiom to be rather strained, outside of some formula screenwriting or games that have it because they have the obvious mechanics. In anything less one-dimensional, if there is a guy notably more "face" than the other characters, it's a combination of social skills [B]and[/B] reputations, relationships, insights, etc. Or in other words, something like what is in the OP is, IMO, more useful in where "filling out the grid" breaks, than where it works. This tells you where concepts are missing or insufficiently explored. One of the reasons my particular mappings are on my mind is that I've been tinkering around with what "strange lore" or "cunning" mechanics there could be. If I get something worth sharing, I'll let you know. :D [/QUOTE]

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