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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3815491" data-attributes="member: 4937">Funny, but that's never how Storyteller games played out for me.Because they worked off dice pools, the average results with large dice pools get both very predictable and absolutely overwhelming.&nbsp; Adding an extra dice to low dice pool gains you almost no real advantage.&nbsp; Whereas, adding an extra dice to a high dice pool can literally make you invincible.&nbsp; I've seen like 13 dice in a Sabbat player's soak dice pool before.&nbsp; M1 tanks were no match for that.&nbsp; Werewolf worked much the same way, I understand, but I tended to avoid it because even other WoD players told me how much it encouraged munkinism.You aren't actually talking about implicit universal competency at all.&nbsp; By the same standards, GURPS has implicit universal competency as well.&nbsp; After all, its much easier to advance a low score a little than to advance a high one.&nbsp; But of course, anyone that has played GURPS more than a little will tell you that the way to break the game is start dumping all of your points into a single spell or martial arts or shield or whatever and forget about whether you have a 7 or 10 or even a 12 in a skill you aren't going to use that often.&nbsp; Get your one skill up as near to 18 as possible so that you can break the games math, and then lean on that one thing you are good at as much as you can.What you are talking about isn't implicit universal competancy.&nbsp; What you are describing is your players deliberately choosing to play broad versital characters.&nbsp; They dabbled in alot of different skills to gain a broad - but not universal - competancy level, presumably because they weren't power gamers or didn't want to break the system.And the thing is, we've basically got that now.&nbsp; If you want your fighter or wizard to dabble in some other skills not on his skill list, take a few levels in some other class - even if it means sacrificing a bit of your attack or magical skill.&nbsp; What a concept!&nbsp; I bet you've seen that in other games before. Is it an optimal build?&nbsp; Probably not.&nbsp; Spreading your points around in Storyteller and GURPS isn't usually optimal either.&nbsp; Is there room for improvement in D20.&nbsp; Absolutely.&nbsp; I'm just not convinced universal competancy is the way to go.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 3815491, member: 4937"] Funny, but that's never how Storyteller games played out for me. Because they worked off dice pools, the average results with large dice pools get both very predictable and absolutely overwhelming. Adding an extra dice to low dice pool gains you almost no real advantage. Whereas, adding an extra dice to a high dice pool can literally make you invincible. I've seen like 13 dice in a Sabbat player's soak dice pool before. M1 tanks were no match for that. Werewolf worked much the same way, I understand, but I tended to avoid it because even other WoD players told me how much it encouraged munkinism. You aren't actually talking about implicit universal competency at all. By the same standards, GURPS has implicit universal competency as well. After all, its much easier to advance a low score a little than to advance a high one. But of course, anyone that has played GURPS more than a little will tell you that the way to break the game is start dumping all of your points into a single spell or martial arts or shield or whatever and forget about whether you have a 7 or 10 or even a 12 in a skill you aren't going to use that often. Get your one skill up as near to 18 as possible so that you can break the games math, and then lean on that one thing you are good at as much as you can. What you are talking about isn't implicit universal competancy. What you are describing is your players deliberately choosing to play broad versital characters. They dabbled in alot of different skills to gain a broad - but not universal - competancy level, presumably because they weren't power gamers or didn't want to break the system. And the thing is, we've basically got that now. If you want your fighter or wizard to dabble in some other skills not on his skill list, take a few levels in some other class - even if it means sacrificing a bit of your attack or magical skill. What a concept! I bet you've seen that in other games before. Is it an optimal build? Probably not. Spreading your points around in Storyteller and GURPS isn't usually optimal either. Is there room for improvement in D20. Absolutely. I'm just not convinced universal competancy is the way to go. [/QUOTE]

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