Design Journal: Skills

I am very fond of the signature moves idea that I came up with for my combat skills. I feel that it allows for more diversification and will encourage players to think outside of predefined abilities. The bugbear in my soup is that I have a different method of application and advancement for each of the three skill sets. It makes things more complicated, which goes against my goals for the game.



To streamline everything, I will be switching my skills and special abilities over to the signature move style. In order to do this, I need to refine(read: actually make up my mind) how I want to handle selection and advancement of moves.



Here is the best idea I have had so far. When players spend their advacement points in a skill group or special ability, they have the choice of buying a new move or improving his or her current moves by 1. If the player wants to focus on improving one move instead of all the moves, s/he may place the new points from the other moves into the one move. No move may have a bonus that is higher than the total points in the skill.  When the player places enough advancement points into a skill or ability to move it into the next level of skill(apprentice to journeyman, etc) all the moves that make the transition improve by one.

Design Journal: Knowledge

It is my experience that knowledge skills are unimportant(for lack of a better term). Players spend their points and, if they have a few left over, will put them in a knowledge. They are rarely important to the game and generally a waste of a skill point.

 I currently use the standard method for knowledge skills; buy ranks in a specific knowledge skill and that determines your level of knowledge on the subject.

I am considering changing to a more abstract method. Players would not have to buy ranks in a subject. If it makes sense for their character to know something, then they can know it. To determine level of knowledge on a subject players use one of three methods; they use a related skill such as foraging for information about plants, gather information for information gained from people, and research for information gained from documents and other non-people sources.

I like this method because it frees up points for more directly useful skills and is less limiting. You never have to worry about your ranger not knowing poisonous plants from healing because he did not have points to spare for knowledges.

I do realize that this method could easily be taken advantage of. The GM would have to take care to make sure players are being true to their character concepts.