psychohist wrote:
> Peter Knutsen posts, in part:
>
> In GURPS 4th Edition, Speak With Animals has a
> base cost of 25 character points and applies to
> all animals. If the ability is limited to animals
> of the air *and* land (or to aquatic animals), the
> cost is reduced by 40%. If the ability is limited
> to one "class" of animals, such as "birds",
> the cost is reduced by 50%. If limited to one
> "family", such as "parrots", the cost is reduced
> by 60%. If limited to one species, such
> as "macaws", the cost is reduced by 80%.
>
> Interesting. I also use class, family, and species, skipping the
> order and genus categorization levels in my Eastern Isles system.
Maybe there's something inherently offputting in the Linnean system? I
could probably have researched it had I wanted to, and I'm sure that
Sean Punch could have done so while designing the new GURPS 4th Edition,
but he chose not to.
> The way I use them is slightly different, though. Each skill is
> typically broken down at only one level of categorization. The base
> cost is to learn the skill for one element of that level. Learning
> additional elements costs a discounted cost.
That sounds a bit like Hero System, where some skills, such as Survival
or Gambling, lets you chose one "area", and then for additional points
you can "broaden" the applicability of the skill.
In Sagatafl, to the extent that I do this, I usually handle it with
binary skills, or in the case of wilderness skills I use regular
(numerically rated) skills.
> I also have another way by which skills can be related. Some skills
> automatically give one a lower level of other similar skills. For
Similar to defaults in Sagatafl. In some cases the rules say (or will
say) that a specific skill can substitute for certain other skills at
(usually) 1/2 or 1/3 value, because they cover some of the same ground.
> example, this is how I handle terrain skills - if one has a certain
I'm actually very surprised to hear that your Laratoa system has terrain
familiarity skills. Would you care to tell me some more about them, and
how they work?
It seems to me that in most other RPG systems, there's a Survival skill,
often forcibly specialized to one terrain type (Woods, Plains, Desert,
Arctic) so that you have to learn it multiple times if you wish your
character to be able to cope with several terrain types. The designers
of such systems then subsequently utilize that Survival skill, or try
to, in capacities other than survival.
With Sagatafl I took the consequence of including actual Terrain
Familiarity skills, which then serve to "cap" the separate Survival
skill (which, like other wilderness skills, you learn only once ever -
not once per terrain type), so that a character's effective Survival
skill (or Tracking skill, or Camping skill, or Hiking skill) cannot
exceed a multiple of the Terrain Familiarity skill (it's been quite a
while since I put Sagatafl development officially "on hold", but IIRC
the cap is x1.5 for Survival, x2.5 for Campaing, and x2 for other
wilderness skills).
> level of hillyer, one will effectively also have a lower level in the
> plains and mountains, as well as a lower level of beastlore in the
> hills. This "imaging" effect is independent of the relatedness effect
> that affects skill costs.
Highlands terrain is a subject that really bothers me, and I've ended up
not including it, in neither Sagatafl or Modern Action RPG, because it
does not seem to me to be a terrain type that is sufficiently distinct
from mountaineous.
Of course your solution, where Terrain Familiarity skills "default" to
each other, is workable, and I might do something similar in Sagatafl
eventually, but I can't in Modern Action RPG, because I've deliberately
chosen a coarsegrained "binary" approach to Native Terrain.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
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