Re: [HOE] Why is Blastin' a Knowledge aptitude?

[Theo McGuckin <tsm@jlab.org>]

> > Actually, finding a teacher is not as hard as you > make it sound.  
> Case in > point, the Jericho Academy. >

Right, but first you have to get there (and maybe convince the rest of the
posse that they want to take the trip with you). Then you have to get the
people at Jericho to trust you enough to teach them, or perform some task
(the book says this explicitly, and it should make common-sense). My point
is that it's pretty hard for sykers to learn new powers outside their
discipline already and I don't think that adding to that difficulty is
necessarily a good thing.

> One other thing I've considered doing is altering the beginning skills
> of characters.  Instead of putting 1 point each in Climbing and Sneak,
> I'd put them into Persuasion and Scrutinize (to reflect the fact that
> most humans will spend much more of their time talking to other people
> than climbing rocks or sneaking around).

I think the starting skills come from the fact that most any kid learns to
sneak past his parents (or worse these days) and go exploring. Which
usually involves things like climbing trees (well, piles of rubble now). I
could see maybe adding persuasion (as long as you do it for everyone
there's no real balance issue) since most all kids learn how to get what
they want, but scrutinizing someone seems like more of a learned skill. It
goes beyond telling whether or not "daddy's mad" and into more subtle
areas.

One of the websites has a "Pre-war Life" edge that basically gives you
points in common skills "free" (well you get like 6 points for a 3 point
edge). I thought that was a good idea. I mean a savage who's lived on his
own for 13 years isn't going to have persuasion or scrutinize.

Theo McGuckin - SysAdmin, JLab, Safety Warden (Bldg. 85)


	A lot of people set goals for themselves.
	Some even try to achieve them.