RE: New Life for Millennium's End

["Eric Benson" <ebenson@xxxxxxxx>]

> Mark said:
> There's a couple of quirks in the core mechanics, specifically character
> creation that could use some modification. The emphasis on a high level
> of education as the best method to acquire skills is the main one.
> < Snipped >
> A kid from Bosnia who has been fighting the serbs for ten years rather
> than attending college should have more real survival/guerilla fighting
> skills than a university graduate with a years basic training at Fort
> Bragg and no combat experience.
> < Snipped >

Two sides of the problem:
a) Proper skill point allocation
b) Lack of differentiation between experienced and fresh-from-the-vat
characters

As has been pointed out, the current skill points system does not adequately
reward field experience.  The current system has an academic bias that
favors advanced degrees, but at the same time, it's TOUGH to actually spend
the points correctly to adequately model a PhD student.  The 55/27 point cap
makes it tough to spend enough points in field to chew up the additional
points gained through education.  Most advanced degrees become MORE
specialized the higher you go, which isn't modeled under the current system
(which gives lots of generic points the longer you stay in school).  I
haven't seen very many doctoral programs that would allow you to spend get a
PhD in Aim: Autofire (if so, I'm in the wrong program).  So it's a double
sided problem.  The advanced degree program student can't spend enough and
the field experienced personnel don't get adequate credit for experience.

One solution would be to require MS/MBA/etc to have one or more appropriate
skills at 65, PhD/etc to require one or more appropriate skills at 75.  Does
it unbalance the game?  Not really.  Most of the knowledge is so specialized
that it won't change anything, but it at least cuts down on the doctor of
combat characters.

The second part of the combat experience problem can be solved by the Combat
Experience stat, which has been presented by Anders Strom and Rikard Sars.
The combat experience stat provides a significant difference between the
learned and the experienced.  One of the problems of the current system is
speed kills, but speed can be increased by kata.  Kata is one of the loop
holes in the current system.  The problem is that it's not out of the
question for a PhD student to pick up a black belt in Karate, but when it
comes to a running gun battle, they are going to get their clock cleaned by
a spec ops operator.   They might hold their own in close, but when it comes
to a gun battle, can you run 3,000 fps?


> Personally, I prefer to retain history pretty much as happened in our
> own world.

Agree.  If you significantly alter the history then you need to be pretty
complete about detailing what has gone on... given that the characters have
lived through it, they should have some idea whether Cuba is a nuclear
power... or struggling to keep an OSA afloat.  Given that we're playing a
realistic modern game, changing the history makes it less realistic.

> Worldbooks definitely appeal to me; though I suspect that the demand
> wouldn't be so goo from a marketing perspective, as they'd only sell to
> the 'must have everything published' crowd (which includes myself) and
> those wanting to run games in that setting.

See, I tend to take the opposite approach.  When it comes to world data,
I'll use Fielding's Danger Guides, Fodor's, Lonely Planet and online sources
for the background.  I tend to buy more basic rules and equipment guides and
then write the rest.\

>  I'd like to see more guidelines for writing adventures (and perhaps even
some actual
> adventures) where the themes are more investigative.

Investigations are difficult to write, but that's a different thread.
Probably the best one I ever wrote was based around a court case that I knew
(mother was on the grand jury).  There were enough twists and turns to make
Angela Lansbury and Perry Mason go crazy.  The story needs to be very well
connected and internally consistent.  One of the problems with an
investigation is "what do I do if the players don't notice the clues?"

-Eric