Is knowledge too weak?

[garhkal]

Could you give us an example of what you are on about Blue Glowie??
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Blue Glowie]

Yeah, let's say the PC's come across a ravenous k'lor'slug or something, so someone decides to use Alien Species and say "I've heard that k'lor'slug's can't resist day old Huttese pizza. Good thing we have some on our ship!"

That's kind of ridiculous, so it would probably have a high difficulty. Usually the more absurd or beneficial to the players, the higher the difficulty will be.

Other examples:

Streetwise: Say you know some underground contact, etc.
Bureaucracy: Convince an official of something, by citing some bureaucratic loophole
Planetary Systems: Make up something about a planet to your advantage, like a spaceport that deals in a certain export.

With the wrong group I could see this getting abused, or maybe not even fun. It requires the players to be more creative.

[CRMcNeill]

I proposed a rule a while back that seemed to work well the few times I tried it in-game. In essence, it treated Knowledge skills like Enhance Attribute. An obvious example is Value when combined with Bargain (i.e. if you know how much something is worth, you are better equipped to set a fair price). The Gm sets the Knowledge difficulty, your character rolls against that difficulty, then applies the result to a bonus chart, and the bonus chart is then applied to the appropriate skill.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Bren]

[garhkal]

So they make up what ever they want, and depending on how outlandish it is, the diff for the roll to use it is higher..? Interesting.
I guess you toss a lot of the stuff in the books out then?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Bren]

[Blue Glowie]

Yep, how useful and outlandish. I suppose it could step on the toes of a lot of EU stuff. Then again, my group doesn't know too much EU content, so it hasn't been a problem.

I just think the benefit is that it takes pressure off the GM when players want answers to something you haven't prepared for. That's always something I've disliked about knowledge type skills in all RPG's. This way allows the players to remain in the role of the problem solvers. And still, as the GM you can gate abuse with high difficulties.

[Fallon Kell]

I do that with Streetwise. If I have a player looking for something special that is not actually normally available, a high enough streetwise roll can retroactively create it. As a matter of fact there is some evidence to me that this was intended in the RAW.
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Or that excessively long "Noooooooooo" was the Whining Side of the Force leaving him. - Dustflier

Complete Starship Construction System

[garhkal]

[Blue Glowie]

I don't know. I guess you could just say "no" to the second player, assuming the first player succeeded.

But here's a question: why is the second PC trying to ruin the fun?

[Bren]

May not be a case of trying to ruin the fun, just one GM with two or more separate groups of PCs doing separate things and the poor GM trying to keep the various creations straight.

[garhkal]

Or its happening later, so the gm might be foggy on what he ruled for the first situation.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Raven Redstar]

That's what notepads are for. A law is written!
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RR
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[garhkal]

Maybe i am just having a hard time seeing how letting them dictate what the rule/law/skill is useful for is fun...
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Blue Glowie]

That's okay. It ain't my quest to convince you. Just thought I'd share an alternate method.