Skill Atrophy

[garhkal]

We know from the printed books that not using skills can atrophy them over time. And from going on various ADND boards, they also have 'atrophy rulles' though mostly from aging.

So i came up with this idea. From all the gaming i have done, when you take into account travel time and investigations etc, an average game session (5 hrs) can account for 4 weeks in game time passing.
So for every full year that you do not USE a skill, the gm rolls your stat and so do you. If you ever get lower than he does, the skill atrophies one pip. Using it even one time during that period stops the atrophy.

if after 2 atrophies of a skill, you WISH to atrophy it yourself, you can do so and reclaim the CP spent for that skill, though at no time can you drop it lower than your base attribute.
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[Esoomian]

I'd probably include only the voluntary atrophy set of this house rule as it's quite plausible for a player to be using skills and brushing up on facts during long, boring hyperspace trips. These are not always roleplayed so I think I'd be more inclined to ask a player if there is any skills they think might have atrophied rather than telling them "OK you haven't used this skill in ages lets roll to see if it's atrophied."
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[Gry Sarth]

The natural atrophy does make sense in some cases. Say a character learned the "hover vehicle operation" skill in a very specific adventure, years ago. Well, in all the years since then, he's never even SEEN a darned hover vehicle, much less piloted one, so it makes sense for him to completely forget how to handle one of those things.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[Sabre]

Seems like a lot of unnecessary book keeping just to punish the player for not using skills that you as GM have not created a need for in your adventures.

[Space Coyote]

I agree--I don't think it's necessary. While there is some responsibility on the player to bend the story around so they can bring the skills they want into play, I think atrophying skills in the middle of a campaign is too much. It's the existing skills, whether they've been used recently or not, that make a character who he is and show the adventuring that he's done.

Skill atrophy sounds better suited to affecting characters between campaigns (especially if the character's age is advanced), or bringing a powerful character out of retirement.

[schnarre]

This isn't a unique idea: in the Dark Empire sourcebook it shows a number of personae with "skills lowered to reflect aging & lack of use"--Mon Mothma among them. It's a question of how one wants to go about it.
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[ifurin]

well it doesn't sound like a bad idea, and it is realistic. (i could use my skill at speaking spanish as an example) but in character point systems your character points represent your power. reducing their character points kind of feels like reducing levels in other systems. personally i would probably increase the difficulty level rather than decrease the skill.

[McKinley]

I agree that it is realistic, but I feel it's not really in the spirit of Star Wars.
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[Delkarnu]

I wouldn't atrophy the skill, unless its unused for a significant amount of time, and I'd reduce CP costs to raise that skill back up to its old level. Muscle-memory, remembering a skill rather that learning it new, etc..

For shorter timespan of no skill use, A higher difficulty could be used if its a skill like security, where the PC skill is the same, but newer security measures have come about that they haven't experienced yet, but I would also use this for a computers role for an much older system the person hasn't seen in a while.

[garhkal]

Hows about for skills 4d or less, 3 years of unuse
4d+1 to 6d, 2 years 6 months
6d+1 to 8d, 2 years
8d+1 to 10d, 1 yr 6 months
10d+1 to 12d, 1 yr
and 12d+1 and up, 6 months.

If you self atrophy, you gain the cp spent -2, to be put into a pool for that (or other) skill(s) that atrophied, if you later on wish to relearn them.
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[Space Coyote]

I've been thinking about it, and sense a long post coming up. Forgive me, and brace yourselves...

REALISM:

True, it is realistic that skills would atrophy over long periods of disuse, but I think it's also realistic that there is a world of difference between having done something once (even years ago) and having never done it at all. ifurin's Spanish speaking could still be a good example. Also, I had a job for two weeks in 1998 using a company car, but it was a stick-shift. I'd never driven one before, had about a 30-minute lesson--I'm sure the vehicle was never the same again--and even though I didn't drive a standard again after that, I remembered how well enough to drive a friend home in his car in 2003.

If anyone goes through with the skill atrophy, I'd say not to take it lower than 1D above the attribute level.

PUNISHING THE INNOCENT:

Skill atrophy works well for a snapshot of an NPC at a particular point in the greater Star Wars timeline, but a PC is a different animal. The skills that a PC has are really the only thing that the player owns. Sure, he thinks he has equipment and credits and a starship and whatnot, but we know the GM can take any of that away with or without good reason. How he spends his character points is the only real way a player can permanently alter the "hardware" of his character.

And that's the real argument against skill atrophy for me. If a player prudently saves his CPs to raise his skills, it means that he has given up the opportunity to use those CPs to increase in-game skill checks, possibly a lot of CPs just to raise a single skill one pip. If a player has resisted that temptation (kinda like the dark side ), so he can make a permanent upgrade to his character, it seems wrong to take that away at a later time, when he didn't get the short-term benefit of increasing single skill check rolls.

It might not be the wisest move for a player to up his Ground Vehicle Repair while on that low-tech planet, but at least he's got something to show for spending the CPs. "Gee, Gamemaster Bob, I would have just burned a CP on that repair check instead of upping the skill if I'd known we'd be rescued so soon." That might lead away from good roleplaying and skill diversity, and probably breed some resentment, too. Sometimes players increase skills in an inefficient way--I sure have--but they should get to keep the skill. Character points ain't cheap, and I think players should get to keep the (perhaps limited) value of the skill upgrade. No matter how long it's been since Mon Mothma blasted a stormtrooper.

THE EFFECT, AND A SOLUTION:

Atrophying a skill or not, it seems like the desired effect is that characters should have a harder time succeeding at skills they have not performed or upgraded for a long time. Makes sense. And I think it's safe to assume that the skills used and the skills upgraded will be the same, for the most part. Adjusting the difficulty definitely sounds like the way to go, and might even be built into the system, in a way.

There have been discussions in other threads about dealing with veteran characters, characters so advanced that they have skills in the 15D to 20D range. The common method for dealing with it as a GM has seemed to be increasing the difficulty of skill checks (or increasing the skills of combat opponents). That does seem like the best way to go--but do you as the GM increase the difficulty of only those skills that the player has raised so high? Or does the new difficulty affect all skill rolls?

In other words, if the bounty hunter was shooting wings off of flies at 100 meters with his 18D Blaster skill, and you made the difficulty tougher on him so stormtroopers would still be intimidating, is his 4D Piloting skill still good enough to zoom through asteroid fields without a scratch? Doesn't seem like it should be.

If you raise the difficulty numbers all the way across the board, the effect of skill atrophy is still achieved. Those skills that the player has not upgraded will no longer be good enough to succeed at the new difficulty, and the player will be forced to upgrade them to have the same level of success as before, or accept his limitations.

MY PERSONAL TAKE:

I don't like the skill atrophy idea. I think it shouldn't come up at all for new characters (and especially new players), and prefer the increased difficulty for veteran characters. However, I also never cared for playing with characters that advanced. I think it throws off the game balance in a way that isn't completely compensated for by increasing difficulties, and adds a layer of conversion to everything that's just a pain in the neck.

Personally, I think 15D is way too high for a PC skill. I understand that players get attached to their characters--I'm pretty sure we all do, and it's part of the fun of playing--but when the same character has been played for so long that the game is no longer challenging (without the GM making adjustments), it's time for a change. Finish the campaign. "Congratulations, everyone. You've defeated the evil ______, saved the ______, and allowed the ______ sector to throw it's support to the Rebellion, helping pave the way for the restoration of the Republic. Now, you can retire these characters and make new ones for a new adventure. Or we can keep playing them, but from here on out all the difficulty levels will go up, and you won't be able to do the same things you could before. Which will it be?" I'd rather make new characters, but I'm not everyone. Just make sure everyone playing is okay with the decision.

If there's a mix of veteran characters and not-so-veteran characters, then I think you can only play to the abilities of the newer charcters. But in that case, when a player has decided to use his veteran character instead of making a new one, he should be using his heroic-level skills to be performing heroic-level actions. If not, if he plays as timidly as the brand new characters, then maybe he shouldn't get as many character points at the end of the session. He might be taking a backseat on purpose, for the benefit of new players, but then that's still reason to receive fewer CPs.

Alright. I'm about talked out, and even sliding into another topic. Thanks for reading.

I am one long-winded fellow.

[Gry Sarth]

I personally think that, even though skill atrophy makes perfect sense, it shouldn't be used as a standard game mechanic. I think the initiative to atrophy a skill should come from the player, not the GM. It should be yet another character development tool, not a punishment. Sometimes with veteran characters you look at the character sheet and find some obscure skill you didn't even realize was there "Hover vehicle operation? What? I don't think I ever even USED that skill. Probably I didn't even know what it meant at character creation". So there's a skill that simply does not reflect the character's current abilities and interests. I think the player should have the option of "selling back" that skill to the GM, at a reduced price, so he would get a fraction of the CPs he used to raise the skill.

On the game mechanics side of thing, I think it would be best used like some here suggested; just increase the difficulty in the first couple of times a character uses a very rusty skill.
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[garhkal]

Coyote. I like your suggestions and inputs. Hows about a compromise.. Only skills which he has NOT put anything into can atrophy. Like say a gambler has never put CP into his running and thrown weapons skills. After a while they can atrophy to where he no longer has them..
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[Space Coyote]

Thanks, garhkal--I guess I had a lot to say.

I'm not sure I follow you. Are you talking about atrophying a skill to below the attribute level?

[Phalanks Balas]

My personal feeling is that skill dice not used can be reduced temporary as a "background story". The charater is a bit "rusty" in his skill. If she uses it again, the skill dice gradually raise to the maximum value.

When a skill isn't used, I considere there is a time period of 6 months where de skill dice don't change. After this time, each 3 months skill dice of the unused skill are temporary reduced up to half the maximum value as follow:
actual skill dice temporary loose
12D and more 2D
9D to 11D+2 1D+1
7D to 8D+2 1D
4D to 6D+2 2
less than 4D 1

If the skill is used intensively, it can be raised by 1D each month.

exemple:
Bill "Bull" Dozer has actually 13D in Capital starship Engineering (A). He is arrested and put in prison. During the first 6 months his skill stays in his mind and nothing occurs regarding skill atrophy.
after 3 next months, he begins to feel a bit rusty and looses temporary a part of his skill. The temporary skill value drop to 11D. 2 years later his skill has reach the minimum... it is now reduced to 6D+1.
After spending 3 years in prison, Bill is released then he finds a job in a shipyard as a repair technician. Spending all the day to repair capital starships he can use Capital starship Engineering (A) skill dice in addition of Repair capital Starship skill dice. After 6 months of intensive job, his Capital starship Engineering (A) skill returns to the maximum value...
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Phalanks

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