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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14215
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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 Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Space Coyote wrote: | 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? |
No. Just off the lsit of what the character is considered 'learned' at. Since you can still do the skill even without having it listed, it is just defaulting to the attribute, but as asked and answered here before, it is more than likely going to be at a higher penalty.
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Space Coyote
Cadet
Joined: 13 Oct 2008
Posts: 18
Location: San Francisco, CA
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| Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 11:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | No. Just off the lsit of what the character is considered 'learned' at. Since you can still do the skill even without having it listed, it is just defaulting to the attribute, but as asked and answered here before, it is more than likely going to be at a higher penalty. |
Okay, I gotcha. Yeah, I think that would work alright if you're playing with a penalty on non-listed skills.
My biggest concern with the atrophy was in "taking away" character points from the players. Like I said, once they're spent, they're spent. The trade-off is that whatever a player buys, he's stuck with, so I don't like the idea of selling skills back either (which could then become a problem with the player wanting to do it in an emergency).
And it gets fuzzy, too, because time is so darn fluid in the storytelling. Do you count by in-game time, or number of game sessions, or what? It works out best being game sessions, I think, and IIRC, that's how time is tracked for atonement for DSPs.
And, of course, all the extra bookkeeping.
But I'll even go you one further, garhkal. Here's an atrophy system I could live with:
If the player goes six sessions without using a skill, it gets a -1D penalty. Once he gets the penalty, he has to use the skill at least once per session for three consecutive sessions to remove the penalty. Using it intermittently keeps it at -1D. Six more sessions with no use drops it to a -2D penalty. Use in three consecutive sessions gets back up to only -1D, and three more consecutive sessions removes the penalty.
The atrophy penalty is never more severe than -2D, and never drops the skill below attribute level. (Whether or not it stays listed is the GM's call.)
BUT, spending the regular amount of character points to upgrade the skill one pip raises the skill normally, and immediately removes the atrophy penalty. There's usually training time involved with normal skill increase, and I think that would work fine for the character to get back into practice.
This way, the player has enough opportunity to use his skills (they should have some warning that they're forgetting their training), he has a way to remove the penalty without spending any CPs, he has another way to remove the penalty quickly, and the CPs he spends to upgrade the skill still have full value.
The atrophy is more noticeable on those lower-level skills the character hasn't developed as much (which I think is realistic), and the player might even let his more advanced skills slip a little so he can concentrate on the newer ones.
And if he's on the way to removing the atrophy penalty but hasn't gotten there yet, he can still spend a character point or two on the skill check, just like normal, to perform the skill at his regular level.
How does that sound?
I'm not sure it would work quite right for all skills (especially Know and Perc skills), but it adds a penalty for disuse and encourages the players to spread around their actions and CPs. |
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Amra
Cadet
Joined: 17 Oct 2008
Posts: 20
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| Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 4:37 am Post subject: |
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This is more of a d20ish rule than a d6 rule.
In d6, any give Wild Die complication on a STR role vs. damage could mean your demise, if you're a freshly minted Smuggler, or a 2 year veteran Jedi. Just don't see the need for uneccessary punititive rules. If your players don't mind, I guess it's fine, but if my GMs had ever tried that House Rule, we'd have laughed. |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14215
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Do you count by in-game time, or number of game sessions, or what? It works out best being game sessions, I think, and IIRC, that's how time is tracked for atonement for DSPs. |
With most of the gaming i have done int he past 10 or so years of SW, a full module equates to 1 month of game time, when travel etc is taken into acount. So that is what i was looking at for time line.
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Space Coyote
Cadet
Joined: 13 Oct 2008
Posts: 18
Location: San Francisco, CA
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| Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | With most of the gaming i have done int he past 10 or so years of SW, a full module equates to 1 month of game time, when travel etc is taken into acount. |
That sounds reasonable to me for a general rule. Would you still begin any kind of skill atrophy at the one-year mark?
| Quote: | | This is more of a d20ish rule than a d6 rule. |
That may be true--I haven't done enough gaming to have a real good handle on how different systems work. But I know there wasn't any kind of atrophy used in SWD6 in three editions of the rules. It does seem to clash with the fast-and-loose nature of the game.
Is there any final ruling on this? We've got about three different ideas for an atrophy system in this thread, and some more ways to avoid using one. Shall we leave it up to individual GMs from here?
If anyone tries out an atrophy system over a few adventures, go ahead and update this thread to let everyone know how it went, and what the players thought of it. |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14215
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 7:58 pm Post subject: |
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Yes i would still start it after one year... I know from experience, that is as little as it takes to start loosing a skill...
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Delkarnu
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 02 Sep 2008
Posts: 189
Location: Saratoga Springs, Upstate NY
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 1:33 am Post subject: |
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| If Darth Vader built C3PO, he must have had decent Droid Repair, but at the battle of Yavin, he does not have the skill anymore, so it must have atrophied. |
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strongarm85
Lieutenant
Joined: 10 Nov 2008
Posts: 82
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 2:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Delkarnu wrote: | | If Darth Vader built C3PO, he must have had decent Droid Repair, but at the battle of Yavin, he does not have the skill anymore, so it must have atrophied. |
The reason Vader doesn't have the skills in the the older source books is because they where all published before it revealed that he had them. |
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Delkarnu
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 02 Sep 2008
Posts: 189
Location: Saratoga Springs, Upstate NY
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| Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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| strongarm85 wrote: | | Delkarnu wrote: | | If Darth Vader built C3PO, he must have had decent Droid Repair, but at the battle of Yavin, he does not have the skill anymore, so it must have atrophied. |
The reason Vader doesn't have the skills in the the older source books is because they where all published before it revealed that he had them. |
Knew I should've added a  at the end of that post. |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10438
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 1:25 am Post subject: |
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I don't see the need for a rule like this. A campaign wouldn't go on while a character is in prison for years, but I can see a character's background including being in prison for many years and just getting out. So I can see skill atrophy as a part of a character background, but not happening during game play. A player could say "Jym used to be a expert computer programmer, but after being imprisoned in the spice mines of Kessel for 17 years, he was very rusty when he got out." And then the character's starting computer programming skill is considered to be less than what it once was, before the campaign started. But then it wouldn't have to atrophy during a campaign.
Why would any player have skills that would never be used in the campaign anyway? What would the point of that be? Even if a character needs a odd, rare skill to explain his character's background, I wouldn't even allow the character if the skill wouldn't ever be used somewhere over the course of adventuring. If you're really concerned about the realism of skill atrophy, then maybe as a GM you could come up with creative ways for the story to require the skills to be used every now and then, so then it wouldn't need to atrophy. I'm sure if you were having a problem coming up with a way for a specific skill to be used in an adventure, you could start a thread in this forum and get some good story ideas for incorporating it.
Also, the campaign I'm currently working on is only 2 years of game time, so skill atrophy is not something I'm even worried about. Along the same line of thinking, I also don't bother with the rules for increasing attributes beyond what they start with.
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Sabre
Lieutenant
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
Posts: 80
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| Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:06 am Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | I don't see the need for a rule like this. A campaign wouldn't go on while a character is in prison for years, but I can see a character's background including being in prison for many years and just getting out. So I can see skill atrophy as a part of a character background, but not happening during game play. A player could say "Jym used to be a expert computer programmer, but after being imprisoned in the spice mines of Kessel for 17 years, he was very rusty when he got out." And then the character's starting computer programming skill is considered to be less than what it once was, before the campaign started. But then it wouldn't have to atrophy during a campaign.
Why would any player have skills that would never be used in the campaign anyway? What would the point of that be? Even if a character needs a odd, rare skill to explain his character's background, I wouldn't even allow the character if the skill wouldn't ever be used somewhere over the course of adventuring. If you're really concerned about the realism of skill atrophy, then maybe as a GM you could come up with creative ways for the story to require the skills to be used every now and then, so then it wouldn't need to atrophy. I'm sure if you were having a problem coming up with a way for a specific skill to be used in an adventure, you could start a thread in this forum and get some good story ideas for incorporating it. |
When you put it that way, skill atrophy as a story factor rather than a rule works for me, actually. I for one would still avoid a permanent penalty--even with a refund as has been discussed.
Until a character is so old that age is decreasing their stats (again, not something I'd put in rules) they will remember the skill more as it is used to the tune of +1 pip worth of skill each time it is used up to their old maximum.
This would be a method that satisfied both realism (it isn't easy to unlearn things, but it is easier to get back to a level where you make the same mistakes you always made) and fairness in gameplay terms (the GM is responsible for creating story opportunities for skills to be used in missions, not the player). |
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