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CRMcNeill
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 Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 1:50 pm Post subject: What did WEG intend for Knowledge? |
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| Whill wrote: | | Maybe as a project you could eventually create a new thread that has all your tweaked attributes definitions and skill reassignments with your justifications? |
That's just it; I don't think it's tweaked, I think we've been misreading what WEG intended. Or at least what they had planned, but didn't fully implement. Intimidation always seemed an odd choice to be put under Knowledge, as on the face of things, it would seem to belong under Perception. Unless WEG intended to put skills dealing with having a strong mind / forceful personality / however you wish to phrase it under Knowledge, but failed to fully implement the change (as evidenced by the various Force powers all still defaulting to Perception as a defense).
Now, there have been multiple ideas floated in this forum about how to increase the utility of the Knowledge stat beyond that of a "role"playing stat or dump stat (depending on one's view). But what if we've been looking at Knowledge wrong? What if Knowledge is supposed to have an interactive aspect to it that WEG didn't define clearly enough for it to catch on?
The two main aspects I'm looking at are this:-On all Force powers, substitute Willpower / Knowledge for all instances where Perception is used to resist said power (except for the ones that inflict actual damage, which resist with Strength).
-Move Command to Knowledge. I don't have time to fully flesh out my reasoning at the moment, but I wanted to at least get the ball rolling on the discussion.
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MrNexx
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| Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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I think that might have been their reasoning, but I don't think it came out in text. Here's the text from 2e R&E
| Quote: | Knowledge skills generally reflect how much a character knows about a given subject, whether it's aliens, languages or laws.
Knowledge is a measure of your character's "common sense" and academic knowledge. Characters with a high Knowledge have a good memory for details, and have learned a lot about different aliens and planets. They often have a flair for languages, and they know how to get things done in bureaucracies.
Knowledge is used whenever a player wants to find out how much his character knows about a certain field. The difficulty depends upon how obscure the information is and how much the character knows about the general subject. |
Compare that to Perception
| Quote: |
Perception is the character's ability to notice things about his surroundings and other characters. Those with a high Perception are quick to spot concealed objects or people hiding behind a corner. They're also good at convincing other people to do favors for them, tricking or conning others, and bargaining to get a good price for goods or services. Characters with a low Perception get lost a lot. |
Neither of those speak to mental endurance or the like.
d6 space gives us
| Quote: |
Knowledge: Measure of your character’s overall intelligence.
Perception: Your character’s awareness of himself and things around him, including the ability to interact with others. |
Which puts Perception as the stat for Intimidation and Willpower... but those skills stayed in Knowledge, despite that.
Adventure and Fantasy both have explicit stats related to interpersonal interactions; Presence and Charisma. Notably, Adventure's Presence attribute had both Intimidation and Willpower; Fantasy's Charisma included Intimidation, but Willpower is replaced by Mettle, which does more or less the same thing.
So, I think we can say that Willpower and Intimidation were inclined to go with the "Charisma" stat, and insofar as Perception = Charisma, they would likely have wound up there. HOWEVER, lots of things shift as WEG switched attributes about; while d6 Space is pretty much SW 3e with some serial numbers filed off, Adventure and Fantasy use different attributes, which more often follow what might be thought of as a 2-domain split (physical/mental), whereas Space and SW both have a 3-domain split (Physical, Mental, and Technological).
Or, as I often say about AD&D, grognards have more experience with RPG design in 2019 than anyone could have hoped to have had when this game came out.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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I don't see knowledge as anything to do with 'force of will' or interactive.. BUT i do think willpower still deserves to be under knowledge..
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MrNexx
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| Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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(should be clear, but just to be explicit: I'm not arguing CRM's position; I just think the design of 2e wasn't as clean as one might like)
I think Willpower is a MUCH better anti-force skill than Perception; why should Perception influence not having your mind taken over, instead of the skill that is explicitly about that. But I tend to put it down as a failure of design.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | I don't see knowledge as anything to do with 'force of will' or interactive.. BUT i do think willpower still deserves to be under knowledge.. |
And yet Intimidation is very much an interactive skill. Here's the skill description:Intimidation is a character's ability to scare or frighten others to force them to obey commands, reveal information they wish to keep hidden, or otherwise do the bidding of the intimidating character. Intimidation is normally dependent upon a character's physical presence, body language or force of will to be successful. Some characters use the threat of torture, pain or other unpleasantries to intimidate others.
(emphasis mine)
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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| MrNexx wrote: | (should be clear, but just to be explicit: I'm not arguing CRM's position; I just think the design of 2e wasn't as clean as one might like)
I think Willpower is a MUCH better anti-force skill than Perception; why should Perception influence not having your mind taken over, instead of the skill that is explicitly about that. But I tend to put it down as a failure of design. |
There's very much a sense of a failed attempt to switch horses midstream, regardless of which side you take. Looking at it from this perspective, it would seem that someone (singular or plural) at WEG had the idea of moving willpower, strength of will, self control, etc, to Knowledge, but for whatever reason, the transition was never fully made, but the changes that had already been made were never changed back.
And yes, Willpower makes much more sense; as Whill mentioned in the other topic, "The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded." Nothing else comes as close to that as Willpower.
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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.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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With regard to moving Command to Knowledge, look at the similarity between the descriptions of Command and Intimidation:Intimidation is a character's ability to scare or frighten others to force them to obey commands, reveal information they wish to keep hidden, or otherwise do the bidding of the intimidating character. Intimidation is normally dependent upon a character's physical presence, body language or force of will to be successful. Some characters use the threat of torture, pain or other unpleasantries to intimidate others.
Command is a measure of a character's ability to convince gamemaster characters and subordinates to do what they're told. Add to that the fact that, as the numbers being commanded and coordinated increases, the actual process becomes increasingly cerebral.
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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.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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Based on this view of Knowledge, I have an idea for another skill, which I'm thinking of calling either Cool or Poise, which will be a measurement of a character's temperament, and their ability to stay calm and under control.
If I followed through on this, I'd use the new skill as the resistance skill for my psychological effects rules, and I can potentially see some other applications...
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Mamatried
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| Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 11:01 pm Post subject: |
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Taking away Intimidation and willpower for now I can see Knowledge being mostly your academical aptitude.
Looking at the skills we have aline species, this is more or anthropology, aka an academical skill, same is with cultures, languages and even tactics.
as to initimidation I see this in the academia context as more than ebing able to scare someone, but being abe to fomulate threats, being intimidating is also something you can train up, less academia than others.
Willpower is somewhat the odd one out here, but it can be argued this is something in the line of "mental exercises" as well as the more military "pushing one selves " and thus being able to be stringer focused on a task, stronger willed you might say.
so to me the intention behind Knowledge was academmia skills, if we look to technical we can say medical/first aid will fall under this, but seeing how it works in star wars, this nore than business, languages or scholar require some techincal device, be this medical droids and the like.
Engineers are academically strong mostly, but they have a technical field, they fix and make and design things
mechanical is all about vehiclauar movement and operations, and as such imo vehicle blaster should not be dex, but mechanical
as to strenght, this is your pure physical prowess, and your resistance, also your ability to climb and hold on to things, jump.
However to me brawling is about "to hit" and should be dex
so for Knowledge spesific I see the intent as academia |
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Mamatried wrote: | | Taking away Intimidation and willpower for now I can see Knowledge being mostly your academical aptitude. |
But you didn't take away those two "for now"; you left them out completely and used the remaining skills to justify your own foregone conclusion. Put those skills back in and you premise falls apart.
The title of this topic is "What did WEG intend for Knowledge," which means that the skills that WEG included in the Knowledge Attribute should be taken into consideration, not simply discarded to fit a preconceived notion.
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Raven Redstar
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| Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:40 am Post subject: |
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Why not just call it Mind?
Mind could in theory cover both academic aptitude as well as being quick witted and even potentially able to do some resistance or influence.
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Mamatried
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| Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:56 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Mamatried wrote: | | Taking away Intimidation and willpower for now I can see Knowledge being mostly your academical aptitude. |
But you didn't take away those two "for now"; you left them out completely and used the remaining skills to justify your own foregone conclusion. Put those skills back in and you premise falls apart.
The title of this topic is "What did WEG intend for Knowledge," which means that the skills that WEG included in the Knowledge Attribute should be taken into consideration, not simply discarded to fit a preconceived notion. |
I sort of came back to them, with the intimidation being "thought techniques" and willpower to be more the mental exercises and the ways to push your self, bot things can be "very loosely" in the academia realm.
but the main point is that Knowledge is academia, intimidation that to me is techniques on how to, and willpowewr that "can be seen as mental training and exercises, this will place the whole of KNOWLEDGE skills as is under the academia group |
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2019 12:57 am Post subject: |
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| Raven Redstar wrote: | Why not just call it Mind?
Mind could in theory cover both academic aptitude as well as being quick witted and even potentially able to do some resistance or influence. |
I want to be very careful about how I classify stuff, and most of the Attributes have some mental aspect to them. Being quick-witted and entertaining is tough to nail down to a particular Attribute, but I would lean toward having that be part of Perception.
Now, this is not to say that their shouldn't be some overlap (in the form of synergy bonuses of some kind). For example, a character who can make a successful Con check could get a bonus on their Intimidation check (by fooling the target into thinking they're a lot more dangerous / important than they actually are). A good Languages roll might represent a large vocabulary in a given language, which would then translate into a bonus for things like Persuasion, and so on and so forth.
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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.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2019 1:00 am Post subject: |
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| Mamatried wrote: | I sort of came back to them, with the intimidation being "thought techniques" and willpower to be more the mental exercises and the ways to push your self, bot things can be "very loosely" in the academia realm.
but the main point is that Knowledge is academia, intimidation that to me is techniques on how to, and willpowewr that "can be seen as mental training and exercises, this will place the whole of KNOWLEDGE skills as is under the academia group |
I think you're twisting the definitions of those skills far beyond their meaning in order to make them fit. One does not need a college degree to be intimidating; in fact, some of the most intimidating people often have only basic education, but have lived hard, violent lives and don't have an ounce of fear in them.
That's not academia, unless you're counting the proverbial School of Hard Knocks.
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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.
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Mamatried
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| Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2019 10:56 am Post subject: |
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To me Mechanics is EVERYTHING vehicle and starship related, with the repairs being the exception.
so I am inclined to remove vehicle balsters from Dexterity and add it to mechanical.
same with a few other skills. here is the changes
Str:
Brawling removed
Dex
Brawling added
Vehicle Blasters removed
Knowledge
Intimidation and willpower removed
investigation added
added beast handling
Per
Itimidation and willpower added
Investigations removed
tec
no changes
Mec
Added vehicle balsters
removed beast handing
my reasoning to remove these skills is where I think they do belong.
To me being strong alone does not make it easier to hit, but you deal more damage, and to me all "to hit" skills should be under dex, this includes Brawling.
Vehicle Blasters is really not that far off from starship weapons, and thus I think it belongs more with mechanical
the investigation aspect is to me more thna speaking to people to ghater information, so to me this falls into the academia realm, and thus KNO
As for willpower and intimidation, to make these more related to personality O have relabled these under perception.
I am thinking about moving SNEAK under dex, but to be stealthy and to sneak is more than dex, is also knowing where and what to do so to me sneaking is very much based on knowledge |
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