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vanir
Jedi
Joined: 11 May 2011
Posts: 793
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 Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2012 9:44 pm Post subject: |
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You can always point out that it saves a lot of wasted CP awards if Players put their starting skill die into the higher attributes, which should be orientated to their character archetype, adjusted for species.
With things like a wookiee engineer it makes sense to put some starting skill dice in Str skills to save CP costs raising high attributes, but it also makes sense if you're going to call him an engineer you'll want to put at least a couple of those die in various starship type repair skill because his base is only 3d maxed and 5d is the min qualification to take up (A) engineering, if the player is going to take his career that seriously. Point is it's still smart PC'ing to put some in any high attribute like Str to save CP wastage later...and you can fit that with a backstory typical of a wookiee, he's a hunter, warrior...and engineer this one.
But with human archetypes, an engineer is likely to have a 4d base Technical 2-3d every other attribute so it makes CP sense to put most starting dice in Tech and use CP awards to raise other attribute skills during gameplay. More traditional there.
With species that have a 5d base Technical, you don't even need to spend much starting dice in it, you've already got min requirement for any engineering or medicine advanced skill out of the box. Again fits backstory in being phenomenonally talented as a species. PC like that could put all starting skill in combat skills and treat engineering like being a savant...but it still makes CP sense to put it all into Tech.
Every player wants to start with great combat or at least soak/defensive scores, but if you appeal to their sensibilities regarding CP wastage in raising high attribute skills, you'll get them spending starting die in line with their character archetypes moreso. We found that anyway.
Smartly written up, starting characters can easily get to 6-7d in one or two skills and several at 3-4d within only a few short adventures, out of their element they're retards but catch them working well as a complementary team, each PC acting within his best skill use, and they get very powerful as a group very quickly with fewer CP than one might expect. Throw in excellent equipment and it's a fast tracked mid-level party. |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10530
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2012 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon The Lion wrote: | | this approach of needing to justify one's character skill choices to the GM seems really self-centered and narrow minded to me. |
Your reply seems really self-centered and narrow-minded to me. But I mean no offense. And since I added "I mean no offense" I should be be able to get away with saying offensive things. 
| Leon The Lion wrote: | | my outlook is shaped by never having the misfortune of playing with power-gamers, munchkins, or similiar twinks. My players always provided appropriate backstories anyway, because they viewed it as part of the fun. |
If your players always provide appropriate backstories, then their skills are already justified and you would not ask them for any further justification of their skills. Perhaps your (probable) overreaction is based on your utter lack of experience with this topic.
I only ask for further justification for skills in the cases that require it. When a completely appropriate background is provided, I do not need to ask for justification. Since 1988, the majoritiy of my players' PC have been approved upon submission.
| Leon The Lion wrote: | | It depends on what you really mean by "justifing". If a throw-away line in the backstory is mostly enough, I can live with that. If instead one would be required to explain and argue in depth every pip of every skill, and the GM could say "No, you cannot place 2D in this skill, because to me your backstory does not suffciently justify the character having a skill that high", then I would bow out of such a game, and would never run a game like that myself. |
I would also never run a game like that, and never have.
| Whill wrote: | | I am a very collaborating GM and do everything I can to work with the player to achieve their character concept and make it work for my game. |
| Whill wrote: | | The real way that I "limit" skill allocation choices is that every PC's background has to justify the training and/or experience that explains having the skill and at it's starting level. If I don't feel the player justifies it, then they either tweak their character's background to suit or they reallocate their skill dice accordingly. |
Notice the quotation marks used for the word "limit" in the first sentence in the above quote, and the use of the conjuction "or" in the final sentence. You have it exactly opposite of the way it works in my game. If the PC's submitted background does not completely justify a skill die allocation for me, I do NOT tell players they can't have that skill. Instead, I ask them to come up with an explanation for having the skill. This is often just a "throw-away line" if by "throw-away" you mean it doesn't always even have to be written down on the character sheet. Let me give you a real example for a campaign that took place immediately following ANH:
GM (me): Well done on your Background and Personality write-up. I see your young Alderaanian engineering student has the blaster skill. How did he get that?
Player: Uh... Ever since he was 12, he spent his summers with his great-uncle in the outer rim hunting wild game?
GM: Works for me.
That is just the opposite of self-centered and narrow-minded. That is encouraging the player's creativity and being open-minded. I don't have to give ultimatums and there's nothing to "argue" about. The second part of my "or" sentence has only been for very rare cases that a player just can't come up with an explanation and chooses by his own volition to just reallocate his skill dice. As in...
Player: I guess your right, Whill. I never really thought about it like that. How about moving that last skill die from Demolitions to Repulsorlift Operation, learned the year he spent as a taxi-driver on Coruscant?
GM: Sounds good.
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Leon The Lion
Commander
Joined: 29 Oct 2009
Posts: 309
Location: Somewhere in Poland
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| Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 2:05 am Post subject: |
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| cheshire wrote: | | And, indeed, a throwaway line is what I'm talking about. (More is better, but that's the way I feel about all backstory... the more they give me to draw from in creating a story, the better.) All I want is a little bit of thought into who the character is and functional character development. IMO stats without a personality and history behind it is a pretty boring thing. It gives me little to work with in crafting stories and interesting complications that deal with things that are personal to the characters and interesting to the players. |
Ah. So I really was over-reacting. My apologies. It's just this (emphasis mine):
| cheshire wrote: | | Yeah, a tech with 4D in anything combat-oriented really has to help me believe WHY he's got the skills. |
and especially this:
| cheshire wrote: | | the engineer shouldn't be the group brawler |
pushed exactly the wrong buttons. I indeed misidentified it as, just as you say, "prick GM" territor. But if you're really not that strict, then we're basically in agreement, and I just made a fool of myself by jumping on my high bantha. Once again, I apologize. I was trying to comment on how I see the practice, not on you as a person.
| cheshire wrote: | | Zarm R'keeg has really identified the problem here. If someone is called an engineer and doesn't really have the skill base, or has a back story on how they graduated from the galactic equivalent of MIT, but has no engineering skills, but has all demotions, grenades, and dodge, then there's something strange here. |
| Zarm R'keeg wrote: | I think the pint is that he can be- but if that's all he is and not an actual engineer with any dice in engineering skills.... then it doesn't really match his character or make much logical sense, and is a problem. An EINO, if you will.  |
Yes, I can see now where you both, and vanir too, are coming from. However... Neither of you thinks that an incompetent engineer, who barely scraped through engineering school but is a real tough guy, could be a fun character? Because that was my first thought.
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Fallon Kell
Commodore
Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 1846
Location: Tacoma, WA
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| Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 2:27 am Post subject: |
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| Leon The Lion wrote: | | cheshire wrote: | | Zarm R'keeg has really identified the problem here. If someone is called an engineer and doesn't really have the skill base, or has a back story on how they graduated from the galactic equivalent of MIT, but has no engineering skills, but has all demotions, grenades, and dodge, then there's something strange here. |
| Zarm R'keeg wrote: | | I think the pint is that he can be- but if that's all he is and not an actual engineer with any dice in engineering skills.... then it doesn't really match his character or make much logical sense, and is a problem. An EINO, if you will. |
Yes, I can see now where you both, and vanir too, are coming from. However... Neither of you thinks that an incompetent engineer, who barely scraped through engineering school but is a real tough guy, could be a fun character? Because that was my first thought. |
I just read combat engineer.
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Leon The Lion
Commander
Joined: 29 Oct 2009
Posts: 309
Location: Somewhere in Poland
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| Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 8:44 am Post subject: |
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| Fallon Kell wrote: | | I just read combat engineer. |
He's a combat engineer! He engineers combats to fight in! 
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Plagiarize! Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes! So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure to call it, please, "research".
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Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 4:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | Let me give you a real example for a campaign that took place immediately following ANH:
GM (me): Well done on your Background and Personality write-up. I see your young Alderaanian engineering student has the blaster skill. How did he get that?
Player: Uh... Ever since he was 12, he spent his summers with his great-uncle in the outer rim hunting wild game?
GM: Works for me. |
Sometimes an example really helps to clarify meaning.  This is what I do as well. |
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Zarm R'keeg
Commander
Joined: 14 Apr 2012
Posts: 481
Location: PA
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| Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 7:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon The Lion wrote: | | Yes, I can see now where you both, and vanir too, are coming from. However... Neither of you thinks that an incompetent engineer, who barely scraped through engineering school but is a real tough guy, could be a fun character? Because that was my first thought. |
Could work, yeah- IF that much thought were put into it.
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