Talents from Attributes Other Than IQ - Page 4

David Bofinger · 05-04-2018, 01:16 AM

Applying Melchior's scheme to my examples, the starter and near-starter characters seem to work:

The starting swordsman has 12 points of talents so he works fine.
The thief has 18 points of talents so he needs DX 18 ... that's a lot, but he's an experienced fellow so not ridiculous.
The Australian aborigine has 15 points of talents ... DX 15 would seem a lot for him but maybe some of his talents could be cut.

but the epic characters are a problem:

Fafhrd has 43 points of talents.
Grey Mouser has 53.
Conan has 61.

All these characters, generated on reasonable attributes, would probably lose of the order of half the talents I gave them. I don't think you can do that to them and still have them be the people they are in stories. A character with attributes of 22 will usually have a lot more than twice as many talents as a character whose attributes are 11.

This is why my system starts handing out talent points at a rough character minimum of 6 or 7, rather than 0. It also has the effect that "characters who have never done anything even vaguely strength-related" and "characters with minimum strength" become synonyms.

Rick_Smith · 05-04-2018, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

...
The innate talents like Acute Hearing are just a problem for the game.

Hi Everyone, David.
You could argue Acute Hearing is an innate advantage. Or you could assume that it is being trained in what to listen for. Is that rustle of leaves from something small (like a mouse) or something larger? Is that REALLY a bird cry or a mimic? Have you listened to bird cry carefully enough to tell the difference? Do you unconsciously edit out back ground noise, or do you listen for things that are 'off', even when thinking about something else?

I was never troubled by Acute Hearing being a talent.

Warm regards, Rick.

JLV · 05-04-2018, 01:54 PM

My solution to this problem was to simply "pull" the "innate" talents (Charisma, Acute Hearing, etc.) and let players select one or two of them for free at the start when they created their characters. (Humans generally got two picks and the other races got one, because the other races received innate advantages of their own at creation.)

They could never get another one (your genetics don't change) except maybe through a WISH (and even then I had to think about it), while the other "learned" talents all still played the same way.

05-04-2018, 01:16 AM	#31
David Bofinger Join Date: Jan 2018 Location: Sydney, Australia	Re: Talents from Attributes Other Than IQ Applying Melchior's scheme to my examples, the starter and near-starter characters seem to work: The starting swordsman has 12 points of talents so he works fine. The thief has 18 points of talents so he needs DX 18 ... that's a lot, but he's an experienced fellow so not ridiculous. The Australian aborigine has 15 points of talents ... DX 15 would seem a lot for him but maybe some of his talents could be cut. but the epic characters are a problem: Fafhrd has 43 points of talents. Grey Mouser has 53. Conan has 61. All these characters, generated on reasonable attributes, would probably lose of the order of half the talents I gave them. I don't think you can do that to them and still have them be the people they are in stories. A character with attributes of 22 will usually have a lot more than twice as many talents as a character whose attributes are 11. This is why my system starts handing out talent points at a rough character minimum of 6 or 7, rather than 0. It also has the effect that "characters who have never done anything even vaguely strength-related" and "characters with minimum strength" become synonyms.

05-04-2018, 01:54 PM	#33
JLV Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Arizona	Re: Talents from Attributes Other Than IQ My solution to this problem was to simply "pull" the "innate" talents (Charisma, Acute Hearing, etc.) and let players select one or two of them for free at the start when they created their characters. (Humans generally got two picks and the other races got one, because the other races received innate advantages of their own at creation.) They could never get another one (your genetics don't change) except maybe through a WISH (and even then I had to think about it), while the other "learned" talents all still played the same way.