Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 02:00:17 -0400 From: S003LLT@nova.wright.edu To: Multiple recipients of listSubject: Re: Awareness Skills On Mon, 12 Jun 1995 RSBROWN@ETVAX.STIM.TEC.TN.US wrote: > I wanted to comment on the Awareness Skill Category in the > new RMSR and get everyone's opinion on it. > One other thing - how do y'all simulate the passage of time > when characters are searching for something? It seems to me, > the longer a character decides to search, the lower the > difficulty rating of the search should be (And the higher the > chance of those wandering orc guards finding you). Could anyone > give me any hints on how to adequately handle this? > > Thanks, > > Scott Brown > RSBROWN@ETVAX.STIM.TEC.TN.US
On perception (note: we haven't gotten the RMSS yet, and probably won't switch over to it for our current campaign if and when we do) what I like to do is emphasize general perception.
If someone has a chance to percieve poison in their food or an ambush or the like, that is usually a Gen. Per. roll at minuses, depending on how well it was done. If a person has a speciallized skill helping them out, like poison perception, then they can add the bonus from SKILL RANKS ONLY to their Gen. Per. roll for the purposes of overcomming their opponent's skill at using poison (or whatever) well and subtly. I'd probably let Pioson lore or the like count as similar (i.e. add half the ammount of skill ranks only).
Why?? Well, to use an analogy, a microbiologist may know a lot about the bacteria tht cause food poisoning, but he or she might not realize that eating from a swollen-up can of Chef-Boyardee could be bad, or how to go about doing it safely if it was the only food around.
Adding the speciallised skill rank bonuses on top of Gen Per. means that you don't NEED the special skill to have a chance, but if you know what signs to look for, you will be better off.
On time, I'd probably steal an idea from a different system -- namely Hero systems. The make successive time categories progressively larger. I'd divide things up somehting like
5 seconds 50% of per roll 10 seconds 100% of per roll 1 minute +10 to per roll 5 minutes +20 1 hour +30 5 hours +70 1 day +100
This is off the cuff at 1 am, so please forgive me if it sounds silly at a resonable time of the day. Using time periods that get progressively larger like that discourages players from looking ad infinitum ("if I only get +10 more for another hour's work, I'm not gonna bother"). Of course, certain things might take a minimum ammt of time to search, and I'd use common sense for that. My living room could be searched in far less time than the Taj Mahal! :) (probably!). And a fumble might prohibit further search attempts at all, or at least until the next time interval has passed
Hope this was interesting, if not useful
Laura Trauth
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 19:48:27 -0400 From: Karl Foelsche <kfoelsch@mail.coin.missouri.edu> To: Multiple recipients of listSubject: Re: Awareness Skills
I have to say that I have not played the new system in this respect, but I don't really have a problem with it from how it is written on the page. The Awareness o Alertness category is kind of annonying in that it is seperated from the other skills. Personally, I would prefer applying halving another skill instead if a character was looking for something (like locate hidden, for example).
The Awareness o Searching category is a little specialized, but you can get around that by dropping a lot of ranks into the category and only a few into the actual skills.
The Awareness o Senses category is so specialized that it won't often come into play....(wait a sec, hmmm...now I see what you're talking about!) Yeah, having five different skills for each sense is obnoxious.
Let's see, I guess I would have divided the skills up differently. I would have two different skill areas:
Awareness o Intuition (Alterness, Sense ambush, Reality Awareness)
Awareness o Normal (Everything else)
That would make it far less prohibative.