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I wasn't proposing any system... just offering options for YOUR system.
Systems are nestable things, and nearly always made up of smaller systems. For example, how skills work is a system which is also a subsystem of the game system.
Just about evetything discussed so far is it's own system in addition to beinb a piece of a larger system.
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And I didn't say there were limited bonuses to skills. I didn't even get that far. But how many bonuses do you need? How many ways can you get them?
???
Oh, I see. That isn't what I meant by that. For example, if you say that a class skill is ab mod plus 2 plus lvl, and a cross-class skill is ab mod plus lvl, amd untrained is pure ab mod, then you have only three possible bonuses, not including the ab mod variation (which is purely derivitive in this case), lvl+2, lvl, and 0. All your skills will only be one of these three (and the 0 is very bad as lvl gets high making a major gap between min and max).
This is what I meant by limited bonuses.
Anytime you make the skill bonus a function of lvl, you get this effect of having a limited set of potential values from choice. Adding many derivitive values can mask it but doesn't make it go away.
The norm for d20 however, allows a freeform, if limited, spending of points as desired, meaning ghat as level goes up, you have more and more possible variation in the potential skill bonuses, basically having a possible bonus lvl for every 1 point between (and including) min to max.
This greater variation adds depth.
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Nor did I suggest a binary/trinary skill system. I only mentioned it as an option if you (or anyone else) wanted a more complicated system. My suggestion was you get all skills at some function of level. If you wanted to be better at one or more, you'd pick a feat/special ability/advantage/whatever to do that.
Perhaps I'm not understandinb, but your suggestion as I understand it, us a major simplification of the norm, removing complexity, not adding.
Besides, complexity is not a goal to reach for, ever. Those who claim to desire more complexity actually want more depth and ssy complexity because they don't don't know the difference. Depth has a cost, which is generally complexity. Elegance i dedig is generally from getting a maximum of depth with a minimum of complexity.
Unfortunately, your suggestion, as I understand it (skill equals F(lvl)=modifier), removes some depth as well as complexity.
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I wasn't objecting to your idea of versatility... just questioning how it differed from what's already there.
How it differs is the the normal d20 doesn't
progress versatility from a little to a lot, rather you either have untrained of trained, which is again a binary scenerio. At 1 skill rank you have an equal amount of versatility as 20 skill ranks.
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The other issue I have is: how do you gain this versatility? You seem determined to separate level from versatility, so do you spend XPs to get this versatility?
On the contrary, I'm trying to make lvl
represent versatility. More lvls means more versatile.
Then to make tier represent direct raw power. Higher tier means more power.
By making versatility something gained slowly (rather than binary flip from untrained to trained), it allows characters to advance while remaining at reletively similar power level.
Basically, I have a problem MMO style uncapped power increases. You find that players of different levels, even by only a few levels difference, are far different in terms of power, they just can't compete, can't even have fun together, because what is challanging to one can be one-shotted by the other. This also means that there is a very narrow band of encounters that can be fought as everywhere too high is so lethal as to be unplayable, and anywhere too weak is boring and annoying.
Focusing progression on versatility allows lots of progression, yet the most advanced player can still play with a total newb without either feeling abusively outclassed, nor bored and annoyed.
But achieving this means power progression must be separate from versatility progression and versatility must actually have a progression.
Applying this to skills means allowing skills to improve in some fashion other than straight increases to the modifier.
This doesn't mean you have to deny jumping till a certain lvl is achieved, but you can look at various uses of jumping, and allow chosen uses to be done at lower cost or more easily. Basically, adding tricks and such, so instead of just increasing how far one jumps, you can allow one to jump and shoot an arrow while jumping, or to land on a balance beam, to do a jump cartwheel ala Tombraider to keep shooting while avoiding an attack, etc.
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As far as gaming with players with different styles, I didn't say you should game with them, but that you were starting to sound like you were looking down your nose at anyone who didn't play your way.
Not intended. Probably a little carry over from always having difficulty with discussions about playstyle. For example, one group I ended up leaving quickly, couldn't understand why my sorcerer couldn't identify potions, and were of the mind that I wasn't a team player because I didn't make sure I could identify potions. As far as they were concerned, I had no business playing d20 at all if I didn't understand exactly what they thought I should be doing.
I've had many discussions where the distinctions between different playstyles were unnoticed, misunderstood, ignored, or disbelieved by others, and many tell me I'm stupid and delusional talking about things they don't see.
I don't think less of people who play differently, but I do think recognizing the differences can help everyone, but after so much negativity on the topic, emotion probably leaks through.
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The flip side of that, though, is that if you don't game with them, how do you expect them to learn a different way?
Do they
want to? I'd be willing to teach and show, but that goes better in a format designed to demonstrate. Also, my gming style is far better at the table than online, and I don't get much chance for that anymore.
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It's the mechanics that will define the character, not the label.
Not entirely true. It's called stereotyping, that thing that causes ptoblems such as racism. Not that stereotyping is entirely bad, especially if you take concious hold of definjng your stereotypes, but the problem is, is that when you share the label with others, you aren't sharing perfect knowledge of how you define the label, and therefore, the others will use their own stereotype of that label as a baseline for what they think.
Now, this is where common sense comes in, as in
a sense of what things should be that two people have in common. If two people only know of wizards from reading Lord of the Rings, then labeling a character as a wizard is likely to have similar expectations.
But when you have one person who sees the wizard as a walking library whose sole purpose is to identify things and maybe drop a fireball on occasion but otherwise stays out of the fight, then they are expecting a vastly different thing and that will set the stage for how they see the wizard.
One will expect the wizard to charge in with sword and staff swinging, while the other expects the wizard to hang back as support.
This can't be avoided except by either not including the labels, or by giving a single well defined source for labels, a.k.a. classes.