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Forums at irishgaming.com » Midway: Re: A question about skills I don’t have

21 October 2011

Any game requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief in order to promote a play environment that is as fair to everyone as possible. There are plenty of places in the system where you can take a logic-stick and poke holes in it, but the same can be said of any system.

The underlying rules to the system can be summed up as
1) Keeping things as simple as possible.
2) Ensure that diversity of character types does not suffer.

To that end, skill are constructed as simply and robustly as possible. That said, if one skill can do everything, then there’s no reason not to just take that, and that stifles creative play. Having multiple medic skills, each with a different focus, allows for multiple medic characters to co-exist and interact, making for a richer and more rewarding game experience for everyone.


If you want fluff-based reasoning, here’s something for you to ruminate on:

NotCanonNotCanonNotCanonNotCanonNotCanon

“Surgery is a relatively recent re-discovery, and there’s a awful lot of banks left to be filled in. It’s a risky process, and if something goes wrong, even in a simple procedure, there is a very good chance the patient will die. Similar to when it was being developed in the first place back in the Renaissance period, there’s a lot of mistrust from established medical practitioners (herbalists & people skilled in first aid), who may tend to view surgeons as a bit ghoulish and dangerous, just like the old surgeons of the past were.

Also, surgeons are more interested in digging around in the ruins of pre-End civilisation, seeking to rediscover old medical tech. Again, this is something which may not sit entirely well with traditional groups, who may have a mild technophobia (after all, it was man messing with things he was not meant to that caused the End, right?).

As a result, the establishment may refuse to share their knowledge with those who practice or study surgery.”

An in-game, non-rules-based reason for why a surgeon doesn’t know first aid – the people who knew the techniques just didn’t trust him enough to share their knowledge.


Regarding the vagaries of gun use:
“During the End, many experimental weapons were used. One such was the “Peacemaker Bomb”. A combination of mind-altering chemicals and nanotech, the purpose of the bomb was to render a population incapable of defending itself with advanced weaponry by directly attacking that portion of the brain which affects hand-eye-coordination should a person seek to use any weapon more advanced than a bow and arrow.

Designed to be a temporary effect, the Peacemaker was ultimately too successful. The nanotech in the bomb reacted with other nano-, bio- and edric-variant technologies which had been unleashed into the atmosphere during the days of the End. The longevity of the nanotech was dramatically increased, and the Peacemaker insinuated itself into the very soil and water itself. Over the centuries, it has spread across the land (indeed, the world), infecting every human from the moment of their conception.

However, the violence of man is not so easily repressed. Several meditative tools have been slowly cobbled together by those who would wish to reclaim the power of the ancients, making it possible for a dedicated warrior to learn how to overcome the effects of the Peacemaker. Unfortunately, it has not yet been possible to completely overcome the Peacemaker, as it is far too prevalent in the human body. Instead, a warrior must learn a different set of mental techniques for each weapon they wish to become proficient with.”

Yes, rogue nanotech in your bloodstream did it. Oh, yeah? Well who are you to say that pre-End technology wasn’t capable of such a thing? Are you from the distant future? Just accept that you all study gun-kata, and move on.

What’s edric-variant technology? ...Nothing you need concern yourself about, honest. Just ignore that bit entirely. *nonchalant whistle*


NOTE: The above pieces of fluff are not canon or in-game facts. I made them up on the spur of the moment simply to illustrate an example of an in-game reasoning for what may seem to be arbitrary OOC mechanics.

Read more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PlanetIrishGaming/~3/Dvb_8pZJlbM/viewtopic.php