Author Topic: Development Points revisited?  (Read 3230 times)

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Offline markc

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Re: Development Points revisited?
« Reply #20 on: November 19, 2020, 04:53:06 PM »
Example of how adding skills can change DP.
One discussion I remember of how adding skills can change a game as well as DP expenditures was a group that was playing RM2 in Middle Earth and they wanted to add in skills such as Stunned Maneuvering (I do not remember if it was new to them, if it was a new skill or if they decided not to use it at the beginning) as well as some skills from War Law and other martial skills (home rules) as well as magic skills (RM2 EC skills, Spell Mastery (from what ever book it came out in or maybe they decided not to use it from the beginning and then decided to add it in) and some house rules spell skills).
The new skills required players to remake their PC's as the skills had a huge impact on game play and PC's who did not were behind the cure so to speak.


Ranger:
IIRC the Ranger profession's skill costs were changed in different printings and in different books. In the mid 90's a person in the group I was playing in was making a spread sheet DP/skill tracker and I was using info from my original RM2 core book and he was using a version from a RoCo.
I think after some searching they found 4+ different DP skill cost versions with some having a bigger impact on DP expenditures then others.
This is one huge advantage I see today with easy access to games official rule changes published on the web. In the case of the Ranger above a company could say test out these skill cost changes and report back and publish updated material.   


RMSS Example Combat Styles:
Another good example is Combat Styles had a huge impact on my RMSS game and thus a redesign of PC's and NPC's, how to use them in combat as well as other things.
It is good that the idea should be included in core rules.


MDC
Bacon Law: A book so good all PC's need to be recreated.
Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
Role Play not Roll Play.
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Offline brole

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Re: Development Points revisited?
« Reply #21 on: November 20, 2020, 03:20:33 AM »
So, it's almost 2021 now (years have passed).
1. How many DPs do your RMC/RM2 characters get?
2. Do you keep separate DPs for primary and secondary skills?

1.
The sheet I use has 14 stats, each stat contributes half DP's as normal. This means approx. 40% more DP's than default RM2.
(Extra stats,
LUCK (RM2 III),
ELOQUENCE (RM2 III. Additional stat not ME replacement),
APPEARANCE (not sure what book its out of),
DEXTERITY (extra house rule stat).)
I find the game can handle this extra stuff when using computer aids.

2. No. I mostly ignore primary / secondary classification. They are just all skills.
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Offline Green Manalishi

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Re: Development Points revisited?
« Reply #22 on: March 01, 2022, 01:26:55 AM »
If secondary skills are expected than a good GM will provide additional DPs or ways to get those ranks.
RM was designed with the DP going to primary skills, which were the only skills.
Then the additin of dozens to hundreds more skills.

I had a GM not give any extra DPs nor used similar skill but used every skill.

If my character wanted to cross the dirt road, I would need Road-Crossing skill, and when I said I had the skill, the GM would say "is it Road-Crossing Dirt or Road-Crossing Stone?"
I'd say "dirt!"
His response would be "well is that Road-Crossing Dirt skill urban or rural?"

Offline Hurin

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Re: Development Points revisited?
« Reply #23 on: March 01, 2022, 08:51:06 AM »
Lol, yes, that was the issue we call 'skill bloat'.

RMU has fixed it by significantly reducing the total number of skills (thus giving many skills a much wider application), as well as increasing the DP allotment to 60 dp.
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Offline Tywyll

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Re: Development Points revisited?
« Reply #24 on: March 04, 2022, 11:15:28 AM »
If I were to run a RM game again, I would probably give characters a flat DP amount, like around 60, so they could use the secondary skills. But I would also cut back on a bunch of them because man oh man was there skill bloat in the companions!

Offline MisterK

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Re: Development Points revisited?
« Reply #25 on: March 04, 2022, 01:17:22 PM »
If I were to run a RM game again, I would probably give characters a flat DP amount, like around 60, so they could use the secondary skills. But I would also cut back on a bunch of them because man oh man was there skill bloat in the companions!
Skill bloat can have various causes, and I think all of them were combined in RM at one point of another
- over-detail in the name of "realism" (herb lore, gathering herbs, prepare herbs, use prepared herbs...)
- having a cool new effect or capability idea and coming up with a new skill to cover it instead of using an existing one with a manoeuver modifier
- adding skills for balance purposes, in order to have players spread their DPs around (thus being less effective at any one thing) or missing interesting options in their capabilities
- insisting on having skills to cover *absolutely every capability*, even when using those skills will never lead to interesting situations

I'm firmly in the "less is more" camp nowadays. I try to play with a limited number of active skills that cover as many conflict situations as possible, and leave the non-conflict situations to vaguely quantified traits that will never be rolled. Spell Lists aside, I try to limit the skill list to at most 30, and favour multi-usage skills (for instance, stealth/shadowing is an opposed skill since it also covers the ability to *notice* such activities if one is looking for them. The opposition does not need to be at the time of action, either). Knowledge is covered by quantified traits that are not rolled nor developed (I'm pondering whether to use them in a way similar to what the Gumshoe system proposes), most combat features such as feints, special attacks and the like are covered by modifiers on the basic combat skills (and those modifiers depend on the combat style the character is using), armor skills are removed entirely (armor proficiency comes from combat style training), and so on.

Offline jdale

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Re: Development Points revisited?
« Reply #26 on: March 04, 2022, 01:54:28 PM »
Yeah, RMU goes in for fewer skills, and specialization where appropriate. The Character Companion will add optional specializations in case you really want to specialize in, say, midwifery as a specialty of Medicine rather than being a separate skill, but even then you would still be able to use Medicine for all its normal functions. I think that's good for playability while allowing as much character definition as you want.

And I would strongly discourage adding any more skills. New specializations where needed, but the bar to add entirely new skills is very high. The only place I see it happening is if you raise the tech level towards steampunk, and even then there shouldn't be much.
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Offline OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol

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Re: Development Points revisited?
« Reply #27 on: March 04, 2022, 03:55:05 PM »
I voiced my opinion about skill bloat in several threads already but, really, in my opinion a new skill or a skill specialisation should only exist when it brings something to a game, in most cases. I mean, sure, there are probably some cases when midwifery, pole vaulting or stilt walking are useful (…I guess… yeah, probably it's possible to make them relevant to a game…  :D) but how much would that bring to most regular games compared to applying a skill modifier to a medicine or athletic games skill? Similarly, breaking knowledge expertise and survival of a given kind of "zone" (region/climate combination) into Region Lore (a Survival category skill that gives you knowledge in a given region…), Hostile Environment (…because knowledge of a region doesn't give you the skills to survive in it, despite it being a Survival skill and not an Academic skill…), Foraging (…because the Hostile Environment survival skills don't apparently include finding food and water…), not even mentioning both the Fauna and Flora lore (…because knowing a zone, being able to survive in its hostile environment, and being able to find food and water don't give you any knowledge of its fauna and flora…) may have some kind of balance or realistic logic but… are all of them meaningful, not to mention breaking them in as many combination of region/climate there are? I mean, it's like saying that, sure, realistically, one should break the gambling skill into poker, blackjack, tarot, belote and any gambling games, or break a computer programming skill into every and each programming language because expertise in one doesn't imply expertise in any other, but does it serve any purpose? Why do you think that, about the latter, any movie about a developer expert would gloss over it and merely have the protagonists look for an expert developer and hacker without worrying about the exact language, OS, network protocol and all? Because it doesn't bring anything to the plot!

In addition to that, skills in RM2 also suffer from not working the same way at all: some need a roll where one adds to it the skill rank bonus, the stat bonus, the profession bonus and any additional bonus, whereas others would only add the skill rank bonus, others only the number of skill ranks, others would force a RR vs. the number of skill ranks, others would force an opposing roll vs. a skill roll, and others would have the skill rank bonus offset a penalty… and I'm probably forgetting some special cases!
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Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Development Points revisited?
« Reply #28 on: March 04, 2022, 08:21:10 PM »
I would tend to be generous and give 700 point to distribute across the ten stats in most cases (because in most campaigns they would eventually become heroes of some sort - and our groups tend to play to high levels).
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Offline EltonJ

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Re: Development Points revisited?
« Reply #29 on: March 07, 2022, 04:48:01 PM »
I would like to run a Rolemaster game first before I take a look at development points again.  So far, I've been running Shadowrun.