Topic: How many DP do you give per level?

[arakish]

More dev does mean more skills, and more skills gives players tools to interface with the game world.  Players get creative.

I think an interesting point is romantic over gritty, wich do you prefer?  A single skill such as Observation or Athletics can cover many skills sets, while swimming, sking, tightrope walk and sprinting really defines a more specific skill set, both approaches have strengths and weakness.  One weakness of the romantic is to many dev results in to many skills that all cover a broad set of knowledge.  At fairly low levels, they can do it all.  Better defining skills increases their number and also limits the ability to be strong and dominating in all places.  Chinks in the skill set a PC can cover encourages team play and results in shared limelight time for the players too.

So, lots of dev and lots of skills.  A Paladin may need to invent a fauna lore: mythical monsters while a Mage may need Culture Lore: Elemental Planes (both romantic skills with broad definitions of knowledge).  Culture Lore: Elemental Plane of Fire or Fauna Lore; Poisonous Creatures would be grittier and offer less in play use.  The key is a small mix of romantic skills can help out a game but tomany and we return to the original problem of PC's being overwhelmingly able.

I agree with this.  But as others may have said in this thread, it is dependent upon what the GM and Players want.  The people I played with tended to prefer a more gritty world instead of romantic.  However, we also played in more romantic worlds where one skill covers many other skills, thus less DPs were received.

Although the more gritty based games allowed characters to be more able, it also allowed me (GM) to create episodes that focused on some of the more obscure skills as yamahopper listed as examples such as Fauna Lore: Venomous Snakes or Planar Lore: Seventh Plane of Hell.  Using Planar Lore: Seventh Plane of Hell skill, I would eventually create an episode where that specific skill was needed for the episode, such as causing the PCs to need to visit the Seventh Plane of Hell.  Other such obscure skills would also provide hooks for many other episodes I planned.

As said by others, it truly depends upon what the GM and Players want.  With the current group I am discussing matters with, they are like me and prefer a more gritty world experience where the characters will eventually become "well rounded" with their skill set.  Of course, at lower levels, the characters will tend to be more archtypical, but will become more "well rounded" as they progress.

For example, with the group that will start the campaign, most are archtypical.  However, they are not like the professions listed in the RMUS.  Instead, they are:

Holder: Blacksmith Apprentice/Brawler
Naldur: Woodsman Watch Apprentice
Makur: Animal Healer Apprentice/??/Visionist (only with Selara)
Keleb: Historian Sage Apprentice
Selara: Apothecary Apprentice/Empathic Reader/Visionist (only with Makur)
Rena: Herbalist Apprentice
Warkim: Baker
Saramanusa (NPC): Shangrala Protectorate

For my new campaign world of Onaviu, I use a Specialized No Profession "class" for players to create their own skill set with some DP Cost Adjustment, Skill Classification, Skill Level Bonus adjustments at player control with limits to "specialize" towards one of the more archtypical professions.  And professions can change as does everyone's as life progresses.  However, players are required to keep records of how these "specializations" change over time.  You can even make up your own name for your profession.  If you do not like Fighter, you call your profession Myrmidon.  Or Geleka (HC: one who fights).

rmfr

[Peter R]

Strangley, the more skills you add to the game the less capable the characters become.

What I mean is, take a skill like foraging. I only use foraging as a standalone skill. Buy that and you can snare rabbits, pick berries, recognise edible roots and so on. If you go with RoCoII (4.6) you suddenly have seperate skills for foraging,(and fauna lore, flora lore and region lore), one for every terrain type and climate. Within 6miles or 10k of my home you have 6 of the listed terrains. So a skill a ranger would be expected to have suddenly become 6 separate skills for every one. I do separate out region lore but not by terrain but by geographical region and that region could be as big as a country or even span an area that crosses many countries such as Region Lore:The spice road.

If you use seduction you don't also need diplomacy, public speaking etc. Do you need five different blind fighting skills, six if you include spacial location awareness? As soon as you break these skills down you create holes in the characters knowledge. That then means that the character has to learn more skills to fill those gaps and that drives the need for more DPs.

Once everything has gone full circle you have gained nothing but creating a character takes a lot longer because you have so much more to do.

I am not saying having skills is wrong, or even that having many DPs is wrong. It is just that without the huge list of skills you do not need the added DPs and it is possible that some or many skills are adding complexity to the game without adding any benefit to the GM, Players or their characters.

[jdale]

It's not just the number of skills, it's also how tightly defined they are in use. As a GM, when the player wants to do something, do you ask for their bonus in the most applicable skill, or do you ask them what skill they are using? E.g. I had a player who wanted to put some fear into a person they were interrogating. He proposed to use Tale Telling to explain how a lack of cooperation could turn out for this NPC's future. Why not? It gives the PC a little more personality in how he approaches this problem and makes an interesting story. And suddenly all the skills are overlapping, which makes it less critical if you don't have skill X. I put it on the player to justify how their skill can be applicable, and maybe give different modifiers, but if they make a case I see no reason not to use it.

[Green Manalishi]

It's not just the number of skills, it's also how tightly defined they are in use. As a GM, when the player wants to do something, do you ask for their bonus in the most applicable skill, or do you ask them what skill they are using? E.g. I had a player who wanted to put some fear into a person they were interrogating. He proposed to use Tale Telling to explain how a lack of cooperation could turn out for this NPC's future. Why not? It gives the PC a little more personality in how he approaches this problem and makes an interesting story. And suddenly all the skills are overlapping, which makes it less critical if you don't have skill X. I put it on the player to justify how their skill can be applicable, and maybe give different modifiers, but if they make a case I see no reason not to use it.

That sounds good for me, and I think adds to roleplaying and player creativity.

One bad Gm I played mandated use of all the RoCoII skills (and NO similar skill) but never gave any additional DPs was like this. "You want to use your Underwater Basketweaving skill? Ok, is you skill Underwater Basketweaving Lake, River, Swamp, Ocean or Pool? Oh, it's UB - Lake, sorry, you're at -25, you're in a pond, and it's not the same."

[Peter R]

It's not just the number of skills, it's also how tightly defined they are in use. As a GM, when the player wants to do something, do you ask for their bonus in the most applicable skill, or do you ask them what skill they are using? E.g. I had a player who wanted to put some fear into a person they were interrogating. He proposed to use Tale Telling to explain how a lack of cooperation could turn out for this NPC's future. Why not? It gives the PC a little more personality in how he approaches this problem and makes an interesting story. And suddenly all the skills are overlapping, which makes it less critical if you don't have skill X. I put it on the player to justify how their skill can be applicable, and maybe give different modifiers, but if they make a case I see no reason not to use it.

This would have worked in my world too.

[RandalThor]

Strangley, the more skills you add to the game the less capable the characters become.

What I mean is, take a skill like foraging. I only use foraging as a standalone skill. Buy that and you can snare rabbits, pick berries, recognise edible roots and so on. If you go with RoCoII (4.6) you suddenly have seperate skills for foraging,(and fauna lore, flora lore and region lore), one for every terrain type and climate. Within 6miles or 10k of my home you have 6 of the listed terrains. So a skill a ranger would be expected to have suddenly become 6 separate skills for every one. I do separate out region lore but not by terrain but by geographical region and that region could be as big as a country or even span an area that crosses many countries such as Region Lore:The spice road.

In the RMFRP game I am currently running I have folded the Fire Starting, Foraging, Shelter Finding skill into the Survival [Region] skills, it just didn't make sense to have them seperate. I also use the lores to overlap a bit, such as local culture will have some information on regional and international stuff (usually), just not very detailed info, for which you need the specific lore skill (like artifact, spell, world politics, etc....)

I give 100 DP/level, to ensure that the PCs are not limited to just their basic professional abilities. (I also have them get 5 ranks in the Lore*General category, Own Culture Lore and  Own Region Lore - it just didn't make sense that they would not know their local areas/people well.)

[arakish]

Strangley, the more skills you add to the game the less capable the characters become.

What I mean is, take a skill like foraging. I only use foraging as a standalone skill. Buy that and you can snare rabbits, pick berries, recognise edible roots and so on. If you go with RoCoII (4.6) you suddenly have seperate skills for foraging,(and fauna lore, flora lore and region lore), one for every terrain type and climate. Within 6miles or 10k of my home you have 6 of the listed terrains. So a skill a ranger would be expected to have suddenly become 6 separate skills for every one. I do separate out region lore but not by terrain but by geographical region and that region could be as big as a country or even span an area that crosses many countries such as Region Lore:The spice road.

If you use seduction you don't also need diplomacy, public speaking etc. Do you need five different blind fighting skills, six if you include spacial location awareness? As soon as you break these skills down you create holes in the characters knowledge. That then means that the character has to learn more skills to fill those gaps and that drives the need for more DPs.

Once everything has gone full circle you have gained nothing but creating a character takes a lot longer because you have so much more to do.

I am not saying having skills is wrong, or even that having many DPs is wrong. It is just that without the huge list of skills you do not need the added DPs and it is possible that some or many skills are adding complexity to the game without adding any benefit to the GM, Players or their characters.

I beg to differ on the foraging skill.  I usually have foraging apply to a region/biome/climate.  Just because you have learned how to forage in a hilly (region), forest (biome), Cfa climate will NEVER translate to being able to forage in a flatland (region), rain forest (biome), Af climate.  Thus, yes, I require foraging skills to be developed for each individual region/biome/climate combination.  Another example: Just because you can forage in New Mexico shall NEVER mean you could forage in the Florida Everglades.  The environments are so drastically different, it could not happen that ONE forage skill would suffice.  Just because you can forage in the rain forest of the Amazon shall NEVER mean you could forage in the Pine Savannas of North Carolina.  Just because you can forage in northern highlands of Minnesota shall NEVER mean you could forage in the deserts of New Mexico.  Need I go on?

I do agree that such skills as fire starting, shelter location, hunting, trapping, stalking, hiding, tracking, amongst others not listed, are cross skills as far as region/biome/climate.  However, some skills just are NOT cross skills.  And NEVER shall be.

As for the combat skills, I have never been a super rules nazi.  If a character develops a TWC skill of Sword Right Handed and Dagger Left Handed, I have never penalized such a character if s/he decided to wield them Dagger Right Handed and Sword Left Handed.  It is my experience that anyone who trains in combat will also cross-train their skills.  As I have personally performed Kata with both a Katana and a Tanto, I have found that wielding either with either hand is similar enough that there would be no penalty doing such.  Of course, I am ambidextrous.  This definitely helps tremendously.  However, I watched a friend who was right handed who was able to so quickly compensate for switching hands/weapons that it seemed as if no penalty was warranted.  As said, Fighters will tend to cross-train.  Non-fighters usually do not.

I know this sounds nit-picky, but my experiences have taught me that some things should be "exploded" into individual sub-skills, while others should not be.  Then again, this always depends on the GM and his/her "real life" experiences.  Someone who has done nothing but work in retail would NEVER know anything about Survival skills.  Someone like myself who has served in the military WOULD.  However, that military person may not be as knowledgable in Influence skills as the person in retail.

Strangley, the more skills you add to the game the less capable the characters become.

And this I completely disagree with.  It would take a novel to discuss why.  Or, at least a large text book.

It's not just the number of skills, it's also how tightly defined they are in use. As a GM, when the player wants to do something, do you ask for their bonus in the most applicable skill, or do you ask them what skill they are using? E.g. I had a player who wanted to put some fear into a person they were interrogating. He proposed to use Tale Telling to explain how a lack of cooperation could turn out for this NPC's future. Why not? It gives the PC a little more personality in how he approaches this problem and makes an interesting story. And suddenly all the skills are overlapping, which makes it less critical if you don't have skill X. I put it on the player to justify how their skill can be applicable, and maybe give different modifiers, but if they make a case I see no reason not to use it.

Hear.  Hear.

One bad Gm I played mandated use of all the RoCoII skills (and NO similar skill) but never gave any additional DPs was like this. "You want to use your Underwater Basketweaving skill? Ok, is you skill Underwater Basketweaving Lake, River, Swamp, Ocean or Pool? Oh, it's UB - Lake, sorry, you're at -25, you're in a pond, and it's not the same."

And I have had the same thing happen.  If I ever had a character develop Underwater Basketweaving, then it would apply to ANY underwater environment.  The only thing I would have done is to apply modifiers depending upon currents, storms, etc.

It's not just the number of skills, it's also how tightly defined they are in use. As a GM, when the player wants to do something, do you ask for their bonus in the most applicable skill, or do you ask them what skill they are using? E.g. I had a player who wanted to put some fear into a person they were interrogating. He proposed to use Tale Telling to explain how a lack of cooperation could turn out for this NPC's future. Why not? It gives the PC a little more personality in how he approaches this problem and makes an interesting story. And suddenly all the skills are overlapping, which makes it less critical if you don't have skill X. I put it on the player to justify how their skill can be applicable, and maybe give different modifiers, but if they make a case I see no reason not to use it.

This would have worked in my world too.

Mine too.

In the RMFRP game I am currently running I have folded the Fire Starting, Foraging, Shelter Finding skill into the Survival [Region] skills, it just didn't make sense to have them seperate. I also use the lores to overlap a bit, such as local culture will have some information on regional and international stuff (usually), just not very detailed info, for which you need the specific lore skill (like artifact, spell, world politics, etc....)

I give 100 DP/level, to ensure that the PCs are not limited to just their basic professional abilities. (I also have them get 5 ranks in the Lore*General category, Own Culture Lore and  Own Region Lore - it just didn't make sense that they would not know their local areas/people well.)

I also do this.  However, if the character has the Ability - Special Training - Outdoorsman, then the bonuses for fire starting and shelter location would apply anywhere.  However, the bonus for foraging would only apply in the trained region/biome/climate.

rmfr

[Peter R]

If you start with the premise that with no secondary skills characters are perfectly capable of saving the world as soon as you start to add in secondary skills all you do is create wholes in the characters knowledge. The more skills, the more wholes.

I am not saying that they do not add realism but the more skills there are then proportionally the more skills the PC do not have.

[tbigness]

That is fine if you like D&D not to have a diversity of skills, but in RM it is excepted as a broad part of the game to need skills to function.

[RickInVA]

If you start with the premise that with no secondary skills characters are perfectly capable of saving the world as soon as you start to add in secondary skills all you do is create wholes in the characters knowledge. The more skills, the more wholes.

I am not saying that they do not add realism but the more skills there are then proportionally the more skills the PC do not have.

It is true that if you add skills A to Z, and you choose to have only A that you do not, therefore, have B to Z.  The alternative, to me, seems to either be an assumption that everyone can do A to Z automatically, or that no one can do A to Z at all.  Either situation seems improbable. 

So what do you do as the GM?  If one character has a Nordic background, does he know how to ski if skiing isn't a skill?  If he does, then what happens if another character, who came from a tropical climate, wants to learn when the party finds itself transported to a show covered mountain?  He just can't, or he magically learns?  Again, neither seems a good solution.  The GM is placed into being a Deus ex machina whenever a character wants to do something that is not covered by a primary skill.  The GM, and the GM alone, gets to decide if the player can achieve the goal.  For me one of the great advantages of Role Master, and the variety of secondary skills, is that it removes that to a great degree.  Want to read lips, learn the skill.  Once you have learned the skill it would take a mighty authoritarian GM to tell you that you can't even try to do it.

Now if in your experience being a hero and saving the world is solely accomplished through combat, then the primary skills may well be sufficient.  (And if that is what you enjoy far be it from me to suggest you not do so.)  But if some diplomacy, bribery, knowledge of the inner workings of the Imperial Administration, the lesser passwords of Amaladon, and skill with a grappling line are more how your hero saves the world, then the secondary skills are, IMHO, necessary.

[Peter R]

Firstly to be clear I am not advocating 'no skills'. I use secondary skills although maybe less than some other people. I simply pointed out that as more and more skills are added the proportion that any one player or entire party have gets smaller. If the GM adds skills and then 'demands' through play that the skills are used then the players will naturally buy them. The greater the demand for skills that need to be bought then feeds the demand for more DPs which is why I happened to mention it in this thread.

Now in the case above of the skiier and non-skiier. I would assume that the skiier would have bought Athletic Games as a skills (not skiing) to cover his skiing. The non skiier would just be making a mm with a difficulty rating when he first went on skis but if his companion was there to help him then that difficulty would be somewhat less. If he wanted to learn to ski then he learn Atheltic Games. One skill but with varying difficulties depending on the characters experience with the physcal activity in question. I don't have skiiing, distance running, sprinting I just use Athletic Games and the player takes it to help create their vision of their character.

Foraging as mentioned above with the different envioronments; there are some general principles that are global such as water flows down hill, vegetation grows more lushly when water is available, valleys that are V shapped were carved by rivers, U shaped valleys were carved by Glaciers (and are often dry). All rodents are edible as are all birds and their eggs and so on. If a party were magically transported to an unknown envioronment of which they had no prior knowledge then any foraging would be with a massive minus the first few days and bad failures would leave the party feeling probably very ill. As time passed the difficulty factor would deminish as the forager learned what to avoid and the best signs of where to find clean water and so on. If the party were travelling by ship or other mundane method then they would probably be able to glean small bits of useful knowledge on the way such as seeing the fruits in the markets, pelts for sale and learning that they make good eating and so on. In that case the difficulty when they are on the ground would not be so severe. I could be completely wrong but this is just a game played for fun and no one is really going to starve.

With the lip reading I use that as a skill.

To my mind a skill must add something to the game that could not be done with an existing skill for me to consider adding it.

[jdale]

Now in the case above of the skiier and non-skiier. I would assume that the skiier would have bought Athletic Games as a skills (not skiing) to cover his skiing. The non skiier would just be making a mm with a difficulty rating when he first went on skis but if his companion was there to help him then that difficulty would be somewhat less. If he wanted to learn to ski then he learn Atheltic Games. One skill but with varying difficulties depending on the characters experience with the physcal activity in question. I don't have skiiing, distance running, sprinting I just use Athletic Games and the player takes it to help create their vision of their character.

For many of the Lore skills, I've adopted the rule that the skill applies to the areas for which you have Region Lore. So, for example, if you have History and Law, you effectively have those skills for the areas you also have general knowledge about. If you go to a new area and study Region Lore there, you are also learning how its local history ties in with the history you already know, and how the local law resembles and differs from laws in regions you know. You don't pick a region when you learn History, Law, Heraldry, etc.

This could also apply for athletic games. The skill applies to the athletic pursuits of the regions with which you are familiar. It does mean that an already-athletic character from the tropics can pick up skiing really quick if he takes the time to learn the region, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

This obviously could also apply to an outdoor skill like Foraging. (Although in that case I went the other way and just made it part of Survival, which encompasses foraging, fire starting, finding camp sites, hunting, etc, and I do make them learn it per environment type.)

If you wanted to apply a limit, you could limit the other skills to being no higher than region lore for the appropriate region. I don't think it's necessary, but it's an option.

[RickInVA]

Now in the case above of the skiier and non-skiier. I would assume that the skiier would have bought Athletic Games as a skills (not skiing) to cover his skiing. The non skiier would just be making a mm with a difficulty rating when he first went on skis but if his companion was there to help him then that difficulty would be somewhat less. If he wanted to learn to ski then he learn Atheltic Games. One skill but with varying difficulties depending on the characters experience with the physcal activity in question. I don't have skiiing, distance running, sprinting I just use Athletic Games and the player takes it to help create their vision of their character.

So here is my problem with that solution.  What happens if my tropical PC has Athletic Games as a skill?  He didn't learn it for skiing or anything remotely Nordic, he learned it for the kind of athletic pursuits that his culture did in their tropical climate.  But he has the skill.  It seems to me that this would mean that either, A) the GM would have to say, "Well, your Athletic Games doesn't include skiing", which begs the question as to how the PC can get it to include skiing, or B) that it automatically includes skiing.  For me both those situations can be avoided by having skiing as a separate skill, which is what I do in games I run.

Everyone has to do what they think is best for their game, but my overall personal theory is that you are more likely to avoid interpretive questions if you have more sills.  I'm also a big believer and user of Similar Skills, which further gives the PCs a wider number of skills that they can perform without the untrained penalty.

In the end I feel that having more skills reduces the number of instances where I, as the GM, have to make a ruling on if a PC has any skill in performing a certain task and/or how much skill that might be.  I find those decisions can be very arbitrary, and when I am on the receiving end of them I often feel the decision is not very fair.  Having the large amount of secondary skills available for learning takes the onus away from the GM and places it firmly where I feel it belongs, on the player to fully develop his character to be able to do the tings he wants it to do. 

To further develop on that theme, I, and many of the people I have played with, greatly enjoy being able to use the secondary skills to develop our characters in ways that may never impact game play, but show them to be a complete individual.  I had one character that had acquired many many skill ranks to make painted pottery.  I can't lay my hands on his character sheet, but he worked every level on those skills to find clay, refine it, pottery skill, painting, etc.  He had started to learn chemistry to make better glazes.  Other characters would take skill in a musical instrument.  With the appropriate skill its not just that you know how to play the lute, it tells you exactly how well you play the lute.  We enjoy this level of immersion.  And it often leads to interesting things happening in game as well.

Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.

[Peter R]

Back to the skiing, your non-skier would still roll their athletic games skill but with a major difficulty modifier because they were unfamiliar with skiing but the spacial awareness skills, or balance or coordination from the sports they have learned would help them. As they grew more familiar the minus would diminish.

If we take this one step further how would the character learn to ski without leveling up twice? Unless they were already learning to ski before they ever knew they would need to do it they would need to start learning when they level up the first time and gain the skill the second.

I checked earlier and I have around 75 skills in my game but every one of those I feel added something to the game and that excludes lores and crafts where the players can learn anything they like to represent their characters knowledge base.

[RickInVA]

Back to the skiing, your non-skier would still roll their athletic games skill but with a major difficulty modifier because they were unfamiliar with skiing but the spacial awareness skills, or balance or coordination from the sports they have learned would help them. As they grew more familiar the minus would diminish.(emphasis added)

This, especially the bold part, is what I like to avoid.  Why?  Because it is, to me, arbitrary and decided by the GM. 

I'm happy that this works for you and your group.   You decided that no additional DPs would be awarded for secondary skills.  You then created a structure where a group of skills are bundled together, the Athletic Game skill for example.  This allows your PCs to have a wide variety of skills available to them.  Fair enough.

I suspect that the end result is fairly similar to having 200 secondary skills and giving 50% extra DP just for secondary skills (which is what I do).  Those I game with seem to like the wide variety of skills much better than the skill groupings.  As a GM I like it better as fewer decisions are left to my caprice.  Each to their own and we all win.

[Green Manalishi]

Back to the skiing, your non-skier would still roll their athletic games skill but with a major difficulty modifier because they were unfamiliar with skiing but the spacial awareness skills, or balance or coordination from the sports they have learned would help them. As they grew more familiar the minus would diminish.

If we take this one step further how would the character learn to ski without leveling up twice? Unless they were already learning to ski before they ever knew they would need to do it they would need to start learning when they level up the first time and gain the skill the second.

I checked earlier and I have around 75 skills in my game but every one of those I feel added something to the game and that excludes lores and crafts where the players can learn anything they like to represent their characters knowledge base.

I dunno, Peter, that ends up being more complicated than just going with "does he have skiing skill?" If not use a similar skill rule (if applicable)

The way you're doing it is another way of "they develop the skill but instead of just using DPs we'll do it a different way"

[Peter R]

Back to the skiing, your non-skier would still roll their athletic games skill but with a major difficulty modifier because they were unfamiliar with skiing but the spacial awareness skills, or balance or coordination from the sports they have learned would help them. As they grew more familiar the minus would diminish.

If we take this one step further how would the character learn to ski without leveling up twice? Unless they were already learning to ski before they ever knew they would need to do it they would need to start learning when they level up the first time and gain the skill the second.

I checked earlier and I have around 75 skills in my game but every one of those I feel added something to the game and that excludes lores and crafts where the players can learn anything they like to represent their characters knowledge base.

I dunno, Peter, that ends up being more complicated than just going with "does he have skiing skill?" If not use a similar skill rule (if applicable)

The way you're doing it is another way of "they develop the skill but instead of just using DPs we'll do it a different way"

Actually it is significantly simpler in day to day gaming and that is exactly how RMU works with it's catch all Vocational Skill. You must remember that RM did not start life with all the skills that exist now, they were added piecemeal in companion after companion. (In RM2 that is)

[jdale]

And of course companions will add new skills for RMU as well. But it would be ideal if they minimize the number of truly new skills, and mostly focus on details and mechanics for how to apply the existing skills.

[Green Manalishi]

Actually it is significantly simpler in day to day gaming and that is exactly how RMU works with it's catch all Vocational Skill. You must remember that RM did not start life with all the skills that exist now, they were added piecemeal in companion after companion. (In RM2 that is)
[/quote]

Yes, I am fully aware RM started with just primary skills, and this thread I have been a big proponent if giving additional DPs for secondary skills, because the game was designed for certain number of DPs for PRIMARY skills.

I'm not familiar with RMU, so I don't have an opinion yet. But hey if it works. It's still dealing with the skill bloat problem of RM2 instead of not recognizing an issue. I've played in a game with a Gm that gave no extra DPS (actually hurt PCs on their stats too giving them less than what they normally would get) then mandated specific skill use with all the bloated skills, and used no similar skills at all. That interfered with the fun of the game, and looking back now he wasn't a good GM.

[yammahoper]

DP's also make great treasure.  They are great rewards and can be used to express growth as a character too.  For example, the party arrives at the mythical ELVEN HOME.  While amazed with the civilization but unhappy with the endless "bottomless saladbowls" for food, they receive 20DP to spend on things learned while in the city.

Of course, I add in training time for DP's so gained, but typically this easily covered by the two weeks spend making this or that or healing. 

DP's can also be saved and spent at an opportune moment.  A fate point cost 8dev for example, or an odd but need magic weapon is found and skill needs to be developed.

I also hand out ranks as rewards or just cuz I think it makes sense.  I consider a day in a culture equal to four hours training when dealing with languages and how quickly I hand out free ranks in them.   Besides the possible learning rolls or other secondary skill checks, of course.  Armor skills reciee a simular treatment.