Thanks for taking the time to post a new comment or a reply to one! First scan these quick notes, if you please:
General
* Currently, previewing a post is optional; you're welcome to preview or post immediately.
* You should see plain text input by default; click "enable rich text" for fancy formatting tools. (Some people love that and some don't. Be aware that formatting tool performance may vary by browser.)
* With apologies to all, "captcha" questions may face unregistered posters. Otherwise, the spam flow will dwarf the Nile.
Registration and login
* Registration is available! Sign up here. Chief benefits at present include the ability to edit your own comments, bookmark favorite content, and manage subscriptions (newsletter, threads, etc.).
* If you'd prefer to post as an unregistered visitor, that's welcome too. Just leave "Your name" as the default "Esteemed Visitor", or type in some other name. (But if you happen to type in a name used by a registered user – say, "tbone" – you'll get an error telling you so when you hit "post comment". And while your post text should still be there, waiting for a revised user name, there's a chance it could disappear.)
* If you're a registered user but haven't logged in and want to post a quick comment as Esteemed Visitor, that's fine; see above.
* If you're a registered user but haven't logged in, and enter your user name under "Your name" when posting, you'll get an error saying that's the name of a registered user. That's a good thing; it means strangers can't make posts under your user name! But as above, there's a chance of losing your post text. It's best to log in first here, and then start your posting.
Final
All the above is standard stuff for community web sites, but reminders are good; I hate post-related glitches, and hate to see people run into them on this site. On this or any site, it's a good practice to do a quick "Select All" and "Copy" on your post text before hitting "Preview comment" or "Post comment" – just in case.
For more on the whole topic of interaction with the site, please see User Interaction (opens in new window).
Patron advantage
How's everything?
Enjoying your Games Diner meal? Is the wait staff attentive? Is the chef bathed? (Then it must be a Sunday.) You do know that a little eggshell in the French toast adds calcium, right?
I like the idea of adding mechanisms for skill breadth - a decade ago I tried my hand at a GURPS-derived homebrew system which included a way to narrow or widen skill focus, and was effectively an alternate way to handle GURPS Techniques and Wildcard skills. Here's what I learned from that: if you're going to have a skill system with two degrees of freedom, it needs to be integrated from the very beginning, as one of the foundations of the system.
Using a convergeant series is a clever way of adding similar skills with a decreasing utility. I will definitely steal this idea should I ever return to game design. :)
But for future readers, I would suggest a few changes to your spreadsheet image: add another column of rounded-off cumulative values, and either highlight all the rows where the cumulative cost rounds to the same number (different colors for different blocks), or highlight only those rows where the rounded-off value changes. This would be a quick way to show that only a few more points gets you many more skills.
I also rather like your explanation of "exotic points"! I suspect that like me, very few people have ever thought of modern point-buy systems like that, but in many cases it does work out that way. A few more examples of alternate point systems:
BESM suggests that no starting characters should have more than a single stat above X level (X depends on the power level of the game), which gives everyone a single "have an awesome stat" point to spend.
Old 3rd edition GURPS Supers suggested that supers could start with a 250 point budget (or 500, or 1000, or whatever), and would have to allocate 50 of those in an Unusual Background for the privilege of having superhuman powers, but a super-normal (with no special powers. e.g. Batman) wouldn't have to buy the UB, giving an equivalent of 50 more points to spend. Often the superpowers were further limited to "only 100 points of superpowers, or any single superpower at any point level". So what we have there is a system with 3 types of points: 200 regular (mundane) character points, plus either 20 superpower-buying points (or some other reasonable number) or a single ultrapower-buying point. Anyone could take the single ultrapower point to spend on any single superhuman ability, or they could spread it out amongst a number of different lower-level powers, and if they didn't spend either the ultrapower-buying point or the superpower-buying points, they got another 50 character points.
Reply
Build a site!
Cast Seek Spell
THE TAKEOUT MENU
For collaborators, contributors, or the curious. Notice of site updates; project announcements; calls for playtesting; etc.
Good Idea, Hard to Add
I like the idea of adding mechanisms for skill breadth - a decade ago I tried my hand at a GURPS-derived homebrew system which included a way to narrow or widen skill focus, and was effectively an alternate way to handle GURPS Techniques and Wildcard skills. Here's what I learned from that: if you're going to have a skill system with two degrees of freedom, it needs to be integrated from the very beginning, as one of the foundations of the system.
Using a convergeant series is a clever way of adding similar skills with a decreasing utility. I will definitely steal this idea should I ever return to game design. :)
But for future readers, I would suggest a few changes to your spreadsheet image: add another column of rounded-off cumulative values, and either highlight all the rows where the cumulative cost rounds to the same number (different colors for different blocks), or highlight only those rows where the rounded-off value changes. This would be a quick way to show that only a few more points gets you many more skills.
I also rather like your explanation of "exotic points"! I suspect that like me, very few people have ever thought of modern point-buy systems like that, but in many cases it does work out that way. A few more examples of alternate point systems: