LogFAQs > #878683933

Oh, and the other way you could handle that would be to allow players to buy (at reduced cost) skill specialties that act as modifiers to existing skill rolls (again, something that oWoD does).

For example, say you have a party of three characters, each with the same Intelligence and History modifiers. But one of them has specialty "Local History +2", one has "Ancient History +2", and another has "Political History +2".

The first one may not know as much about when the Battle of Hastings (or nearest fantasy equivalent) was fought, but they'll have a better chance remembering where the women who was hanged as a witch used to live in his old village, and which tree they hung her from. He's also more likely to remember that story he heard someone telling years ago about the mysterious cave a few miles out of town... Meanwhile, the second guy is going to have an edge when you're trying to find the field where an ancient king dropped his crown in a river, or remember the name of the Old Kingdoms swallowed up by the Empire when it was originally forming. And the third guy is likely to remember which Senators have voted in ways that might make them sympathetic to your cause, which nations the Empire is currently treatied to, and which ones you might want to avoid traveling to (or at least not letting people know where you're from).

Now you've basically differentiated three otherwise "identical" characters into more unique archetypes. The first is clearly an experienced local or Ranger-type (or the average Hobbit), while the second guy is probably a dusty old historian, while the third is either a budding politician or a noble forced to play the game or lose prestige. And each player has a greater chance of being the "hero" when something comes up in their specialty field that the party needs to know, thus keeping them involved (and preventing every situation from automatically becoming "The Charisma/Persuasion guy does all the talking, the Int/History guy handles all the lore, the Barbarian hits things").


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"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
"POwned again." --- blight family