Re: stuff and plot

[Shyryly Yshl <shyryly@geocities.com>]

Steve Ames wrote:

> Hrm... you start falling back on changing rules and giving bonuses.
> Rather, I'd stay within the rules and maybe give each school some
> restricted skill that only they teach. Perhaps one of the schools
> specializes in 'flourentine' and require students to learn it.
> Perhaps a different school teaches the use of the net. I really
> don't like modifying existing rules and creating exceptions.
> Creating new skills (especially restricted ones) happens all the
> time. Document them. Perhaps a 'disarming' skill?
>
> Skills are easy. Write 'em up, give them a base cost and then get
> Dan to give them the nod.
>

====
Speaking of skills, here's a nice way to control forward progression, and
account for the fact that intelligent life exists on Jaern.
Example:  Apes can be taught to sign.  In an experiment, a fairly fluent ape was
allowed to raise its young in an environment where the signing was useful...but
the offspring learned less than all of the words...and their offspring even
less.  The 3rd generation knew no signing.

This should happen on Jaern with the current 4-rank system.  Joe, native Paroli
speaker, has his language at a 13.  He teaches his children, but they can only
learn it to a 9.  John, son of Joe, teaches his son...to a 5...Jos the
functionally illiterate, raises children that are no better than monkeys in the
language department.  I -highly- doubt people are researching their native
tongue.  What I propose is a teaching skill, defaultable, to explain this.
Int-based, and a Mage skill.

Teaching (base ???)  x additional dice to default.
For each die made against this skill, add one to the rank learnable by the
pupil.  A four-die check will negate the 4-rank penalty and allow people to
teach to levels equal to their knowledge.  A five or greater die check is for
exceptional teaching, actually allowing people to be taught past their teacher's
knowledge.  Before people protest, this actually happens.  A professor who knows
a lot of theory can teach it to a student that can grasp it in such a way that
the student can make a leap of logic and end up knowing more than the teacher.
Oh, also tack onto the skill:  can only be used for a given skill once a month
(or some other length of time).  Point being ppl can't keep trying to 'teach'
something over and over until they make the roll...give it a 'casting' time of a
month, or whatever, the roll to be made at the end of the check, not the
beginning.
Also could add to the skill: any skills about rank 7 (or such) must be learned
through a teacher (i.e. this skill) or through research (at x5 cost).
Comments?  I'd love to see this skill...it helps explain things a bit better.
And I retract a previous part of this message...make teaching an auger skill,
and remove the kluge that augers can teach another auger at equal rank...by
having it as a native skill, they'll be able to teach cheaper...same effect.  I
highly recommend the defaultability but with a larger # of dice (3 or 4) so that
people can teach their kids to talk and read, given time.  :)

-James