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Welcome back to another PPoPPoSWSE (yes, I'm using that acronym). Since the last one was wildly successful - that is, it received a comment - I thought I'd do it again. I'll just dive right in.

I get annoyed with people wanting to roll Climb, Jump and Swim into a single Athletics skill.

Now, I should probably expand on this a bit. Had Saga Edition come out with Climb, Jump and Swim replaced as separate skills by a single skill called Athletics (or whatever), I wouldn't really have minded. I don't really care one way or the other.

It's just... they didn't. And people go on about it to this day as though it were game-breaking (not as much as they used to, but it still comes up from time to time).

I just don't see it as a problem. Yes, they're related skills, but they're not so incredibly similar that it's illogical for them separate. A brilliant swimmer is not automatically a brilliant climber (many Athletics house-rulers present an addendum that Skill Focus can only be gained in one of the specific components). And Climb, Jump and Swim factor in to several species traits individually (Wookiees live on an arboreal world, so it makes sense they're good climbers, but not necessarily great swimmers; the aquatic Mon Calamari have the opposite situation).

But of course, these arguments could be made for any number of skills. Deception encompasses lying to someone face-to-face and forging documents, things that in real life have little correlation. So why not have a single Athletics skill?

Well, like I said, I don't really care either way. It just niggles me slightly that people keep going on about it. If it bothers you, house rule it (is that a verb? "To house rule"?). And I guess that part of the reason it niggles me so much is that, as it see it, they're are bigger problems with the skill list as it stands.

Like what, you ask? Persuasion.

Persuasion encompasses the previous edition's Diplomacy and Intimidate skills. And at first glance, this makes sense. Both skills use Charisma to convince another character of something, be it with a subtle word, or through the blunt threat of violence. Not that different from consolidating the different aspects of lying into the Deception skill (or indeed, combining Climb, Jump and Swim into Athletics).

But where I see things differently is in the conception of the character. A character that can lie through his teeth to an Imperial customs officer as easily as forge the papers to pass that checkpoint makes sense. I can easily picture a shady, con artist character being good at both.

Persuasion, on the other hand, crosses character boundaries. The silver-tongued diplomat who can convince anyone of their argument and the brutish thug who scares his opponents silly are two very, very different concepts. Persuasion turns a single character into a master of both disciplines.

Furthermore, look at the species traits and the talents that involve Persuasion. How many call out the specific intimidation aspect of Persuasion? Well, I don't have the numbers with me right now, but I know it's quite a few. I'd be willing to bet that there are more abilities that revolve around the specific intimidation ability than any other sub-skill.

So here's what I propose: split Persuasion back into Diplomacy and Intimidation. Diplomacy is a class skill for nobles and scoundrels, and covers changing attitude and haggling. Intimidation is a class skill for Jedi and soldiers, and obviously covers the intimidation aspect of Persuasion.

Now, this of course means that you have to change any references to Persuasion in species traits, talents, prestige class prerequisites etc, but really, it's not that difficult. Just go with whichever seems most appropriate. As a rule of thumb, unless the intimidation aspect is specifically mentioned, Diplomacy is probably the skill you're looking for.

Furthermore, the controversy surrounding the Diplomacy skill in D&D 3.X got me to thinking it could do with being revised. Not because it's necessarily insanely overpowered (as was the major problem with the skill in D&D), but because of the way it works.

In this article by Rich Burlew, he identifies one of the key problems with the Diplomacy skill as it stands:

"In 3rd Edition, Diplomacy is defined as 'Making people like you.' I want to change that definition, for I think it lacks depth and is poorly understood. In my new system, Diplomacy will be defined as, 'Getting people to accept a deal you propose to them.' The idea is that anything you need to ask another person can be phrased in the form of a trade-even if you are offering 'nothing' on one end of that trade, or something very abstract."

Between Burlew's article and this follow up by Justin Alexander,¹ I was convinced. Diplomacy should be task-based, not relationship-based. It just doesn't make sense for a single check to determine how someone feels about you for the rest of your lives. (To be honest, I very much doubt that I can make a more persuasive - no pun intended - argument here than either Mr Burlew or Mr Alexander. Just read their articles. Both are excellent.)

So what to do? Well, I like Alexander's fix, which transports over to Saga Edition very well (just replace "Bluff" with "Deception", "Sense Motive" with "Perception", and "with a DC of 15 + the subject's HD + the subject's Wisdom modifier" with "against the subject's Will Defence"). Persuasion becomes about making a deal, not determining whether you and someone else are going to be best buds for ever and ever.

So yeah, to summarise, I couldn't care less about a single Athletics skill, but I'd be very open to new Persuasion rules. Farewell one stop persuasion shops and lifelong relationship decisions, hello sly diplomats, imposing thugs, and a way of cutting deals that actually makes sense.

JC

¹ If you read my previous blog, you might remember that I quoted the same two authors. Well, as it happens, Rich Burlew's Giant in the Playground and Justin Alexander's The Alexandrian are my two favourite websites for information about roleplaying. Don't be surprised if I quote from them a lot in this blog.

 

What with the SWRPG being based on a pre-existing franchise (believe it or not, the game's based on these movies. You should check them out, they're pretty good), the subject of stats for iconic characters is often raised on the boards. Of course, the books themselves feature such stats, but they're not without flaws: they often features minor mistakes (attack bonuses calculated incorrectly), major mistakes (characters with talent/prestige classes they don't have the prerequisites for), and they don't take advantage of the full range of material available (characters typically only have abilities for the core rulebook and the rulebook in which they're introduced). So people post their own versions. However, like Godwin's Law, someone will eventually chime in with:

"Well, obviously the rules can't handle Luke Skywalker (or whoever). You should make a different version to represent different aspects of him - pilot, soldier, Jedi etc."

I really disagree with this approach. To me a character's roleplaying stats are the embodiment of the character themself, and represent the journey they have taken to get where they are today. I like the fact that the 20th level stats for Luke Skywalker still have that level of scout, to represent his origins as a farmer's nephew on a backwater desert planet. I liked that in the RCR, he still had skill ranks in Profession (moisture farmer) even when he was Jedi Master supreme.

Sure, you could just make a generic, high-powered Jedi/Jedi Knight/Jedi Master, completely focused on lightsabre combat and Force powers. But that's not Luke Skywalker. Luke Skywalker (the Luke of the Legacy of the Force books, Grand Master of the Jedi Order) is a master duellist and Force wizard without peer, but he's also a an ace pilot, and he's still, underneath being possibly the greatest Jedi of all time, a Tatooine farmboy. He's all these things, even if some aspects are more pronounced than others.

Besides, this isn't the miniatures game. This is a roleplaying game. Characters grow and develop, not change their stats on a whim. That's how player characters do it, so why shouldn't iconic characters be any different?

To which the answer is often:

"They shouldn't. Player characters should be allowed to change their stats regularly."

And this is where you lose me.

The whole point of a roleplaying game, as I said, is to create a character, and then let that character grow and develop as you follow them through an adventure or series of adventures. Surely you lose all of that - the entire point of playing a roleplaying game instead of a wargame or whatever - if you change your character?

Anyway, here are the usual responses people give to my assertion, and my counterpoints:

"It's what my players want. Why wouldn't I let them change if they're unhappy with the choices they've made?"

Well, the whole point of a roleplaying game is to have fun. But fun doesn't necessarily mean letting your players do whatever they want. Your players may want to be able to automatically hit an enemy whenever they want, but does that mean you should allow it?

Actually, I think this is more about the GM than the player. If a player is unhappy with their stats, the GM should have a talk with them as to why. It might be the reason that they don't want Stealth as trained skill any more is because they're in a game where being stealthy is never necessary or rewarded. If that's the character that person wants to play, then the GM should try to incorporate that style of gameplay into their campaigns. Alternatively, if the GM doesn't want to include stealth gameplay in their campaign, then they should be up front about this from the get go, before character creation.

"Real people change their skill sets. Lots of people undergo retraining at some point."

For one thing, since when have RPGs perfectly emulated real life, particularly games like Star Wars and D&D, which are emulating sci-fi and fantasy, respectively? In Saga, a character's Perception skill gets better as they age (due to Wisdom increases). It's not realistic, it's an acceptable level of compromise to prevent the game from becoming ridiculously over-complicated.

But anyway, what is "retraining", actually? It's learning something new. Nobody makes you forget the old skills that you had. You may never use them again, and you may forget them over time, but they're not wiped from your memory.

In other words, retraining can be covered by levelling up.

Bob starts off as a slicer. His player then decides that, for whatever story reasons, he wants Bob to become a gunslinger. So from then on, Bob takes talents and feats related to blaster combat. Bob has "retrained" as a gunslinger, but he retains his computer skills. It could even make for a really cool cinematic moment, where the party needs to access a computer system, and then Bob suddenly reveals he used to be a slicer, and saves the day.

"A character is not their stats. What difference does it make to the story if the specific stats change?"

Well, it does make a difference. To me, the motto "a character is not their stats" is untrue. My motto is "a character is more than just their stats". The key difference being that stats are still important.

A roleplaying game marries freeform, group storytelling to a tactical tabletop game. Different people like to emphasise different elements, and that's fair enough, but without a healthy mix of both, it isn't just isn't an RPG. Rich Burlew (creator of must-read D&D webcomic The Order of the Stick) once said that playing a role was not just something you did during the negotiation scene. Everything your character does, including combat, should reflect your character's personality. By extension, your character's stats should reflect their personality, and vice versa.

This is something I want to touch on in another blog entry, but a good player doesn't just throw together any set of stats that will be effective. They think about what would best represent the character they want to play. Can they make mistakes? Sure. But if you allow players to change their characters whenever they like as a hard and fast rule, there's very strong chance it'll turn into munchkinism.

Space adventure? My character's now an ace pilot. Military mission? My character's now an elite trooper. Fighting a Sith? My character's now a Jedi Master.

Once your start playing like that, all verisimilitude is out the window, and you might as well just be playing a video game with a character select screen.

"That's a strawman argument. Extreme changes like that won't happen. Players are just better realising their characters."

How are these extreme changes prevented? If you have a rule that allows players to change their characters whenever they like, what stops this from happening, other than your players' self-restraint?

In D&D 4E, a character is allowed to change one power, feat, or skill each time they level up. Pretty tame, but I've heard people discussing allowing characters to completely change their classes. And so far, no one has been able to describe to me a hard and fast rule that ensures characters stay true to their original spirit.

Which brings me to the final argument...

"So you'd never let a player change their stats?"

No, I would let them change. New books come out all the time, with new classes and abilities to utilise. The next sourcebook could have a prestige class that perfectly encapsulates your character. Alternatively, you might just think of a better way to realise your concept. These things happen.

The difference is, I would never make it a house rule. Ever. In any way shape or form. If a player wants to change their character, they should talk to the GM about it. Because in the end, an important part of a roleplaying game is the collaboration between the players and the GM. If you're a player, go to your GM and explain why you want to change your character.

They might say, "cool, that makes sense", and you make the changes.

Or they might say, "well, okay, but we should think of a good in-game reason for the change".

Or they might say, "hmm, you don't feel like your character is useful? Okay, well how about I include more opportunities for you to shine?"

Or they might say, "well, this sounds completely different to your current character. How about you roll up a new one, and I'll think of a logical reason for the switch in-game."

So, the points I've been trying laboriously to reach are thus:

1. Iconic characters stats should be holistic. People don't swap their skills from day to day. They're whole, complex individuals, and Star Wars characters are no different. If the system can't support this, well, then maybe we need to fix the system. But if Justin Alexander can build Aragorn with just five levels, why can't we do Luke (or Vader, or Yoda, or the Emperor) with 20?

2. Player characters too should strive to be consistent, but this is not always practical or desirable. It does however, make them and the world they inhabit more believable.

3. Some elements of the game should not be hard and fast rules. The changing of character stats is one such element.

Anyway, that's all from me for now. Check back soon for more Pet Peeves. Or don't. Or check back, but not for a while. Depends how you feel about this one I guess.

JC

 

Now, I've always been a fairly old head on young shoulders. Immaturity aside, my preference has always been for music, films, books etc from before I was born. As such, I tend to be sceptical about any new technology or media proclaimed to be the "next big thing". At the moment, Twitter is this "next big thing".

I've looked at Twitter, and I have to say, I wasn't particularly impressed. People post short messages, sometimes including links. That's it. Like Facebook, with everything except the status update stripped away. "Micro-blogging", I believe they call it, like if I reduced this entire post to "I'm currently undecided about Twitter".

Twitter is symbolic of the way society and the media as a whole are heading: short, sharp, and to the point. The modern man/woman doesn't have time to read lengthy posts, they just want the salient information now, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The main draw, as I see it, is that you can follow celebrities on it. Unlike Facebook, where friendships have to be confirmed by both parties, anyone can choose to "follow" any other twit (as I believe they're called). In this day and age, where you can build a successful magazine industry out of publishing pictures of famous actors doing their shopping ("wow, they're just like us!"), you can see how it would be appealing to people to get an insight into the daily lives of the A list (despite the fact that these posts will all be carefully considered to give the best PR possible). Also, the inherent brevity of the posts and the ability to send messages from a variety of mobile devices promotes more frequent updates.

But, I'm not really interested in celebrities. Nor do I feel a need to express every thought I have in a two sentence sound byte (I'm much more narcissistic, preferring to ramble on for 485 words). So Twitter holds little appeal for me.

But, and this a big but, I'm starting to feel that joining Twitter may be inevitable. See I'm a student journalist (the halfway point between "someone who wants to be a journalist" and "actual journalist"), with an eye toward political reporting, and the media is currently mad about Twitter. Gordon Brown (the UK prime minister, for those of you taking notes) makes a post about the NHS and it's the big news of the day. Maybe there'll come a point where I can't afford to ignore Twitter any more.

Or maybe politicians and reporters are just jumping on the Twitter bandwagon because it's popular at the moment, and they'll move on once the fad has passed. Only time will tell. If my work one day necessitates joining Twitter, or if I see enough interesting posts to persuade it's worth my while, then I'll join without too much resistance. But for now, I'm happy to twitter away my life on other pursuits.

 

OK, the title is something of a misnomer. I have had blogs before, I just haven't written anything on one in a while. But now that I have a blog again, I feel I should use it.

I'll make one thing clear right away: I don't expect anyone to read this blog. Why would you? It's just a little thing tucked away on the website of a games manufacturer, written by some nobody. I'll be using it mostly to vent anything that comes to mind that I want to get off my chest. Mostly stuff about Star Wars, because I'm a nerd and that's what I spend a lot of my time thinking about.

My point is, I'm not writing this for anyone else, I'm writing it for me. If you find my blog boring, then so be it. I'm not here to entertain anyone.

Hence, I'm not really going to say anything about myself. If it's relevant to a blog post I'll mention it. If you're really desperate to know, PM me.

And so the rules for each subsequent blog are established.

JC