Thread by @AlexandraErin

Working on nomenclature for abilities in my TTRPG project and after I found myself adding clarifying language to an opaque tier nomenclature that Tier III was specific things you can do, Tier II was stuff you can do, and Tier I was some bullshit...

...I dropped the references to numbered tiers and just called them Things, Stuff, and Broad Stuff.

An ability is a Thing if saying you're going to use it tells everybody what you're going to do.

"How are you dealing with this joker?"

"Roundhouse Kick." That's a thing.

It's Stuff if saying you're going to use it tells everybody what method you're using or outcome you're going for, but you still have to clarify what you're doing.

"How are you dealing with this joker?"

"Unarmed Fighting."

"Cool. What do you do?"

"Roundhouse kick."

And it's some B.S. (Broad Stuff) if you can definitely get from the ability to what you're actually doing, but you'll never not have to explain it, at least the first time you're doing it.

"How are you dealing with this joker?"

"Mystical Monk."

"Meaning?"

"Roundhouse kick."

A later iteration of this game system might add a category of Really Broad Stuff (Real B.S.) for things that are open-ended like Genie Lamp, Cosmic Power Ring, Epic Wizard Spellbook, etc., but that's beyond the scope of what I need for initial testing.

The Real B.S. example that fits the pattern I've been using might be something like

"How are you dealing with this joker?"

"Mysterious Past."

"Meaning?"

"I spent a summer with a reclusive order of mystic monks. They failed to teach me discipline, but not... ROUNDHOUSE KICK."

If you wonder why I have different tiers when applying any of them causes you to land squarely in Things because Things is "things you can do", it's both about specialists vs. generalist builds and also about the general approach this game takes to character design.

And part of that approach is the idea that you don't have to know everything about your character when you start play. You sketch out the broad outlines, with the expectation that details can and will be added in play.

So you could sit down to play with as many as 12 specifically defined skills, attacks, spells, etc., or 6 more general/flexible categories, or a couple of things you know about your character that could explain such things, as they occur to you.

And if you don't know what to do with all 12 of the slots/points that go into that calculation at chargen time... you leave them blank and fill them in when you do know what goes there.

The polished/published/production version of the game will have a section on character revision with a suggestion that the first two or three intervals of play (sessions/adventures) be treated like a "pilot" with no restrictions on tweaking characters...

https://twitter.com/mykola/status/1463524355229593606

...and that the table should grant itself license to revise their characters as needed after that, because sometimes you don't really know how part of the game will handle in play until you've played through it.