Thread by @rdonoghue

The wife is reading some Patricia Briggs fantasy, and it is reminding me of just how *powerful* skills for telling stories, and why I really, really like RPGs to have broad skills with strong penumbras.

One of the characters is good with horses.

In the story, it means:
* Horses matter, and by extension horse choices matter
* Horse *personalities* matter and convey meaning
* When he rides, he *rides*

There is *so much* meaning in that beyond some numeric value. I want *that*.

Though now we’ve gotten to the “your curse is to be clever” (h/t to @jonrog1 ) part. There is a mode of fiction that I largely attribute to Bujold where you have a crew of badasses and one clever person who actually gives a shit, and the badasses gravitate towards that person.

It’s a trope I love. All that emotional connection serves as mortar holding together the bricks of badassness without *diminishing* them.

Plus, the clever person? It’s rewardingly painful to play, because it offsets a *different* problem by introducing stakes.

The clever character who can solve any problem is fun, but in her own way is as shallow as the orphan ass-kicker. It becomes toothy when they receive trust, and realize that they can get *others* hurt or killed.

If your game can get to the point where surviving feels like a loss because the price was so high, then holy crap you are doing something right.

That is what I chase.

Coming back to skills, there was a blogpost on my mind, but it took a few minutes to find: imakeupworlds.com/index.php/2012…

Kate Elliot has a *wonderful* piece on what sewing means to one of her characters, and this is also what I mean when I say I want rich skills.

I should add, Over The Edge was probably the greatest enabler of this mode of skill design with it’s idea of a default level of competence which was not *punishing*. That it can be tuned to cultural defaults is unstated brilliance.