From: Alex Ferguson (abf@cs.ucc.ie)
Date: Wed 12 Aug 1998 - 19:25:57 EEST
I asked Nick Brooke:
> > When you say starting characters don't have a level of mastery, do you
> > mean "except for the idiotic 'free' level of mastery they get by virtue
> > of being PCs (sic), of course, which goes without saying", or [not]
> The former. It goes without saying.
The "without saying" part has confused at least this punter. It seems
silly to discuss what the "skill level" of starting characters is
without the small detail of an _entire_ level of mastery.
> No starting character will have a level of mastery relative to interesting
> GM characters or other PCs. I am unaware of whether any of the pregen
> characters in the playtest game still did so at Convulsion. At Germany, it
> was clear that these characters were way more advanced than a standard
> beginning character would be.
The "highest level" ability for any of them was 5/15, with only the
free level of mastery which goes without saying, so according to my
current (and admittedly, changing on an hourly basis) understanding,
this isn't vastly higher than a starting PC would have, right?
Most of the PCs had best abilities at 6/14 -- those that didn't have
the sage foresight to pick Broadus, that is. ;-) My understanding
was that these were effectively "rune level" characters in RQ terms.
(In some cases, pretty explicitly so, given their titles.)
I don't want to read too much into these few data from the demo game,
> Of course, anyone who dislikes "the idiotic 'free' level of mastery" can
though, hence my prodding for hints about the rules proper.
I'd presume not. It vaguely bothers me that this level seems to be so
implicit that it's part of the wallpaper, though. I'd prefer it to be
more manifestly stated, to make it clearer when it was and when it
wasn't. As it stands, one is left stratching one's head somewhat when
contemplating what a group of newly initiated characters would look
like; would they not have the free level of mastery (which goes without
saying), or would they keep it, since it's not a skill thing, it's a PC
thing (you GMCs just wouldn't understand), just having worse target
numbers and SPs, instead?
Slainte,
Alex.
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