by Chakravanti » Thu Sep 22, 2011 5:56 pm
What the hell are you talking about? Only the weight is preserved. It still takes as much to eat to fill a bar and you still have to have it in the running. Again, Retained influence can be marginalized , say %50 just to show the effect of scaling. Then the two robs I eat will take on heavier agi weighting when they do roll psy. if by some luck you roll psy twice the odds further stack against you being extraordinarily lucky but do allow for it, likewise it marginalizes being extraordinarily unlucky. It also makes it possible for high end characters to develop in odd stats more reliably, not more cheaply or more often than.
Yes psy would be retained. But so is every other stat consumed. It'll make it worthwhile to mix stat specific psy like bulbs in with a heavy psy diet for the fep reduction and for the sense that even if you don't roll it, you keep it on the margins. Again, the weight can be scaled to keep the index of effect from reducing the value of actively rolling the FEP bar and to preserve it 1:1 would detract from that. Preserving it in a scaled down value with perhaps a cap equaling one's FEP ceiling which would make irt neatly displayable as a second FEP bar.
You make some valid critiques about the balance that do prompt these alterations to the idea. So then that the 'Weight' bar' would be worth %50 of the FEP bar's size. To reduce it further you could make it the actual bar's size rather than the amount of FEP's in the bar which often exceed, but the latter would make a truer scale to the actual weight of the roll in a more predictable set of odds, not that I'm favoring one over the other.
I like the idea of complicated math presenting a simple system of odds with multiple variables influencing the roll. I think the history of a players choices should stick around and influence the players development but I agree they shouldn't restrict or guarantee the outcomes either.
The math might seem complicated but it really isn't and presentation can be very simple and visual. If the weight bar should be worth half then it should be half the size and reflect the influence that will be exerted accurately. It's just a way of making the process more interesting by introducing more variables that add a degree of consistency and allow the players something meta to fiddle with to occupy their desire for manipulating personal development.
You keep comparing it to poker but I assure you it's a lot more like horse racing.
Well what is this that I can't see
With ice cold hands takin' hold of me
Well I am death, none can excel
-Ralph Stanley,
O Death!