AWW Qualities Part I: Skills As Qualities

So, two things that have come up when I talk about AWW... and will probably come up again... are variations on "How does the equipment system factor into this?" and "What's the skill system like?"

The answer to both is that neither of those things really exist, not as separate parts of the game.

To back up a bit: when AWW first started percolating, you made your character by picking from a number of "Archetypes", which could be things that sounded like character classes or professions, but could also be personality traits.

"Coward" was one of my favorite ones. It sounds like a negative trait, right? But a heroic coward (or cowardly hero) often has keen survival instincts and the ability to overcome great obstacles when presented with a powerful motivation to retreat. So you'd mix and match four archetypes and end up with something like a Cowardly Braggart Shield Warrior.

The concept has undergone some evolutionary shifts along the way. Archetypes became "Traits" which became "Abilities" and now "Qualities", which is probably going to stick because it's broad but not generic ("traits" is something that might be useful to describe a character in non-technical terms, and "abilities" could be any part of a character).

But the basic idea is the same. You define your character in terms of four stand-out traits, four things that make them stand out from the crowd, even a crowd that has identical stats. Each of these major qualities (called Signature Qualities) has a name that is meant to be evocative and a description, but they also have discrete and concrete in-game effects. This isn't a supposedly narrativist "figure out how to exploit the personality trait/backstory" game.

There's some room for interpretation and negotiation compared to some game systems... for instance, "Cowardice" might include words to the effect that you have +2 to checks made to overcome an obstacle between you and safety, hide from or sneak away from peril, or to escape from harm's way. That's not a specific check or even a specific attribute, so there's a need for both player creativity and GM judgment there.

But it's not like the thing just says "You have a finely honed sense of self-preservation and are good at avoiding danger." and then leaves it to you to figure out what to do with it and then argue with the GM about what it does and doesn't mean.

Signature Qualities can be anything that sets your character apart from others. Minor Qualities are little customizations that let you fill in the gaps or tweak your character in a specific direction. For those who are wondering what this has to do with the lack of a separate skill system or equipment system, I'll repeat the key part: Signature Qualities can be anything that sets your character apart from others.

Have an unusually high level of skill in an area? That's a Signature Quality. Have a broad package of skills similar to what might have been "class abilities" in earlier editions of D&D? That's also a Signature Quality. Have a notable skill in a single area? Minor Quality.

Why package things like this?

First, it's open-ended. There doesn't have to be a skill list, and individual skills don't have to factor into the rules that everyone (or anyone) at the table has to know. If you have a "skill", it's on your character sheet. If not, it might as well not be part of the system.

Second, I'm not into numbers that scale up forever, whether because you constantly get points to improve or because improvement just happens. The range of starting stats for player characters ranges from noticeably impaired to the stuff legends will eventually be made of. Noticeably impaired shouldn't be able to train up to stuff of legend, much less having a situation where after 10 levels the noticeably impaired are automatically equal to where the stuff of legend was at level 1.

Three, having "skills" be handled with discrete packages allows me to make "being good at things" more interesting than +5 vs. +2.

I mean, let's say there's a tracking skill. And let's say it ranges from +1 to +8 based on how many points you have in it. What's the difference between +1 and +8? +8 is going to have better rolls. If there are going to be more effects than that, I need to have rules defined for tracking that outline what good things happen when you roll how much. This complicates the system in its core.

So instead I do this:

Special Skill: Tracking

You have a +2 to checks to locate signs of passage or habitation, and find, identify, or follow tracks, or determine the direction that a person or creature would have gone. By aiding or instructing an ally, you can give them a +1 to their own efforts to do so.

That's a Minor Quality. The aid/instruct clause is standard for "Special Skill" MQs. There are probably ones where it's more likely to come up than tracking... if you're the party's tracker and you're right there with them, why wouldn't you be tracking? But there's always the possibility that you blow your roll and someone else with less ability has a good roll, in which case it's good that your relative expertise still counts for something.

As a side note, I'd like to point out that it doesn't specify what kind of checks. Most checks involved in tracking would be using Sight. But what if you're making a Knowledge Check to identify strange paw prints? What if there's no physical traces but you're making a Mind Check to determine where your quarry would most likely go? Somebody who's specifically developed the skill of tracking (as opposed to having such keen eyesight that the tiniest trail stands out like a blazing beacon) ought to have given some thought to these sorts of things, so the skill keeps thins broad and open.

Side note aside, that's "tracking" done as a minor quality. It's broad enough to hopefully be useful on a regular enough basis, but it's nothing more dramatic than a +2 bonus to checks fitting a fairly specific theme. That raises the odds of success by thirty-three percent points. That's noticeable, right? That's appreciable.

Okay, so here's the Signature Quality version:

Expert Tracker

• You have a +3 to checks to locate signs of passage or habitation, and find, identify, or follow tracks, or determine the direction that a person or creature would have gone. By aiding or instructing an ally, you can give them +2 to their own efforts to do so.
  
• When you roll a 1 or 2 on your initial die roll for a check that has a bonus from the above ability, you can either re-roll it or change the die roll to a 3. If you re-roll, you must take the second result.
  
• When you are successfully tracking a target, you begin to form a mental image of the subject of your tracking and can make observations about the subject as if they were physically present. You can ask the GM one question about the target's appearance, what they are carrying, their personality, or state of mind, plus one question for every point you beat the Target Number by. You may also ask about things that transpired at a scene where you've located tracks.
  
• [Some minor combat bonuses for targets you've spent time tracking.]
  

First item? Nothing more than a slightly advanced version of what you get with the Special Skill. Obvious question: do they stack? Yes, because this creates another tier of mastery without having to add resources or complexity to the game. And yes, the "aid/instruct" bonus also stacks. Expert advice is better.

Second item? Protects you from bad dice rolls. Maybe +3 isn't dramatically better than +2 in terms of its upper range, but being able to eliminate the lowest rolls makes your skill more reliable. Isn't reliability something you expect in an expert? This is a fairly standard clause for an "Expert" Signature Quality.

Third item? This is where it gets good. This is the point of having separately defined Signature Qualities instead of a skill system: they let you transcend numbers and rewrite the rules.

Now, I could have rules for tracking that just include that - you roll high enough and you can do the Sherlock Holmes/Forensic Magician/Prince Humperdink thing.

But that introduces more rules, and it lessens the difference between having a superhumanly high level of Sight and having a more modest level of it but specifically being a superhumanly good tracker.

The fourth item... whenever possible, I try to include at least some situational combat bonuses in a Signature Quality. I didn't list the specific ones for Expert Tracker because I have a feeling that presenting them in a vacuum would just raise questions.

Now, if everyone who has better than the +2 bonus from Special Skill had the Holmes/Humperdink thing it would be a boring old world, wouldn't it? Might as well have a skill system with two levels of skill: Pretty Good and Inhuman.

Well, the reason this Signature Quality makes you so inhumanly good at tracking because that's its sole focus. You could also improve your tracking abilities by taking a Signature Quality like Hunter, which would be more like a package of Special Skills (+2 to tracking, +2 to knowledge of animals and their habits and habitations, +2 to use of camouflage and cover and stalking techniques, +2 to wilderness survival, etc.) and a different set of situational combat modifiers.

Or Bounty Hunter, which would have the same tracking bonus as part of a different package of bonuses, and probably a greater focus on combat than either Expert Tracker or Hunter.

Now, I should point out that Signature Qualities are meant to be part of the foundation of your character. You can acquire up to two more as your character advances, and some of them are graduated (they dole out increasing bonuses over a few levels) or specifically represent potential for growth (Potential For Anything gives you some minor generic pluck/staying alive bonuses, but is mainly a placeholder that can be replaced at any time with another SQ), but unless you front load your character with such maturing/potential-based SQs, the idea is that the groundwork of the hero you'll be is done when your adventuring career (or the part of it covered by the story) begins... when you have four SQs to begin with and can only add two more to that total, not everyone who starts out as even a great tracker is going to grow up to be an Expert Tracker. It all depends on how important that kind of ability is to your concept.

You can make a character who starts out with a small amount of skill in an area and grows into an expert, if that's what you want. You can even make a character who starts out with an unusual knack and then grows into more of an expert. Or you can make a character whose skills are their thing, they are what they are, and then they grow in other ways, like by adding a different skill set or by mastering a magical weapon.

I was going to talk about equipment, but it's pushing three in the morning so I'm going to end this post here and call it "Part I".