Quote from: SosthenesHmm? I see that in games all the time. Spells. Force powers. feats.

Feats, sometimes as spike points out.  Spells?  Generally require a roll of some sort to pull off.  D6 does it that way.  White Wolf does it that way.  etc.

Force powers?  Both Star Wars games require a skill roll to use even the most basic of powers.

Quote from: SosthenesAnd "jutsu" is a magical technique now? Boy, that weekend ken-jutsu course was a total scam...

It's Naruto, man.  A shonen anime.  In that show/manga, ninja are so stealthy that they fight their battles with giant summoned monsters.  jutsus are ninja magic that allow you to do things like clone yourself.  I don't think they use real world definitions for most things.  

Quote from: RedFoxFeats, sometimes as spike points out.  Spells?  Generally require a roll of some sort to pull off.  D6 does it that way.  White Wolf does it that way.  etc.

Force powers?  Both Star Wars games require a skill roll to use even the most basic of powers.

D&D and several other games have binary spells and most of the time not even a related skill. In D6, you had your three force skills and force powers as almost unrelated binary abilities. Even the new D20 system has a mix of feats and skills.

Most binary abilities have something that does the more complicated mechanical aspects. With D&D spells, it's the level of the caster. AD&D NWPs and WFRP have the associated attribute etc.

Quote from: RedFoxIt's Naruto, man.  A shonen anime.  In that show/manga, ninja are so stealthy that they fight their battles with giant summoned monsters.  jutsus are ninja magic that allow you to do things like clone yourself.  I don't think they use real world definitions for most things.  

I'm not a big fan of partial translations.

Quote from: SosthenesD&D and several other games have binary spells and most of the time not even a related skill. In D6, you had your three force skills and force powers as almost unrelated binary abilities. Even the new D20 system has a mix of feats and skills.

Most binary abilities have something that does the more complicated mechanical aspects. With D&D spells, it's the level of the caster. AD&D NWPs and WFRP have the associated attribute etc.

I don't think we're on quite the same wavelength here.  Each and every Star Wars D6 force power requires a skill roll.  Often times more than one (like Lightsaber Combat, which requires two force skill checks).

This is what spike was talking about when he mentioned how feats don't quite work how he would like, in the context of binary abilities, except for a very few of them (like armor proficiency).

And I didn't even get into complication, so I'm not sure why you brought that up.

Quote from: RedFoxThis is what spike was talking about when he mentioned how feats don't quite work how he would like, in the context of binary abilities, except for a very few of them (like armor proficiency).

And I didn't even get into complication, so I'm not sure why you brought that up.

Erm, the OP mentioned proficiency with vehicles and weapons as a binary option, where the actual usage was done with a generic Pilot or Firearms skills. In what way is that different from force powers and force skills or anything else I've mentioned? We're talking about a rather broad spectrum of binary options here. Even stuff like Quick Draw might be tested sometimes...

The bad thing about feats is that they're all worth the same. That's the problem (or at least one of them).

Speaking of which, Complete Scoundrel introduced the "skill trick" as yet another option worth mentioning.

Burning Etc. use binary "familiarity" for many things, including your example of armour.

I don't think I said it never happened, I think I said it didn't happen enough, or with enough deliberation. Like I said in the beginning, D&D uses Binary abilities in the form of Feats for armor and weapons and a few other things (cleaving comes to mind), but muddles the feild with non-binary feats (improved disarm. ANyone can disarm, teh feat makes it better... Stealthy, bonus skill points... so on and so forth).

I have, and actually like, Burning Empires, and certainly they do have a 'Power Armor' binary ability in there, but its almost accidental.   Actually the skills list is just second to scripted combat for reasons not to like the game for me.

The idea is to (for me anyway) recognize the existance of, and possibly need for, such skills as part of the design process. Realizing that they are different from your gradiated skills or other fancy abilities, and treat them as such.  Some examples listed seem to do it by accident, others more deliberately, but without seperating them from the ordinary skills, leading to confusion.

:what:

Spike - when I considered this a while back (in a document I just happened to start working on again recently) I thought about measurement in three ways.

• Zero-based: This is the traditional skill approach.  Increasing ranks to represent increasing skill.
• Boundless: This is similar to zero-based, except the number line continues into the negative. I'm not sure it's used, but I was thinking of it as a way to represent diminishing numbers without going into fractions - say negative powers.
• Binary: You either have it or don't.

Don't know if that adds anything or not...