The Culture: The Search For Good Hobby Game Manuals: Heroes Unlimited (Part Three)

(Following from yesterday's post.)

There's more to the game than shooting, punching, or stabbing people in the face.

Today we're going to move on to the things that many games address with a Skill System, something AD&D1e is not built around at its core.

Defining Capacities

AD&D1e: Most of the functions that other products use a Skill System for are baked into the gameplay procedures, making it unnecessary. This means that the Thief Skill subsystem is allowed to be something special, distinct, and potent; "Move Silently" is to be taken literally (it's mastering the Rice Paper Walk), as are the other Thief Skills, because they are Special Powers in their own right (and it's why Assassins and Monks also get them).

Noticing things? Baked into Surprise, racial detection abilities, and so on. Moving quietly? Presumed by default, with some Races and Classes getting special bonuses to success chances. Making stuff? Not relevant to standard play, so hand-waved or rolled into something that is (e.g. creating magic items). Persuation? Reaction Rolls, Morale Checks, and in some cases Saving Throws all handle that. Language is Yes/No, and literacy is presumed.

As Jeffro Johnson mentioned on Twitter the other day, a Skill System should be a gateway into something specific to what is relevant to actual play- and the manual must not only put those things into proper context (as AD&D1e does), but prune away what is not relevant to avoid confusion.

If you know Palladium, you can guess what's coming next.

HU2e: There's a lot of skills in the game. Most of them use a percentile rating to determine base odds of success, and those that do not are either flat-out stat boosters (many Physical skills) or tied into the core Man-To-Man Combat system.

And most of them do nothing. Many more are just there, presumed to be applied at some point during session play but never spelled out where, when, or how (e.g. Detect Ambush). The piloting skills tie into the ground/air/space (lack of) combat systems, in that it gives you something to roll against, but otherwise are ill-defined and a reader has to intuit their utility (something a technical manual must never, ever do; this is Explain Like They're Five territory).

This is a Skill List that has little thought put to it, just as much effort put into integrating them into gameplay procedures, and some of them don't matter AT ALL (Domestic Skills) so they should be omitted.

There are no instructions over how to use the Skill System in play, or when to make skill checks, or how skills interact with the rest of the game's procedures of play (save for vehicular combat, which is still inadequate). You will find this series of technical flaws in all Palladium games (other than RECON, which is something else entirely) so it is not unique to HU2e.

This is the second massive flaw to come across. Alas, there are others; we'll get to another tomorrow.