Practical Applications

stock.n.bull · Practical Application

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We've talked a little about Practice Mechanics in a previous Blog Post. But today I'm going into the Big problem with Practices. Yes I'm saying there is a problem with our  Built from Scratch, pre-released System! 
First I have to explain what the practices are supposed to do. Practices augment how your character interacts with the world and the Mechanics of said world. Not just to gain statistical bonuses but also to customize your character and gain valuable information that can flesh out a world. Example In the Practice Biological Systems(knowledge of an organism’s systems like: Respiratory, nervous etc) there's an augment called Isolate, it allows the character "to test/study a subject in an effort to isolate and identify which system(s) are or have been afflicted(effected)". The idea behind it was if your character encounters characters suffering or benefiting from the effects of drugs, poisons or diseases, they'd be able to identify and counter the effects. Saving lives or ruining highs.
With this the three offenders can be as complicated as the GM and Players want them to be because the way they're interacted with it is through a simple roll. This leaves all the complexity to RollPlaying, where it belongs.  
Example say you have a virus that affects the nervous system; super charging it, making them fast, react quicker and heightening their senses. But they require large amounts of sugar to keep the host operating at these speeds. With Isolate you'll be able to find this out and if that's the game you're playing; work towards curing it. ON the other hand you can have something like a super steroid; that forces the adrenal glands to pump constantly and increases the intestines ability to absorb protein in order to grow more muscle mass. All that sounds really interesting but a crap ton of rolls in order to find this out wouldn't be cool. With that one augment you get to have all the RP fun and not be bogged down by dozens of rolls.
Okay now onto the problem; It's a ridiculous level of work in the back-end. Quantifying fields of study is a herculean task and then simplifying it without losing most of the versatility well ... boulders and mountains. But that hasn't stopped us, we've made 5 Practices, the 6th is getting tooled up and then two more after that. These are not their final forms but the silhouette of what they will become. 
Side B to the problem; these fields of study are being filtered through the very specific perspectives of two individuals. And the end result might not line up with what other people expect from those fields. Practice is a Gambit, this WHOLE Game is a Gambit and as worried as I should be ... I just want to see how this will all play out.

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