His father died while Stephen was still young, and he was brought up by his mother. Stephen was born in the County of Blois in central France as the fourth son of Stephen-Henry, Count of Blois, and Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror. His reign was marked by the Anarchy, a civil war with his cousin and rival, the Empress Matilda, whose son, Henry II, succeeded Stephen as the first of the Angevin kings of England. He was Count of Boulogne jure uxoris from 1125 until 1147 and Duke of Normandy from 1135 until 1144. Each system is gating cool abilities, but one requires a lot less bookkeeping, and less trying to pick optimal paths through talent trees.Stephen (1092 or 1096 – 25 October 1154), often referred to as Stephen of Blois, was King of England from 22 December 1135 to his death in 1154. Trees can be great at gating special abilities if done right (FFG's Force Powers seemed to function better than the talent trees), but then, there is something to be said for Warhammer Fantasy 2nd Edition, where you buy Pyromancy, and get access to every single fire spell from providing a little light or cauterizing wounds to calling down pillars for fire from heaven and smiting armies, but until you raise your magic stat, you just won't be able to do the super powerful stuff.
I absolutely love the system, but the designers got way too into the video game vibe on those trees. So where many trees grant access to the top tier somewhat quickly, the Spy tree requires that you buy a much higher percentage of the talents before you can get to the top tier stuff, which is no better than the top tier stuff in the trees that are easier to navigate. Where many trees have multiple paths to the top tiers, this tree requires weaving side to side to get to the top tiers. The Spy tree in Age of Rebellion comes to mind. This makes these purchases seem hands-down worse.Ģ) Weird trees. Usually the bottom tier has a talent for +1 Wound or +1 Strain, but then you often find those same talents in tier 2 or 3, where they cost even more. I think FFG hit a couple major issues inside a lot of the trees:ġ) Higher tier talents are not always better, but they always cost more. Other than those found in video games, does anyone have any examples, or opinions on the subject? Both pros and cons? It would be difficult to do this with that kind of system, unless you did it as basic as you could, allowing outside modification to the Talent Tree. I would like to see how it would work in a Super Power game but, given the range of variety that you can have with super powers I don't know how you might list progression of a particular power unless you take it down to its base power.Ī power like Blast or Power Projection would be the base power for every ability that allowed you to blast a target with a power trope.Įxample: Johnny Storm and a fire blast, Superman and Freezing Breath, or the Incredible Hulk with a Concussion Blast when he claps his hands. I would like to see this in other game systems to judge how it might work. LIke I said I like the Star Wars Talent tree progression. With most progressions, you get a simpler version of the more powerful skill first, then stronger and more expanded versions of the same power to follow.
In other games they have some prerequisites, but not too much restriction on who can get what ability to begin with. This progresses to making a blinding flash that can stun opponents, on to actual lightning bolts. This progresses to touching things with an electric jolt, even puting range to it. Each higher level spell builds upon the las t making the overall effect grow not only more powerful but more expansive and broad covering.Įxample: For the Light Ways spell list you start being able to project light out of your hand. I have seen similar progressions in games like Rolemaster when you look at spell list. It shows a natural progression for an ability that allows each step in development to have a prerequisite step. Its much the way you see it done in video games with character, army, factions, countries, or even concepts. I really like the way that Star Wars from FFG does their character build using Talent trees in addition to Skills and Abilities.
Baby Steps 003 (Please see Baby Steps For Tabletop RPG Design 001 for the concept and ideas behind these posts)
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