DAILY TRAINING REGIMENS IN OGRE GATE

The human body and the human mind, they are not static. If I spend all month reading history books, and spending less time working out, in Ogre Gate terms, my Muscle rank goes down while my Reasoning and knowledge skills increase. But if I stop reading for a year and devote myself to physical training, then my physical skills increase and my knowledge skills go down. 

When we first made Ogre Gate, things like Martial Disciplines weren't meant to be set. But over time, we found the game functioned better if they were. And after many conversations we settled on having the Martial Discipline ranks be inherent talents. This works mechanically but it has always irked me as a person interested in real world martial arts. And the more I think about it, the more I am equally irked by having a character with static skill ranks. Sure you can increase them, but it is a little odd your Muscle rank never goes down. 

Art by Jackie Musto 

This blog entry is meant to be half an optional rule, and half a ruling, so it is very semi-official and it is a work in progress (when Ryan and Dan see it, when some of my players see it, when we start using it, then it will be revised accordingly). For now, I am playing with the idea of characters modestly adjusting their abilities through daily training regimens and these can adjust ranks in skills and martial disciplines. 

I do a lot of daily fitness and used to be very involved in martial arts. One thing I noticed was how dramatically your body and conditioning change based on the routines you are doing. And in the lead up to a competition, you would radically intensify and lengthen training which would make you a much different person on the day of competition. Some weeks or months we would train for greater speed, or power, etc. Some years I have focused on lifting heavier weights and increasing my overall muscle mass, others I have tried to maintain a lean frame at a very specific weight range. Through each of these I have felt very different. 

And this doesn't just apply to fighting or physical activities. When I worked at a fish market, I became very good at scaling and filleting fish. This is something I could probably do well again if I practiced but because I haven't done it in a number of years, I would probably, in game terms find my ranks a little lower now). When I was a history student, I could rattle off all kinds of highly specific information about the Medieval World and I describe you the historiography* of Middle East history. When I was reading about Ancient Rome every day, I could easily recall crucial details about the structure of government and society. Today I would need to refresh my memory on both those fronts. I think it is rare, again in game terms, to drop from 3 ranks in a History skill to 0 ranks, but 3 to 2 or even 3 to 1 definitely seems realistic if someone isn't keeping up with their studies. 

Therefore I think it is fair for characters to be able to shift skills and also their martial disciplines. Do keep in mind this is an optional ruling that I have not yet implemented (there have been campaigns where I have allowed something like this, but usually just in special cases). Here I am proposing a more standard method. 

Basically you can move around your skill points from one skill to another and even into other skill groups. You can also move your Martial Discipline points around too (but those can't be applied to other skill groups). Defenses may also be shuffled but only among defenses. 

Martial Disciplines you can move points around at a rate of 1 shift per month. So a character with Waijia 3, and Neigong 1, could change their disciplines to Waijia 2, Neigong 1 and Qinggong 1 after a month of effort. There is no cap on this, you can change them around as much as you want, but the total must always remain 4 points. 

Art by Jackie Musto 

Other skills 1 shift per week, to up to 5 total shifts. So a character with 3 ranks in Muscle and 2 ranks in Persuade can spend a week moving 1 rank from Muscle into Persuade, changing their totals to Muscle 2 and Persuade 3. If you hit the 5 shift cap, you can reset it by spending weeks to restore to your baseline and then start shifting again**. In some instances, such as when a character who has taken the scholar option tries to do this, you may need to impose a higher cost (2 points to raise a skill by 1). But I want to reduce overall record keeping and am on the fence about it. As this is a new ruling idea, if I were to implement it, I would probably tell my players that as these situations arise, I may impose a higher cost out of concern for fairness, balance, etc. 

For Defenses these can be shifted at the same 1 per week rate among the other defenses. So a character with Wits 8 and Evade 5 could spend a week changing their Evade to 6 and their Wits to 7 (or they could raise Wits to 9 and lower Evade to 4). However they can't put defense points into other skill categories, nor can other skill categories be put into defenses. 

*Here I mean it as the history of the history of this discipline 

**This feels a little ungainly to me, but I am trying to balance out fluidity of training with having some kind of baseline character there. This cap may be too harsh. But the basic idea is you shouldn't be able to use this process to completely transform a character. Especially since characters can still increase skills with XP.