
A little bit of rules-mongering just to annoy you.
Please read the "**" lines if you intend to use TSSI.

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While writing the character generation aid for Top Secret/S.I., I
came upon a difficult snag due to some confusion over the rules.
I posted to RGF.misc and had GEnie-mail forwarded to Doug Niles,
author of this most recent version of the Top Secret game.

** The question concerns skill checks in Top Secret/S.I.
** Specifically, how may points should be added to the
** character's "percentage chance to succeed" per additional
** skill level?

Deceptively easy. Here's the catch.

** On page 33 of the Player's Guide: "Each skill level you add
** gives your character a +5" and then later "Note that some
** particularly easy skills give you a +10 for each additional
** level."

I looked through the skill descriptions (in both the Player's
Guide and Commando). There are only two which seem to qualify
as "easy" based on this criterion. Fencing (on pg 41-42 of the
Player's Guide, and this one is debatable, I think maybe there's
a typo in the skill description: "Fencers get a +10 PER their
skill level"???) and the other one is Sniper (pg16 of Commando,
and this one demands some special circumstances to qualify for
the +10).

Out of all of the skills listed between these two books, I
find it hard to beleive that only two qualify as easy
(particularly Fencing and Sniper -- I'd expect maybe throwing,
swimming, you get the idea).

The responses to the question over the Internet varied from
people saying all skills should be regarded as hard (i.e. a +5
per additional level) to comments that skills listed as
defaulting to 1/2 stat (instead of 1/4) should be regarded as
easy (i.e. a +10 per additional level).

I like this last idea, but assuming that it's correct, we still
have a slight problem. There are several skills where either the
default roll is unclear (G9a Small Craft Handling), or the
default seems clear but failure outcomes vary between skilled and
non-skilled characters (G21 Parachuting), or the non-skilled
character seems to make a 1/2 check in situtations where the
skilled chracter would not have to make any check whatsoever,
leading the GM to wonder if the non-skilled character's check in
difficult situations is less than 1/4 (G32 Scuba and S21 STANO).

If this problem actually interests you (heaven forbid), here's a
question to ask yourself. Assuming that the proposed (1/2 default
--> +10 bonus) guideline is correct, how should one categorize
the following skills in terms of the (+5 or +10) bonus they
should receive for additional levels?

C24: Fencing (defaults to 1/4 but seems to suggest +10 bonus)
G21: Parachuting (failure outcomes vary between skilled and
     default)
G32: Scuba Diving (skilled use automatic, default must make
     check)
G9a: Small Craft Handling (1/2 default not specified, but is for
     G4-G11)
S21: STANO (skilled use automatic for normal targets, default
     must check)

And if that guideline isn't correct, then how does one determine
the bonus per additional level (+5 or +10)?

** Needless to say, I never did get an "official" answer from
** TSR. Just from the responses from the net, I get the feeling
** that there will be lots of differing opinions on these
** questions, so I made the (+5/+10) bonus modifyable by the
** user. If you go into the data file for the program, you'll
** notice that each line (representing an individual skill) ends
** in an "e" or an "h". That final letter tells the program
** whether the skill should be regarded as "easy" (+10 bonus) or
** "hard" (+5 bonus). You might not agree with the defaults as
** I've set them up, so please modify the data file to make it
** fit best with your particular game.

- Jim Vassilakos

