Point Buy Character Generation
Inspired by this post I thought about character generation.
Simple Point-Buy
All PCs start at 4/8/16 and have 3 points to spend. Points are worth 1:2:4 respectively. Can't spend more than 2 points in one stat. This generates a character that matches an average randomly generated one and avoids disappointing players who worry about good numbers. Can be run alongside the random generation I think.
Skill Replaced
Replace Skill with a new stat that starts at 1. Call it "Level" maybe. Now, keep a tally of how many Advance Rolls you have successfully made for skills which are currently equal to or greater than your level. So at level one, moving an advanced skill from 1 to 2 counts, but 0 to 1 does not. Every time you get to 10 successfully advanced skills =>Level, Level goes up by 1. I haven't done the maths but, while this looks easy, I suspect this system is self limiting and will put the breaks on pretty quickly. Additionally it will encourage specialisation rather than picking up goofy skills, and make trainers more valuable.
Skill vs Advanced Skill
Yea, it's a pain in the arse to teach new people that these are different. It is in Troika like this because it was important to maintain a legacy connection to (A)FF at the time. More and more, that becomes less relevant as I think Fighting Fantasy derivatives are getting their legs under them. I would always keep Skill, since the SKill/Stamina/Luck triplet is important to me, and as a flag to wave. Instead I'd change Advanced Skills to be called something like "Fancies". It's a good word because it reframes them less as things you are purely good at and more things you are interested in, which is very Troika. Now the questions of what is and is not an Advanced Skill/Fancy is much simpler. When someone asks "what do you do?" could you answer with it? Then yes it is a Fancy.