Hello, shield wall!!! I was wondering how you all make your abilities different from your mastery. I often find myself just writing out all kinds of abilities but then my mastery is just an upgraded version of previous ability. so how do you all create these and how are they different for you?
Abilities and Mastery
I’ve split the MEANS into three categories to better make and balance them:
- A Gift is a high disposition for a biological activity or process. This includes running, jumping, perceiving, smelling, and all the things that a living thing can do naturally depending on its race or species.
- When a gift is acquired through training, it becomes a Skill. This includes observing, climbing, swimming, mastering a weapon, knowing a language, driving a car, etc.
- The term Feature is very broad and relates to what other labels cannot cover, going so far as to include supernatural abilities! A winged human? Impossible ! It must be a feature!
I also determine if the MEAN is good to collect information, battle, or know stuff. It usually does a single thing. A lone line of text is enough for a MEAN.
A MEAN is versatile: the character can do something and that something depends on how the character uses it. While an ABILITY, to me, is more of a game term: my character does this and it only does this in the fictitious world. Abilities can be the realm of spells, favors, and MASTERY especially well because they tend to be specific applications of the character’s wisdom and experience.
For MASTERIES? Go nuts! Combine various FEATURES and make them better! Push a GIFT to its limit! Give it multiple uses! Take inspiration from previous challenges that your players have had to face! But make it simple: you want your player to pull out his MASTERY like a trap card from Yu-Gi-Oh!
God speid man! Roll fun! o7
Sure thing! But take into account that I am still experimenting about this way of doing things, there are some kinks to work out and I am always open for helpful criticism! 
The formula to make a MEAN is not obligatory but good to keep in mind: (Verb ± Detail) + (Name ± Detail)
Zaruzar the Green, a tier 1 half-Orc has the following MEANS:
- Great sense of taste (Gift to collect information and probably comes from his bioform but that doesn’t need to be explained.)
- Skin too thick for impact weapons (Gift for battle. As you can see I did not follow the formula, but I did not stray too far from it either.)
- Running fast over long distances (Gift for battle.)
- Climbing trees with friends (Skill for battle.)
- Fighting with a weapon (Skill for battle.)
- Woodland hunter (Know-stuff skill.)
And the following ABILITIES (game stuff):
- Two Hearts (20 HP).
- Always add +1 to the dying countdown.
- Cleave (you know what it does!)
And this MASTERY (for @GRIMBREAKER) :
- Zaruzar can use his sense of taste to track characters he’s bitten over FAR distances. Woodland terrain can no longer be difficult terrain to him and uprooting trees is EASY.
How would Climbing trees with friends play out at the table, for example? Well, as the GM I would give +3 (or EASY) to Zaruzar’s player when the half-Orc is climbing trees. Or maybe I’d just give +3 to Zaruzar and all the friends with whom he’s climbing a tree. I’d give +3 when Zaruzar is climbing not-trees with friends to help said friends but not to his own ascension. It could affect Effort too, I don’t know. 
It’s not too generic but it’s not too specific either, it’s a good MEAN.
As you can see, the addition or omission of a detail can make a MEAN more useful. That’s why this formula remains in the GM’s hands. If you allow your players to come up with their own stuff with it, take the time to look it over and balance everything. With the method that I have shown you, you should be able to make an equally powerful character in your next post!
IronShepherd
#5
This is a good question. I started to wonder what separates Abilitites from Milestones from Masteries.
At a glance it looks like Abilitities are based on Rolls.
Ex. Add to a stat, make something EASY, “when you roll [blank]” abilities, roll [blank] to do something unique
Milestones seem to bend or break the rules a little bit
Ex. Use a different effort dice, roll different Stats instead, add to Stat, hit multiple targets,
Masteries are just super beefed up versions of Starting abilitities (which is what I think your original question comes from).
I think the model you are using (Masteries = Upgraded Starting Abilitities) works just fine and I do the same thing for my Hacks.
I noticed on some of the official World’s that not all classes (types) have the same amount of abilitities. I am trying not to get too OCD about making my classes fit the Master Edition model. I guess what matters is that each playstyle feels unique and has rules (abilitities, special starting Loot etc) that support that.