How to Play TriadCity

The TriadCity Players' Guide

Skills

Skill is a central concept in TriadCity. Many game commands aren't very useful unless you have the appropriate Skill.

A Skill is something you have to explicitly learn. You enter the world knowing none. Much of your character's individual growth centers on the mix of Skills you choose to pursue.

To learn a new Skill, you use the Learn command. You have to be in the presence of someone who is capable of teaching you the particular Skill you're interested in learning. Each attempt to Learn will cost you one Practice point; when you're out of Practices, you can't Learn any more without accumulating more. You may succeed in Learning, or you may fail. Success depends on many factors, including your intelligence, mastery of the Learn Skill, the ability of the person teaching you, and several others. It's a good idea to compare multiple teachers of the same Skill: some are better than others. Experienced players can help you with lore and advice.

When you learn a Skill, you learn it up to a particular quality. That quality depends on your Level, the Level of your teacher, and your teacher's ability to teach that Skill. Thus certain teachers can teach you a particular Skill only up to a certain quality; after that, you'll have to find a better teacher.

There's no automatic upper limit to how well you can learn a Skill. Each time you gain a Level, you can increase your mastery of a particular Skill up to that Level. Thus learning is a life-long process in TriadCity. For instance, we strongly suggest keeping your Learn Skill at the highest possible level: you should enhance your Learn Skill every time you level. You'll find other Skills that are central to your character's growth which you'll want to keep at top pitch as well.

Not every Skill is available to all characters. Many are limited to particular character Roles. These represent specializations within the overall population of characters. At some point in your character's history you'll need to choose a role, which will make many Skills available to you while denying you others.

New players are sometimes unaware of the centrality of Skill in TC. Players who are experienced with other MUDs can become particularly confused. If you find yourself trying to use a command and failing, it's a good bet you don't have the Skill needed by that command. Ask an experienced character for advice.

Players' Guide TOC

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