Hi!

I wanted to bring up the idea of teaching perks for discussion. I have had a few conversations with people around the idea. I can see some pros and cons, and want to have them discussed here. I personally am against the idea, as I think they take away the unique feeling of perks, and what they give, but also understand that there are benefits to releasing perks into the game in this way. Here's my feelings around uniqueness:
I feel like perks help to strongly define a character. For example, when I think of the archetype bridgebuilder/construction manager, I think of Lance. This isn't to say that teaching doesn't make sense, but I worry it would pull away from each character feeling unique.

That said, there are benefits in being able to introduce perks from cast side, and in being able to set up teacher/mentor type situations.

Either way, curious to hear other people's thoughts, and figure it could help the rules committee.

Thanks,
Scout

We’d love to hear people’s thoughts, thanks for starting this!

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-Josh Marcus
Head of Plot, FI 3

Josh, to start us off at a common understanding, would you be willing to go through your reasoning for adding in the capability?

You used to be a able to teach Perks in FI1 and it didn't break the game, if that matters to the calculus at all.

Yeah, but you could also only have 3.

Fair. I've always been the in camp of Perks being defining character points. I feel like (read: gut feeling, will run scenarios later) with the added diversity of places to spend CP in Coalition theory levels, accumulating a multitude of Perks won't be as much a concern game-wide. Perhaps for those avoiding any Coalition stuff altogether it may become problematic.

I definitely think there must be an investiture of Dev. time to learn a Perk from someone though. It's different and more pervasive in scope (typically) than a Procedure and should require more time to learn as a result.

Scout hit it on the head with their initial observation that setting up Teacher/Mentor situations is important to us. It allows a lot of situations that otherwise just aren't possible if Perks can't be taught.

There is still something to be said for being the person who originated a Perk, and being able to spread that knowledge as you choose through the colony. Or choose to refrain from doing so.

Gating Perk learning behind taking a Personal Development Action allows people who invested a Research Project to get that Perk to reap a reward (credit-wise or reputationally) from others, as they are saving them a Research Project.

We would like to have new players be able to pick up Perks that others are willing to teach them that fit their character concepts and that they can find a teacher for.

If we learn from our experiences in Perks for FI 1 & FI 2, we should be able to fairly balance what we allow out into the game.

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-Josh Marcus
Head of Plot, FI 3