More on Leadership being a trap option: let's say you take ut for the fluff (ability to command people) together with Fel aptitude : it costs less xp (4850 vs. 5000) to max Fel and Command with Fel and Social aptitude.

When something is worse than the alternatives at the very thing it's supposed to do, that's thebdefinition of a trap option IMO.

Leadership is a trap option though (if you're playing a character for more than 3 sessions). I've already laid the XP costs associated with having it or not and having it means you'll spend a lot more XP on other options.

Oh, right, you have me on ignore.

Problems arise when an option isn't valid or does not perform it's suggested function, not inherent notions of "inequality".

I'm having a lot of trouble understanding this sentence. You seem to be going to great lengths to avoid calling false choices unequal. I know you're ideologically opposed to balance in game design, so I'll chalk it up to that.

They're called mental gymnastics for a reason. Different things are unequal until one of them becomes demonstrably worse than the other. The act of making that thing better in order to improve gameplay is in no way making things more equal or balancing the game, even if someone insists that is exactly what is being proposed. Grognard ideology.

If you at some point find yourself artificially enforcing equality, you're setting yourself up for failure. All things are inherently unequal, and one cannot expect one character concept to be equal in all aspects to another. For example, one character is based on the idea of command and leadership - another upon charm and guile. Should both be equally commanding? Of course not.

This has nothing to do with ideology or mental gymnastics, which I leave to the cognitively disassociated such as yourself.

The fact that you cannot comprehend basic English is hardly my fault. You seem to be under the mistaken belief that I think that the Leadership Aptitude is above critique - it is not. The fact that it doesn't offer more options is deplorable. But this doesn't change the fact that the usefulness of the Aptitude entirely depends on what concept you are going for.

It is not a trap choice at all, as I settled earlier.

You're equivocating balance and equality. Character options should be designed to be of equal utility (i.e. balanced against each other) but that does NOT mean that all characters will be equally capable at different tasks. Every time the question of balance comes up you claim we support the idea that all characters should be equally capable at all things, which is not and has never been the case, and then tear down that idea. There's a term for that kind of argument.

Again you misunderstand me when you say, "You seem to be under the mistaken belief that I think that the Leadership Aptitude is above critique". Your suggestion on the last page of making the Leadership aptitude apply to more things is a pretty clear indication you find issue with it.

What gets me is that even though you find issue with the utility value of the Leadership as a character option you refuse to use the word 'unequal' to describe its utility. Those are the mental gymnastics.

Go back and find my post about the relative XP costs of having Leadership vs not having Leadership and tell me it's not a trap option. It's next to worthless next to all other Aptitudes.

Just in case you do have CPS blocked.

I am curious what the cognitive dissonance you're talking about is. It's been clearly laid out that you see leaderships lack of relative utility as a problem but refuse to recognize this as it being unequal to other aptitudes or that the solution of improving Leaderahip would be making it more equal to other aptitudes. There's also the fact that you're talking about artificiality in a pejorative sense without recognizing that game design is intrinsically artificial in nature. So what's my cognitive dissonance in this argument?

So, we seem to all agree that Leadership is not as strong as many other options, but disagree on the degree of change required. Personally, I feel that Leadership should be as useful as Social, but comparing Leadership to Fieldcraft is pointless because the aptitudes are desired by different kinds of characters.

How do you feel about the changes I proposed? Are they sufficient to bring Leadership and Social into equality? If not, what alternative do you propose.

Given how utterly unused Leadership is I think it makes more sense to just replace it with Social and forget it ever existed.

I think that Leadership may be useful in future suppliements, if inquisitorial minions or large scale battles will be presented (such as planetary xenos invasions, Holy Crusades, purges and other mass-combat stuff).

Rather than changing things right away, I'd rather see new Talents made that are linked to Leadership (and not necessarily Fellowship too) and allow more badass command options for directing allied NPCs.

So, we seem to all agree that Leadership is not as strong as many other options, but disagree on the degree of change required. Personally, I feel that Leadership should be as useful as Social, but comparing Leadership to Fieldcraft is pointless because the aptitudes are desired by different kinds of characters.

How do you feel about the changes I proposed? Are they sufficient to bring Leadership and Social into equality? If not, what alternative do you propose.

So, we seem to all agree that Leadership is not as strong as many other options, but disagree on the degree of change required. Personally, I feel that Leadership should be as useful as Social, but comparing Leadership to Fieldcraft is pointless because the aptitudes are desired by different kinds of characters.

How do you feel about the changes I proposed? Are they sufficient to bring Leadership and Social into equality? If not, what alternative do you propose.

I feel that your suggestions go a long way towards making Leadership a competative aptitude. The only thing it needs that hasn't been covered are talents, which can be brought it from other supplements.

Given how utterly unused Leadership is I think it makes more sense to just replace it with Social and forget it ever existed.

Since Leadership only affects one skill and two talents and no Characteristics, I agree it is a crap aptitude and removing it is the easiest way to fix it, instead of reshuffling the aptitudes of a lot of social skills and talents.