Follow the Yellow Brick Road

No Such Thing as Overqualified...
Speculation aims to achieve a balance between the meticulous preparation of the professional adventurer and the Fog of War that erupts when they go to work. There is a certain kind of chaos in focused action, and it's something that no system outside of reality itself can reliably recreate.

This is why the system leans on giving characters the benefit of the doubt. Unless the player is actively reckless or role-playing insanity, we tend to Ref games toward conscientious players.

Likewise, this is why we emphasize knowing the background of the characters before ever "rolling" their stats. There's a bit of metagaming here: the players should have some expectation of what they're going to face in scale and direction, if not exact origin and disposition. For casual games, how they create characters to rise to that threat is up to them.

This system attempts to reflect that narrative freedom, but it takes the blessing of the Ref to let it into the campaign. Not all characters have to be equal or balanced, just as not all people are equal or balanced within the context of their given conflict. In short, unless this an exercise-based technical game, if folk want to play their favorite heroes, let them. If folks want to play Shaggy and Scooby instead, more power to them.

A ton of skills and abilities will help drop a house on the first Big Bad they have to fight. Once they crush the competition, and they have the confidence to take the next step, that'll lead to a second step and a third and a fourth, and now they're headed down the Yellow Brick Road.

When everybody is comfortable with the system, it's time to move to bigger, badder challenges...