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lihimsidhe
2012-12-15, 01:59 AM
Hello everyone. I'm new here. The reason I signed up is because I discovered this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148351) thread and and would like to discuss it more.

I'm interested in creating a system that can adequately detail the natural and the metanatural. Here's what I have so far:

PHYSICAL: Agility, Durability, Endurance, Strength
MENTAL: Awareness, Guile, Intelligence, Readiness
WILL: Ambition, Conviction, Courage, Discipline

This is a minimum set of stats that is meant to be added onto... that all humans would have a rating for (even if it's 0). So if you're wondering, "Where is X?" it most likely stems from one of the twelve attributes listed here. But if you disagree with what I have presented by all means share your thoughts as debating this is what I'm here to do.

Heck I'll even get you started on deconstructing my ideas.

Category Descriptions

If we were applying these attributes to let's say an android or magically created construct, would Mental be the word to bridge the gap between these different beings and us? Could a better word be used instead of Mental?

Could the Will category be subsumed into one attribute simply called Will?

A Hybrid Category

When thinking about a character's ability to perceive the environment it seems that there are two factors at work. First is the character's ability to process the information they receive (mental). Secondly is the quality of their sensory faculties (physical). Someone may be able to process information from their surroundings better than the average person but their faculties may be poor, damaged, or non-existent (blind, deaf, genetic flaw). On the flip side perhaps their faculties are top notch but their ability to process this information is poor.

This could be a separate SENSORY category in which each of our five senses are given their own category but it seems a more elegant solution can be arrived at.

The senses highlight the possible need for a Hybrid category but that does not mean that this quandary is the only one that would benefit from such a category.

Alternatively the ability to perceive the environment can just be made through a combined roll (Agility+Readiness perhaps).

The Health Question

I may be bucking decades of tradition but it seems that Health could be its own category instead of a collection of hit points derived from combining X and Y. As always how would this category be applied to something like an android or construct?

This is already deep into tl;dr category so I'll save what else I have for future responses. Thank you for reading this far!!

Slipperychicken
2012-12-15, 03:04 AM
With the stat names you provided, Health should be very strongly linked to Durability. Androids would have Durability like any other statted entity (it might be penalized if the android doesn't receive proper maintenance, or improved through very costly upgrades). Nonliving creatures ought to have a durability stat, with hit points calculated in the same way as fleshies.

Robots would have ludicrously high Discipline, Courage depends on programming (i.e. is it programmed to fight to the death?), Conviction and Ambition would be nonexistent on all but the most advanced robots.

For Will stats, I say you'd want to make the categories more different. Like
1. Empathy (ability to interpret feelings. Bonus to rolls to make compromise and calm people down.),
2. Courage (standing strong in the face of adversity. Easier to make morale checks, resist intimidation. Robots would have this score very high),
3. Dominance (how much you feel the need to be in control. Bonus on rolls to intimidate or otherwise get people to do things for you. Only "organizer" robots, and the most advanced, have a good Dominance),
4. Intro/Extraversion (higher = extrovert, bonus on all social skills. Lower = introvert, penalty on all social skills. All but the most advanced robots would have a 0 in this score).

Personally, I'd just abstract Awareness to include both those things. If someone's eyes or ears are significantly damaged or rendered nonfunctional (or for whatever reason the character cannot access or use those senses), the characters' Awareness checks involving those senses are penalized (however, some things become auto-fails, like telling colors apart while blind).

Through long, rigorous conditioning, a character can "recover" some of the awareness penalty (1/4 of awareness lost? 1/2?) by leaning more heavily on his other senses, but this is no substitute for actually having that sense back. If a character completes this conditioning and later regains the senses lost, he either gains no additional benefit from the conditioning, or nets a small bonus to Awareness.

lihimsidhe
2012-12-15, 08:31 AM
With the stat names you provided, Health should be very strongly linked to Durability. Androids would have Durability like any other statted entity (it might be penalized if the android doesn't receive proper maintenance, or improved through very costly upgrades). Nonliving creatures ought to have a durability stat, with hit points calculated in the same way as fleshies.

Absolutely strongly linked - sometimes it just takes someone else to state the obvious. If Durability wasn't Health outright then Durability would at least be an attribute that helps determine it (with the other most likely being Endurance).


Robots would have ludicrously high Discipline, Courage depends on programming (i.e. is it programmed to fight to the death?), Conviction and Ambition would be nonexistent on all but the most advanced robots.

It's hard to debate with you when I agree!


For Will stats, I say you'd want to make the categories more different. Like
1. Empathy (ability to interpret feelings. Bonus to rolls to make compromise and calm people down.),
2. Courage (standing strong in the face of adversity. Easier to make morale checks, resist intimidation. Robots would have this score very high),
3. Dominance (how much you feel the need to be in control. Bonus on rolls to intimidate or otherwise get people to do things for you. Only "organizer" robots, and the most advanced, have a good Dominance),
4. Intro/Extraversion (higher = extrovert, bonus on all social skills. Lower = introvert, penalty on all social skills. All but the most advanced robots would have a 0 in this score).

The way I was trying to determine these base attributes is if a human was to grow up with no contact with other humans. In that way figuring out what s/he would and wouldn't have helps ascertain the bare minimum of what it takes to be human.

Empathy and Intro/Extraversion would fall under a Social category. A human gains Social attributes after being exposed to social structures for x amount of time. Now the only problem with this distinction is Empathy because it seems we all instinctively understand when an other is in obvious forms of pain or joy.

But I'll be honest with you... as much as I LOVE the Storyteller system from White-Wolf I'm trying to veer away from it for the sake of creating something viable yet unique. It just seems that most of my thoughts keep coming back to what that system has already established. With that disclaimer out of the way here's the Social category:

SOCIAL: Appearance, Charisma, Empathy, Morality


Personally, I'd just abstract Awareness to include both those things.

When you're right you're right. I'm making this WAAAAY more difficult then it has to be.

As a side note I noticed in the thread that inspired this one that almost no one mentioned Dexterity in their custom stat systems... not even me. I figured Agility can more clearly double as a character's speed score instead of just detailing how precise a character is. Looks like I'm not alone.

Thanks for your reply!

Grundy
2012-12-15, 12:30 PM
How do you differentiate charisma from the other social stats? How do you quantify morality? Why bother quantifying it, or ambition? I've always found those best explored through RP. Is it for constructs?
As for the mental and will stats, why do you break it down so far? Why separate guile from intelligence, and why break up will at all? I agree that awareness should be separate, but I wouldn't place it under will. I'd have it stand alone.

Also, how are you assigning stats? Randomly, point buy, or otherwise?

lihimsidhe
2012-12-15, 12:54 PM
How do you differentiate charisma from the other social stats? How do you quantify morality? Why bother quantifying it, or ambition? I've always found those best explored through RP. Is it for constructs?
As for the mental and will stats, why do you break it down so far? Why separate guile from intelligence, and why break up will at all? I agree that awareness should be separate, but I wouldn't place it under will. I'd have it stand alone.

Also, how are you assigning stats? Randomly, point buy, or otherwise?

Charisma would be how easily people may follow another person without said person actually trying.

As for your other questions why its simple... To put these ideas through the gauntlet. I know what I presented is far from ideal. Its people like you who offer sincere feedback that allows the system to improve.

Stat assignment would be point buy.

Water_Bear
2012-12-15, 01:34 PM
There are at least three too many attributes here, and quite a bit of unnecessary repetition.

Endurance and Durability, for one, really need to be lumped together. The one implies the other, so there's no real point in seperating them out.

Strength and Agility are similar IMO. Agility and Strength have a close relationship, close enough I'd put them together or at least rename Agility. Dexterity at least implies manual dexterity, flexibility, and fine manipulation even if it sometimes gets speed and reflexes mixed into it.

If you're using Intelligence, already an amalgam of (arguably) correlated types of mental abilities, then separating social intelligence out into Guile is a poor choice. Even if you keep it, I would rename it Empathy just as an aesthetic choice.

Readiness confuses me. What is that? I'm guessing it can either be lumped into Awareness or Willpower (see below), but I can't say which without knowing what it represents.

Conviction Courage and Discipline are essentially synonyms in this context, so wrapping them all up into a new stat called Willpower would be reasonable.

Ambition is an odd choice. Not really sure why it's here; if you want personality traits to be mechanically quantified, I'd suggest a Pendragon style approach separate from the "main" stats. Otherwise, I'd say roll it into Willpower with the rest of the Will stats.

Personally, I'd try to keep it at no more than six stats if at all possible and as few as two if you can manage it. There's room for learned/trained abilities, personality factors, descriptive elements like size/health and other stuff outside of the core stats.

erikun
2012-12-16, 12:39 AM
One big problem with your goal is that nearly any attribute system could be considered comprehensive, depending on how broadly you want to view the categories. Systems with Mind-Body-Spirit tend on be cover everything, if not in much detail. I've seen a system with attributes like Eyes, Face, Hands, Arms, and Mind, and it seemed to cover everything you would want to do with a character.

Secondly, you can probably come up with more attribute categories than you have already. Social attributes, you've already come across. What about tactical attributes, such as strategizing a war or running a country? Technical attributes, like retention or practice? Sure, you could call them skills, but that is just handing off the ball to another portion of your planned system and runs into the problem in the future of having "Attribute groups" alongside "Skill groups" with little difference.

Anyways, a look over the skills you have mentioned:

Strength, Agility:
Strength and Agility represent two sides of muscle strength. Strength generally means slow-twitch muscles, or the ability to continuously do an activity for a prolonged length of time. Agility generally means fast-twitch muscles, or the ability to do an activity quickly. A long-distance runner would have good Strength, while a sprinter would have Agility. You can keep them seperate or put them together as one ability, although you'd want to ensure the distinction between the two. (Movement, especially per round, would likely be based on Agility.)

New Attribute: Dexterity/Flexibility:
Flexibility is the capability of the body to move or bend. It means how well a person can contort and control their body movements. Agility doesn't really cover this, unless you've just opened up a Thesaurus and wanted a synonym for "Dexterity" to look different from D&D.

Questionable: Endurance:
If you are using different stats for Strength and Agility, then Endurance becomes somewhat questionable. Endurance is the ability to continue physical activity for extended periods of time, which is pretty much determined by slow-twitch muscles and based on Strength. You could use it in a more generic sense, as the ability of a person to keep pushing themselves ("Mental Endurance"), but that seems more like a Willpower thing for the specific system you have in mind.

Questionable: Durability:
The Durability of a character, as a stat, is somewhat questionable. I guess it works if you're making it a game and expect "higher-level" characters being capable of shrugging off more damage, or if you want to include different species in the game. However, the average human composition is made up of roughly the same stuff, which generally has the same resistance to being damaged from person to person.

Some people may have increased pain tolerance, or an increased resistance to toxins, but these generally don't correlate with being able to take more physical damage. They certainly don't correlate with each other.

Intelligence:
This is a very vague concept, even with the Merriam-Webster definition. Roughly speaking, intelligence is supposed to be how well a person can process and utilize new information. Realistically, we're basically looking at two function: how well a person can understand something new, and how flexible a person is at making use of the information they have. This might not work in a RPG, as you'd be making two rolls every time a character wants to implement new on-hand information, but this seems to be the breaking down you are aiming for (at the moment).

Questionable: Guile:
Guile is the how well someone is at achieving a goal. You might be looking for Craftiness or Cunning, but once again, this is how good someone is at achieving a goal. It basically amounts to planning. A stupid or slow thinker could come off as crafty, cunning, or guileful in pursuing a specific goal - Guileness does not necessarily mean quick thinking (which is probably what you intended).

Questionable: Readiness:
Readiness is preparedness, or how well a character organizes and plans for future and potential scenarios. It is quite an abstract concept, and rather odd to be categorized as a mental attribute.

New Attribute: Retention:
Retention is the ability of a person to remember facts, memories, and senses and recall them at a later date. Retaining and remembering simple information would probably be too basic for such an attribute, but trying to remember a list of all presidents or the steps to assembling a car (or more importantly, the face of a particular person) would be good uses for Retention.

Awareness:
This is kind of odd, because it seems to imply including a whole sensory category of attributes. Would sight, hearing, and taste be included in the Awareness attribute? On the other hand, Awareness meaning how readily a person pays attention to their surroundings could be a useful attribute (although perhaps in the sensory category). Note that people can be unaware either through being too focused, or in being too unfocused; high Awareness would not necessarily mean OCD. Attentiveness could work as a name, too.


...I think that's good for awhile. I'll review the Will/Social attributes later, along with recommending more.

lihimsidhe
2012-12-16, 01:13 AM
Endurance and Durability, for one, really need to be lumped together. The one implies the other, so there's no real point in seperating them out.

I'm in the Army. Part of our job is to undergo regular physical training. One of my least favorite things to do? Running. The goal of our running is to increase our Endurance. My Endurance feels somewhat different than my body's ability to withstand damage.

The rebuke to the point I just made is that generally the higher one's Endurance is, the more damage they would be able to withstand? Let's take it to the extremes. Who is more likely to withstand a lethal wound? A 25 year old who can barely run 25 meters or a marathon runner who can run 25 miles?

I didn't point out that I'm in the Army to display any expertise - just to show you where I was drawing from. That and the game Dark Souls. ;)

You just may be right though. It would make life easier at the very least.


Strength and Agility are similar IMO. Agility and Strength have a close relationship, close enough I'd put them together or at least rename Agility. Dexterity at least implies manual dexterity, flexibility, and fine manipulation even if it sometimes gets speed and reflexes mixed into it.

You're right in saying they are similar. Although separate enough to warrant their own attributes. I can see the classical implementation of Dexterity and Strength over Agility and Strength. I suppose it's a matter of taste and definition. How I'm defining Agility is how fast a character can do something with a high degree of success.


If you're using Intelligence, already an amalgam of (arguably) correlated types of mental abilities, then separating social intelligence out into Guile is a poor choice. Even if you keep it, I would rename it Empathy just as an aesthetic choice.

This point I'm going to have to more or less agree with you. When I thought of Guile I was thinking of some kind of mental attribute the lower animals could use - like a wily fox on the hunt. Seemed to make sense.

Then I thought of my experience raising dogs. We can train them to recognize our commands that have nothing to do with survival. If we teach them how to sit, shake hands, roll over, etc... they are not utilizing Guile. This is in fact them displaying Intelligence. They have very low Intelligence but Intelligence nonetheless.

So Guile would be an Ability rooted in Intelligence. I see that now. The crafty fox may have an Intelligence of 1 or .5 or w/e but has a high Guile rating.

How would you deal with the Intelligence/mental scores of something like an ant or a hive of ants?


Readiness confuses me. What is that? I'm guessing it can either be lumped into Awareness or Willpower (see below), but I can't say which without knowing what it represents.

Wits. Reflexes. Reaction. I was in the thesauraus for a good hour trying to find a word that most represents a character's ability to think quickly. We go through training to increase our 'battle readiness' so I derived this attribute from that as well.

However, the point is that you did not clearly understand what this trait described which to me points out that perhaps it's not the ideal choice. Another reason I didn't go with Reflexes or Reaction is because I want a ward that is proactive instead of just reactive.


Conviction Courage and Discipline are essentially synonyms in this context, so wrapping them all up into a new stat called Willpower would be reasonable.

Ambition is an odd choice. Not really sure why it's here; if you want personality traits to be mechanically quantified, I'd suggest a Pendragon style approach separate from the "main" stats. Otherwise, I'd say roll it into Willpower with the rest of the Will stats.

I did feel like I was reaching a bit when fleshing out the Will category. This more or less comes from my own personal experience of chasing after my dreams (http://anyxevery.com/loop/?p=56). Constant battles with paranoia, self-defeatism, and the like and I started to think that either a pile of nonsense and negativity or anyone in life who chases after success goes through the same harrowing process.

It's the latter for sure. But to address your point this could all be summed up into one Will category. The big question is should Will be its own standalone attribute or should it be under Mental? Hmmmmmmmmm....


Personally, I'd try to keep it at no more than six stats if at all possible and as few as two if you can manage it. There's room for learned/trained abilities, personality factors, descriptive elements like size/health and other stuff outside of the core stats..

Six attributes instead of the TWELVE I have listed? You know what let's go for it. So here's my first attempt at refinement:

Mental: Awareness, Intelligence, Will
Physical: Agility, Durability, Strength

A LOT leaner but I'm liking where this is going. Thank you for your feedback!

:)

ThiagoMartell
2012-12-16, 01:46 AM
Mental: Awareness, Intelligence, Will
Physical: Agility, Durability, Strength


That's so close to OWoD it's not even funny :smalltongue:
Ya know, since you want a system that covers natural and metanatural, why don't you just use Storyteller? That's kind of its thing and the attributes already match anyway.

lihimsidhe
2012-12-16, 03:58 AM
Secondly, you can probably come up with more attribute categories than you have already. Social attributes, you've already come across. What about tactical attributes, such as strategizing a war or running a country? Technical attributes, like retention or practice? Sure, you could call them skills, but that is just handing off the ball to another portion of your planned system and runs into the problem in the future of having "Attribute groups" alongside "Skill groups" with little difference.

Well since you addressed this specific concern let's get right to it. They system will be designed for skills to be branched off of Attributes. So let's tackle Strategy.

Ingelligence
-Strategy
--War Strategy
---Afghanistan War Strategy
----Patika Providence, Afghanistan War Strategy
-----I.E.D. Tactics, Patika Providence, Afghanistan, War Strategy

As you can see I want to allow for as much specialization that is necessary. Since each skill is plugged into an attribute they work together to achieve success.


Strength, Agility:
Strength and Agility represent two sides of muscle strength. Strength generally means slow-twitch muscles, or the ability to continuously do an activity for a prolonged length of time. Agility generally means fast-twitch muscles, or the ability to do an activity quickly. A long-distance runner would have good Strength, while a sprinter would have Agility. You can keep them seperate or put them together as one ability, although you'd want to ensure the distinction between the two. (Movement, especially per round, would likely be based on Agility.)



New Attribute: Dexterity/Flexibility:
Flexibility is the capability of the body to move or bend. It means how well a person can contort and control their body movements. Agility doesn't really cover this, unless you've just opened up a Thesaurus and wanted a synonym for "Dexterity" to look different from D&D.

Questionable: Endurance:
If you are using different stats for Strength and Agility, then Endurance becomes somewhat questionable. Endurance is the ability to continue physical activity for extended periods of time, which is pretty much determined by slow-twitch muscles and based on Strength. You could use it in a more generic sense, as the ability of a person to keep pushing themselves ("Mental Endurance"), but that seems more like a Willpower thing for the specific system you have in mind.

Questionable: Durability:
The Durability of a character, as a stat, is somewhat questionable. I guess it works if you're making it a game and expect "higher-level" characters being capable of shrugging off more damage, or if you want to include different species in the game. However, the average human composition is made up of roughly the same stuff, which generally has the same resistance to being damaged from person to person.

Some people may have increased pain tolerance, or an increased resistance to toxins, but these generally don't correlate with being able to take more physical damage. They certainly don't correlate with each other.

Great stuff Erikun. Great stuff. See this is why I came here: to learn. The way you explained it makes sense to me. We have two muscle groups - slow twitch and fast twitch. And since it's all muscular it COULD all fall under Strength or it could be separated. The key point was that our endurance is based off our slow twitch muscle groups and not some separate 'endurance system' in our bodies (which when I think about it was really very silly to think in the first place.

To address your other question about higher level characters... yes, this system will deal with them on a regular basis. So whether it's punches for ki blasts to the face I need the right attributes in place.

If I'm understanding you right it should be:

PHYSICAL: Dexterity, Durability, Strength


Intelligence:
This is a very vague concept, even with the Merriam-Webster definition. Roughly speaking, intelligence is supposed to be how well a person can process and utilize new information. Realistically, we're basically looking at two function: how well a person can understand something new, and how flexible a person is at making use of the information they have. This might not work in a RPG, as you'd be making two rolls every time a character wants to implement new on-hand information, but this seems to be the breaking down you are aiming for (at the moment).

Questionable: Guile:

Questionable: Readiness:

New Attribute: Retention:


This can all be safely subsumed into the Intelligence attribute because of the vagueness you described before. I mean who really knows what's going on up there?

I was made to see that Guile or Cunning can be absorbed into Intelligence and be redirected as a skill of intelligence instead of its own attribute. The same can be said for Retention/Memory. But I want to stress that I value your suggestion a great deal. You opened by eyes on the whole Strength vs Agility vs Endurance issue. However on the mental aspect I'm inclined to hold fast.

As I posted previously even though Readiness was what I was aiming for the word itself is misleading to everyone else but me. ;)


Awareness:
This is kind of odd, because it seems to imply including a whole sensory category of attributes. Would sight, hearing, and taste be included in the Awareness attribute? On the other hand, Awareness meaning how readily a person pays attention to their surroundings could be a useful attribute (although perhaps in the sensory category). Note that people can be unaware either through being too focused, or in being too unfocused; high Awareness would not necessarily mean OCD. Attentiveness could work as a name, too.

...I think that's good for awhile. I'll review the Will/Social attributes later, along with recommending more.

Aesthetically I prefer Awareness over Attentiveness. But in the end it's w/e is the best for the system. And I'd prefer Perception over Awareness. The thing is (I mentioned this above) for as much love as I have for White-Wolf's Storyteller system I want to avoid coming up with something so similar. Even if the actual mechanics of implementation will be completely different I want to avoid like I used that system as a crutch if possible.

Another thing I just thought of what is the real difference between:

"I'm AWARE of the giant fireball heading at me."

"I'm AWARE of the giant fireball heading at me and MAYBE I should do something other than stand here and get a first class ticket to Fiery Hell Blaze: The Movie."

Awareness can easily pull double duty as a 'quick thinking/reacting' attribute.

So taking this all into account we have:

MENTAL: Awareness, Intelligence, Will

And combined we have:

PHYSICAL: Dexterity, Durability, Strength
MENTAL: Awareness, Intelligence, Will

lihimsidhe
2012-12-16, 04:03 AM
That's so close to OWoD it's not even funny :smalltongue:
Ya know, since you want a system that covers natural and metanatural, why don't you just use Storyteller? That's kind of its thing and the attributes already match anyway.

Three reasons

1. I don't want to get sued.

2. I can't afford to license the system.

3. I feel that something better can be conjured up... even if it's just incrementally better suited for my needs.

erikun
2012-12-16, 04:30 AM
If I'm understanding you right it should be:

PHYSICAL: Dexterity, Durability, Strength
Dexterity and Strength are fine. It's primarily how you want to break the physical attributes down. As long as you know you are breaking up Agility, and can give a solid explanation on which traits are Strength and which are Dexterity, it'll be fine.

I would recommend exchanging Durability with Health. It seems to me that the qualities you are looking for - physical resilience, heat/cold tolerance, toxin resistance, pain resistance, resistance to fatigue - are all factored in how healthy an individual is. Healthy people can deal with such problems far better and to a far greater degree than unhealthy people. Durability may be more accurate, but Health may help people get the idea better.

This also makes more sense if you want the Durability value to decrease as a character takes injuries. I guess that is up to you.


This can all be safely subsumed into the Intelligence attribute because of the vagueness you described before. I mean who really knows what's going on up there?

I was made to see that Guile or Cunning can be absorbed into Intelligence and be redirected as a skill of intelligence instead of its own attribute. The same can be said for Retention/Memory. But I want to stress that I value your suggestion a great deal. You opened by eyes on the whole Strength vs Agility vs Endurance issue. However on the mental aspect I'm inclined to hold fast.
Thinking it over a bit, I would probably have split up the mental abilities into Retention (holding onto information), Comprehension (understanding new information), and... Implementation? (putting knowledge into practical use), along with Awareness/Perception for how good someone is at paying attention to the world around them. That doesn't seem to be the path you're taking, though. :smalltongue:

Awareness, Intelligence, and Will seem like they work well enough, although "Intelligence" may feel like a vague term at times. I'd be more inclined towards the word Willpower rather than just Will.


The thing is (I mentioned this above) for as much love as I have for White-Wolf's Storyteller system I want to avoid coming up with something so similar.
You seem to be moving towards a passive / active / flexible set of attributes for each quality, so the comparison is almost unavoidable. I'm not sure if is a bad thing, but I do highly recommend using the word that has the closest meaning to what you want.


As for social attributes:

Appearance / Presence / Face is a description of how well someone presents themselves to others, from first impressions to how confident the appear. Charisma would easily fit into someone's Appearance/Presence. Etiquette (poor term choice) would be how well someone can manipulate another individual into doing what they want - this can include anything from diplomancy to intimidation to outright blackmail, but a better term isn't coming to me. Manipulation, perhaps? Motivation would be how well a person can influence a person or set of people towards a specific goal - politics, or rallying, or just starting a riot. Clout is the general term for how well a person can manipulate a system to their advantage, generally through a means of money, power, favors, or other influence.

Morality doesn't make much sense as a social attribute, as I'm not sure when you would need to roll a morality check against someone in such a situation. Empathy is the ability to identify what another person is feeling (Sense Motive in D&D terms) while Sympathy is the ability to make another person believe you care about their feelings. Two rather different actions, although you'd probably put them together for simplicity's sake.

lihimsidhe
2012-12-16, 06:26 AM
Dexterity and Strength are fine. It's primarily how you want to break the physical attributes down. As long as you know you are breaking up Agility, and can give a solid explanation on which traits are Strength and which are Dexterity, it'll be fine.

I would recommend exchanging Durability with Health. It seems to me that the qualities you are looking for - physical resilience, heat/cold tolerance, toxin resistance, pain resistance, resistance to fatigue - are all factored in how healthy an individual is. Healthy people can deal with such problems far better and to a far greater degree than unhealthy people. Durability may be more accurate, but Health may help people get the idea better.

This also makes more sense if you want the Durability value to decrease as a character takes injuries. I guess that is up to you.

This gave me an idea. When a character is within mundane limits she has a Health attribute. As soon as that attribute crosses over into the metanatural range, it becomes Durability. It's only an aesthetic change but can tell people more information at a glance.

The problem is this opens up a whole other can of worms. "Why is Health the only transformational attribute?"

Perhaps a less rigid word? Resistance? Stamina? Fortitude? Good ol' Endurance? ;)

But Health can very well work.


Thinking it over a bit, I would probably have split up the mental abilities into Retention (holding onto information), Comprehension (understanding new information), and... Implementation? (putting knowledge into practical use), along with Awareness/Perception for how good someone is at paying attention to the world around them. That doesn't seem to be the path you're taking, though. :smalltongue:

No. But those could all be skills based off the root Intelligence attribute though. :)


Awareness, Intelligence, and Will seem like they work well enough, although "Intelligence" may feel like a vague term at times. I'd be more inclined towards the word Willpower rather than just Will.

I dislike the word power because to me it implies that every attribute should have the word power in it. Strengthpower, Intelligencepower, tacticspower, etc. That's probably just me.

I found a good word to replace it though: Resolve.


You seem to be moving towards a passive / active / flexible set of attributes for each quality, so the comparison is almost unavoidable. I'm not sure if is a bad thing, but I do highly recommend using the word that has the closest meaning to what you want.

You know what you're right. McDonald's sure didn't stop Burger King from growing into a global, multi-billion, dollar company. So why should I let the Storyteller system stop me here? And it's not like I'm ever going to deny my gamer heritage or inspiration. It's not like I'm trying the next Vampire: The Undeath.



As for social attributes:

Appearance / Presence / Face is a description of how well someone presents themselves to others, from first impressions to how confident the appear. Charisma would easily fit into someone's Appearance/Presence. Etiquette (poor term choice) would be how well someone can manipulate another individual into doing what they want - this can include anything from diplomancy to intimidation to outright blackmail, but a better term isn't coming to me. Manipulation, perhaps? Motivation would be how well a person can influence a person or set of people towards a specific goal - politics, or rallying, or just starting a riot. Clout is the general term for how well a person can manipulate a system to their advantage, generally through a means of money, power, favors, or other influence.

Morality doesn't make much sense as a social attribute, as I'm not sure when you would need to roll a morality check against someone in such a situation. Empathy is the ability to identify what another person is feeling (Sense Motive in D&D terms) while Sympathy is the ability to make another person believe you care about their feelings. Two rather different actions, although you'd probably put them together for simplicity's sake.

Suggesting Presence was a godsend Erikun. It describes everything from force of character, an attractive person turning heads, to leadership qualities.

Etiquette was a bad choice of words (it makes me think of salad forks and napkin folding) but you were on the right track. I was just at a military ball/dance last night and it was OVERFLOWING with rituals, ceremonies, etiquette, and all of that nonsense. Not everywhere in society is that extreme but etiquette is everywhere in society. We just need a more streamlined word and here it is: Decorum.

So this is what I have so far:

MENTAL: Intelligence, Perception, Resolve
PHYSICAL: Dexterity, Resilience, Strength

Alternatively a social category can be used if the situation calls for it.

SOCIAL: Decorum, Empathy, Presence

This is really starting to feel right. Not only am I making some great progress here but I'm realizing I can't let what come before stop me. I need to just GO with it!

THANK YOU!!!!

Water_Bear
2012-12-16, 12:06 PM
Well, first off, thank you for your service. Glad to know there are people here on the forums defending the country.

I'm curious about the branched attributes idea. It seems like an interesting idea, and has a lot of features which lend themselves to borrowing other ideas from games.

Like, for, example, I've seen a lot of systems where no skill can be trained higher than it's linked attribute. Using that with this teired system might mean something like;

Intelligence: n

Science: n-1

Biology: n-2
Chemistry: n-4
Economics: n-5

Or, for another, maybe buying points in a sub-attribute helps advance the regular attribute. So for the above example, maybe for every n^x (n, n^2, n^3, ...) points in subatributes the main attribute increases by one. Or something a little more elegant.

Also, do you know how the attributes are ranked? Like, is it die pools, or die types, or a flat bonus, or a percentile to roll under, or a weird hybrid like D&D?

Slipperychicken
2012-12-16, 01:23 PM
Or, for another, maybe buying points in a sub-attribute helps advance the regular attribute. So for the above example, maybe for every n^x (n, n^2, n^3, ...) points in subatributes the main attribute increases by one. Or something a little more elegant.

It might make more sense for attribute scores to grant "sub-attribute points" or "skill points", which may be freely distributed among its sub-attributes (I'm going to refer to these as "skills"). Maybe have a skill-level maximum based on the corresponding attribute score to discourage excessive min/maxing.

For example (numbers/formulas here are arbitrary), if I have N Intelligence score, I would recieve N^2 skill points which may be distributed among Intelligence skills, (like Economics, Languages, Architecture, Mathematics, Programming, History, Biology, and so on) to represent my proficiency or ignorance in each. But I could not assign these skill-points derived from Intelligence to Perception or Strength skills like Vision or Jumping (I would need to invest Attribute points in Perception or Strength in order to gain their skills).

Ozfer
2012-12-16, 08:34 PM
Wow, looks like a great system you have going. Your system issues are very similar to mine, and this has been helpful for me as well. One thing though, if I hadn't read your explanation post, I think I might be confused by the social attributes. Empathy seems the closest to the mark, but I still feel it needs improvement for what you want it to do.


Sorry I'm not bringing much to the table, I'm not so good with attribute-words.

lihimsidhe
2012-12-24, 07:02 AM
I apologize for the late response. Work has kept me preoccupied with all sorts of matters. So naturally the best time for me to respond is Christmas Eve har har.



Well, first off, thank you for your service. Glad to know there are people here on the forums defending the country.

I'm curious about the branched attributes idea. It seems like an interesting idea, and has a lot of features which lend themselves to borrowing other ideas from games.

Oh hey no thanks neccessary for the service. It's its own reward in a lot of ways. ;)

The attribute dependent ability branching idea came from my friend who's that type of gamer that LOVES immersing himself in rules and systems. Personally I really only know of the Storyteller, Palladium, and the d20 systems (surprise surprise!). He may have derived it from other systems.

In fact me and him were supposed to work out this system together. His core attributes were: Strength, Agility, Cunning, Intelligence, and Bearing. However, when I looked at what this system was going to be used for it didn't seem like those core 5 would cut it.


Like, for, example, I've seen a lot of systems where no skill can be trained higher than it's linked attribute. Using that with this teired system might mean something like;

Intelligence: n

Science: n-1

Biology: n-2
Chemistry: n-4
Economics: n-5

Or, for another, maybe buying points in a sub-attribute helps advance the regular attribute. So for the above example, maybe for every n^x (n, n^2, n^3, ...) points in subatributes the main attribute increases by one. Or something a little more elegant.

This is something that's definitely going to make it into the system. There will be cases where a Player has to roll their Physical, Mental, or Social scores. Additionally the Attributes and Skills will limit each other but how that works is mostly up to... us.


Also, do you know how the attributes are ranked? Like, is it die pools, or die types, or a flat bonus, or a percentile to roll under, or a weird hybrid like D&D?

The system will use only d6's. Why? Because you can find d6's everywhere. Your grandmother probably has some to play Yahtzee.

My first encounter with the percentile system was with RIFTS. I liked it but it doesn't scale well. So that's out. It's hard to describe what exactly this system is aiming to do without spilling the beans completely. I will reveal this soon.

lihimsidhe
2012-12-24, 07:03 AM
It might make more sense for attribute scores to grant "sub-attribute points" or "skill points", which may be freely distributed among its sub-attributes (I'm going to refer to these as "skills"). Maybe have a skill-level maximum based on the corresponding attribute score to discourage excessive min/maxing.

That's a great idea. Consider it done.

lihimsidhe
2012-12-24, 07:05 AM
Wow, looks like a great system you have going. Your system issues are very similar to mine, and this has been helpful for me as well. One thing though, if I hadn't read your explanation post, I think I might be confused by the social attributes. Empathy seems the closest to the mark, but I still feel it needs improvement for what you want it to do.


Sorry I'm not bringing much to the table, I'm not so good with attribute-words.

Ozfer every little bit helps. You don't need to reinvent the wheel to participate. Simply putting forth your two cents in a positive manner is good enough.

lihimsidhe
2012-12-24, 07:12 AM
I will be posting what and where all this is going sooner than later. It's important to note that if you suggested an idea and want credit for it to send me a private message to indicate so. Otherwise let's keep the discussion going.

Emmerask
2012-12-24, 07:42 AM
There are at least three too many attributes here, and quite a bit of unnecessary repetition.

Endurance and Durability, for one, really need to be lumped together. The one implies the other, so there's no real point in seperating them out.


Not really, endurance is how long can something function at a certain efficiency until it needs rest, maintenance,energy , durability is (or can be) how much damage a system can sustain and still function.

(durability can mean the same as endurance but has about 1 million additional meanings [english isnīt a very exact language])