PDA

View Full Version : Improving in real life



Laughingmanlol
2013-06-21, 11:32 AM
I'm wondering how accurate the RPG system of an extra ability point every four levels, and similar means of representing how people's abilities develop, is compared to reality.
How easy or difficult is it to develop different attributes, with time and training?
For example, learning new things can be increasingly difficult, based on the complexity and volume of knowledge to accumulate, but it is far more achievable than attempting to improve overall intelligence and mental speed.
Another instance would be how strength is an attribute that can be trained, but dexterity would be one that is more challenging to improve on, mostly being an inborn trait.
What are your thoughts on this, and are there any RPGs that attempt to model development on reality than based on balance?

Mordar
2013-06-21, 01:35 PM
All of the standard attributes (Str, Int, Wis, Con, Dex, Cha) are trainable or at least improvable. Most of them improve pretty much the same way Str does - you work at it. There are tons of examples from sport/athletics that show dexterity/agility can be enhanced (boxing, tennis, football, gymnastics - all have regimens that significantly improve balance, hand/eye coordination, speed, grace)...I think most accept as given that Int grows as a result of education...Wis with "real world" education as well as academic education/age/experience...Con by focused endurance training...and Cha can certainly be improved by practice, workshops, and the like (appearance only being a small portion of Cha, and heck, we've got makeovers and surgery for that!).

I agree that improving attributes is more difficult than improving skills, but it is no less reasonable. The allocation of a bonus attribute point every X levels probably makes a little more sense to me in the physical side of things (representing the physical demands of adventuring helping to harden the body and train the muscles, both for strength and agility/dexterity), while the use of experience points (as seen in games by White Wolf, Savage Worlds/Deadlands and the like) is probably a bit better at handling both the physical and mental attributes equally.

Now, when it comes to the "skills" side of the question, I think that Chaosium had the best take on improvement. Chaosium skills were on a 0-100 scale, with a higher score indicating greater skill. To be successful at a skill, you had to roll equal to or less than your score (+/- any special modifiers).

If you used a skill during a time period (while the system required success, we didn't always take it that way), you rolled a check against your current skill at the end of the chapter/story, wanting to "fail". If you failed this roll, you were able to increase your skill (generally by 1d10 points). If you made the roll, you did not get to advance. This simulated being exposed to "new" elements related to the skill through practice...and as you become more skilled/capable, you are progressively less likely to improve. That reasonably well mirrors real life...early gains in skill are easy to come by, but mastery takes a lot of work.

Now, Chaosium was not a level-based system, so that is a wrinkle to manage, and probably why most level-based systems have to rely on flat skill point gains at given intervals. Of course, many level-based systems don't seem to be terribly reliant on skills (freely admitting to over-generalization here) so it just isn't that big of a deal.

I know you didn't ask about skills...but I thought it a natural extension of the topic :smallsmile:

- M

Grinner
2013-06-21, 01:51 PM
I'm wondering how accurate the RPG system of an extra ability point every four levels, and similar means of representing how people's abilities develop, is compared to reality.
How easy or difficult is it to develop different attributes, with time and training?
For example, learning new things can be increasingly difficult, based on the complexity and volume of knowledge to accumulate, but it is far more achievable than attempting to improve overall intelligence and mental speed.
Another instance would be how strength is an attribute that can be trained, but dexterity would be one that is more challenging to improve on, mostly being an inborn trait.
What are your thoughts on this, and are there any RPGs that attempt to model development on reality than based on balance?

Most games I've seen, particularly D&D and its derivatives, are completely unrealistic.

Take strength, for instance. To improve strength, you would probably try weightlifting. The thing is that weightlifters tend to experience considerable gains in muscle mass in the first few months, after which the gains level off. If they then stop exercising on a regular basis, their muscle mass will begin to reduce, no longer being useful to the body's daily activities.

D&D does the exact opposite of that. Strength is never lost through inactivity, and gains occur sporadically over a long period of time. As part of the game's mechanics, this isn't a bad thing though. How fun would organizing your character's gym time be, after all?

warty goblin
2013-06-21, 02:01 PM
After having seen it, I'm becoming more and more enamored of th A Song of Ice and Fire RPG's system, which essentially combines skills and attribute scores into abilities, which can then be specialized. Basically it means that the game doesn't ask 'how strong are you' it asks 'how good at you at lifting heavy things?'

Grinner
2013-06-21, 02:13 PM
After having seen it, I'm becoming more and more enamored of th A Song of Ice and Fire RPG's system, which essentially combines skills and attribute scores into abilities, which can then be specialized. Basically it means that the game doesn't ask 'how strong are you' it asks 'how good at you at lifting heavy things?'

Speaking of interesting attributes, there's this French RPG called "Shadows of Esteren" whose base attributes are a set of five sliding scales, each defining one element of a character's personality. Such a sublime mechanic.

Jay R
2013-06-21, 11:38 PM
In real life, I've become very adept at many skills just by practicing the skill, without killing hardly anybody at all.

TuggyNE
2013-06-22, 12:05 AM
In real life, I've become very adept at many skills just by practicing the skill, without killing hardly anybody at all.

Inconceivable!

warty goblin
2013-06-22, 12:10 AM
Inconceivable!

It's why finals are so stressful. Every semester I've gotta find three or four students of an appropriate level I can bludgeon with textbooks, and find somewhere to hide the bodies. It's getting to be a real drag I can tell you, not least because of wear and tear on my calc text.

Kitten Champion
2013-06-22, 12:19 AM
You can improve through repeated effort, but if its effort aimed at a seemingly unrelated activity then no, you can't become a better basketball player by cooking. If your slicing down Orcs for hours at end, you're getting a sufficient workout for some level of abstract improvement to your slicing ability and overall health as a result of the conditioning you've undergone. The same as spending several hours each day in a batting cage will make you a better batter, improve your arm strength, and make you an overall healthier individual.

Still, I don't think you need levels or experience personally. If you want a spell it should be a matter of buying the book it's in, the resources needed to attempt to cast it x amount of times, and spending x number of hours every day practising it. You should learn it regardless of who you are. Your intelligence should just make the process cheaper and easier. Likewise, if you pick up a sword, get a teacher for x amount of capital, and swing at dummies for x amount of hours, you should be able to at least swing a blade without hurting yourself. Naturally your physique and lack of experience should make this training longer and more gruelling.

Your abilities should be logically consistent with the actions you've done to earn them, in the same way that monk wasn't just a pig farmer yesterday and suddenly he knows Kung Fu. There should be a back-story as to why his fists are deadly weapons. If he's an Exalt, fine, he remembers it from his past life, but I think that can only be stretched so far. I don't care how powerful your character is, I just prefer immersion over meta-stuff.

Still, while your character may be surpassing plausibility with their +X strength that can break the cement its walking on, you're trying to be an epic fantasy hero here, there's got to be some level of reality-breaking in the progression of your story.

Jay R
2013-06-22, 10:59 AM
It's why finals are so stressful. Every semester I've gotta find three or four students of an appropriate level I can bludgeon with textbooks, and find somewhere to hide the bodies. It's getting to be a real drag I can tell you, not least because of wear and tear on my calc text.

Why do you think those books are so big?

(Speaking as a math prof, I'm just glad to hear that somebody uses the book at all.)

valadil
2013-06-22, 11:19 AM
I think I have to take exception to the premise of this thread. Asking if stat improvements are realistic suggests that the stats themselves are realistic. If your stats are unrealistic to begin with how is it possible for them to advance in a realistic manner?

Personally I haven't seen any systems that struck me as realistic. GURPS puts in a good amount of effort to get skills to be realistic. They have varying difficulties to learn and if you don't have one skill you can base it off of something similar with a penalty depending on how similar it is. But their stats system makes up for it. One intelligence stat to represent smarts and social skills? No thanks.

Are there any systems out there with notably realistic stats? Maybe one of those would be a better starting point.

warty goblin
2013-06-22, 11:32 AM
Why do you think those books are so big?

It's a real problem in advanced math, where they assign those pidly little paperback texts, to say nothing of my grad courses where we don't even get textbooks. Last semester I had to take somebody down using only a graphing calculator, a .07mm mechanical pencil with eraser and a double sided cheatsheet. Extensive planning was involved.


(Speaking as a math prof, I'm just glad to hear that somebody uses the book at all.)
The only times I don't use the texts are when the notes aren't good enough. And a few semesters of textless classes has gotten me very good at taking notes.