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Malfarian
2018-12-13, 01:11 AM
Hello All,
I’ve been designing my own game for awhile and I’m come to a bit of a stuck point. Which attributes should I use to describe characters in my world?

I dont really want to overwhelm people with details, so I’ve tried to strip out as much as I can for the thread, though I’m happy to fill in those details as requested.

The game is similar to White Wolf games, in that it uses Attribute + Skill dice pools rather than a d20 + modifiers. Those details aren’t really relevant though. Attributes are based on your character’s body, mind and spirit, and doens’t Included trained skills like athletics.

I’ve split attributes into two categories, Primary (active) and Secondary (passive).

Physical
Strength - physical might.
Agility - overall nimbleness and manual dexterity.

Mental
Intellect - A measure of the intellectual capacity of a character.
Willpower - A measure of the mental fortitude and focus of a character

Social
Charisma - The ability to influence without the use of logic. It is your strength (power) of personality.
Wits - How well you perceive (perception) and notice your environment.


Then I have secondary attributes like Stamina, Reflexes, Composure and Resolve (like Willpower). These are meant to be passive things, that are tested (like saving throws).

The problem I’m having is that Will doesnt’ feel like an active attribute, meaning I find it hard to say when you’d use Will when taking an action, like I want to decipher this code, that’s Intellect, or I want to watch for enemies that’s Wits. I could just drop it, an say that Wits really branches both Mental and Social, but I really like the “Symmetry” of two active stats for each.

Am I missing something? Is there a better attribute than willpower that’s more active? I realize that D&D has Wisdom, but I’ve had the same problem that I rarely feel like Wisdom is the right thing to roll, unless I’m just trying to balance the game.

If I look at New World of Darkness, they would do something akin to STR ~ CHA ~ INT are all “strengths”, and AGI ~ Manipulation ~ Wit. Here I struggle as I feel like Manipulation never felt right when I played, or if it did, then Charisma felt deficient.

I accept there is no right answer to the question.I hope the “logic” of this thread are clear and I’d love any thoughts you all have.

Thank you.
Mal

Maat Mons
2018-12-13, 02:12 AM
The only active use of willpower I can think of would be casting spells.

I've never really thought that "social" could be cleanly separated from "mental." But insofar as I believe those things can be differentiated, wits really seems like a mental stat.

Have you considered not breaking attributes down into subcategories?

aimlessPolymath
2018-12-13, 02:40 AM
I would move Wits to Mental; it complements Int as an information-gathering tool pretty directly (either know the information or learn about it from your environment). I would see Wits as the "brute force" and intinctual of the two.

I think Manipulation can be brought back in.

I find it interesting that charisma is "The ability to influence without the use of ... power of personality.", which seems wrong- I thought power of personality was what Charisma is Because Charisma is an uncommon word outside of RPGs, I think it's more useful to think about Manipulation as the Dex-equivalent, and then extrapolate Charisma from there. Where a Manipulation character has to use finesse, logic, and appeals to emotion, a Charisma character has simple force of likeability on his side. It's not exactly a common heroic archetype, but I think of it a lot like a poorly written romance story (see: harem anime)- people just have positive reactions to a high Charisma character, but he can't necessarily direct that force beyond broad applications. Where a Manipulation character would talk his way through guards by lying to them, a Charisma character could convince them that letting through a completely unauthorized person is the right thing to do because their goals are completely righteous- without needing to lie.

If the two have to be hard-distinguished, I would say that a Manipulation character can change people's beliefs about facts, while a Charisma character can attack people's attitudes more directly.

That's sort of a side-point to the question of "what attributes should I use to describe characters in my world?" Much like a skill system, that mostly depends on how detailed the system is meant to emulate different systems. For example, D&D is not meant to handle detailed social situations (although it tends to end up there anyway), so Charisma is all rolled into one stat; but it has very detailed combat rules to make up for it. In a social game, Physique might be a single stat, but Manipulation, Charisma, and Willpower would all be separate from Intellect and Wits.

Knaight
2018-12-13, 04:02 AM
Wits as perception is kind of weird, as is that being a social attribute, as a secondary issue.

That said, the obvious thing to do here is split intelligence in two. One could be something like speed of thought (wits), another depth of thought (cognition). That would involve renaming wits to perception or something, but as stated it's a bit weird. That then lets you move will into the resisting slot, instead of as an active attribute.

Malfarian
2018-12-13, 11:33 AM
I am always truly amazed by the QUALITY of this community. As a full time professor, parent of 3 and devoted husband, my free time is scarce and concerns about being “imperfec” or rushed in making these posts often prevent me from making them.

Thank you.



The only active use of willpower I can think of would be casting spells.

I've never really thought that "social" could be cleanly separated from "mental." But insofar as I believe those things can be differentiated, wits really seems like a mental stat.

Have you considered not breaking attributes down into subcategories?

I totally agree with you on Willpower here, only supernatural means or augmenting actions like “force yourself to grab a doorhandles you know is very hot”. I actually treat Wits as Social for character creation only, then it serves as both a mental/social attribute during play. I totally agree it seems strange to separate them this way. My game mechanics are the drive for 6 primary attributes, which I think is a poor guide.



I would move Wits to Mental; it complements Int as an information-gathering tool pretty directly (either know the information or learn about it from your environment). I would see Wits as the "brute force" and intinctual of the two.

I think Manipulation can be brought back in.

My primary issue with wits and manipulation is that I have a hard time envisioning the two as distinct. To put it another way, except for strange corner cases, I don’t think they’re independent, I can’t see anyone as being good at manipulation and NOT have a good wits. For awhile I had “guile” rather than Manipulation and treated it as a derived stat from wits rather than independent, so you could be witty and guileful or just witty, but not just guileful. If that makes any sense. Thank you for the comment.



I find it interesting that charisma is "The ability to influence without the use of ... power of personality.", which seems wrong-

I totally agree, that was a very unfortunately comma that I’ve edited, it was not what I intended.



I thought power of personality was what Charisma is Because Charisma is an uncommon word outside of RPGs, I think it's more useful to think about Manipulation as the Dex-equivalent, and then extrapolate Charisma from there. Where a Manipulation character has to use finesse, logic, and appeals to emotion, a Charisma character has simple force of likeability on his side. It's not exactly a common heroic archetype, but I think of it a lot like a poorly written romance story (see: harem anime)- people just have positive reactions to a high Charisma character, but he can't necessarily direct that force beyond broad applications. Where a Manipulation character would talk his way through guards by lying to them, a Charisma character could convince them that letting through a completely unauthorized person is the right thing to do because their goals are completely righteous- without needing to lie.

If the two have to be hard-distinguished, I would say that a Manipulation character can change people's beliefs about facts, while a Charisma character can attack people's attitudes more directly.

That's sort of a side-point to the question of "what attributes should I use to describe characters in my world?" Much like a skill system, that mostly depends on how detailed the system is meant to emulate different systems. For example, D&D is not meant to handle detailed social situations (although it tends to end up there anyway), so Charisma is all rolled into one stat; but it has very detailed combat rules to make up for it. In a social game, Physique might be a single stat, but Manipulation, Charisma, and Willpower would all be separate from Intellect and Wits.

I really like the points you’re making here, I tend to agree with them. The only awkwardness I’ve seen comes from people appealing to emotion and then tell a little lie, is it then manipulation and no longer charisma? Should they really be separate? I do appreciate your points however.


Wits as perception is kind of weird, as is that being a social attribute, as a secondary issue.

That said, the obvious thing to do here is split intelligence in two. One could be something like speed of thought (wits), another depth of thought (cognition). That would involve renaming wits to perception or something, but as stated it's a bit weird. That then lets you move will into the resisting slot, instead of as an active attribute.
Sorry for being unclear, what I mean is that perception is contained within Wits. The reason for this, is that people who tend to be witty, or sarcastic etc, are very good at observing the world, actions and patterns, they notice things other do not, that is why I incorporated it here. I didn’t feel it should be separate like Strength or Agility, and D&D treating it as Wisdom always felt odd as well.

To step back for a minute, the reason I’m facing this right now is that I fixed the attributes about 2 years ago (meaning I wouldn’t let myself consider them any longer) and thrust forward on game design. Now I’m at a point where I’ve got significant ability and “classes” done, and I noticed that Will was basically never used. In the myriad of skill rolls, it didn’t appear, in most non-spell abilities it never appeared.

In my mind, Wits is a hybrid social/mental attribute in play, but only for CC do I treat it separately. Perhaps that means I should have 5 main attributes, STR, AGI, CHA, WIT, INT. That messes up formulas and balance I have so far, but that may be the right answer.


I’ll add a little more detail here:

I have 4 “saves” or resists as secondary attributes.

Stamina = STR + WIL
Fortitude (mental) = INT + WIL
Reflexes = AGI + PER
Composure = CHA + WIT

I also have 2 “pool” attributes similar to Willpower in WoD ( I know it’s a lot, but the early play testing has really worked out well). They’re determined approximately this way:

Daring = CHA + WIT + AGI
Tenacity = STR + WIL + INT

I would directly replace Fortitude with Wil, but then it leaves me a hole to fill with the others. I am treating things like Stamina and Composure as secondary as they don’t really factor into actions.

Man_Over_Game
2018-12-13, 05:17 PM
It's very interesting that you made this design choice. I tried something earily similar a few years ago.

It used Physical, Mental, Social as the three primary attributes, and then having a Force and Finesse version of each attribute, so Mental Force would represent understanding how things worked (Intelligence), but Mental Finesse would be used for having honed physical senses (Wisdom). Your example is very similar.

So if your Physical was 15, that 15 was divided how you wanted between Force and Finesse. So if a Physical 10 was an average person and you had a Physical stat of 15, you could be naturally thin and mobile (Physical Finesse 11), but still not be good at lifting things (Physical Force 4). The Physical 15 represented your defensive stat when things attacked your physical health, but you'd use your Physical Finesse stat + dice to attempt to influence theirs.

(Physical = Physical Force + Physical Finesse)

However, some actions just are limited in their methods to be used. Attacking someone's courage (Social, or Emotion, stat) using your physical body as the medium for your "attack" isn't going to work well. Even though having an above-average Physical stat of 15 that indicates that you're healthy, the stat you'd use for an "Intimidation" type action for it would be Force , so the skinny acrobat with a Physical Force of 4 (when the average is 5), won't be intimidating someone anytime soon, at least not just by trying to *look* scary.

My overall goal was to make a system where someone could win by more than just attacking HP, and that your stats have some strong emphasis on what your character plans on doing. Charisma in DnD, for instance, doesn't stand out to me as a spellcasting stat, but otherwise it's not relevant in combat. I think that separating attributes, like Charisma, from having to be overly supernatural and making them stand on their own, even in combat, will give room for some interesting dynamics with players. No longer will a Face need to be a charismatic or charming Bard, it can simply be a brute who is naturally intimidating but actually wants to be friends! (High Physical Force, High Social Force)



Attribute
Physical
Mental
Social


Finesse
Agility, Dexterity
Senses, Awareness
Control, Adaptability


Force
Muscle, Size
Understanding, Memory
Charisma, Leadership



Then you picked and chose actions that had prerequisites based on your stats. For example, to make a loud, goading action that caused everyone's attention to be on you, you'd need a minimum amount of Social Force + Social Finesse + Physical Force, and if they met the threshold (15+, or something), you can add it into one of your maneuvers, using one of the prerequisite stats as the stat you'd use for the roll. It would penalizes anyone's Mental Finesse stat (so they aren't paying attention to anything but you), which could have some effects in-and-out of combat.

Just throwing some ideas out there. Your system seemed similar in concept, so I hope something I post here provides some kind of brainstorming.

Malfarian
2018-12-13, 10:41 PM
Hello MOG,

Thank you for sharing. I started working on this back in 2009, PhD thesis, post doc, kids etc have slowed it to a crawl. What it’s allowed though are MANY conversations at cons, game stores, online etc with people and I seem to have scratched something in many people, I can’t tell you the number of times where one aspect of the game people have said “You know I tried that ...” it’s really fun and humbling to realize so many people had the ideas before I did.

I like your divisions here, I’m going to read through them again and brainstorm on it.

Thanks,
Mal

Malfarian
2018-12-13, 11:01 PM
So let me ask this question:

If we went with:

Strength
Agility
Charisma - convincing based on emotion.
Guile (Cunning?) - convincing based on reason (could be lies)
Intellect
Wits

I then have several secondary attributes that I’d want, like

Stamina = STR + WIL+ ?? { I want it to be physical + mental)
Reflexes = AGI + WIT (how quickly you notice and respond)
Composure = CHA + WIT (How well you convince people you’re fine and how quickly you think of how to do that)
Willpower = INT + WIL + ?? (Intellect certainly helps willpower but it’s not enough alone ...)

STR and AGI are quite important in other aspects, so they’re not getting shorted by appearing once each. I am not sure that I see Guile/Cunning/Manipulation (all judges words I think) filling into Stamina, perhaps into Willpower.

Thoughts would be helpful.

There’s no reason I can’t make characters spend points in Stamina stat etc, I just was trying to eliminate dump stats.

Maat Mons
2018-12-14, 12:41 AM
It used Physical, Mental, Social as the three primary attributes, and then having a Force and Finesse version of each attribute

This reminds me of an attribute system a friend of mine came up with. Except his had included Magical, alongside Physical, Mental, and Social. And he split Force and Finesse both into offensive and defensive versions. So 16 attributes, in total.

lightningcat
2018-12-14, 10:17 AM
Having worked on this problem myself, you want Attributes that will come up roughly equally. The Physical/Mental/Social seperation of attributes is purely arbitraty, but well established in the hobby. You can add and manipulate that basic list, but if you are missing one of those three then people will notice.
D&D is mostly about physical conflicts, and thus half of their Attributes are physical, while Charisma fills in all social rolls.
Old World of Darkness had Appearance, which I never saw rolled, or brought up in any meaningful manner. This made it a bad Attribute in my opinion.

nonsi
2018-12-14, 11:07 AM
It's very interesting that you made this design choice. I tried something earily similar a few years ago.

It used Physical, Mental, Social as the three primary attributes, and then having a Force and Finesse version of each attribute, so Mental Force would represent understanding how things worked (Intelligence), but Mental Finesse would be used for having honed physical senses (Wisdom). Your example is very similar.

So if your Physical was 15, that 15 was divided how you wanted between Force and Finesse. So if a Physical 10 was an average person and you had a Physical stat of 15, you could be naturally thin and mobile (Physical Finesse 11), but still not be good at lifting things (Physical Force 4). The Physical 15 represented your defensive stat when things attacked your physical health, but you'd use your Physical Finesse stat + dice to attempt to influence theirs.

(Physical = Physical Force + Physical Finesse)

However, some actions just are limited in their methods to be used. Attacking someone's courage (Social, or Emotion, stat) using your physical body as the medium for your "attack" isn't going to work well. Even though having an above-average Physical stat of 15 that indicates that you're healthy, the stat you'd use for an "Intimidation" type action for it would be Force , so the skinny acrobat with a Physical Force of 4 (when the average is 5), won't be intimidating someone anytime soon, at least not just by trying to *look* scary.

My overall goal was to make a system where someone could win by more than just attacking HP, and that your stats have some strong emphasis on what your character plans on doing. Charisma in DnD, for instance, doesn't stand out to me as a spellcasting stat, but otherwise it's not relevant in combat. I think that separating attributes, like Charisma, from having to be overly supernatural and making them stand on their own, even in combat, will give room for some interesting dynamics with players. No longer will a Face need to be a charismatic or charming Bard, it can simply be a brute who is naturally intimidating but actually wants to be friends! (High Physical Force, High Social Force)



Attribute
Physical
Mental
Social


Finesse
Agility, Dexterity
Senses, Awareness
Control, Adaptability


Force
Muscle, Size
Understanding, Memory
Charisma, Leadership



Then you picked and chose actions that had prerequisites based on your stats. For example, to make a loud, goading action that caused everyone's attention to be on you, you'd need a minimum amount of Social Force + Social Finesse + Physical Force, and if they met the threshold (15+, or something), you can add it into one of your maneuvers, using one of the prerequisite stats as the stat you'd use for the roll. It would penalizes anyone's Mental Finesse stat (so they aren't paying attention to anything but you), which could have some effects in-and-out of combat.

Just throwing some ideas out there. Your system seemed similar in concept, so I hope something I post here provides some kind of brainstorming.



On the make-sense side, intuitively, this is a very impressive spread. It does a really good job at describing one's most fundamental traits. (very original with the Charisma-Leadership split - makes a lot of sense)

On the other, When one comes up with a new proposal for ability scores, one should ask himself/herself:
1. Functionality: How does each ability score affect various aspects of the game? (will bring a lot of mechanical changes)
2. Equality: Are they roughly equal in game functionality?
3. Adaptability: Does the new spread do such a better job than the traditional six to merit the effort that every player would require to re-learn how to work with them instead?
I played around quite a bit with redefinition of abilities and never came across a proposal (my own or others') that at the bottom line would justify the redefinition.
Because ability scores are such a fundamental part of the game mechanics, it's impossible to change them and still call the game D&D.
To this day, the traditional six is the best implementation of ability scores that I know of.




@Malfarian: I notice two logic holes in your proposal.
1. I don't recognize which of your proposed abilities stands on its own for hand-eye coordination.
2. Might and stamina are loosely tied, so they shouldn't be represented by the same ability score (so many examples on Youtube).

Man_Over_Game
2018-12-14, 11:38 AM
On the make-sense side, intuitively, this is a very impressive spread. It does a really good job at describing one's most fundamental traits. (very original with the Charisma-Leadership split - makes a lot of sense)

On the other, When one comes up with a new proposal for ability scores, one should ask himself/herself:
1. Functionality: How does each ability score affect various aspects of the game? (will bring a lot of mechanical changes)
2. Equality: Are they roughly equal in game functionality?
3. Adaptability: Does the new spread do such a better job than the traditional six to merit the effort that every player would require to re-learn how to work with them instead?
I played around quite a bit with redefinition of abilities and never came across a proposal (my own or others') that at the bottom line would justify the redefinition.
Because ability scores are such a fundamental part of the game mechanics, it's impossible to change them and still call the game D&D.
To this day, the traditional six is the best implementation of ability scores that I know of.

Great questions, I'll try to answer each one in kind:


Each major attribute has things that they're inherently good at. Physical would make you, the character, the entity, an obstacle on the battlefield. Mental would generally reflect your ability to address weaknesses, either through magical attacks or preventing weakness yourself, and Social would be working off of people's strengths, either improving an ally's ability to attack or by causing the enemy brute to be distacted and miff his giant swing.
Ideally, they'd be equal in value, but each with their own different uses. Being a high Physical, high Mental character would have a knack for seeing an enemy's weakness, and having ways of abusing it. On the other hand, a High Physical, High Social character can stay calm under pressure and encourage nearby allies to improve their morale.
I definitely think so. Oldschool DnD used 3 or so defenses (as does my example), and even current DnD has a lot of redundancy that doesn't make a lot of sense. What's the canonical difference between a 5e (Cleric 1, Fighter 1) character and a (Paladin 2) character? That the Cleric lost their faith for one level? Additionally, DnD Clerics, the people who heal and defend the weak, have a generally low Charisma score, and have less incentive to interact with common folk than the Warlock, which directly contradicts what most Cleric players actually want to do: Help People.


My intent was to create no redundancy and no mistakes as to what you actually want your character to do. No longer will you have to choose between being burly and smart, not when there's a whole suite of spells that scale off of your Physical Force and Mental Force ("Earthbending"-esc abilities). You want to be a Sherlock Holmes type with high Mental Force+Finesse and high Social Finesse, don't worry, we have a number of abilities that are aimed explicitly for that. You pick and choose what actions suit your characters when you level up, and you just have a short list of actions that your character can do doing their turn. Complex and versatile level up system that becomes simple in actual gameplay. Since the prerequisites for actions are based on a sum, you can still have some of the aforementioned "earthbending" abilities if you only have a high Mental Force stat, but you may be limited in how far you can go in that suite (only getting the first few abilities).

[Edit: Whoops, sorry, didn't mean to go off on a tangent]

Man_Over_Game
2018-12-14, 11:54 AM
So let me ask this question:

If we went with:

Strength
Agility
Charisma - convincing based on emotion.
Guile (Cunning?) - convincing based on reason (could be lies)
Intellect
Wits

I then have several secondary attributes that I’d want, like

Stamina = STR + WIL+ ?? { I want it to be physical + mental)
Reflexes = AGI + WIT (how quickly you notice and respond)
Composure = CHA + WIT (How well you convince people you’re fine and how quickly you think of how to do that)
Willpower = INT + WIL + ?? (Intellect certainly helps willpower but it’s not enough alone ...)

STR and AGI are quite important in other aspects, so they’re not getting shorted by appearing once each. I am not sure that I see Guile/Cunning/Manipulation (all judges words I think) filling into Stamina, perhaps into Willpower.

Thoughts would be helpful.

There’s no reason I can’t make characters spend points in Stamina stat etc, I just was trying to eliminate dump stats.

Hmm...

One particular thing that we don't always think about is that faking an emotion isn't much different than forcing it. Many actors don't just "pretend" they're sad, they actually convince themselves to feel that emotion. You do not "pretend" you are fine, but you actually feel that you are.

I bring this up, because often times your "stamina" in combat really comes down to both how much physical punishment you can take, but also how long you can convince yourself to keep going. In rare moments, someone could be knocked unconscious in a fight and their body is still trying to fight with no lights on. That's a great example of someone who has a high stamina reflected from their mentality.

Alternatively, large brutes having a "glass jaw" is so common that we have come up with a slang for it.

To reflect this, I'd probably make Stamina based off of Strength + Wits or Strength + Charisma.
Reflexes is pretty good with Agility + Wit, but this could also be done with Agility + Guile (knowing the problem before it happens)
Composure is a pretty hard stat to justify if there's going to be a lot of combat. Charisma + Wit seems to be the closest option here.
Willpower... I think Intelligence + Charisma is going to be your best bet here.

Malfarian
2018-12-14, 02:26 PM
Having worked on this problem myself, you want Attributes that will come up roughly equally. The Physical/Mental/Social seperation of attributes is purely arbitraty, but well established in the hobby. You can add and manipulate that basic list, but if you are missing one of those three then people will notice.


I agree that missing ones will be noted! It’s also as you say we’ll established which is part of why I tried to stop worrying about it until now.



D&D is mostly about physical conflicts, and thus half of their Attributes are physical, while Charisma fills in all social rolls.
Old World of Darkness had Appearance, which I never saw rolled, or brought up in any meaningful manner. This made it a bad Attribute in my opinion.
Stats like appearance and stamina in OWOD are a big part of why I wanted to ditch undervalued attributes. I still want to play WOD like games but in fantasy settings

Man_Over_Game
2018-12-14, 02:34 PM
What will be the focus of your system? Will there be a lot of combat, or will it be more social events?

I ask because that really does help indicate how much emphasis something like Guile should have vs. Strength, or Stamina vs. Composure.

noob
2018-12-14, 03:24 PM
If there is a stat called willpower or determination or willforce or will max it.
Then you can read the other stats and try to figure out what they do.
So if you want players to not max any given stat avoid those names or similar names.

Malfarian
2018-12-14, 04:23 PM
What will be the focus of your system? Will there be a lot of combat, or will it be more social events?

I ask because that really does help indicate how much emphasis something like Guile should have vs. Strength, or Stamina vs. Composure.
This is an excellent question. I plan the game to be more like vampire or mage, where the PCs have lots of non-combat abilities, however at the same time I’ve built the combat system to be quite lethal, so when you fight there are consequences.

I’ve been playing some dnd 5e and the rinse and repeat contact is a turn off to me. My game starts characters at about 3rd level equivalent (though no levels or fixed classes), so you’re tougher than a noob. However your resources (mana life etc) regenerate slowly, so you will need to mix up battle vs social so you can survive.

I’ve only done play testing in my groups, never without me running it, trying to get to that stage now. In writing up powers I revisted willpower and realized it was unequal

Malfarian
2018-12-14, 04:29 PM
I think you raise excellent points here. I’m not trying to reinvent things rather merge two types of games that I’ve loved, storyteller systems and d&d.



1. Functionality: How does each ability score affect various aspects of the game? (will bring a lot of mechanical changes)
2. Equality: Are they roughly equal in game functionality?
3. Adaptability: Does the new spread do such a better job than the traditional six to merit the effort that every player would require to re-learn how to work with them instead?
I played around quite a bit with redefinition of abilities and never came across a proposal (my own or others') that at the bottom line would justify the redefinition.
Because ability scores are such a fundamental part of the game mechanics, it's impossible to change them and still call the game D&D.
To this day, the traditional six is the best implementation of ability scores that I know of.



You’ve got me here, while I totally agree that strength isn’t stamina, I’d not really worried about how different they could be. Something to think on.



@Malfarian: I notice two logic holes in your proposal.
1. I don't recognize which of your proposed abilities stands on its own for hand-eye coordination.
2. Might and stamina are loosely tied, so they shouldn't be represented by the same ability score (so many examples on Youtube).

As to coordination vs manual dexterity, that’s too nitty gritty in my mind, certainly not the only opinion. I do have boons like nimble fingers that give boosts to those types of rolls, but not separate stats

JBPuffin
2018-12-16, 02:15 PM
This reminds me of an attribute system a friend of mine came up with. Except his had included Magical, alongside Physical, Mental, and Social. And he split Force and Finesse both into offensive and defensive versions. So 16 attributes, in total.

Just out of curiosity, did it look anything like this?



Attributes
Physical
Mental
Social
Otherworldly


Force
Might
Intellect
Presence
Evocation


Armor
Constitution
Willpower
Composure
Abjuration


Finesse
Dexterity
Perception
Manipulation
Invocation


Evasion
Agility
Wits
Insight
Concentration

Maat Mons
2018-12-16, 07:55 PM
Just out of curiosity, did it look anything like this?

It's been over a decade since I saw it, so... maybe?

I don't remember any of the names he used. But that's the right division of concepts.

HouseRules
2018-12-16, 07:56 PM
Just out of curiosity, did it look anything like this?



Attributes
Physical
Mental
Social
Otherworldly


Force
Might
Intellect
Presence
Invocation


Armor
Constitution
Willpower
Composure
Abjuration


Finesse
Dexterity
Perception
Manipulation
Invocation


Evasion
Agility
Wits
Insight
Concentration



one of that invocation needs to be conjuration

noob
2018-12-17, 04:25 AM
Just out of curiosity, did it look anything like this?



Attributes
Physical
Mental
Social
Otherworldly


Force






Armor

Willpower
Composure



Finesse

Perception




Evasion







When I see it through the lens of my mind
And that is only if composure is social defense as I imagined.
Because when you are in a system with social defense it means that there is social offense and everyone fast talks you into obedience or similar stuff unless you have composure superior to infinity.
And social evasion should be the ability to avoid social events and people(example: someone starts talking to you and you start running away while putting your hands on the ears for not being controlled entirely without any slight form of agency by the attacking social person)

Maat Mons
2018-12-17, 08:06 PM
Because when you are in a system with social defense it means that there is social offense and everyone fast talks you into obedience or similar stuff unless you have composure superior to infinity.

No, I think social attack would be spreading nasty rumors. Something that hurts your standing in the eyes of others.

Social defense would be the ability to weather such assaults without loss of reputation.