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Galithar
2019-03-19, 09:38 PM
So I'm working on a 'from scratch' system for two reasons. First I enjoy tinkering with things. And second I'm not happy with whats out there. There are good things in almost every system I've looked at and what I'm doing is taking my favorite parts and putting them together. My knowledge base is primarily D&D (especially 5e) though, so please provide reference for other systems. Telling me the Star Wars TTRPG has a great system, for example, doesn't help me if I can't find it easily to reference.

What I'm tackling right now is the Attribute system. I don't like them... Any of them. I'm going to base this on D&D's because it's the one I'm most familiar with.

My biggest peeve in D&D attributes is the single dependency of each stat. What I mean by that is Intelligence boosts X skills, casting stat for wizards. And that's it, it doesn't affect anything else and nothing else effects those things. I want everything to have at least a slight multiple dependency.

My current thought is to break things out into to categories (possibly more if needed, but two should cover it). Right now I'm thinking Combat dependants and Utility dependants.

Combat dependants are Strength, Agility, Endurance, Will and Source (longer explanation needed to really explain but just know it's your casting stat).

Strength - Physical Power
Agility - Physical Speed
Endurance - Physical Durability
Will - Mental/Magical Durability
Source - Mental/Magical Power

Utility dependants would be Intelligence, Perception, Charisma, Wisdom

Intelligence - Ability to learn and what you already know.
Perception - Ability to detect things through any of your senses (including any magical senses available to you)
Charisma - Ability to Influence others with your words and actions
Wisdom - Ability to apply information gather to an appropriate situation.


Now that I've just made statements, my questions: What can be done to make these attributes work together to determine outcomes of tasks, including combat actions.
Are there other TTRPGs that have separated into different categories of attributes (IE increased by different rules/at different costs) and do you think they were successful?
Do these attributes cover all aspects of a persons ability?
Are they too specific or general?

I have my own ideas not am looking for opinions from others and ideas what they wish a system did etc.

Maat Mons
2019-03-19, 10:32 PM
I notice that the brawn side of things gets divided into offensive and defensive, but the finesse side of things does not.

Finesse could be divided into Dexterity (how often you hit) and Agility (how often you dodge), in the same way that brawn is divided into Strength (how much damage you deal) and Endurance (how much damage you can take).



Perception and Charisma seem pretty straightforward. But I don't really understand what Intelligence and Wisdom are supposed to be, or how they're different.



If you want everything to be dependent on two ability scores, you either need ability scores that overlap in scope, or ability scores that represent two different axies.

I guess weapon damage could be Dexterity + Strength. Dexterity would cover how well-placed your strikes are. And Strength would cover how much force is behind them. Both of which would reasonably influence how hurt the target winds up being.

You could maybe also use Dexterity + Perception to determine if an attack hits. Perception for spotting chinks in the enemy's armor, and Dexterity for making the knife go into those chinks.



I know you don't really want to hear about my homebrew. But here's a diagram I drew while brainstorming for a 2-axis stat system. I found creating it very helpful to my planning. Maybe you could try creating a similar diagram for how stats intersect in your system.

https://images2.imgbox.com/7b/a4/Aua9LGmj_o.png

Galithar
2019-03-19, 10:55 PM
I don't mind getting about your Homebrew system as long as you're okay with me drawing ideas from it!

The idea with intelligence and wisdom is that Intelligence will govern knowledge type skills and wisdom is the application of that knowledge into practice. How to do this in a game? I'm not completely sure yet but something like this:

Do I know what a MacGuffin Alpha is? Intelligence based skill check.
Do I know how MacGuffin Alpha will react when inserted into MacGuffin Bravo? Wisdom based skill check that is only able to be attempted if I succeeded in the intelligence check OR someone who did explains it to me.

It's really inelegant as currently described, but that's what I have so far haha.


My issue with the combat stats is the difference in mental and physical. I want them to be mirrored. Defense is intended to be Dex and End. Where offense is Dex and Str. Dex is kind of the "important" stat like in D&D but I want to lessen it's effect but still let it impact both sides I think. Although a fourth split might be a good solution.
Mental stats are basically 'magic offense' is Source and magic defense is will.

Maat Mons
2019-03-20, 10:05 PM
Alright, so your Physical stats are set up as: Active, Hybrid Active/Passive, and Passive. And you'd like to set up the Magical stats the same way.

Are you going to set up mental stats the same way? I don't mean the stats you list as "Mental/Magical," which just look like magical stats. I'm talking about the stats you list as "Utility," which are all mental.



Anyway, the dex-equivalent for spells would be a stat that both sets save DCs and saving throw bonuses. I'm not sure what you'd call it.

Are spells going to follow the same pattern as physical attacks? One all-or-nothing roll (attack roll, saving throw) and, if it hits, a magnitude roll (damage dealt, whatever the equivalent is for non-damaging spells)?



Let me see if I understand your stat system correctly:

https://images2.imgbox.com/fc/f4/ppUKKP9J_o.png

Is that about right?

Maat Mons
2019-03-23, 02:29 AM
So, I've been thinking a little more about how you could achieve parity between Physical and Magical stats. How does this look?




Physical
Magical


Efficacy
Strength (governs effectiveness of successful weapon attack)
Ego (governs effectiveness of successful spell)


Expertise
Agility (governs weapon attack/defense chance)
Cunning (governs spell attack chance and mental defense chance)


Endurance
Stamina (governs HP)
Resolve (governs mana)





Additionally, I've done some thinking on possible schemes for assigning two stats to various things.

https://images2.imgbox.com/23/83/A1HQrF4m_o.png

Galithar
2019-03-25, 11:18 AM
So, I've been thinking a little more about how you could achieve parity between Physical and Magical stats. How does this look?




Physical
Magical


Efficacy
Strength (governs effectiveness of successful weapon attack)
Ego (governs effectiveness of successful spell)


Expertise
Agility (governs weapon attack/defense chance)
Cunning (governs spell attack chance and mental defense chance)


Endurance
Stamina (governs HP)
Resolve (governs mana)





Additionally, I've done some thinking on possible schemes for assigning two stats to various things.

https://images2.imgbox.com/23/83/A1HQrF4m_o.png

I like the stats, though I'm not sold on the names. That's not the important part for me right now. I just need to figure out what they do.

I've been working crazy hours so I haven't had much time to get my thoughts down about this.
I like the two stats assigned to different things.

I'm trying to come up with something that could be governed by Strength and Int/Wis, but it's really hard to imagine a repeatable skill/talent that requires you to equally use intelligence and strength. Most are 'complex' actions that are designed with intelligence and implemented with strength, but I don't feel that's the same as say intimidating with Strength and Charisma.
Example: Implementing a lever. The position/length of the lever to maximize efficiency would be Intelligence, but actually using the lever is strength.

darkrose50
2019-03-26, 12:34 PM
Make the attributes feats. If you do not have the feat, then you are average. You could even make a collection of smaller feats to work your way up.

[6-pts] Great Strength: 1-luck-point to re-roll one or more strength related checks
[1-pts] Improved intimidation
[1-pts] Improved encumbrance
[2-pts] Improved athletic ability
[3-pts] Improved combat ability

lightningcat
2019-03-27, 10:30 PM
Not that Stats are a bad place to start when designing, but there are two questions even before that. You might not need these answered, but they are good to keep in mind.

What are you wanting the game to do?
Are you trying to emulate a specific genre? Are you just trying to fix the problems of D&D? Do you want a generic game?
Additionally you want Attributes that matter to the feel of the game. If social conflict is very important, then you want to seperate social attributes. If it is just there if needed (like D&D or DH) then one attribute works.

What kind of odds are you wanting for success?
D&D uses a d20 which has a flat probability curve, most often you default to a 50% chance (dc 10 for basic tasks). GURPS uses 3d6, which is a nice bellcurve, the default for it is basically 50% (roll under a 10 on 3d6). Call of Cthulhu and Dark Heresy both use a d% system, but you should only roll for important/difficult stuff. In DH you get a +30% for easy tasks, which ususally kicks your odds into 60-70% range for stuff you barely know, although it is 40%ish for untrained but basic stuff.
The probabilities of dicepool based games, like I prefer is harder to explain. But generally more dice is better, and lower numbers need is better. My game uses d10s, need a 7+ to succeed, 10 count twice and reroll. Average character has 3 dice and an about even chance to get 1 success.

The Kool
2019-03-28, 07:56 AM
What are you wanting the game to do?
Are you trying to emulate a specific genre? Are you just trying to fix the problems of D&D? Do you want a generic game?
Additionally you want Attributes that matter to the feel of the game. If social conflict is very important, then you want to seperate social attributes. If it is just there if needed (like D&D or DH) then one attribute works.

This matters a lot, and explains why D&D focuses stats on the physical and leaves the social lacking, for example. When considering stat systems, you need to ask yourself if you want perfect balance, or if perfect balance would be impractical. If you're unbalancing it, how much and in what ways? I've toyed with ideas like this, and have some insight and research I can share.

White Wolf uses nine (!!!) stats. This is an example of a perfectly balanced stat system, as they're divided into Physical, Mental, and Social but each has a Power stat, an Agility stat, and a Resilience stat (though they are all uniquely named).
Tri-stat systems frequently use Physical, Mental, Social.
A tri-stat of my design used Strength, Agility, Mind.
Balance of threes need not be a thing, I've also see a blend of the two with Strength, Agility, Mental, Social.

What might be an interesting way to approach a situation like yours is if you twisted the White Wolf approach. Instead of giving each of the nine stats a value, you give a value to each of the three {physical, mental, social} and each of {power, agility, resilience} and your total for each of the nine was the sum of the two that make it up. The interesting thing about dual-dependency like this though is that once you've assigned your points, it winds up playing just like the nine-stat single-dependency system, so... Food for thought?

Galithar
2019-03-29, 07:10 PM
So to try to answer some questions that were asked.

The basic idea for the game is just to create the fantasy setting I want, with the rules me and my table enjoy. It's highly unlikely to actually get finished, but fiddling with it is just something I enjoy.

The Genre is definitely fantasy, but lower/higher magic then D&D. I say lower/higher because the general idea of the system will be to work with/against a low magic world, but all player characters will be 'Magical' some will just be what I call 'enhancement focuses'. Basically what that means is they have few active Magical effects, but instead have passive bonuses to things like their strength/to-hit/damage based on the Magical attributes. They will be focused on passive abilities, or abilities with an on/off switch (rage like D&D, shape shifting, auras etc). These types will be your fighter/barbarian/rogue type classes.

I'm not trying to 'fix' D&D per se, but rather just change things to what MY 'ideal game' is. Who knows, maybe I'll finish and still like D&D better :P

I want the social skills to act more like D&D. The main intent will be to roleplay with the DM just making decisions for the NPCS, but for those times when the DM isn't sure, or the player doesn't know how to act out or describe HOW their character is going to "social skills" (Persuade, Intimidate, Reason with, Deceive etc) I want their to be a mechanic. Not everyone is a huge roleplayer, or like me they just have blocks sometimes where they can't find the right words. And I want a simple mechanic for them to call back to for resolution.

Odds for most "normal" (read: Things you're trained at a level where it's done often) tasks your character would do should be about 80% success. Untrained 'simple' tasks (climbing a difficult incline/cliff without training, but in ideal conditions. Basically something slightly difficult in good conditions) I'm thinking about 50%, I want to make sure people feel the value of investing in skills, but are still capable of attempting them with a reasonable chance to succeed.

For the dice resolution mechanics I'm leaving towards 3d6 or 2d10. I've thought about a dice pool, but I don't have enough experience to understand the intricacies of them. Not just the statistics of them, but how they feel at the table.
I don't like the linear probability of single die rolls. I think 2d10 is the balance I'm looking for between a nice bell curve and still getting a decent variance in rolls, though I'm open to people thoughts on it.

As for balance I'm looking for things to be very very slightly in favor of the players. Success should only be guaranteed in something you have invested a decent amount in, and there should always be a chance of character death. That said, I'm NOT looking to make a meat grinder. If you lose more than one character in 3-4 sessions I didn't hit my balance goal. And if you don't feel like you MIGHT lose a character in every other session I didn't hit my balance goal. Now I know a lot of this actually comes down to how the DM runs it, but I want to make it SIMPLE for A DM to present a consistent threat, that may occasionally result in a player death, but isn't so brutal as to mandate them.

I'm looking the idea of using a nine stat system. Single dependency, but skills and actions should be double dependant. Probably broken down as Physical, Magical, and Mental. So an attack may pull Strength for damage, but Agility for a to-hit. In theory I like this. In practice I'm afraid it will result in a system ruled by your chance to hit so bad that even 'strength based' characters like a barbarian concept would favor agility over strength. But I think that's actually a whole different thread I'll make sometime.

Physical and Magical should be the only ones called on during combat, unless you are using a 'skill' that requires a mental score.

Physical --
Strength - Physical power. Will govern things like damage dealt, contests from Physical confrontations (like a grapple or shove, maybe some special moves, would require more thought once detailing combat)
Agility - Physical speed and maneuverability. Likely to govern chance to hit, and Dodge rates. Possibly also a small chance to avoid criticals. (Basic idea I have for Crits is you have two ranges. The 'guaranteed crit' and a 'normal crit' Agility would help you reduce the normal crit range.)
Endurance - Physical... Well, endurance! Lol This would be governing ability to avoid certain negative effects, your maximum health, and possibly a form of damage reduction.

Magical --
Source - The strength of your Magical abilities and the total pool of 'full magic' (I'd have a book explaining my reasoning here, but think of this as D&D spell slots)
Focus - Your ability to control and manipulate magic. Will govern your ability to strike targets and the difficulty to resist them. Will likely aid in your ability to resist enemy effects.
Will - Your ability to withstand enemy effects. I'm thinking about moving away (slightly at least) from the style of save-or-suck/die spells. Instead any debuff would be able to apply 'stacks' which would have varying degrees of effect on you. A stack of "slow" for example may progress like this:
1: movement speed reduced by X
2: Unable to take reactions
3: reduce Actions on your turn by 1 (looking at doing a 3 action system like Pathfinder 2 uses)
4. Movement speed reduced by 2X
5. You may take only 1 Action on your turn.
6. Stop. You may not take any action or move at all.

Now that's just pulled off the top of my head to give an example. I'm not dead set on keeping the game super simple, though I am going to avoid having to track your character on 2-3 spreadsheets :P... Okay I might be okay with 2 as long as one of them is super simple 😆

Mental stats I don't have as much development going on. I'm thinking stat names that fit are just pulling D&D's Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. But once I striped all of the combat applicability out of them I'm not sure what they should govern and how they should interact. I know I DO want a social 'skill' governed by each, and possibly influenced by a physical or Magical stat.
Intimidating would be Charisma and Strength (Charisma to shine intimidating, Strength to LOOK intimidating)
Logical Reasoning, convincing someone to do what you want by explaining that it's the 'best' way. Intelligence and Charisma (Intelligence to know what you're talking about, Charisma to say it in a convincing way)
Deception could potentially be Wisdom and Charisma? Being able to 'read' opponent, basically pulling D&D's definition of Wisdom including perception and insight into others, and Charisma to really sell your lie?
Help/Ideas for these would be great.

Also just a huge thank you to you guys for taking the time to read and respond to this threat even though my posts are pretty sporadic, you've given me a lot to think about and a lot of good ideas.

Edit: Fixed a little of the 'wall of text'... Holy long post Batman still applies though :P

Maat Mons
2019-03-29, 10:45 PM
The Genre is definitely fantasy, but lower/higher magic then D&D. I say lower/higher because the general idea of the system will be to work with/against a low magic world, but all player characters will be 'Magical' some will just be what I call 'enhancement focuses'. Basically what that means is they have few active Magical effects, but instead have passive bonuses to things like their strength/to-hit/damage based on the Magical attributes. They will be focused on passive abilities, or abilities with an on/off switch (rage like D&D, shape shifting, auras etc). These types will be your fighter/barbarian/rogue type classes.

Okay, so you're a mutant who has to decide to join with the X Men of the League of Evil Mutants, but in medieval times. Got it.

Bjarkmundur
2019-03-30, 06:12 AM
I feel like I'm wastly outgunned here, but I've always liked the idea of Fort Ref Will, with each splitting into two different stats.

This encorporates so many ways characters can achieve the same effect.

lightningcat
2019-03-31, 10:19 PM
If you go with the 2d10 then to have a barely better then 50% chance normally, then your base DC is 10. The average for the roll is 11. As long as your bonuses/penalties don't usually get above +/-5, then the numbers will usually work out. +/-8 should be the highest as the odds are massively scued at that point. At +8 you cannot fail an average roll, while at -8 you have a 6% chance of success. As compared to -5 which gives you a 21% chance, and +5 still gives you a 94% chance. A +3 bonus gives you an 85% chance of success, which puts it at your well trained mark. And a -3 gives you a 36% chance.

So keep your bonuses small, and 2d10 works out well.

EDIT: Just a random thought here. If you use your stats for the bonus, you might have skills give you a extra dice, and pick the best 2 for the roll.
Alternatively, you could reverse it and only have skill list instead of base stats. Heroes are generally competent and only having skills would distingish characters from each other quickly.

PairO'Dice Lost
2019-04-02, 07:46 PM
This matters a lot, and explains why D&D focuses stats on the physical and leaves the social lacking, for example.

Actually, D&D has one "social" stat not because nobody cared about social stuff, but because social stuff was so important that it was placed on the same level as class features. The original order for ability scores was Str, Int, Wis, Con, Dex, Cha, and it started with Str/Int/Wis because in OD&D there were only the Fighter, Magic-User, and Cleric classes and each cared almost exclusively about Str, Int, and Wis; the Thief and its Dex focus came later. Con was useful for everyone for HP and resurrection chance and so was key for survival, and Cha was useful for everyone for followers and morale, which were actually very tightly integrated into the game.

So in that context, the Not-Dying stat and the Social Stuff stat each being 1/6 of all your stats, with just as much prominence as your Do Stuff For My Class stat, means Cha was a pretty big deal, not an afterthought at all.

----

Regarding having two stats affect everything, keep in mind that the expected ranges for your stats and how many key stats classes care about are going to have a big effect on how characters' modifiers for various tasks turn out.
If your stat bonuses are like in 4e, where pretty much everyone starts with all non-key stats in the +1 to +3 range, you get +1 to all stats at certain levels, and all of your 6ish single-stat boosts are going into your main stat, adding two stats to everything is going to lead to a lot of homogenous modifiers. You'll see lots of +4s from +1/+3, +2/+2, and +3/+1, then lots of +6s when stuff goes up to +2/+4, +3/+3, and +4/+2, and then any derived attributes involve your key stat will have higher mods by a modest amount.
If your stat bonuses are like in 3e, where stats skew slightly positive but ranges are wider, raising one to three key stats is easy, and stats can get pretty high, then derived attributes can have anywhere from -1/+1 to +2/+6 to +10/+4 and so forth, and balancing around expected values gets to be very difficult.
If your stat bonuses are like in 1e, where they're generated randomly, stats can be very positive or very negative, raising stats is rare and difficult, and a starting array like 17/4/10/11/14/6 is to be expected, then chances are good that most derived attributes are going to add one positive and one negative modifier and everyone is going to trend toward having -1 to +1 to everything for most of the game.
There's no right or wrong setup for stats and stat advancement, but definitely keep bonus interaction in mind when setting up stats and modifiers or you're going to quickly run into unexpected balance issues.