Greywander
2020-11-15, 12:56 AM
There are... a lot of ways you could split up an attribute system, and assign related skills. I was just reading through the rules for Shadiversity's Cogent Roleplay system, and comparing it to some other systems I've read, such as Vampire, GURPS, and even D&D 5e, and I noticed that each system seems to handle the idea of attributes differently. Here's a rough concept of how I could see dividing the attributes up:
Playstyle
Vampire is a good example of this one. It has three main attributes/attribute groups: physical, mental, and social. Each one then has three subattributes that let you specialize in different areas of those broad categories. Now, I haven't played a lot of Vampire, but IIRC Stealth is actually a mental skill (this might actually be wrong, I can't for the life of me find it). Seems odd, right? But it actually does make sense when you think about how the attributes are split up.
In D&D 5e, there are supposedly three pillars of play: combat, exploration, and roleplay. Vampire's three attribute groups line up with those pretty well: physical is mostly use for combat, mental is more for exploration and puzzle-solving, and social is of course for roleplay. There's also a weaker correlation between the three pillars and the Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist model: combat is usually "the Game", exploration typically involves interacting with the simulation, and roleplay and Narrative go hand-in-hand. You could, of course, have a game built around, say, political intrigue, in which case that would be "the Game", which is why its a weaker correlation, but this is a useful observation nontheless.
The point is, based on my own playstyle preferences, I can know going into a game of Vampire that I probably want to max out my mental stats, and then put any leftovers into physical, and basically ignore my social stats. I'm a heavy Simulationist who's more into the exploration and puzzle-solving aspect of RPGs, but I also enjoy mastering the rules of the Game and coming up with interesting builds or optimized characters. I'm not opposed to RP, but it's hard for me to get into character and get into the roleplay.
And that's why Stealth is a mental skill (still not sure about this, but let's pretend for the sake of argument): because it relates to the exploration pillar, not the combat pillar.
Balance
What I mean by this is that any attribute can be used to get the result you want, each one just does so in different ways. An example of this would be finesse weapons in D&D 5e, as well as cantrips. Between these options, you can turn any ability score except Constitution into your offensive ability score. There are consequences to raising one score over another, though; Strength gives you the widest array of melee weapons to choose from, including the strongest options, while Dexterity is requires for ranged weapons, and, outside of specific class features, any of the mental ability scores will pigeonhole you into using magic since they don't help with weapons.
Basically, while a stat might be focused on one pillar over another, they all have something to contribute to each pillar. I'm not sure if this is entirely true for D&D, but this does seem to be the general design philosophy for 5e at least. Everyone gets a few skills for out of combat, everyone has access to a decent weapon or cantrip in-combat, there should never be a time when you're entirely useless, even if you're not the most optimized for the task at hand.
Realism
Understandably, it's kind of hard to roleplay if everything is too abstract. If a character is strong, we would expect them to be good at strong stuff. If they're fast, they should be good at fast stuff. Smart, good at smart stuff. So, even if we say "X stat is for Y pillar", X still represents a tangible quality, not an abstract one. And that tangible quality has consequences for what that character should and shouldn't be good at. If we find out that our character has no bonuses to a certain task, even though it should fall under the purview of one of our attributes, because that attribute is arbitrarily assigned to a one pillar while the task in question belongs to a different pillar, then it's going to shake our suspension of disbelief and bring us out of the game.
At the same time, if attributes and skills are assigned in an entirely "realistic" way, then it can come off as haphazard and random. To be truly good at a certain type of playstyle, you would need to invest in all attributes and specific skills within those attributes. It becomes difficult to play the game you want to because the different aptitudes you need are locked behind different attributes. "That's how it works in real life" is often a poor argument when it comes to rule arbitration or game design. This isn't real life, this is a game. And it should be designed as a good game first, and an accurate simulation of real life second.
Now, all that said, I think the best approach is probably to use a bit of all three methods of doing attributes. Group your attributes according to playstyle so that those playstyles are easily accessible to those who want them. Then use the "realism" argument as an excuse to add balance, so that even a character who is heavily focused into one playstyle can still find limited effectiveness in other playstyles.
What do you think? Are there other ways you'd model attributes? What is your preferred method, and why? Have you played any interesting games that do something different than what I've talked about here?
Playstyle
Vampire is a good example of this one. It has three main attributes/attribute groups: physical, mental, and social. Each one then has three subattributes that let you specialize in different areas of those broad categories. Now, I haven't played a lot of Vampire, but IIRC Stealth is actually a mental skill (this might actually be wrong, I can't for the life of me find it). Seems odd, right? But it actually does make sense when you think about how the attributes are split up.
In D&D 5e, there are supposedly three pillars of play: combat, exploration, and roleplay. Vampire's three attribute groups line up with those pretty well: physical is mostly use for combat, mental is more for exploration and puzzle-solving, and social is of course for roleplay. There's also a weaker correlation between the three pillars and the Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist model: combat is usually "the Game", exploration typically involves interacting with the simulation, and roleplay and Narrative go hand-in-hand. You could, of course, have a game built around, say, political intrigue, in which case that would be "the Game", which is why its a weaker correlation, but this is a useful observation nontheless.
The point is, based on my own playstyle preferences, I can know going into a game of Vampire that I probably want to max out my mental stats, and then put any leftovers into physical, and basically ignore my social stats. I'm a heavy Simulationist who's more into the exploration and puzzle-solving aspect of RPGs, but I also enjoy mastering the rules of the Game and coming up with interesting builds or optimized characters. I'm not opposed to RP, but it's hard for me to get into character and get into the roleplay.
And that's why Stealth is a mental skill (still not sure about this, but let's pretend for the sake of argument): because it relates to the exploration pillar, not the combat pillar.
Balance
What I mean by this is that any attribute can be used to get the result you want, each one just does so in different ways. An example of this would be finesse weapons in D&D 5e, as well as cantrips. Between these options, you can turn any ability score except Constitution into your offensive ability score. There are consequences to raising one score over another, though; Strength gives you the widest array of melee weapons to choose from, including the strongest options, while Dexterity is requires for ranged weapons, and, outside of specific class features, any of the mental ability scores will pigeonhole you into using magic since they don't help with weapons.
Basically, while a stat might be focused on one pillar over another, they all have something to contribute to each pillar. I'm not sure if this is entirely true for D&D, but this does seem to be the general design philosophy for 5e at least. Everyone gets a few skills for out of combat, everyone has access to a decent weapon or cantrip in-combat, there should never be a time when you're entirely useless, even if you're not the most optimized for the task at hand.
Realism
Understandably, it's kind of hard to roleplay if everything is too abstract. If a character is strong, we would expect them to be good at strong stuff. If they're fast, they should be good at fast stuff. Smart, good at smart stuff. So, even if we say "X stat is for Y pillar", X still represents a tangible quality, not an abstract one. And that tangible quality has consequences for what that character should and shouldn't be good at. If we find out that our character has no bonuses to a certain task, even though it should fall under the purview of one of our attributes, because that attribute is arbitrarily assigned to a one pillar while the task in question belongs to a different pillar, then it's going to shake our suspension of disbelief and bring us out of the game.
At the same time, if attributes and skills are assigned in an entirely "realistic" way, then it can come off as haphazard and random. To be truly good at a certain type of playstyle, you would need to invest in all attributes and specific skills within those attributes. It becomes difficult to play the game you want to because the different aptitudes you need are locked behind different attributes. "That's how it works in real life" is often a poor argument when it comes to rule arbitration or game design. This isn't real life, this is a game. And it should be designed as a good game first, and an accurate simulation of real life second.
Now, all that said, I think the best approach is probably to use a bit of all three methods of doing attributes. Group your attributes according to playstyle so that those playstyles are easily accessible to those who want them. Then use the "realism" argument as an excuse to add balance, so that even a character who is heavily focused into one playstyle can still find limited effectiveness in other playstyles.
What do you think? Are there other ways you'd model attributes? What is your preferred method, and why? Have you played any interesting games that do something different than what I've talked about here?