Hi everybody,
I'm currently toying with a new system and I need help finding some "attributes" based on different "aspects".
It all begins with a new layout for a character record sheet (I know that is stupid to start with a "design" of a character record sheet). The sheet is in the landscape format and all is based on a circle. Health points governing each aspect of the character in a circle way. The Physical aspect touch the Mental and the Social aspect, the mental aspect touch the physical and spiritual aspect.
The way of defining character is: aspect - attribute - skill - effect
The character has four aspects: Physical, Mental, Social and Spiritual
My difficulty is to find attributes for some aspects. It's easy to find attributes based on the physical aspect (strenght, dexterity, agility, stamina, etc.) but it's more difficult for the other aspect. Mental could have intelligence but anything else?!
Where I want to go is something in the line of: Physical - Agility - Sword Skill - Disarm, Physical - Agility - Sword Skill - Fatal Blow
I know that's it's not very clear for the moment but what I need is some attributes for the Mental, Social (Charisma?!) and Spiritual (Faith) aspects.
If anybody can help with "names" it would be great.
Thank you
Patrick
ps: I will try, this weekend, to come with something more "visual" and with something easier to understand.
sounds interesting and a bit similar to the approach I've been using in my own game design for attributes. I have them divided up as Follows
MENTAL ATTRIBUTES
Intelligence
Psyche
Perception
Leadership
PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES
Strength
Constitution
Dexterity
Appearance
SPIRITUAL ATTRIBUTES
Willpower
Devotion
Intuition
Charisma
I don't have a SOCIAL category, but you could easily take Leadership, Appearance, and Charisma and place them in a SOCIAL category. If you would like an explanation on how some of the attributes function in my game, send me an email and maybe we can collaborate.
wordsmyth@mchsi.com
Mental: Will, Sanity, Cognition (meaning not so much intelligence which I've always been uncomfortable with as an attribute but rather learning power and ability to process sensory information)
Spiritual: Self, Vitalism, Monstrosity/Humanity, Conviction,
Social: Fellowship, Leadership, Contacts, Family, Carousing,
But to be really helpful, we'd need to know what your game is about.
Here's a bunch of attributes; most of these are from Multiverser, but some aren't, and I'll make some comments on each.
- Persuasion--might be social, or mental, it's the ability to convince others to think or do your way.
- Charisma--is about the general ability to get along with others, so it's probably social.
- Animal Magnetism, more of an initial attraction thing, the sort of people you just like when you meet them.
- Strength has been covered.
- Stamina, taken as the physical ability to keep on going, has been mentioned.
- Resistance, another physical aspect, could be distinguished from stamina as more of the ability to fight off disease and other influences.
- Hand/Eye is as much mental as physical, perhaps, as it's the ability to coordinate sensory information with action.
- Agility is physical.
- Dexterity might be distinguished if it is more based on fine motor skills versus the gross motor skills of Agility--that is, Agility would be about running, jumping, acrobatics, and Dexterity about beadcrafting, calligraphy, electronic wiring, gemcutting.
- Flexibility is certainly a physical one, distinguishing those of us who have trouble putting on our shoes from those who can put their feet behind their heads and walk on their hands.
- Intellect may seem the primary mental ability, but it's certainly not the only one.
- I think of Intuition as mental (for reasons I discuss in my RPGnet article Intuition and Surprise, and would include perception in that.
- Wisdom is often overlooked, but I still remember an early D&D book saying that I might be intelligent enough to know that smoking will kill me but not wise enough to act on that knowledge.
- Education Level or Knowledge Level is also a mental attribute; certainly it's developed--but then, many of these are, and how much you know is often as important as how smart you are.
- Will Power or Perseverence or perhaps Resilience is about the mental ability to keep going.
- Faith you've mentioned for spiritual aspects.
- Hope and Love would be the other two most people would suggest in spiritual attributes; we could discuss the difference between Faith and Hope, perhaps.
- Spiritual Knowledge or Understanding or perhaps Instruction would be important, a reflection of the degree to which the character knows spiritual truths.
- Reaction Speed was distinguished from Dexerity in Star Frontiers, as the response time of an individual--is that physical or mental?[/list:u]Well, that's a lot of them already. I hope some are helpful.
--M. J. Young