Certain Ideas for a Simulationist's Heaven

[ODDin]

For some time now I've been brooding over an RPG system (called Ur, which is an acronym for Ultimate RPG - rather pretentious, I know, but Ur is just too cool to give up on), which is supposed to be as realistic as possible (i.e. "a Simulationist's heaven"). The premise was: "The purpose of Ur is to start from a clean slate and with an open mind, and thus achieve the most realistic system that the world of RPGs is capable of. On every claim of 'this is not the way it works in real life' presented to me, I will not rest until I either convince the claimer otherwise or change the rules to better fit reality."
It is supposed to be a Generic RPG, bringing the idea of Generic to a whole new level. The main aspect I'm working on currently is that of Abilities and Skills - the idea is that no Abilities and Skills are presented in the core system at all. All there is are the tools for the creation of such (it will get a lot clearer later on). The whole thing is thus divided into 3 layers: the System, the Environment (same as setting, which provides all the Abilities and Skills and other general information), and the World (things like actual map of the world etc).
The catch is that the whole thing is obviously so horribly complicated, that it will be basically impossible to play without the assistance of some computer software to quickly make all the math (something I've been aware of since the beginning). What I'm asking of you (and the reason I'm posting here at all, aside of making myself known to the world) is to read the general ideas I have in mind and say if you think they have any potential whatsoever - can they appeal to anyone, or am I really going way too far with this. I've simply had no professional feedback on this hitherto, and don't really want to continue "blind".
(Note: I am aware that the forum rules ask not to post long excerpts from the text, but my FTP host  hasrecently died, leaving me with nowhere to host this.)

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Abilities and Skills: The General Concept

   Of the most important things in Ur is the Ability-Skill Tree (AST), which gives all the details about each ability and skill and shows how they are connected to each other and how they affect each other (in the future, whenever a reference is made to something that may be a skill or an ability, it will be called a capability).
   Capabilities are essential qualities of a person. Whenever performing an action that might be in any way performed better or worse, the person in fact uses one (and only one) of his capabilities.
   What is then the difference between abilities and skills? Abilities are actions that can be performed without learning (untrained), while skills cannot be attempted without learning. A weak person may attempt to lift a heavy stone – without much success, though, but it's still an understandable attempt. However, if a man who doesn't know how to play cards (should there be a "card playing" skill) would attempt to play cards, it would appear very odd, and wouldn't help anyone. Even the worst of the card players knows how to play.

   Each capability has two efficiency values – the Self Efficiency value and the Eventual Efficiency value.
   The Self Efficiency determines how good one is at a certain capability, without taking in consideration all the other capabilities affecting it.
   The Eventual Efficiency determines, after everything has been considered, just how well one performs the action at hand.
   For example, let's assume that playing a certain card game (a skill) depends highly on the mathematical thinking of the character (an ability). If the character trained for years in playing this specific card game, certainly the Self Efficiency value of the skill would be high. However, if the character's mathematical thinking is abysmal, then the Eventual Efficiency value of the said card playing skill would be rather low.

   The Self Efficiency of skills is measured on a scale from 0 to 100, where a value of 0 means that the skill has not been learnt yet, and thus the action at hand cannot be attempted at all (no matter what the Eventual Efficiency of that skill is). The Self Efficiency of abilities is measured on a scale where 1 is the minimum and the maximum is anything between 100 and 200 (determined by the talent for the specific ability and by other possible factors).
   The scales of the Eventual Efficiency values are derived from the scales above, and are not further restricted in any way.

What is the idea behind the AST?
   The idea behind the AST is to provide all the information about the different capabilities. As has been said, the AST provides the detailed information about each capability on its own, and it also provides the information regarding how the different capabilities affect each other – being good at one capability may make the character better at another capability, and so on.
   In this document, an AST is not provided, but rather there are tools for creating the AST, which is a part of the Environment.
   The AST is used for 2 things. First, it is used to determine the Eventual Efficiency of the capability at hand, based on the Self Efficiencies of the capabilities downwards connected to it. Second, it is used for the issue of experience. When a person performs a certain task, he actually trains himself at performing similar tasks, and thus gets more experienced (efficient) at performing them – which means, of course, that the Self Efficiency value of the capability responsible for the task increases, but which also means that the Self Efficiency values of related capabilities increase as well, as they are getting trained too, although indirectly. Then, there are less obvious cases, when getting more capable at a certain capability lowers the Self Efficiency values of other capabilities (for example, although this is not the way things work in our world, one is free to create a world where becoming stronger damages one's intelligence); and the last two available options are that having a low Self Efficiency value at a certain capability either increases or decreases the Self Efficiency values of connected capabilities.

Is that all there is to capabilities?
   No. Capabilities have certain factors (such as, how quickly it is being forgotten after certain time of not being used), which position the capability on certain scales. This means that each capability is unique not only by its position in the AST but also by its unique scores in the factors (and its name, of course).

And what makes a character unique?
   What makes a character unique are two things. First, there are the efficiency values for all the different capabilities. Then, there is talent. When the player creates his character, he assigns talent points to various abilities (not skills), which define how talented the character is in these abilities. (Among the things that talent affects are the top Self Efficiency limits for abilities.)

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That's it for now. I do have more detailed and practical ideas about the specific factors of capabilities, talent points and some of the math behind the whole thing, but it is all (and especially the math part) very rudimentary.
Also, I am aware that the text is slighlty (or not slightly) cumbersome and a bit hard to read through, but this is only an initial draft, and I'm mainly concerned with simply putting my ideas on paper. Sorry for this.

And a techincal question for the end: if I get it correctly, every time from now on I post something regarding my system, I should put [Ur] at the beginning of the post's title; right?


P.S. Although I'm really doing my best, excuse me for any English oddities and mistakes, as English is not my mother tongue.

[Roger]

[It] is supposed to be as realistic as possible (i.e. "a Simulationist's heaven").

What leads you to conclude that realism is an ideal for Simulationists?



Cheers,
Roger

[Threlicus]

I'd be interested to see where you go with this. I've had some similar ideas regarding complex skill webs, requiring computer moderation.

One thing I'd like to see is if you can come up with good heuristics for designing the web in the first place -- how much training each skill effects which other skills is obviously a very complex process, and while you can obviously just say that the web you have defines how it is in the world, it would be nice to be able to build something that people agree is a fair model of reality.

One thing to think about is how subskills and specializations work. I've thought about few 'use cases' that you could think about for helping design the model.
1) Could you build it to represent the web of medical specialties. E.g., can you distinguish the skill sets of, say, a surgical intern, a practicing general surgeon,  and a specialist neurosurgeon at a hospital? (I.e., can you fairly represent the skills in Grey's Anatomy: the RPG?) Can you do it 'on the fly', adding medical specialities as needed, but not creating them until play requires them?
2) Melee/Brawl skills. If you are good with a sword, you can probably use a mace pretty well, too; but unless you've trained wearing heavy armor, your efficiency is not so good with either weapon when wearing armor. Likewise unarmed martial arts skills also have some broad applicability to weapon-combat, but much less so when your mobility is hampered.
3) Languages... once you've mastered one non-native tongue, it's usually much easier to pick up another, especially the more closely related the language is.

[ODDin]

Roger:
Well, the way I get it, the idea of Simulationism is to simulate life ("A role-playing game is a game of character development, simulating the process of personal development commonly called 'life.'" - from Ron Edward's article on Simulationism, quoted from the introduction to RuneQuest), and Simulationists are concerned with the aspect Exploration, and this includes the demand for that world to be realistic and logical (hence the acceptance of delays due to mechanical demands, for example).
I guess I got it wrong, so please correct me here. At any rate, my initial desire was to strive for maximum realism, and this remains standing. I used the term of Simulationism only to make things clearer, although it seems it only made them more vague.

Threlicus:
Thanks for the interest. Indeed, I would like to see myself coming with the math behind the web (the AST as I call it). :)
After the entire math for a generalised AST is there, everyone should be able to create such a web by their own desire. One should be able to create a model fairly similar to our reality (taking in consideration that every psychologist has his own ideas about how this web should look like; personally, I've been thinking about Gardner's Intelligencies as a starting point), or, should he so wish, create a model very much different from our reality - where there are psionic abilities, or mutant abilities, or anything else you want.

As for the other things you mentioned - I've been thinking along those lines, yes. Although I doubt it could be possible to generate new capabilities on the fly, due to the amount of various factors I'm thinking of using and the demand to logically connect them all with other cpabilities.

Another problem is where to draw the line. Walking is also a capability (I'm not quite sure whether it's an ability or a skill), but it's insane to require checks for walking, let alone grant experience for this - even if it's done by a computer.

[ODDin]

Threlicus:
I'm afraid I slightly misunderstood you before regarding:

One thing I'd like to see is if you can come up with good heuristics for designing the web in the first place -- how much training each skill effects which other skills is obviously a very complex process, and while you can obviously just say that the web you have defines how it is in the world, it would be nice to be able to build something that people agree is a fair model of reality.

which resulted in me answering a question that wasn't really asked. We need to keep in mind that every person has a different idea of how reality works like. Psychologist present many different ideas, and nobody knows which one is correct (if in fact there IS a correct idea - there is also an option that it works differently for every individual).
Once the math is there, if one wants to design a model "like reality", I strongly suggest that he read the works of people like Charles Spearman, Louis Thurstone, Paul Gilford and Howard Gardner (the latter, as I've said, is one that I personally want to use for my ideas of an AST), to name just a few, and decide just what idea of "reality" he wants to present. Once this decision has been made, one should have quite a lot of ready material for the AST to start with. Then, there's a lot of research that needs to be done on every aspect of the AST that is being made. If you're talking about physical capabilities, you need to research on how muscles work and things like that in order to know just how training affects your body, which actions train which muscles etc; If you're talking about weaponry, you need to make a research on the different combat methods (whether it's sword and daggers or pistols and rifles), how do people train in using these weapons etc; if you're working on studying languages, you should probably talk to a linguist regarding which languages are easier to learn and which are harder etc - and so on and so forth, you get my point. If you want to create a model that is really like reality, you first of all need to know what you're talking about (for that case, I myself really don't know most of the subject needed in order to create a full realistic AST).
What I'm saying is that there's simply more to it than just heuristics. If you wanted to make it right, you would need to assemble a big bunch of experts and work on it for something like a week, or even a month. :)

There is an obvious problem here, which is playtesting. All the math can be tested only after an AST has been done (even a very rudimentary one) - and then it's hard to know whether a problem is in the math behind the AST, or is it in the poor design of the specific AST at hand.

[Roger]

Well, the way I get it, the idea of Simulationism is to simulate life ("A role-playing game is a game of character development, simulating the process of personal development commonly called 'life.'" - from Ron Edward's article on Simulationism, quoted from the introduction to RuneQuest), and Simulationists are concerned with the aspect Exploration, and this includes the demand for that world to be realistic and logical (hence the acceptance of delays due to mechanical demands, for example).
I guess I got it wrong, so please correct me here. At any rate, my initial desire was to strive for maximum realism, and this remains standing. I used the term of Simulationism only to make things clearer, although it seems it only made them more vague.

I wasn't trying to imply that you had "got it wrong" -- I was just trying to figure out where you were coming from.

Thanks for your answer -- it clarifies things a lot (to me.)


Cheers,
Roger

[Rothe]

Hi ODDin,
  I think I count myself a Simulationist but "heaven in a game" to me involves a few other things.  I like this quote:

Simulationists are concerned with the aspect Exploration, and this includes the demand for that world to be realistic and logical (hence the acceptance of delays due to mechanical demands, for example).

From my perspective the Exploration aspect but I feel too much emphasis is placed on the term "realistic" to mean exact duplication of every minute detail.  A better term may be versimilitude.  Not trying to turn this into a post on semantics, but getting to a popint here that might help. ;) First an example, as an older "simulationist" who runs in a circle of such, the original design concepts behind table top wargames used in military schools might be of interest.  One purposes of these games was to train cadets in tactics.  Such games would be useless if they did not give "realistic" results.  The test of the rules was often against historical data.  Although the drive for realism was critical, you don't need to include details on reloading rates, fouling, etc. in the game mechanics.  Rather, the combats and battles of history can be modeled very, very well with a single number combat power.  Many factors go into this but the "game mechanic" is a simple comparison of combat power ratios.  If you want to read up on this. Col. DePuy's "Understanding War" covers these theories, the relevant factors and historical data in detail.

The bottom line, realism can be provided b simple mechanics.  It is not so much the nitty gritty detail but the outcomes.  For example, if historical and scientific data tells me using X against Y results in Z, a "realistic" mechanic yields Z but it does not necessarily need all the details of X and Y to do so.  Actually, in my experience, trying to put in all the details so they interact to give Z can be problematic.  The simple example is a combat power of 5 attacking 1 results in victory 90% of the time.

This is all by way of saying maybe you do not need to have complex mechanics to achieve your goal.  It still may involve a very large amount of work to shift through data and condense and choose a suitable abstraction that still yields "realistic results." 
As a simulationist I would say I do not have infinite patience for mechanics that bog down play.  In fact, pace of play can be part of the exploration experience that a detailed rule system can take away from.  Which is where I agree with your thinking that a check to just walk is too much. ;)

So to wrap it up for me "simulationist heaven" is elegent game mechanics (not necessarily universal) that can make me feel that if I tried X in the game with result Z, the same is not unlikely to have been the outcome in real life.  From a market survey perspective I hope that helps and is somewhat on topic. 

[Rothe]

P.S. Sorry for the typos and such.  Forgot there is no "edit" feature here.  My brain just cannot proof read in the little text entry box for some reason.

[ODDin]

Thanks for the reply.

1) Tabletop wargames can teach tactics without being all that realistic. They just don't teach all the aspects of tactics; rather, they teach the way of thinking necessary to turn one into a tactician. For example, a simple comparison of power ratios doesn't take into account that tanks have weaker armour on their rear, and thus a successful attack from the rear of the tank has much more chances of destroying it than an equally successful attack from the front (this was implemented in Digital Reality's Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps, for example). Surely you have to agree that the lack of this detail removes some tactical options, and may even result in a battle that was won in the game, but would have been lost in reality. This detail is one of many, and you have to agree that with every two details that are simplified into one, some specific (maybe very specific) tactical decisions and options are deprived from the players. The tabletop wargames had to simplify things in order to allow training, since all the details simply cannot be brought into consideration in a tabletop game. I am quite certain that if they could actually consider all these details without losing pace (and the lost of pace may, in some cases, be more of a loss of realism than the lack of a certain detail), they would have done so (which brings us to point number 2, later).
What I'm saying is that if in reality Z depeneds on factors A, B and C, and in the game A and B are merged together into X (while C turns into Y), it cannot possibly be described how A and B affect Z independently of one another. For example, if the well-known parameterms of Attack and Damage are together made Power, it cannot possibly be shown how one creature will almost almost always hit (due to high Attack) but will do very little damage, while another creature will hit extremely rarely, but when he does - he wouldn't need to do so again. They may have the same Power ratio (or not, if the Power isn't simply the average of Attack and Damage, but this doesn't matter), but they are quite different, and are used in different ways when it comes to tactics.
Bottom line - you cannot keep the same level of realism while removing details. It's always a trade-off, although I agree that sometimes the details at hand really mean very little (but they still do!). You cannot merge 2 details into one, or give up on details at all, and at the same time take into consideration the unique information each one provides.

2) Regarding pace: my way of keeping the pace is not of reducing the number of checks (this is more of a design-time problem than a run-time problem, to use programmist metaphors) but by enlisting a computer to do the job. Thus, the players and the GM simply need to look at the screen from time to time to know just what is going on (the behaviour of players and GM in such a situation deserves a whole discussion on its own right, so I shan't go into this here). Thus, the pace is kept, the game flows (at least, not more slowly than when playing with more regular rules), and the complicate mechanics are still working behind the curtain.


That said, I'm not saying that a game that doesn't involve horrifyingly complex mechanics is stupid, pointless and doesn't deserve playing - even from a Simulationist's point of view. I can play D&D and feel "inside" and feel things are going relatively realistically, even if I somehow gain a new wizard level after killing a bunch of orcs with a club, without using even a magic missile. Yes, I can perfectly enjoy this.
However, what I'm trying to achieve is a system that can be honestly realistic, in the most nit-picky way possible. And hopefully, I did manage to show that the only way to achieve realism in the end result is to achieve realism in all the details needed to calculate this end result.

[Rothe]

ODDin,
  I like very much how you put your first point; especially on the loss of tactical options. I agree 100%. 
  Your computer assissited gaming idea sounds good.  Have you seen the game Aftermath by FGU that tried to get rather detailed with respect to man-to-man combat?  It didn't work well pace wise, but if programmed it would probably work very well.
 

[Adam Dray]

I don't really see much in your design that specifically supports Sim play. What you have here is a mechanic wrapping a Technique that might be useful for a certain kind of play. I recommend reading ignoring the subjective, a poorly-named thread that clarified Simulationism in the Big Model. This is where Ron coined the term "constructive denial," and I consider this essential reading for anyone trying to understand Sim play. What are you trying to simulate? What fictional elements does your system protect and enforce?

You also should read the relevant patterns in Design Patterns of Successful RPGs, specifically the "Skill Tree" pattern. I suspect you've already seen this, as you and John Kirk both use "skill tree" to describe what is actually a directed graph, not a true tree in graph-theory parlance.

Here are what I believe are the deficiencies of your model:

• The false dichotomy between abilities and skills. Is surgery a skill or ability? I could certainly attempt a surgery without the medical background. Is speaking my native language a skill or ability? How about running?
• The mathematics. If you think your AST model will require a computer program to manage it, you should reconsider designing a table-top game with it. You're describing something like a neural net, with feedback between nodes. Consider that your "tree" will likely be a cyclic, directed graph due to synergies between different skills, then realize that the math will be a neverending feedback loop if your math isn't perfect. I don't want to have to invert a large matrix to get my game on.
• Most players don't care about "reality." They don't want a physics engine. They want rules to let them do cool stuff and tell cool stories. If there's a coherent Creative Agenda, they want tools to show off their game mastery (Gamism), to make a point about the game through their characters and the world (Narrativism), or to reinforce their collective ideals about the fiction (Simulationism).

It is within that last bullet point that I circle back to address your ideas of building a Sim engine. I suppose that a reality-simulator for character knowledge (your AST) does help players reinforce and defend their ideals about the fiction. It is, however, an extremely limited set of tools to support constructive denial.

Here's where you should proceed:

1. Most importantly, go to Actual Play and post about some game you've played where you saw the kind of play you want, or where the play specifically did not support the kind of play you want. Explain why it was good or bad, what you loved and hated.

2. Less importantly, describe here what kind of experience you want the players of your game to have. What does typical (theoretical) play look like over a few minutes. What does it look like over an evening? Over several evenings? What kind of things does the system reward?

[ODDin]

I don't really see much in your design that specifically supports Sim play. What you have here is a mechanic wrapping a Technique that might be useful for a certain kind of play. I recommend reading ignoring the subjective, a poorly-named thread that clarified Simulationism in the Big Model. This is where Ron coined the term "constructive denial," and I consider this essential reading for anyone trying to understand Sim play. What are you trying to simulate? What fictional elements does your system protect and enforce?

I'll try to explain why I do think my design supports Simulationism.
Simulationists want, as you said yourself, to reinforce their collective ideals about the fiction. Right now, I'm talking about a single aspect of that fiction, which is the aspect of skills and abilities - the way one uses them and the way one gets better at them. I believe Ur (reminder: this is the name of my system) helps reinforce the collective ideals in 2 important ways.

1. Generally, every fiction keeps some the issues in the department of skills and abilities very close to reality. Even in the world of wizards and dragons, lifting weights makes one stronger. I strive to provide game designers with the tools to easily and effectively simulate all these processes, so that the fiction can be realistic where it needs to be realistic. For example, let's take D&D. Theoretically, if ou meet a powerful wizards, he'll tell you about the years he'd spent reading forbidden tomes and travelling the world in search for sages who know the secret for some old and powerful spell. In practice, however, he might as well become a level 20 wizard running around with club (or a quarterstaff), and never using even the simplest of spells. Ur doesn't allow that - running around with a club can only make you better at wielding clubs and related physical capabilities. If you want to get better at using spells, you have to actually cast them.

2. Although that's a more rare case, some fictions want to alter the way obvious capabilities work in reality. For example, one may want to create a fictional world where physical training actually makes you stupid. Using my system, it's very easy to design such a world and reinforce this fictional element with practical mechanics.

Thus, Ur gives mechanical reinforcement to various fictional elements and allows the fictional reality, as the players understand it, to function properly. This is why I claim my system to be Simulationist.

You also should read the relevant patterns in Design Patterns of Successful RPGs, specifically the "Skill Tree" pattern. I suspect you've already seen this, as you and John Kirk both use "skill tree" to describe what is actually a directed graph, not a true tree in graph-theory parlance.

Actually, I haven't read this document before, no, and this idea was mainly my own (the main inspiration was actually the game Dungeon Siege, although it was really terribly primitive). As for it being a graph - I know that, yes; thing is, it initially was a tree, and only later I realised that a tree model wasn't enough. The name remained, though. I can, of course, rename it to Ability-Skill Graph, I don't mind much.

The false dichotomy between abilities and skills. Is surgery a skill or ability? I could certainly attempt a surgery without the medical background. Is speaking my native language a skill or ability? How about running?

I agree that there is a problem with deciding what's an ability and what's a skill, yes. However, how can you not divide capabilities into these 2 categories? It is obvious that there are things that one can have talent for and that don't require learning in order to attempt (like strength or charisma), and that there are things that do require learning and that one can't be born with talent for them (like a specific card game).
To clarify on the issue of talent: when one says that A has talent for a specific card game, he actually means that he has talent for the abilities behind it (the ability to bluff, to understand people's reactions, good memory etc). After all, you don't believe that one can be born with talent for something that hasn't been invented yet. This is why skills can't have talent for them.

The way I think of it right now, only things that require actually knowledge are skills. Lanugauges are all skills, for example; native languages too - they are learnt, but on a very early stage (what reminds me that age also needs to be a factor as to how well one learns things). Dancing a specific dance is also a skill, as you need to know the exact moves. Surgery is also a skill - you can't attempt to remove one's kidney without at least knowing how it is done (cutting random things and hoping that one of them might be the correct one isn't called 'surgery', mind you). Running is an ability, as long as you know what running is as a concept.

If you have a better idea, however, I'm open for suggestions.

The mathematics. If you think your AST model will require a computer program to manage it, you should reconsider designing a table-top game with it. You're describing something like a neural net, with feedback between nodes. Consider that your "tree" will likely be a cyclic, directed graph due to synergies between different skills, then realize that the math will be a neverending feedback loop if your math isn't perfect. I don't want to have to invert a large matrix to get my game on.

To say the truth, my original idea was to design a system that fits only for computer games (I mean RPGs, of course). However, if the GM and players find a way to wisely use a computer (a laptop would be best, I believe), I think it can be played table-top too. As has been said before, though, there should be a whole book about suggested behaviour of players and the GM around the table in such a situation, and I do not wish to go into this now.
As for the math - with all the complexity, the math will not be a neverending loop (if that means my math is perfect, i'll take is as a compliment). When an action is performed, this is what happens:
1. The specific capability responsible for that action is determined.
2. The Eventual Efficiency for this capability is calculated, based on all the other capabilities connected to it (no Efficiency values are changed at this point, so no loops occur).
3. Using the Eventual Efficiency number, it is decided whether the action succeeded or not (I'm still thinking of whether there should be dice invloved here, in addition to the Eventual Efficiency number, but that's an issue for a different discussion).
4. After the action is done, the Self Efficiency of the capability is increased, as the action is considered training. Then, the Self Efficiencies of all the connected capabilities are increased or decreased, based on what the AST specifies.

The exact math for each action above isn't there yet, but this general chassis shows pretty well, I believe, why no neverending loops should occur.

Most players don't care about "reality." They don't want a physics engine. They want rules to let them do cool stuff and tell cool stories. If there's a coherent Creative Agenda, they want tools to show off their game mastery (Gamism), to make a point about the game through their characters and the world (Narrativism), or to reinforce their collective ideals about the fiction (Simulationism).

It is within that last bullet point that I circle back to address your ideas of building a Sim engine. I suppose that a reality-simulator for character knowledge (your AST) does help players reinforce and defend their ideals about the fiction. It is, however, an extremely limited set of tools to support constructive denial.

As I've said, and you seem to agree, I believe that in order to "reinforce the collective ideals about the fiction", a system is required which can provide a complexity of real-life, whether the system at hand strives to be actually realistic, or to design a different reality, equally complex as our own.
Thing is, it's not ALL that is intended for the system. I'm not trying to provide all the information about a world using my "reality-simulator for character knowledge" (I like this term), and maybe this is where you misunderstood me. Sure, there should be additional mechanics for equipment, weaponry, combat, life and death, etc. I just don't have any interesting and innovative ideas about these subject right now, and therefore I'm currently focusing my efforts on this aspect of the system.


Now, this has been a long post, and right now I can't continue writing, so I'll talk about the last 2 points some other time :)



Michael

[greyorm]

I agree that there is a problem with deciding what's an ability and what's a skill, yes. However, how can you not divide capabilities into these 2 categories?

Quite easily. You can reduce them to a single category or divide them into a number of different categories. Enough Googling will reveal various theories held in the real world about skills, talents, aptitudes, natural abilities, and so forth that are categorized with differing schema. With this much variation in the subject in the real world, the claim that all capabilities can be divided into those two categories is specious.

Even the subjects you state self-evidently require "no learning" to attempt (strength, charisma) are highly trainable and there are numerous books on how to improve yourself in both subjects. Nor is either just a natural thing a person has.

Consider that your adult strength is based on your childhood physical behaviors and athletic inclinations rather than some sort of deterministic genetic programming -- meaning Strength is a learned talent with some genetic component that might influence the end result, but with more chance of doing so on the high end, after one has trained, than on the average as an indicator.

Let us take another example: Painting. Skill (like lockpicking) or ability (like Strength)? Even given the existance of autistic-savants who paint incredible works at an early age without any training whatsoever?

As you can see, the world is not a black & white "this is a skill, this is an ability" place, so do not trap yourself in the D&D mindset. At best, that simplistic schema is an ugly kludge of categorization; a very bad kludge to utilize if you are attempting to create a "realistic" system of mechanics.

[ODDin]

I do scale abilities according to their "innateness" - that is, how much is defined from birth. Also, I'm not saying that abilities solely depend on talent. An ability may be attempted without training - this doesn't mean the result will be all that good (unless the talent is very extraordinary and the ability depends a lot on inheritence). Let's take strength. There are "fibers" in the body which build the muscles (I don't know the exact English term, I'm translating from Hebrew on the fly, so sorry) which vary in amount from one person to the other (they also vary in types, but I'll keep things simple). If one has more "fibers" than the other, then his muscles are genetically stronger and more durable, and he has a much bigger potential. Also, for another example, according to my sports teacher, reaction time is one thing that almost isn't affected by training.

As for painting - it's an ability, as everyone can attempt to paint a good picture (if you know how to use a pencil/brush, that is). You won't be able to use specific techniques, maybe, since you simply won't know what they are, but you surely can try to paint.

I understand the world isn't black and white. But really, considering the fact that I do scale abilities regarding which one is more learning dependant and which one is less (theoretically, a completely learning dependant ability IS a skill, so you can actually call it a single category with a scale to it), I think the definition still manages to convey realism pretty well. Also, other factors provide even more differentiation between various skills and abilities.



Michael


P.S. Googling actually only brought up references of RPGs and coach systems, but maybe I just didn't sarch enough.