[Alter Ego] Weapon Skills

[JSE]

First of all, thank you very much for your great ideas and suggestions. They are really thought-provoking and helpful.

@ salkaner:

Just an hint: there is already an Italian RPG with that name
http://www.narrazione.it/

I dont' think Garmaigol is going to lawsuit you, but maybe i's not a good idea to create a game with the same name

Thanks for the information - I was not aware of that. However, I will stick to Alter Ego for as long as nobody objects. I like latin titles because they are kind of universal - apart from that, Alter Ego really has a meaning and indicates quite accurately what the game is about at its core (intensive character play).

@ everyone:
After considering all your posts, I'm now convinced that neither of the two skill concepts I've mentioned (categorization by weapon families or by weapon usage) would be a good choice. Though I'm still largely undecided, I've come to realize that something like "general combat experience" must be implemented into my game. I think it's true that having an idea about general combat dynamics is more important for a fighter than knowing the knacks of individual weapons. However, weapon families or categories should still be taken into account - maybe in form of specializations or the like.

For further discussion of the topic, I think it's necessary to reveal a little more of my system to you:

General
Alter Ego is a universal role-playing system, i.e. it is not tied to any specific game world or even genre and it can be used for games in any possible setting. Accordingly, the rules do not focus on any specific era or genre. The basic approach of the rules is to cover everything (or everything relevant) that can be done by or happen to a human or humanoid person and translate it to game mechanics which feel realistic and organic. I am convinced that this form of verisimilitude (nice word) benefits and maintains stories, scenarios and characters - which are the key elements of role-playing - and thus results in an intensive and fascinating playing experience.

Abilities
In Alter Ego, abilities describe a character's fundamental motoric, sensory, mental and aesthetic qualities. Every character has 12 abilities:

[*]Strength
[*]Constitution
[*]Agility
[*]Dexterity
[*]Hearing
[*]Eyesight
[*]Smell
[*]Touch
[*]Will
[*]Intuition
[*]Appearance
[*]Voice[/list:u]
Each ability is rated by two associated statistics: a score and an essence. Scores are used in ability tests (see Tests) and normally range from 35 to 100. Essences are derived from scores and are calculated by substracting 30 from a respective score. They come to use in mixed tests (see Tests).

Skills
In Alter Ego, skills describe a character's knowledge, expertise and experience in all fields of activity, craft, art and lore. Just as abilities, each skill is rated by an associated score (ranging from 30 to 130) and essence (rangin from 0 to 100). The score is used in skill tests and the essence in mixed tests (see Tests). Three groups of skills are distinguished:

[*]Common Skills - skills that everybody can use and develop without special training or expertise (like climbing, hiding and jumping)
[*]Combat Skills - similiar to Common Skills, but focussing on weapons, armor, maneuvers and fighting techniques
[*]Special Skills - skills that can only be used und developed with special training (all craft and lore skills)[/list:u]

Tests
In Alter Ego, characters' abilities and skills can be tested to determine the outcome of certain situations and encounters. Three different kinds of tests are distinguished:

[*]Ability tests - tests involving only one of a character's abilites
[*]Skill tests - tests involving only one of a character's skills
[*]Mixed tests - tests involving both an ability and a skill[/list:u]
Ability and skill tests are executed by rolling 1d100 against the appropriate score, whereas mixed tests are executed by rolling 1d100 against the sum of the appropriate essences (of the involved ability and skill). If required, a test quality can be determined by calculating the difference between the roll's and the test level's respective tens digit. For instance a roll of 23 against a test level of 59 would result in a test quality of 3.

Experience and development
Alter Ego has no "experience points" or the like - it uses a learning-by-doing system instead to measure a character's development. Thus, skills and abilities are directly improved by using them throughout the course of play. Skill development works as follows: Whenever a certain skill is involved in a test and one of the following situations occurs, the appropriate skill earns a development point:

[*]A 1-5 is rolled.
[*]A 96-100 is rolled.
[*]The roll's ones digit shows a "0".[/list:u]
Development points are recorded for each skill and whenever a character has earned 5 development points for a certain skill, that skill's score (and its essence accordingly) is increased by 1.
Ability development is a more subtle process and is solely handled by the GM rather than a mechanic. As a rule of thumb, the GM allows a player to improve the score (and essence) of a frequently and regularly used ability by 1 each year's quarter.

I hope this short overview gives you an impression of what Alter Ego is supposed to be like.

[Andrew Martin]

Development points are earnt on a 19% chance for each roll. These are the values:

1
2
3
4
5
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
96
97
98
99
100

If actions occur at the rate of around one skill roll per second in for example, combat, this would mean that it would take around 5 - 6 seconds to earn a development point. After a minute of practice combat, that's around 10 development points or about +2 to a combat skill on average. If the character practiced for a day of, say, 10 hours, with frequent and regular breaks, that would mean around +12 to a skill per hour and +120 for just the day.

Alter Ego's rules seems to be about characters who are in school, a gymnasium, academy, or similar training or learning institution who are working to test the abilities and skills separately and together, in order to be better physically and mentally? Would that be right?

Is there any skills for working in teams or groups? What about rules for entering or leaving the learning institution? Is there any personality descriptors? To cover things like enthusiasm, dedication, love for one's teacher, and similar "spiritual" descriptors?

Does having a mentor or teacher help?

[JSE]

Of course, I forgot to mention the following important condition: The skill development system is only meant for actual skill use in critical/stressful situations. Training in safe environment produces development points MUCH more slowly - based on the consideration that this form of training simply cannot replace experience earned in "real-life" situations. Apart from that, skill development is always subject to GM discretion, i.e. the GM always has the last say on whether a development point is earned or not.

[JSE]

I'm back and I think I've actually come up with a good way to handle weapon skills: I just treat weapon families (like swords, axes or crossbows) as specializations of the following main skills:

[*]Melee Combat (swords, daggers, axes, grappling, dodging, shields etc.)
[*]Missile Weapons (bows, crossbows, slings etc.)
[*]Throwing Weapons (spears, axes, knives etc.)[/list:u]
Skill specialization works the following way: Characters never use or develop main skills directly, but always specializations. However, if a specialization is developed to a certain degree, the character can adopt some of this knowledge/expertise to related fields. In game terms this means: The score/essence of a main skill (und thus every undeveloped specialization) is 1/3 of a character's highest specialization of that skill. For instance, a fighter with a swords skill of 35 can use an axe with 11.

Please tell me what you think of this conception. Any further ideas on this topic are also very much appreciated.

Note: If you are new to this thread and would like to get an impression of my system Alter Ego, have a look at my post above (first post on this page).

[Doug Ruff]

Hi,

Here's a possible variant:

Keep the Melee/Missile/Throwing as a 'baseline'. Add 'broad groups' (eg 'swords', 'bows', 'thrown spears') and 'tight groups' ('shortsword', 'longbow', 'thrown javelin')

When a character passes a 'development test' they gain 3 points in the 'tight group' of weapon they are using, 2 points in the 'broad group' and 1 point in the 'baseline'.

For example:

Ragnar survives a combat while wielding a broadsword. He checks for development and succeeds. He gains 3 points in the tight group 'broadswords', 2 points in the broad group 'swords' and 1 point in the base skill 'melee'.

This only works well if you keep a running total of all of the skill points earned, rather than calculating skills for new weapons 'on the fly'.

You may also need to change the 'scale' at which development points raise skill scores.

However, this may be the sort of thing that appeals.

Regards,

Doug

PS For extra fun, consider allowing weapons with dual use (melee/hurled) to augment each other in this way. For example, every 3 points I gain in hurled javelin also increases my melee skill with a javelin (but not my base melee skills.)

[John Uckele]

I might suggested a layered system. You have a basic "Combat Skill" and also a more specific 'usage' skill (polearms, single-edge swords, slashing swords, thrusting swords, axes), then both of these skills can improve, providing a kind of synergy bonus implicit in the system. At the same time, a users preference becomes rather obvious when they have nearly twice the skill with a katana than with a spear.

Obviously, this is not even close to a valid system in many cases, but it is something for you to think about. You might choose to average the two (or more) layered scores, thus reaching a full 100% with a sword leaves you at merely 50% with an axe.

EDIT: Ooops... This is why you should read more than the first page of responses. It didn't look like anyone was going to suggest this idea though... ^_^;;;;;

[tj333]

A bit of the system that I am working on.
Each player has a set of general skills such as Hand-to-hand, Weapon, Archery, and Throwing Weapons.
Instead of specializing in specific weapons it has attributes of weapons.
Each weapon, this includes punches and kicks, does 1 damage and has a set of attributes.
Once a character learns an attribute of a weapon he can then gain the advantage of that attribute. Attribute usually add to damage or allow special moves to be performed. A character must learn the attributes separate from the skill.
Since multiple weapons can have the same attributes this allows the character to be highly skilled with one weapon and then have various levels of effectiveness with other kinds of weapons depending on how many attributes the other weapons have that he knows.

[John Uckele]

I made sure no one said this before I offered this post. ^_-

Experience and development
Alter Ego has no "experience points" or the like - it uses a learning-by-doing system instead to measure a character's development. Thus, skills and abilities are directly improved by using them throughout the course of play. Skill development works as follows: Whenever a certain skill is involved in a test and one of the following situations occurs, the appropriate skill earns a development point:

[*]A 1-5 is rolled.
[*]A 96-100 is rolled.
[*]The roll's ones digit shows a "0".[/list:u]
Development points are recorded for each skill and whenever a character has earned 5 development points for a certain skill, that skill's score (and its essence accordingly) is increased by 1.
Ability development is a more subtle process and is solely handled by the GM rather than a mechanic. As a rule of thumb, the GM allows a player to improve the score (and essence) of a frequently and regularly used ability by 1 each year's quarter.

This is a very interesting choice for a use based development system. I find it notable because you are going to go from 50% skill to 100% skill in the same exact amount of time that it takes you to go from 0% skill to 50% skill, which of course seems kinda wrong to me.

I rather like a technique in which when you roll a skill, if you fail, you roll it again. If you fail AGAIN, then you get progess. This makes newbies pick up very quickly, but the game slows you down might fast as you get higher. For example, if you have 50% skill, you'll get progress 25% of the time, while if you have 80% skill, you only make progress 4% of the time (much much slower).

[btrc]

On the skill classifications, someone mentioned CORPS. I think that or a similar model might do the job. You have a more expensive overall skill (say melee weapons), then a less expensive but more specific skill (like bladed weapons) and then a final specialization (like sabers). This may not be the most realistic system, but it does allow the sort of thing your player was looking for.

I'll digress on the game description (which might spawn another thread). I notice there are 12 Attributes, 4 of which are the senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell), yet there seems to be only one to deal with endurance, recuperative ability and things like running speed (constitution). Are the individual senses that important compared to the constitutional attributes?

For any sort of "realistic" rpg design, you should always first apply the test to yourself. That is, are you capable of designing a system that is accurate to a 1% level? If not, and you want to use percentile ratings anyway, at least round things to convenient numbers like 20% and 5%, not 19% and 4%.

Greg
BTRC

[Lee Short]

I'm back and I think I've actually come up with a good way to handle weapon skills: I just treat weapon families (like swords, axes or crossbows) as specializations of the following main skills:

[*]Melee Combat (swords, daggers, axes, grappling, dodging, shields etc.)
[*]Missile Weapons (bows, crossbows, slings etc.)
[*]Throwing Weapons (spears, axes, knives etc.)[/list:u]
Skill specialization works the following way: Characters never use or develop main skills directly, but always specializations. However, if a specialization is developed to a certain degree, the character can adopt some of this knowledge/expertise to related fields. In game terms this means: The score/essence of a main skill (und thus every undeveloped specialization) is 1/3 of a character's highest specialization of that skill. For instance, a fighter with a swords skill of 35 can use an axe with 11.

Please tell me what you think of this conception. Any further ideas on this topic are also very much appreciated.

Note: If you are new to this thread and would like to get an impression of my system Alter Ego, have a look at my post above (first post on this page).

On the surface, this looks likely to run into the "Harnmaster Syndrome" I mentioned above.  There's probably some way to implement it so as to avoid that, but you'll have to be careful.

[JSE]

Again, a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas - thank you and keep it coming. ;)

@ Doug Ruff:
So, you propose two groups of skill specializations - a "broad" and a "tight" group... Certainly, this would result in a more differentiated and "realistic" system than simply having main skills and skill specializations. However, keeping track of a huge number of partly interrelated skills with different development rates would result in a too complicated game in my opinion. Apart from that, I would like combat skills to work the same way as all other skills - and I can hardly imagine creating broad and tight skill groups for things like fishing or acrobatics.

@ John Uckele:
1.) As far as I understand this "layered skills" concept, it works similar to the concept I have presented in my previous post - having three main skills (melee, missile and throwing) and specializations of each. However, I have based my specializations on "weapon families" rather than weapon usage - as I already incorporate weapon usage into my combat system.

2.) Regarding skill development, you certainly have a point there. A slower development rate at higher skill scores would be more realistic and would give novices a chance to catch up. Furthermore, characters wouldn't become "superheroes" too quickly. However, I don't like this "second roll" variant very much as it slows down play. What do you think of the following alternative:

From skill essences 1 to 50, characters get a development point in a skill test every time they roll a 1-5, a 96-100 or whenever the ones digit shows a "0". From skill essences 51 to 100, characters get a development point only when they roll a 1-5 or 96-100.

Another interesting alternative would be to make skill development dependent on the difficulty of the respective skill test.

@ tj333:
Interesting conception. It takes weapons' individual features into account. However, as I've said above, in my game I would like combat skills to work the same way as other skills.

@ btrc:
1.) Something like "more or less expensive skills" does not apply to Alter Ego as PCs do not purchase their skills here but receive them during the creation of their background. However, your basic approach is similar to the system of mains skills and specializations I have presented as more overall skills are developed at a slower rate than more specific ones.

2.) In my opinion, constitutional attributes (health, endurance etc.) are all somehow interrelated, whereas sensory attributes are all apart from each other. Of course, you could be more differentiating - but in my opinion, 12 attributes are sufficient ;)...

3.) A self test for RPG design? Well, I deem myself capable of creating a system that is based on 1% levels. Any doubts? ;)

@ Lee Short:
Actually, your comment about the "Hârn Master syndrome" was among the reasons why I have decided for more general combat skills (melee, missile and throwing) to avoid it. But as a long-time Hârn player I promise to be careful ;)

[Doug Ruff]

@ Doug Ruff:
So, you propose two groups of skill specializations - a "broad" and a "tight" group... Certainly, this would result in a more differentiated and "realistic" system than simply having main skills and skill specializations. However, keeping track of a huge number of partly interrelated skills with different development rates would result in a too complicated game in my opinion. Apart from that, I would like combat skills to work the same way as all other skills - and I can hardly imagine creating broad and tight skill groups for things like fishing or acrobatics.

IMHO, It doesn't have to be that difficult.

Remember that for each group of skills there is only one "broad" group and a handful of "tight" groups. If you want experience to be based on actual usage, you will be keeping track of a large number of individual skills anyway, so there isn't a great deal of extra handling time involved - but you will need a bit of extra room on the character sheet.

As for fishing and acrobatics: fishing would be a "tight" group and part of the Survival "broad" group. The individual skills would be "nets", "hook and line" etc. (although you may wish to skip this extra level of detail.)

Acrobatics is another "tight" group, with speciality skills in jumping, tumbling, balance etc. It is part of the "Physical skills" broad group, which would also cover running, climbing etc.

However, if this isn't your thing then I fully appreciate that. I just wanted to demonstrate that it was possible.

Regards,

Doug

[btrc]

3.) A self test for RPG design? Well, I deem myself capable of creating a system that is based on 1% levels. Any doubts? ;)

Nope. Just as long as you have done a real-world test to verify it for any aspect of the game where you can...;)

I point it out simply because say, rolling 2d10 where 1d20 would do means that every time dice are needed, you are rolling twice the dice necessary, with no gain in versimilitude or dramatic tension.

But, if the system -is- indeed finely detailed enough that 1% differences are both important and there is sufficient "in-game realism" to say that X is 1% more or less a modifier than Y, then percentile dice -are- the way to go.

Greg
BTRC

[John Uckele]

2.) Regarding skill development, you certainly have a point there. A slower development rate at higher skill scores would be more realistic and would give novices a chance to catch up. Furthermore, characters wouldn't become "superheroes" too quickly. However, I don't like this "second roll" variant very much as it slows down play. What do you think of the following alternative:

From skill essences 1 to 50, characters get a development point in a skill test every time they roll a 1-5, a 96-100 or whenever the ones digit shows a "0". From skill essences 51 to 100, characters get a development point only when they roll a 1-5 or 96-100.

Another interesting alternative would be to make skill development dependent on the difficulty of the respective skill test.

You could do a tiered experience system where X values give you advancement at levels A and then at levels B, it's now Y values that give you advancement. I might suggest some things about that possibility as well though:

You will still get relatively linear skill advancement, it's now just broken into categories. You probably should not use a 1-5, 96-100, or 10x kinda system. It's confusing as piss. Instead, 80-100 gives a similar (20% instead of 19%) chance, but is a bit simpler. Then you could increase or decrease a range as they advanced. Maybe something like:

1-25: Advance of 70-100%
26-50: Advance of 80-100%
51-75: Advance of 90-100%
76-100: Advance of 95-100%

This seems like it would be a step up.

[Lee Short]

@ Lee Short:
Actually, your comment about the "Hârn Master syndrome" was among the reasons why I have decided for more general combat skills (melee, missile and throwing) to avoid it. But as a long-time Hârn player I promise to be careful ;)

I think it still applies if I understood you correctly.  

Skill specialization works the following way: Characters never use or develop main skills directly, but always specializations. However, if a specialization is developed to a certain degree, the character can adopt some of this knowledge/expertise to related fields. In game terms this means: The score/essence of a main skill (und thus every undeveloped specialization) is 1/3 of a character's highest specialization of that skill. For instance, a fighter with a swords skill of 35 can use an axe with 11.

Please tell me what you think of this conception. Any further ideas on this topic are also very much appreciated.

Let's posit our travelling merchant.  He uses a shortbow.  In the Bows category, his starting skills are:

--  Longbow : none
--  Crossbow: 20
--  Shortbow: 45

That places his Bows skill at 15, so he can use Longbow at 15 if he desires.  But it hasn't slowed down his Shortbow skill development at all; he'll still reach 90 just as fast as he would have before -- ie, just as fast as the Knight would.