Mike's Standard Rant #4: Stat/Skill systems

[Le Joueur]

So what you're saying is that the benefit of the Stat/Skill division is that Skills get something from Stats of usual character?  And the problem is what happens when there's 'feedback' across the 'exchange rates?'

That leaves two questions:[list=1][*]Is that benefit worth the hassle of 'fixing' a system for it?
[*]Would a system where the Skills receive nothing from the Stats unless the players think they should, work?[/list:o]What exactly makes #1 a hassle?  In GURPS it happens because the players have a finite number of points and are not required to justify the design of their characters outside of the 'spending limit.'  The problem seems bound up in the commerse issue; what are the points doing for the system?  (That answer depends on the mode of play prefered by the participants, obviously.)

#2 suggests throwing out the whole commerse thing and having the justification of the character's abilities be the limiting factor.  Kind of a "what's it for" requirement on all the character options (various levels of Stats/Skills).  How to granulate that though?  Our design solution was 'big' character points with no limit on the 'budget' (or a limit imposed by a consensus reached by the gaming group).

That way you don't have to raise your Intelligence Stat to get all the economies on Intelligence-based Skills.  You could 'up' all the Intelligence-based Skills, if you thought that such a relationship was important or not.  The economy ceases to exist when you have a limitless budget.  What is important is what kind of character you're making in the final estimation and how it sits with everyone else playing.  Right?

I mean, outside of the economic issues, all that the 'exchange rates' represent is the designer's bias about the relationship between certain Skills and specific Stats.  If you are allowing so much customization, why not free the character-maker from that bias too?

So is that a solution?  (As opposed to being the solution.)

Fang Langford

[Mike Holmes]

But I'm confused by one thing: What exactly do you want, here? Is what you want total player freedom without min/maxing encouraging a particular way of creating a character?

Yes, which is problematic, though not impossible, for a two-tiered system.

What we're looking for is a system that produces characters that are:

1. limited in overall effectiveness by some method.
2. composed of choices that are motivated by player desires, not by mathematical glitches or artificial limitations.
3. defined by a two tier system of statistical definition.

Vampire, like other systems, has addressed the problem by selecting a solution that conflicts with number 2.

Mike

[xiombarg]

What we're looking for is a system that produces characters that are:

1. limited in overall effectiveness by some method.
2. composed of choices that are motivated by player desires, not by mathematical glitches or artificial limitations.
3. defined by a two tier system of statistical definition.

I suspect this is a problem not unlike creating a mathematical system capable of proving all true statements makable with the system, or creating a voting method that perfectly reflects the desires of the electorate -- that is, problems that seem on the face of it solvable but aren't. But I'll think about it and get back to you.

Hell, I'm not even sure if you remove 3, that 2 and 1 aren't mutally exclusive.