Question for what players want - please help.

[pigames]

Our new game in development is not combat intensive. We are debating whether to use a fitness trait to encompass strength and dexterity, or just use strength and dexterity like our other games.

Fitness would simplify things. Strength really doesn't matter too much. Could you accept that, or would you have a problem with that.

I thank you in advance for your comments.

Brett

[S.Lonergan]

I prefer strenght and dexterity, because, if you just have fitness. it complicates having a hulking brute, (that is if the game lends itself to that)
because, you can be strong without dex...
or be extremely dextrous and not strong

[Matt Machell]

It really depends how useful/central Fitness is in your game. If your game focuses on non violent resolution, then does it really matter if you only have one physical stat, as it's only occasionally going to be used? Having more physical stats only encourages players to think they're important.

Think of it this way: Do the stats you use focus and re-enforce the behaviour you want to encourage in the game?

If you really must have physical stats, then one option is to have one stat that covers overall fitness, but given a descriptor that focuses it into what the character is good at within this, and giving a bonus for resolutions in situations that require it. So something like Fitness 3[agile].



Matt

[Victor Gijsbers]

What are you aiming at? Smooth flow of action? Realism?

[pigames]

I've been mulling this over, and I am leaning toward two traits. My original intention was to simplify things with one. Knowing people, though, it may be better to provide both.

This was to primarily use psychological concepts.  I can see games resorting to violence, though.

Fitness would simplify everything. But, thinking about it, two traits would take up slightly more room and placate everyone, I think.

[Paul Czege]

Hey,

But, thinking about it, two traits would take up slightly more room and placate everyone, I think.

No offense, but this is game design suicide. In fact, it's a bad idea across most creative endeavors. You absolutely cannot placate everyone. What you can do is clutter your design with features so that people with disparate preferences are all annoyed with it in roughly the same measure, just about different things. This is called "maximizing your audience." It is the hallmark of incoherent game design. My advice is to focus your design, hit your target audience dead center, and fuck trying to placate others who aren't going to be happy anyway, no matter what you do.

Paul

[Valamir]

Ditto what Paul said.  Identify the purpose of your game (i.e. why are we playing this instead of <insert something else here>. ) Whatever that reason is, whatever makes playing your game worthwhile...THAT is what you should have stats for and little (if anything else).  Those stats may not even be labelable (is that a word...?) with traditional attribute labels.

The first time I saw Sorcerer I said essentially the same thing as Smeg "I need a new name despirately" Monkey about Sorcerer's Stamina Trait.  "With just Stamina I can't differentiate between a hulking brute and a graceful acrobat".

Of course the actual answer is two-fold.

1) there are many other ways to differentiate between brute and acrobat without needing to do it with stats (in Sorcerer that way is Descriptors attached to the stats).

2) If the primary distinguishing feature of my character is that he's a hulking brute...what the hell am I doing playing Sorcerer.  Hulking brute may be an interesting feature of my character, but it shouldn't be one that requires special attributes to define because making that distinction is not what Sorcerer stories are about.

So, figure out what your game is about and include stats for that.  

Its a cardinal rule of gaming that whatever you provide rules for (including attributes) is what the players are going to do.  If the players in your game are supposed to do "X" then give them stats for "X".  Maybe on occassion they may want to do "Y" but there is no need to give the same level of granularity for handling "Y" because "Y" is not what your game is about...its just tangental...so treat it tangentally.

[Bailywolf]

It depends on what your traits are intended to represent.

Are they intended to represent a character's capacities in a vacume- a character is only so strong, a character is only so smart.  Or are they intended to represent a more abstract, result oriented ideal- a character is able to be this effective in a physical situation...

If I have a Strength trait, it pretty well defines a specific physical capacity-

If I have a Body or Stamina or Fitness trait, it describes how effective I am physicaly- through whatever combination makes the most sense for the character.

To use the obvious combat example, I can be strong and tough and fight at N level or I can be fast and wirery and also fight at N level- a model of equilivency seen on (say) Over the Edge where a 4d Bare Knuckle Bad Mofo trait can match against a 4d Kung Fu Master or a 4d Living Hercules trait.

Basicly (and not to clearly) I am asking if your traits intend to model actual ability in a vacume or to indicate competency in a given field of conflict.

[pigames]

Basicly (and not to clearly) I am asking if your traits intend to model actual ability in a vacume or to indicate competency in a given field of conflict.

The problem is that I'm just not sure.

Fitness fits really well - it also used creativity and empathy and some others. But then I look at it and see a difference between mongo the huge and eugene the graceful.

I want to stick with fitness to keep the traits down to a minimum. That's why I wanted to get people's opinions and see what they want.

By the way, this is a psychological horror game. It also deals with faith and personal demons. Would anyone be interested in playtesting when something coherent is put together?


Brett

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Brett,

I suggest that you are asking questions that are at about Step 7, whereas you are still at about Steps 1-2. There's no way we can help you with "what sort of attribute" questions until those earlier steps are clearer.

The earlier steps include:

- The "what's the game about" question. It might surprise you that saying, "psychological horror" only barely begins to answer that question. What would be the big pay-off moment during play? Triumphing over a personal demon? Fighting evil cultists? Discovering the secret behind it all? What?

- The "what's it like to play" question. I strongly recommend that you visualize a group of people playing the game, specifically what they spend their time doing (ie strategizing or not, using charts and tables or not, rolling dice or not, talking out-of-character or not, laughing a lot or not, etc, etc).

- The "role of randomness" question. A lot of people assume that the game they're most used to is also the default method of determining events during play. Roll against attribute + skill, right? All set? You might be surprised to learn that a huge variety of functional system design already exists, and that you'll have to make some decisions about it at a very fundamental level.

If you haven't read my big GNS article in the Articles section, take a peek at it. It's not a manual of game design, but it does lay out a lot of the conceptual issues that have to be taken into account, and provides some vocabulary for getting at them in discussion.

Best,
Ron

[Skippy]

You know, I'd love to see a psych-horror game that didn't give a rat's ass about physical stats at all.  If it's psychological, then does it matter how easily you die, or whether you can pick a lock?  Other than to instill fear in a character, death is a secondary concern.  It's hard to reach that fear factor when you are calculating hit points, or worried about things like, "I'm bigger than him, so I shouldn't die as easily."  Granted, that may not even factor into your game concept, but some players will focus on those issues.  If you are appealing to a particular audience, the game should be directed in that direction.  

I toyed with the idea of a game that dealt strictly with how your character approached situations, and relegated body/mind to secondary effects.  The stats were Force (powering your way through a problem, whether mental or physical), Finesse (solving the problem "correctly" with minimal side effects), Influence (manipulating the problem to suit your needs), and Empathy (manipulating yourself to suit the problem).  It's a little abstract, but oh well.  BTW, this was going to be a psych-horror game as well.

Anyway, good luck,

Skippy