Stats Sytem, need advices

[Caracol]

I'm working on some ideas for a fantasy RPG. I came up with a particular idea about the stats and the abilities of the characters, based on the concept of "opposite aptitude".

Every player has different abilities that come in pair. Improving one ability means reducing the other: they represent two different way of being, and they can be balanced as well that imbalanced.

For example: the stat couple Spontaneity/Rationality. Each of them can range from -3 to +3. Having +2 in Spontaneity means you have -2 in Rationality: your character is spontaneous, natural and doesn't think twice on a subject before acting, while it's not good at studying, memorizing and planning ahead. The two stats can be also set both to 0 to represent equilibrium. They can be assigned freely during character creation and are influenced by race, background and other traits.
The ability score works as a bonus or penality for task and conflict resolution (I'll post some about those too). The "basic" stats are also used for the "derived" stats, such as attack, defense, reaction time, magic points... we'll get to that later.

My questions are:
- What do you think about this abilities system? It has been done before by other RPGs? It worked?
- How many couples of abilities would be necessary? I like the idea of 4 ones, but I'm undecided, which brings us to the following question;
- Which abilities should I use? The Spontaneity/Rationality one is fine to me, I also tought of Combat/Insight(I don't know if it's the right word, I wanted to represent an aptitude opposite to fighting) and Agility/Resistance, but I'm confused (and I still one more couple).
- Do these abilities really count as "opposite aptitudes"? Do they encompass the general spectrum of a character's proneness? Even if they do, I still need another couple of abilities to give the players more options to elaborate their characters.

Any ideas, comments, suggestions?

[Eero Tuovinen]

Pendragon and Dead of Night, excellent games both, have set-ups similar to that. It works just fine for them.

The rest of your questions can't be answered without considerably more context. The number of abilities depends on how they are used and what the exact focus of the game is; which abilities should be used depends on the same things. Also note that you don't have any particular need to make the abilities in a pair really "opposite" as long as you can accept their negative correlation towards each other. You could even make more complex correlation chains if you wanted, such as triads - raising ability A lowers B, raising B lowers C, raising C lowers A. That sort of thing. It's not like a duo of abilities like that is any different than just distributing a number of points between the two abilities.

[chance.thirteen]

Conflict vs Compromise (I say compromise, because if it were an option for pure cooperation, you wouldn't need to choose really)

aka

Act against vs act with

Destroy/Understand might also work

[Caracol]

Pendragon and Dead of Night, excellent games both, have set-ups similar to that. It works just fine for them.

The rest of your questions can't be answered without considerably more context. The number of abilities depends on how they are used and what the exact focus of the game is; which abilities should be used depends on the same things. Also note that you don't have any particular need to make the abilities in a pair really "opposite" as long as you can accept their negative correlation towards each other. You could even make more complex correlation chains if you wanted, such as triads - raising ability A lowers B, raising B lowers C, raising C lowers A. That sort of thing. It's not like a duo of abilities like that is any different than just distributing a number of points between the two abilities.

Some more context. Even if I want to set up a particular and "original" fantasy setting (no dwarves or elves), the RPG should have a typical "fantasy" structure: characters go on quests, fight, use magic, solve puzzles, face challenges. Therefore phisical abilities regarding Combat, Resistance, Agility are necessary: psychological ones like Spontaneity and Rationality influence the behaviour and the use of magic.

Maybe if say some more about how I want to resolute Conflicts and Tasks will help. I'll post it later, I need some time to elaborate it.

About complex chains of abilities influences, I'm not so convinced. I want to leave this level of complexity to the derivated stats. For the character basic attitudes, I wanted the system to be "rules lite".

Tomorrow I'll post more about Conflicts and Tasks. For the mods: could you please rename the thread as "Stats and Resolution Sytem, need advices"? so I don't have to make another thread on the Resolution question, since it will be analyzed here.

Conflict vs Compromise (I say compromise, because if it were an option for pure cooperation, you wouldn't need to choose really)

aka

Act against vs act with

Destroy/Understand might also work

Really nice ideas. I'll take some time to think about them.

[Eero Tuovinen]

About choosing your abilities, let me tell you a little story: I've been wrestling with D&D for this whole decade, on and off, trying to figure out how to improve the fundamental experience. One thing I've done recently has been removing Strength, Dexterity and Constitution as separate abilities; those three just weren't pulling their weight for my purposes, and the reason was that I found them disinteresting fictionally - separate physical abilities like that lead to the ideal character being a freak of nature with an unlikely combination of physical dexterity, strength and constitution, which doesn't normally happen in nature. I found that having just one Body attribute served my purposes much better, each player could then describe their character's bodily quality in the way they find best.

This story tells about many things. One is that your choice of abilities can be very idiosyncratic and based on minor aesthetic reasons. Another one is that you should choose your abilities based on how they are used in the game, not the other way around. Yet another is that it might not be fruitful to strive for simple simulation in your thinking - don't try to figure out what a person is "composed of" in real life when you could be trying to figure out what things you need in your game.

As a very rough tool to start with, consider listing the types of limitations characters will have in your game; just make a list of all the things in your game that might prevent a character from immediately getting what he desires. Is there fights to be won? Is there great weights to carry? Is there ladies to be seduced? List them all. After you've made this list, make every one of the things on your list an ability. Like so:
Fighting-ability
Seducing-ability
Carrying-ability
.
.
.
After you have this list, you can then do two things: clean the list up by combining, splitting and pairing the things in your list, and attach the abilities into fictional properties of the character himself. The latter is important in a traditional fantasy game, while modern games tend to be somewhat looser on it - in D&D your "fighting ability" is called "strength", and it represents how strong your character is. In 3:16, to pick a counter-example, your "fighting ability" is called simply "Fighting ability", FA for short, and the designer has not bothered to tie it into a fixed in-character property; this character has high FA because he's quick and skilled, this one because he's mean and unhesitating in killing.

My point above was that you'll probably get a more functional ability list by starting with what is done in your game, what sort of things characters need abilities for, and tracing backwards from that. I might even say that you should have your conflict resolution system, combat system, magic system, whatever system, all finished and ready before you take a really serious look at what that ability list should, exactly, be composed of. This way you only get necessary and useful abilities on your list.

[Caracol]

My point above was that you'll probably get a more functional ability list by starting with what is done in your game, what sort of things characters need abilities for, and tracing backwards from that. I might even say that you should have your conflict resolution system, combat system, magic system, whatever system, all finished and ready before you take a really serious look at what that ability list should, exactly, be composed of. This way you only get necessary and useful abilities on your list.
Derivate stats:

The combinations of 2 or more basic abilities determine your scores in the derivate abilities. These are used for various stuff. Here are some of them:

Attack:<Damage: how hard you hit. It usually depends only by the weapon base damage, although a Mastery can boost it.
Armor and Resistance: how much damage your armor absorbs and how much you can resist. Depend on the armor type and Resistance. Damage and wounds influences your character condition: more about this subject will be added.
Flow: how much magic power flows within yourself. Determines how many times you can use spells and such. Influenced by Mastery, Spontaneity and Whatever-we-said-is-opposed-to-Combat.
Focus: how much you can control your use of magic. Determines how powerful your spells are and influences concentrations and willpower against dominating effects, for example. Influenced by Mastery, Rationality and Whatever-we-said-is-opposed-to-Combat.

And so on. Actually, there could be much more of them, and each one could be used for many different things. Each Mastery will have a detailed description on what stat use for a particular task and how. These are just the ones I think will be used the most.
   
Task Resolution:<Difficulty 0:<Difficulty 1-3:<Difficulty 4-6: <Difficulty 7-9:<Difficulty 10: <Conflict Resolution:<<Attack Result vs Target Number     Outcome of the action<these are not the only possibilities!

[Caracol]

Conflict vs Compromise (I say compromise, because if it were an option for pure cooperation, you wouldn't need to choose really)

How about Direct Approach/Indirect Approach? It could be merged with Conflict/Compromise. Any suggestions?

Destroy/Understand might also work

Maybe Combat/Comprehension?

[Caracol]

About choosing your abilities, let me tell you a little story: I've been wrestling with D&D for this whole decade, on and off, trying to figure out how to improve the fundamental experience. One thing I've done recently has been removing Strength, Dexterity and Constitution as separate abilities; those three just weren't pulling their weight for my purposes, and the reason was that I found them disinteresting fictionally - separate physical abilities like that lead to the ideal character being a freak of nature with an unlikely combination of physical dexterity, strength and constitution, which doesn't normally happen in nature. I found that having just one Body attribute served my purposes much better, each player could then describe their character's bodily quality in the way they find best.

Good point. The distinction between different physical abilities is wierd, so I think I'll just go for an unique Body o Physic ability to represent them all. I would like to make it opposite with an ability that represent a different aptitude, stressed on mental work more than body work.
What about Knowledge? A character that has spent more time on books rather than in a gym has more Knowledge than Body; a well fit one that privileges physical training rather than academical studies has more Body than Knowledge. Could this work? It makes sense?

This story tells about many things. One is that your choice of abilities can be very idiosyncratic and based on minor aesthetic reasons. Another one is that you should choose your abilities based on how they are used in the game, not the other way around. Yet another is that it might not be fruitful to strive for simple simulation in your thinking - don't try to figure out what a person is "composed of" in real life when you could be trying to figure out what things you need in your game.

As a very rough tool to start with, consider listing the types of limitations characters will have in your game; just make a list of all the things in your game that might prevent a character from immediately getting what he desires. Is there fights to be won? Is there great weights to carry? Is there ladies to be seduced? List them all. After you've made this list, make every one of the things on your list an ability. Like so:
Fighting-ability
Seducing-ability
Carrying-ability
.
.
.
After you have this list, you can then do two things: clean the list up by combining, splitting and pairing the things in your list, and attach the abilities into fictional properties of the character himself. The latter is important in a traditional fantasy game, while modern games tend to be somewhat looser on it - in D&D your "fighting ability" is called "strength", and it represents how strong your character is. In 3:16, to pick a counter-example, your "fighting ability" is called simply "Fighting ability", FA for short, and the designer has not bothered to tie it into a fixed in-character property; this character has high FA because he's quick and skilled, this one because he's mean and unhesitating in killing.

This approach to the problem is useful. There are many things that the character could do, but the most part of the stats used in their action could be merged together and should be derivate rather than basic. Basic abilities shouldn't be more than 4/5 couples. After listening to your advices, so far I'm oriented towards these ones:

Rationality vs. Spontaneity

Body vs. Knowledge

Combat vs. Comprehension

Conflict vs. Compromise (could be merged with Combat/Comprehension)

and maybe Steadiness vs. Agility? (Not only to represent your ability to withstand damage or to be quick and agile, but also to represent your mental approach: being firmly convinced about your doing vs. thinking fast and changing tactics and ideas.).

Any other toughts and suggestions? I would really like to hear your opinion on the Conflict and Task Resolution system too.

Gotta go, this time I don't have the time to proofread so forgive me for my bad writing.

[dindenver]

Carrie,
  I think there are two distinct design approaches:
1) Pre-gen: In this instance, you setup the polar opposites. There are two important considerations:
a) It should be something that you can't achieve simultaneously. Strength and speed would be a bad slider, because there are people who have both. Where as Power and Humility might be better, I don't know of anyone who has both.
b) They both have to be desirable traits, that is Valor and Cowardice is a bad slider, because few people want to be a coward. While, Ambition and Compassion are probably a good slider as both are desirable.
  The advantage of pre-gen is it defines the constraints of your games' setting.

2) Let the players make context sensitive sliders on their own. The advantage of this is, it allows for the player to create a situation where things that normally aren't polar opposites become polar opposites, for that character. The disadvantage is, you have to include advice and guidance for GMs and players to help players come up with good opposites and how/when to change them if they aren't working.

  Point of Collapse has almost the exact system you describe. It was available as a free download until the site it was on went down. PM me if you want to see it and I will make sure you get a copy.

[Caracol]

Carrie,
  I think there are two distinct design approaches:
1) Pre-gen: In this instance, you setup the polar opposites. There are two important considerations:
a) It should be something that you can't achieve simultaneously. Strength and speed would be a bad slider, because there are people who have both. Where as Power and Humility might be better, I don't know of anyone who has both.
b) They both have to be desirable traits, that is Valor and Cowardice is a bad slider, because few people want to be a coward. While, Ambition and Compassion are probably a good slider as both are desirable.
  The advantage of pre-gen is it defines the constraints of your games' setting.

This is the approach I prefer. I think the ability couples I posted before respect both the prerequisites. Every side of the slider makes you better at something but bad at something else. So every choice has its drawbacks, but you can always be "in the middle". This is also for discourage complusive stat-boosting or powergaming.   

2) Let the players make context sensitive sliders on their own. The advantage of this is, it allows for the player to create a situation where things that normally aren't polar opposites become polar opposites, for that character. The disadvantage is, you have to include advice and guidance for GMs and players to help players come up with good opposites and how/when to change them if they aren't working.

Not so happy about that. While it really makes the characters free to create and experiments, it also confuses the process of character creation. The abilities scores aren't just numbers, but also represent how your character usually behaves.
In the game I have in mind every character starts with 0 in every ability: then your race, backgroud, role in the group (not strictly necessary) and personality traits modify the equilibrium. Personality traits, in particular, are really good for the players to build their own character freely: they can be picked up by anyone, without restriction (as long as they aren't contradictory) and are good cues for roleplay. Even if this system is more restricted, it's also more consistent and easy-to-follow.

  Point of Collapse has almost the exact system you describe. It was available as a free download until the site it was on went down. PM me if you want to see it and I will make sure you get a copy.

Check your PM.

To all the other members: thanks to your advices and the articles, I've eventually reason out and started writing down the actual game. I've started from easy stuff (such as Equipment and Weight rules), next step is abilities and some resolution rules. The game is still far from being well outlined (it doesn't even have a name), so I will still need a ton of advices and suggestion. I'll keep you informed about the progress and the problems that will rise up: meanwhile, if anyone else has something more to add about the subject, his help is always welcome.

If there are other kinds of advices I might need to ask (such as "what name should I give to it?), it's better to start another more specific thread or we can just continue the discussion here?

[soundmasterj]

I've been toying around with something pretty similar.

To kill somebody when you want to, roll under your "KILL" stat. To NOT kill somebody when you don't want to, roll over "KILL".
You choose how many dice to roll. If you roll twice the stat, raise it by 1. If you roll half the stat, reduce by 1.

[Caracol]

I've been toying around with something pretty similar.

To kill somebody when you want to, roll under your "KILL" stat. To NOT kill somebody when you don't want to, roll over "KILL".
You choose how many dice to roll. If you roll twice the stat, raise it by 1. If you roll half the stat, reduce by 1.

Nice, but not really what I'm looking for. I want combats to be full of hazards and uncertainity to create a good narration.
But damn, isn't this quick and to the point. Really useful in games with lots and lots of fights to be resolved in little time.

[dindenver]

Carrie,
  I think you are close, but maybe need a little tweaking:
Rationality vs. Spontaneity
  The problem with this is, a normal character will embrace one of these and not see any use for the other. Maybe you need to name them in a more appealing/essential way. Like Planning vs. Improvisation. You need to be able to both plan and improvise, but usually, you can't do both.

Body vs. Knowledge
  So, you are saying, in your setting, there there are no supremely fit people who are not also smart. Is that the message you intend to give? An Olympic athlete is necessarily a dimwit?
  What about Streetwise vs Nobility I think this gets at the heart of what you are trying to say, but comes at it from a different angle. Certainly any character would want both, but by necessity, could never attain it.

Combat vs. Comprehension
  So, again, you are overlooking great generals who were soldiers and scholars. Alexander the Great, Patton, Napoleon, etc. What about Valor vs Compassion or Strategy vs Tactics?

Conflict vs. Compromise
  This one is actually pretty good. I think I would use another pair for what this symbolizes. But I don't think mine would be any better than what you are already using.

  Either way, you have a great base to build your game on. Keep up the good work.

[soundmasterj]

I want combats to be full of hazards and uncertainity to create a good narration.

Uncertainity is easy. Suspense is hard. It depends more on you valuing the outcomes, less on you not knowing the outcomes. I'd rather focus on making people care. But this is a different topic and shouldn't be further adressed here I think.

Really useful in games with lots and lots of fights to be resolved in little time.

Nah, it was meant for a game with as little fighting as possible. If the more I kill, the sooner I turn into a monster, I will probably try solving situations without killin'. I'd think it would be a game about what to kill for (less "how to kill").
Another stat could be "Getting away". Roll under to get away, roll over to stand and fight when it counts. "Magic": roll under to fry the evil henchmen with magic fire, roll over to overcome the horrible temptation to just get her love through wizardry. "Nobility": roll under to rule the easily impressed, roll over to care for the dirty and poor. "Smarts": roll under to see the details, roll over to not miss the big picture. And so on.

What I would do if I was you is I would write down a few example conflicts, purely prose, a few different, but satisfying outcomes for these conflicts, and then I would check if my rules cover, no, ENFORCE that. Like, every single solution the rules should allow for should be fun and enjoyable.
Right now, you got a certain numerological beauty going on, the aesthetics of symmetry, but personally, I'm not too sure what kind of play it should make for. This is not bad, not in the slightest, but it helps, I found, when I try to see rules outcome based, not process or justification based.

I mean, your rules are probably fine, but I guess it would help if you checked with yourself what they are fine for.

[chance.thirteen]

One form of suspense could be had by allowing some sort of accumulation towards an actual resolution check, without knowing what the results along the way are.

For instance, let us say a player wants to use  insulting comments to get an aristocrat to lose his cool, and challange him to a duel. If you had a limited number of attempts, but did not know how far to go, and insulting someone itself definitely carries a social cost, you are investing without knowing what will actually happen.

Likewise, you could say that it takes 3 successes before you check to see if he loses his cool. If there is other action that is pacing these checks, you are working on some other conflict, while trying to accumulate a chance at success in a side conflict.

For instance, fighting a duel while making jibes and leading comments hoping they will blurt out something inciminating. So every round we check on the fights progress, but meanwhile we are hoping to survive long enough to get him to the point he might break and blather something good.

I'm just making up stuff. To me, Suspense is about wondering what is going to happen, and you wonder more if you have both current effort invested in the outcome, as well as further consequences when the result is revealed.