[Planet] Attributes

[khyron1144]

Here's the start of the attributes system for Planet.  This is what I've got finished so far, so the abrupt cut-off is sort of intentional:



Attributes
Attributes define your character's abilities to do things in the game.
There are three Attributes in the game: Strength, Speed, and Mind.
You generate your character's attributes by rolling two standard (that is six-sided) dice together and adding the numbers together, rather like in Craps.  This type of roll is often written as 2d6: 2 for the number of dice rolled and added together; d short for dice and to serve as separator between the two numbers; and 6 for the number of sides the dice should have.

Strength: Strength reflects your ability to hit other characters in combat, and your ability to take a hit, also known as Health.

Speed: Speed reflects how difficult you are to hit in combat; your likelihood of going first in combat, called initiative; and how far you can move in combat.

Mind: Mind fuels spell-casting abilities; is used to resist enemy spells; and is sometimes used in an effort to notice something.

Temporary and Permanent Points
Each attribute comes in two categories: permanent points and temporary points.  Temporary points can be depleted in various ways, for instance temporary strength, also known as health, is depleted by being hit in combat.  You start with a number of temporary points equal to your permanent points in each category.  Your permanent points are what you just rolled on 2d6 in the previous step.

Temporary Strength (Health): goes down when you get hurt.  It comes back at a rate of one-third of your permanent value per day.

Temporary Mind: is used to cast spells and use Psi powers.  It comes back at a rate of one third of your permanent value per hour.

Temporary Speed: is used to take actions in combat.  It returns to your full permanent value every round of combat (rounds will be explained better later).

Attribute Comparisons
In case you're wondering just how dumb a character with a Mind of 2 is or how awesomely buff a character with a Strength of 12 is, I have prepared some benchmarks.  Some are meant to be jokes; others should be taken somewhat seriously.  Make up our own mind, which is which.

Mind
1:  Dumber than a bag of hammers.  You can count to 2, do your own Velcro (if you're in the shoe-wearing habit), and write your own name (it is X, right?).

2:  Smarter than most plants.  You can count to 5, have been potty trained (or house-broken), and can write your own name in real letters.

3:  You've been to school (mostly to use the playground).

4:  You'll never be accused of brilliance, but you can do sums, and you know how to read and write about one hundred monosyllabic words. 

5:  A notch below average.  Algebra makes you dizzy and you have a vague memory of the Pythagorean theorem as that A^2 + B^2 = C^2 thing.  You can sound out most words.

6:  Average, you know as much math, science, history, and language skills as you ought to and not a bit more.

7:   A notch above average.  You know what gravitons, photons, and neutrinos are and do the crossword every day in non-erasable ink.

8:  Very bright.  You could win on that Millionaire show if not for those stupid pop-culture questions that you don't know anything about because you were too busy reading Stephen Hawking.

9:  Genius.  You understand Einstein and Darwin and might significantly refine or improve upon their theories.

10:  Super Genius.  You will replace Einstein as the standard pop-culture allusion to intellect.

11:  Ultra-Mega-Super Genius.  The only reason you don't rule the world is because it would mean work, work all day and no time to play with your pet theories.

12:  Greatest Human Mind Ever.  You do rule the world; you just choose to be very subtle about it.

13+:  Beyond Human.  If you don't know it, no one does.

Speed
1:  Faster than a plant.  You wake up every morning and reach your front door by sometime that evening.

2:  Faster than a glacier.  You'll get there eventually.

3:  Faster than a snail.  People don't prod you to see if you're dead... all that often.

4:  Faster than a turtle.  Your motions are detectable without the aid of time-lapse photography... just barely.

5:  Slowpoke.  You aren't hit by cars too often.

6:  Average.  You can outrun some of the people some of the time.

7:  Above Average.  You are often accused of having ADD.

8:  Athletic.  You can do a five-minute mile.

9:  Top Athlete.  You could win a gold medal.

10:  Blur.  You regularly set new land speed records when you walk out to check your mail.

11:  Speedy.  Many compare you to a Warner Brothers cartoon mouse.

12:  Supersonic.  Sonic booms are heard along your jogging route.

13+:  Superhuman.  The rest of the world looks like it's moving in slow motion to you.

Strength
1:  Fragile.  A strong breeze could kill you, and you have difficulty crushing a paper cup.

2:  Frail.  There are mosquitoes that are more robust than you.  You regard turning a record over as heavy lifting.

3:  Feeble.  Stubbing your toe could be lethal.  Congratulations! you can bench press one pound (once).

4:  Sickly.  You are often incapacitated with colds, but you live through them.  You once carried a five-pound bag of potatoes into the house and might do it again next year.

5:  Wimp.  You're not like other people; you can't stand pain; it hurts you.  You can lift about ten pounds, if you have to.

6:  Average.  You survived a couple schoolyard brawls and can bench a hundred pounds.

7:  Hearty.  You're not often sick, and you are always in demand on moving days for your ability to lift large boxes of books.

[Warrior Monk]

looks good for me, I'm also working something around these lines. So far your system seems to fit a more combat focused-quick roleplaying, where character creation takes minutes instead of hours. How would you prefer to deal with the social interactions between characters? old D&D alignments? Vampire-like clash between nature and behavior? Some sort of system that rewards specific players behaviors?

Dunno about you, but I'm thinking of stitching together a sort of quick version of Universalis for instant world creation and something from dogs in the vineyard for the skills: instead of having a long list of skills each with their description, players just suggest 3 things they want their characters to be good at and assign a fixed bonus. I'm hoping this leads to a quick-starting simple game that even complete noobs get to understand quickly. Let me know if we can help each other with our projects, and best luck!

[MacLeod]

The distinction between permanent and temporary values is a pretty sharp idea. =D

[khyron1144]

looks good for me, I'm also working something around these lines. So far your system seems to fit a more combat focused-quick roleplaying, where character creation takes minutes instead of hours. How would you prefer to deal with the social interactions between characters? old D&D alignments? Vampire-like clash between nature and behavior? Some sort of system that rewards specific players behaviors?

Dunno about you, but I'm thinking of stitching together a sort of quick version of Universalis for instant world creation and something from dogs in the vineyard for the skills: instead of having a long list of skills each with their description, players just suggest 3 things they want their characters to be good at and assign a fixed bonus. I'm hoping this leads to a quick-starting simple game that even complete noobs get to understand quickly. Let me know if we can help each other with our projects, and best luck!

My basic goal is to have a system where character creation can be done in under fifteen minutes, including initial equipment selection.  Race and class can even be assigned by random roll on a table, if necessary.  One thing I noticed trying to teach D&D to noobs is that the places that things get frozen is where choices have to be made and options explained.

I am not necessarily a fan of systems for personalities: alignment, old White Wolf's Archetypes, or New White Wolf's Virtues and Vices, just to name the bigger names.  I believe that the role part of roleplaying should be mostly supplied by the player.  I do however kind of like rewards systems that take behavior into account:  the allegiance system from Chaosium's Elric! is the best example.

I am not familiar with Universalis or Dogs in the Vineyard.  I've heard the names, but never seen the actual game in question.

Good luck to you too.

[khyron1144]

Here's the rest of the comparisons/ benchmarks.  It took me a while to find the notebook I have the pencil draft of this game in.



Strength
1:  Fragile.  A strong breeze could kill you, and you have difficulty crushing a paper cup.

2:  Frail.  There are mosquitoes that are more robust than you.  You regard turning a record over as heavy lifting.

3:  Feeble.  Stubbing your toe could be lethal.  Congratulations! you can bench press one pound (once).

4:  Sickly.  You are often incapacitated with colds, but you live through them.  You once carried a five-pound bag of potatoes into the house and might do it again next year.

5:  Wimp.  You're not like other people; you can't stand pain; it hurts you.  You can lift about ten pounds, if you have to.

6:  Average.  You survived a couple schoolyard brawls and can bench a hundred pounds.

7:  Hearty.  You're not often sick, and you are always in demand on moving days for your ability to lift large boxes of books.

8:  Robust.  You're never sick and are not easily winded.  You can lift at least two- hundred pounds.

9:  Strong.  You could have a good boxing career, as you are not easily KOed.  You can lift at least  three-hundred pounds.

10:  Very Strong.  A bear once almost attacked you and then thought better of it.  You can lift at least five-hundred pounds.

11: Charles Atlas.  You wrestle bears for fun and can lift at least half a ton.

12:  Ahnold.  You can lift a ton.

13:  Beyond Human.  You juggle VW Bugs as an amusement to fill your idle hours.