Skills & Attributes

[Don Lag]

I've been working on a game for sometime, basically because I want to, I could probably play a space opera setting using Monopoly rules and still have a good time :smile:, and I've come up with the following solution for the skills/attributes part.

I'll describe it as shortly as possible then elaborate on a few ideas I'd LOVE to get feedback on (if I keep boring my players with topics ranging from dice mechanics to vectorial math applied to character design they'll probably linch me).

First off, everything is rated on the same scale and means the number of d20 you roll whenever said stat becomes relevant. Thus, stats are normally rated from 1 to 6 normally, although it's really open-ended. Just to make sure: a 4 point stat means you roll 4d20. A 2 point stat means you roll 2d20. Only the highest die counts, highest wins.

Each character has 3 stat "families": Attributes, Competences, Abilities.

Competences are the stuff the character can do. Is he good at jumping? reading? swimming? lying? painting? etc.

Abilities are the innate fields of action of the character. Examples are: memory, charisma (perhaps better divided into presence, leadership, etc), strength, stamina, willpower, etc etc etc

Both Competences and Abilities aren't predefined. Each player chooses them for his character (choose a certain amount of Competences according to background, choose up to 6 abilities).

Notice that both Competences and Abilities indicate the character's performance.

There are 3 pre-defined, fixed, universal, attributes: Body, Mind Soul. Each indicating the capacity of acquiring and improving one's Competences.

It works like this:

In order to advance one's Competences you check against relevant Attributes. What attributes are relevant to a certain Competence are, in principle, defined per-character depending on how they "view" or "interact with" said Competence. Example: certain character may interact with his foreign language Competence in an exclusively Mind-like way (one could consider the character learns the language in a very methodical, perhaps even dictionary oriented, manner). He would eventually to roll his Mind attribute in order to advance his foreign language Competence (I don't want to get into the whole experience system, which is pretty simple and neat, but just not exactly relevant right now). Another character could also have a foreign language Competence, but have a Soul+Mind "attitude" towards it (perhaps being more inclined to learn the language by interacting with the native speakers, or by tuning in to the more abstract aspects of the language). He would have to roll a mixed Soul|Mind roll to advance his foreign language Competence.

So it's basically that attributes indicate one's ease of improving in each of the 3 basic areas of personal development.

Attribute scores NEVER change during play.

That takes us back to the Competences, which work just like skills do in most any game. There are a few peculiarities, but that pertain to the mechanics, not the model really. One detail that DOES pertain to the character model in my game, is that each Competence has one or more (maybe even none? I dunno) related abilities. This is the part that is different from most games I've seen. The abilities related to a Competence do not indicate an increased or decreased performance due to high/low ability rating. i.e. A Competence related with a "strength" ability does not benefit from a high "strength" score.
Rather, abilites can only be improved when related Competences are advanced.

A quick example: a character has a willpower ability and two of his Compentences are related to it: Wilderness Survival and Poetry (for whatever reasons game master and player could agree on). Thus the character will only be able to increase his willpower as long as he "learns", "experiences", "advances", ... either Wilderness Survival or Poetry (or both).

Finally, remember each character has up to 6 abilities? Well, what happens if you don't have a "stamina"-like ability and you get hit by a hammer?

First off, I should make clear that the 6 abilities one chooses are those that best define what the character is (what the character considers his most valued aspects could be a good criterion I think).

So what happens to the stamina-less character that got smacked by a hammer? It's totally up to the gamemaster. That's what happens with un-specified anbbilities. Not having an ability means you surrender all certainty about activities related. I still think it's kind of weird, but the more I think about the happier I am with the solution.

Another thing to clarify: actions carried out by the Competence of a character are not limited, modified or anything by abilities. It doesn't matter what strength, agility, or whatever you have when riding a horse, but rather how well you CAN ride a horse. Abilities would tend to represent persistent/passive actions/aspects of the character.

Well, I'm not very satisified with my whole explanation about all this... but if anyone does turn out to be interested I'll try to clear any stuff up.

Final important info: I haven't playtested this yet (seems thurday 1st will be the first playing). MANY decisions are certainly Gamist (at least in the sense of making strategic decisions at the stat level very relevant), although I wouldn't feel comfortable until I could understand most resulting peculiarties as actually modelling some phenomenon (that's the Simulationist in me). And after looking upon the results of these rules, I kind of suspect they'll provide a boost to the narrative interaction of my players (maybe just because they're very gamey to start with).

[kwill]

I like the hierachy of Attributes > Abilities > Competences, and the abstraction that high Horse-riding is stated in and of itself rather than being based on high Dexterity (or whatever)

you state that Abilities are improved when Competences are improved, but Competences are improved by Attribute checks (ie, rolling is involved), have I got this right?

maybe it's just my understanding of the hierachy of scope, but this ends up with a different hierachy of improvement, running Attributes > Competences > Abilities

(not that that is necc. a bad thing)

how do you see the different stats being used? at the moment I'd guess Attributes are used only for improvement, Competences for "does my guy do X and how well?" and Abilities as checks (kinda like Reflex/Fortitude/Will saves in D&D3)

[Mike Holmes]

On 2001-10-30 00:48, Don Lag wrote:
First off, everything is rated on the same scale and means the number of d20 you roll whenever said stat becomes relevant. Thus, stats are normally rated from 1 to 6 normally, although it's really open-ended. Just to make sure: a 4 point stat means you roll 4d20. A 2 point stat means you roll 2d20. Only the highest die counts, highest wins.

Are all rolls opposed, then? Or is there some target number system?

There are 3 pre-defined, fixed, universal, attributes: Body, Mind Soul. Each indicating the capacity of acquiring and improving one's Competences.

Does that mean that one never rolls against Atributes? Just clarifying. They are only for improvement, right?

Why do they never change? If I get smacked in the head and lose a bunch of Grey matter, I don't lose any Mind Attribute? Why not? Or do you mean to say that these stats never improve or decline based on practice, etc?

That takes us back to the Competences, which work just like skills do in most any game. There are a few peculiarities, but that pertain to the mechanics, not the model really. One detail that DOES pertain to the character model in my game, is that each Competence has one or more (maybe even none? I dunno) related abilities. This is the part that is different from most games I've seen. The abilities related to a Competence do not indicate an increased or decreased performance due to high/low ability rating. i.e. A Competence related with a "strength" ability does not benefit from a high "strength" score.
Rather, abilites can only be improved when related Competences are advanced.

Seems fairly elegant. Solves many default problems. And should balance well. This part I think I like.

So what happens to the stamina-less character that got smacked by a hammer? It's totally up to the gamemaster. That's what happens with un-specified anbbilities. Not having an ability means you surrender all certainty about activities related. I still think it's kind of weird, but the more I think about the happier I am with the solution.

So the GM uses Drama without any restrictions or guidelines to resolve anything that is not related to a defined character stat. Hmmm...

And after looking upon the results of these rules, I kind of suspect they'll provide a boost to the narrative interaction of my players (maybe just because they're very gamey to start with).

What makes you think that it'll boost Narrative interaction? I see nothing that would promote that in what you have above. And given that you reserve even more power for the GM than normal (refering to the rule that takes away the fortune resolution rules in the case of resolutions with no pertinent stat), I'd say that there is even less power for the players than in most Simulationist games.

I see a very Gam/Sim system above. The extent to which it is Gamist or Simulationist will probably be shown by the experience system you mention. I suspect from the well thought out defaulting that you have that it will probably be Simulationist, but that's just a guess at this point.

Are you going to post this whole somewhere?

Mike

[Don Lag]

I favor quoted responses so that's what I'll do:)

Answering Kwill:

you state that Abilities are improved when Competences are improved, but Competences are improved by Attribute checks (ie, rolling is involved), have I got this right?

maybe it's just my understanding of the hierachy of scope, but this ends up with a different hierachy of improvement, running Attributes > Competences > Abilities

Exactly. Attributes specify the way Competences are improved and Abilities are in turn improved only as long as you actually "train" them in some applied way (improving Competences).

how do you see the different stats being used? at the moment I'd guess Attributes are used only for improvement, Competences for "does my guy do X and how well?" and Abilities as checks (kinda like Reflex/Fortitude/Will saves in D&D3)

Bullseye once again, you've got the Compentences and Attributes right. Again, I remind everyone that I haven't playtested this yet, but I can imagine Abilities being used mainly for "saving throw" situations. But also I can imagine using Abilities for actions that really refer to some innate characteristic rather than a specific Competence. I think the memory Ability is closest to a good example. I originally thought of relating Abilities to Competences (for example a Reading Competence related to a memory Ability) and then whenever an ability was required one would refer directly to the Competence (rolling Reading for any memory-related actions). I might eventually decide on this, I have personal arguments in favor and against the present choice, but it will mostly depend on playtesting.

Now to Mike Holmes:

Are all rolls opposed, then? Or is there some target number system?

You have to beat a target, that can be set to a constant when the difficulty shouldn't change from event to event (for example, jumping a fence should always be a challenge of 14 for example). When the difficulty of an action is actually an opposing action o rapidly varying circumstance (classic attack vs defense or crossing a busy street), the difficulty is determined by a standard roll: difficulty of 4? roll 4d20 opposed to whatever the character's action roll is.

Does that mean that one never rolls against Atributes? Just clarifying. They are only for improvement, right?

You roll against Attributes to improve your Competences. Improving a Competence is an Attribute challenge. You never use an Attribute to determine a character's performance.

Why do they never change? If I get smacked in the head and lose a bunch of Grey matter, I don't lose any Mind Attribute? Why not? Or do you mean to say that these stats never improve or decline based on practice, etc?

I admit this aspect might seem strange, especially under extreme situations, and I won't be fully comfortable with it until I actually playtest. My best explanation so far is this: Attributes do not refer to the state of a character at a given time. They do not reflect the capacity of performance of said character (after losing lots of grey matter one would expect a character's mental performance to suffer). Rather, Attributes (in this game) reflect a character's ease of attunement, or disposition, towards each of the three basic fields of personal development (as viewed in the game).

So, if you and your partner both suffered brain damage, the one with a higher Mind attribute would have a better chance at recoverying some functionality. You would both suffer from the criteria of the game master (I think that very special cases such as this shouldn't try to be modelled by the game), but eventually would be requireed Mind attribute rolls to improve your, damaged, mental state.

Another perhaps useful point of view (which inspired me partially), is that you're Attributes define the Competence advancement rules (or experience accquisition rules if you prefer) for each character.

(Competence/Ability interactions...)
Seems fairly elegant. Solves many default problems. And should balance well. This part I think I like.

I have one problem about this though, I can easily understand that even if you're a very strong person, you shouldn't immediately cause more damage than a weaker person, considering that damage should be more a function of "where and how" you hit than how hard.

However, I can't seem to agree that a great horseback rider should be able to always ride as well even if he is out of shape.

I have at least 3 ideas on my mind about how to attack this: one involves a teensy bit more bookkeeping per characteranother involves a bit more math and finally the option to just dump the whole Ability stats and use related Competence as Abilities themselves.

So the GM uses Drama without any restrictions or guidelines to resolve anything that is not related to a defined character stat. Hmmm...

What makes you think that it'll boost Narrative interaction? I see nothing that would promote that in what you have above. And given that you reserve even more power for the GM than normal (refering to the rule that takes away the fortune resolution rules in the case of resolutions with no pertinent stat), I'd say that there is even less power for the players than in most Simulationist games.

I see a very Gam/Sim system above. The extent to which it is Gamist or Simulationist will probably be shown by the experience system you mention. I suspect from the well thought out defaulting that you have that it will probably be Simulationist, but that's just a guess at this point.

Discarding an Ability would be, in fact, choosing to lose the player's power over the character regarding that type of situations. Or, from the character's point of view, it means he either just doesn't care or doesn't know how good or bad he is at a few things.
At the present stage this means that a character always knows what he's good at, and would be bad at what he doesn't care or know about most of time. I can see this as a problem to some, but I think it makes sense as long as you consider that on creating a character one effectively chooses the 6 abilities (aspects of himself) that he considers most important, and that such personal (ethical?) view of himself shouldn't readily change during his life.  I think it could change (i.e. discard some already chosen Ability and add a new one), but it shouldn't be very common and I haven't come up with the mechanics for it (don't think I will until I playtest what I've got already anyway).

And yes, I too consider it a game that has some interesting Gamist and Simulationist aspects to it. But I think it fits Narrative intentions better (although not necessarily good) than most flavors of D&D I and my players have played for most of our gaming history. Of course this is a direct reference to my personal experience, just as Monopoly could be considered a Narrative improvement in one's gaming habits if all you've ever played is poker :smile:

And yes, I plan on posting it at : http://oscura.simple.cl where at present I hold a few short stories related to the "world" of Oscura (the name of my game btw) and a very early, incomplete, draft of the game rules. However, this is all in Spanish. When I finally finish the rules I'll post them in English too.

Many thanks for the feedback.... I think you can tell from this post how much it's already helped me!

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Dav Harnish presented a system idea to me last year about using Attributes only for improvement mechanics, with the in-play competency being skill-only. At first glance, this seems similar.

I think it's a great idea. Of course, it's best allied to a setting/whatever in which improvement is a major part of the content of play.

Best,
Ron