(No, for the record, I haven't abandoned the fae wargame thing -- just thinking about it).

Anyhow, I was pondering descriptor-based systems after Paganini's recent topic, and I had an idea. Can someone tell me whether it's any good, or if it blows?

Suppose you have a set of pretty run-o-the-mill attributes, like, say:

Strength
Agility
Endurance
Perception
Willpower
Intuition

(Or whatever)

And they're rated pretty normally -- call it 1 through 10.

Then, skills are just rated in how many of the attributes that you've learned to use effectively with them. That is, you start out unable to use any attributes effectively with a given skill -- that's rank 0, as it were. Then, you slowly learn to use them all effectively. So, say you're learning stealth skills:

First, you learn the physical process of not stepping too heavily wherever:

Stealth: Agility

Then, you learn to look for places which will hide you will:

Stealth: Agility, Perception

Then maybe you learn to hold very still for long periods of time, even when every instinct is screaming "run!"

Stealth: Agility, Perception, Endurance, Willpower

Finally, after years of training, you're a master thief, and you've not only learned about situations where you have to hold yourself in ridiculous positions to avoid detection, but you've developed a near "sixth sense" for how to remain hidden:

Stealth: Agility, Perception, Endurance, Willpower, Strength, Intuition

Of course, someone else might start off with the kind of "staying still" discipline, and might learn Endurance or Willpower before Agility.

My thought is that task resolution works something like: The GM or one of the players defines the primary theatre of conflict

Example: GM says, "Okay, Alfred and Bester are fighting with swords. Primary theatre is agility."

Then the players can "bid" additional theatres, before they know the outcome, or can bid to close the contest.

Example: Alfred's player decides that he doesn't like his odds of being better than Bester at Agility straight, but he's got a good Perception, and has trained in its use with swords. "Alfred notices each of Bester's attacks before they begin, and his defense always gets there first." Bester, on the other hand, goes for Strength in his sword combat "Bester pushes each attack, making Alfred put his back into it every time he parries." Both players call it quits with just one additional theatre each.

The conflict is then resolved by taking the primary attributes, plus 1/2 of the secondary attributes, plus 1/3 of any tertiary attributes, etc. If you aren't trained in one of the theatres, your attribute counts at 1/4 of what it normally would.

Alfred has 7 Agility, 8 Perception, and 4 Strength. Bester has 7 Agility, 5 Perception, and 7 Strength. Both are trained in Agility, and Bester is trained in Strength, Alfred in Perception. Alfred's score is 7 + 8 / 2 + (4 / 2) / 4 = 11.5. Bester's score is 7 + (5 / 2) / 4 + 7 / 2 = 11.1. Alfred wins the swordfight.

Okay, granted that the details are doubtless hopelessly in need of tweaking, how's the basic idea?

Ooh, that's nice.

Ages ago, I read a thread on rec.games.frp.advocacy about how, when people have six or seven different kinds of intelligence (business, artistic, mathematical), why do RPGs typically only have one or two related traits? Your system would appear to be a response to this... though some of your attributes are more physical than mental, I suppose.

I like it a lot.

Hmm, why would the GM say that a certain attribute is the primary theatre? As a counterexample, in BESM, each character has a combat statistic derived from their Body, Mind and Soul stats. All three are equally important in combat (particularly anime combat).

Or as another example... a friend of mine is a national fencing champion, but was once bested by a guy in his 60s in a friendly match. Who barely moved. Barely bounced. Had no agility. But after a round's observation, countered every single one of my friend's moves.

Joe.

Pretty cool idea Epoch! I wonder what would happen if you ran it the other way though... no traditional attributes or skills. Rather, you just give your character abilities, then train how he does them. That would allow a character who needs six kinds of intelligence to have them, while another character that needs six kinds of strength could have them. Neither character would have anything uneccesary to the character concept.

What I'm thinking is, a beefy fantasy fighter might have the "Fight with Swords" ability and train it a lot in "Brute force," which would give you Fight with Swords (Brute Force): +10 (or whatever).

A more ninja-esque character might have "Fight with Swords" and train it up in "Dancelike Acrobatics" which would give you Fight with Swords (Dancelike Acrobatics): +10 (again, or whatever).

Both these characters would be evenly matched in a fight, because the numerical portion of the sill indicates thier overall effectiveness. But since each player gets to define the training aspects of the ability, every character has custom fit abilities that say a lot about his attitude. This could be a big help for players in narrating their characters. It could also be the basis for a meta-game system in which players are penalized for acting outside of their character concept. Frex, if the ninja-esque character was played as charging into a melee with a frenzy of wild cuts, then the GM might charge the character's player a "character point," or whatever.

Why not just simplify it?

Rate your attributes and add the attributes you use in any one skill together.

So your friend has Fencing: Agility (7) and the 60 year olf guy has Fencing: Agility (4) and Wisdom (6), beating you by...uh...(counts on fingers)...3 points.

I think. Wait, let me check my calculator...

Yeah, cool.

Neat idea, anyway. I likes it!

Actually, that makes me think of an old system idea I had where characters are only rated in 3 attributes: Awareness, Focus, and Willpower.

Awareness gave a bonus for perception rolls, or anything where you get a chance to check out the situation and plan out an action before you jump into it("He favors his left side"). Focus was used for intense short burst activities("Charge!"), while Willpower was designed for the long haul("That's it, just wear yourself out...").

I really like the ability of the players to alter their style of action based on their stats in your idea, but is there any limitation to what is plausible for the secondary/tertiary abilities? In my example above, although any of the stats could be used for an activity, they were specifically limited to the type of activity, or to be used in conjunction to the situation.

While you have a primary theatre, is there any types of attributes that are barred from an action, or is it simply an excercise in justifying why I should be able to use my top 3 stats?

Good idea, gimme more :smile:

Chris

Some scattershot replies:

Why not do the obvious thing and just add together all of the trained-in attributes for a single skill?

Well, you're seeing an evolution in my descriptor-based games, here. One of my earliest ideas was that something that most RPG's fall short on is the idea of two people who may be equally good at something, but in different ways. The idea here was that you could have two different people who are trained in, say, horseback riding.

Zaleph has Equestrianism: Agility, Endurance, Perception
Yves has Equestrianism: Strength, Willpower, Intuition

They're both equally trained, but they shine in totally different areas.

If you just have people add in their attributes, then the incentive is always to first take your best attribute, then your next-most, then your next most, and the system essentially becomes a "six disproportionate levels of skills" system.

Not that that's not already a problem, but I think that Jared's idea might excaberate it.

Why not let people choose their own attributes?

It's a neat concept, and I like it, but I'd need to come up with some way to make comparisons meaningful between two individuals. Got any ideas?

Are certain attributes particularly inapplicable/applicable to a given instance of conflict resolution, and why have the GM choose the primary theatre?

Answers here are entertwined. Yes, certain attributes are particularly applicable, which is why the GM designates one the primary. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that the GM could disallow bidding in a particular other attribute because it's inapplicable. (Example: Alfred and Bester are now engaged in a sport fencing bout, with whippy, flexible practice blades. The GM rules that strength can not be made a factor without forfeiting the game for violation of the rules.)

As to why do that kind of thing at all, why have the GM declare the primary theatre, it's to emphasize the concept of "these people are equally good at what they do, but in different ways." If the GM had declared the primary theatre of the example fight to be strength (perhaps the characters were using heavy axes instead of well-balanced swords), then Bester, not Alfred, would have won the fight.

Nice idea, Epoch. It definitely encourages character growth, while still maintaining centralization.

In fact, it has a similar feel to the skills in 7th Sea, where each skill has multiple sub-skills within that further diversifies it.



_________________
Cynthia Celeste Miller
-Spectrum Game Studios

[ This Message was edited by: Cynthia Celeste Miller on 2001-12-30 14:28 ]