So my system has the following attributes (ranged 1-7): Body, Mind, and Spirit.

Mechanically, I don't forsee them being used much in conflict resolution. I'm using them more as a measure of a character's aptitude for developing various abilities. Of course, they will be usable for conflict resolution in situations where there is no ability for the task.

Now Body is covering a lot of things. It is going to deal with carry weight, movement action points (for combat), health levels, unarmed damage, and all that fun stuff. Of course, not every Body of 5 is the same, so I came up with the idea of using Traits (Weak, Strong, Clumsy, Slow, Fast, Hardy, etc.) that would give a +/-1 to Body for a particular character element. No problems there.

On the other hand, Mind is a bit more limited in it's scope. At this point, I can only say that it's used for developing knowledge based abilities (and many abilities are considered knowledge-based). Because I am using action points, I am thinking of using it to determine how many segments into which characters can split their action point pools. For example, a character with Body 6/Mind 2 might have six action points, but can only split them into two actions. I'm not terribly sure that this is much of a handicap though, as the action point breakdown (in a really basic form) is looking like this:

1 AP- draw a weapon, sheath a weapon, actions generally considered to be "free"
2 AP- attack with a light weapon
3 AP- attack with a medium weapon
4 AP- attack with a heavy weapon

As a result, most combat rounds are likely to be three actions at the most (so a mind stat higher than 3 is not super valuable in this case).

Anyways, I'm wondering what else I can do with the mind stat. I'm only seeing two directions:

1) Find more uses for the Mind stat.
2) Keep the Mind stat "simple" and only design traits for the Body stat.

Any tips?

What does spirit do?

What else do people do in the game?

Hi!
  There are different ways you can go:
1) Mind is a non-combat stat, having it has no effect on combat. This is perfectly acceptable if there is a significant amount of non-combat scenes in your game.
2) Body is speed and strength, mind is accuracy. In this way, you can insert knowledge in a meaningful way without having to contrive a use for it.
3) Mind is pseudo-combat effecte. Assuming you have magic, psionics or both, Mind inserts itself in combat through creative uses of those abilities
4) Mind as initiative/tactical advantage. Perhaps high mind gives you init, accuracy or damage mods.
  There are probably other ways to go, take a step back and think about what happens if two guys are basically the same level of fitness, but one is smarter than the other. Extrapolate that into mechanics that reproduce the effects youwant.
  Good luck man!

What does spirit do?

What else do people do in the game?

There are probably other ways to go, take a step back and think about what happens if two guys are basically the same level of fitness, but one is smarter than the other. Extrapolate that into mechanics that reproduce the effects youwant.

Hi!
  Init is tricky, what does it represent to you? Speed, position, reach, tactics, etc. In my game, it is supposed to represent a combo of speed and tactics. If init is more tactics and positioning, it's all mental.
  Again, what's the advantage to being smarter and better trained in a fight. It's going to mean accuracy, tactics, prediciton of enemy moves, forcing the enemy off balance, using terrain and props to your advantage, etc. What does that mean in mechanical terms in your game?

Also, the game sounds neat. The background sounds like the MMORPG "The Saga of Ryzom", but without the stupid fucking "Oh, there's a great world or mystery and spirit to explore, but first whack at these rats with a dagger until you can afford pants".

Is there a need for Mind in your game? Physiologically and all, the mind is just an extension of your nervous system.  It sounds like shit is really loaded down at the Physical and Spiritual ends of a scale, but not a lot of focus on Mind stuff... so why not fold that back into the Physical side of things? Call Body "The Physical" and Spirit "The Spiritual" or something, to play off that physical "meat" world and the spiritual entities invoked by the world?

Also, sounds like there's a lot of diplomacy stuff based on your description... were you thinking of rolling that into Spirit? Or was there going to be a "Social" attribute of some kind?

-Andy

Init is tricky, what does it represent to you?

Again, what's the advantage to being smarter and better trained in a fight. It's going to mean accuracy, tactics, prediciton of enemy moves, forcing the enemy off balance, using terrain and props to your advantage, etc. What does that mean in mechanical terms in your game?

The background sounds like the MMORPG "The Saga of Ryzom",

Is there a need for Mind in your game?

Call Body "The Physical" and Spirit "The Spiritual" or something, to play off that physical "meat" world and the spiritual entities invoked by the world?

Also, sounds like there's a lot of diplomacy stuff based on your description... were you thinking of rolling that into Spirit? Or was there going to be a "Social" attribute of some kind?

Hey dued (hope I don't mess up some formatting here, I seem to do that a lot with nestled quotes)

IagainstI wrote:
I've never heard of The Saga of Ryzom, but I looked it up before I posted. According to the official site, I can definitely see some similarities, though I will mention that most characters will actually start the game with pants. :)

Btw, do you play this game? It actually looks pretty interesting and I think I might want to check it out.

Kind of neither. Various social abilities are going to be just that...abilities. It's kind of like a "skill" element, though I'm just not comfortable with the term "skill", as "skill" implies formal training (IMO) and abilities will include things like climbing, bluff, and other abilities that can be developed through "normal" use.

With Ryzom, it was the fact that the world seemed to have a lot of "meat", but in play it was just like every other damn game out there, save for the fact that monsters attack in "packs".

Interesting.  But note that, well, I hate to say "in real life", but still, things like diplomacy, lying and social manipulation can really be improved through use and training.

I was reading your Power 19 answers, and have a question on this statement of yours:

On a basic level, it's who goes first, second, third, etc. So it's who is ready to make their move first. I might have it affect the placement of miniatures on the grid at the start of the battle, but there's complications with that so I might take a pass.

1) What is your game about?

The game is about knowledge, truth, and understanding. In a world that is constantly changing, very little is truly known when it comes to life's greatest questions. Who are we? Where did we come from? What is our purpose? Why? The only answers that exist are conjecture at best. These questions may seem trivial considering all the problems in the world (unnatural creatures engaging in hostilities with the civilized people, the threat of civil war, a supernatural power shrouded in mystery), but the answers are more important than most people think.

Your game sounds really cool, but I wonder how tactical combat resolution is going to contribute to knowledge, truth, and understanding.

Don't get me wrong, i *love* miniature combat systems, but i have to agree with this critique!

How could such a crunchy - and expensive, in both time and money - sort of conflict resolution system as miniatures on a tactical board help establish a game that focuses on revealing "Truths" about the nature of the world and characters? 

The only thing i can think of is to make the tactical space non-geographical - that is the game resolves *everything* through a tactical positioning system. Sounds crazy, yeah... but if you already have a strong spiritual/magical/philosophic component you could probably find some cool analogies to make it work.

So you have a conflict, and you are resolving it through tactical miniatures, but the conflict isn't "do i slay the monsters?" but something more like "Do i navigate the maze of Doubt and outmanoever the incarnations of Obfuscation?"   

-SDL  (Happy to make your day just that much more surreal... >_>)

How could such a crunchy - and expensive, in both time and money - sort of conflict resolution system as miniatures on a tactical board help establish a game that focuses on revealing "Truths" about the nature of the world and characters?

Ok, that's cool. I like tactical, miniatures based combat also.

So first suggestion, revisit your Power 19 responses and make sure they reflect your desire to have tactical miniatures based combat as a game focus.

The second is that you need to decide how tactical combat is going to play into knowledge, truth, and understanding. One big possibility is that the reward for success in combat is knowledge, truth, and understanding. One cool possibility would be that rather than characters gaining power by becomming better, they gain by learning secrets about their opponents. So for example, you kill a nasty troll. Now instead of becomming better at fighting, you learn something about trolls, perhaps they aren't quite so nasty as they appear. This knowledge REDUCES the power of trolls the next time you fight them.

Or maybe knowledge is just how you keep "score."

The important thing is to make sure your game vision explains why you have this detailed tactical miniatures combat system when the game blurb talks about gaining knowledge, truth, and understanding. Otherwise you'll wind up with comments about your game like noted in this post on Chris Chinn's blog.

It should be possible to do, you just have to design for it.

Frank

The second is that you need to decide how tactical combat is going to play into knowledge, truth, and understanding.

Or maybe knowledge is just how you keep "score."

The important thing is to make sure your game vision explains why you have this detailed tactical miniatures combat system when the game blurb talks about gaining knowledge, truth, and understanding

Sorry about pulling you off topic like this, but the idea is that if the game is about / centers on tactical combat it is best if that is made clear up front. "Up front" being the power 19 and the Big Three.

You should be perfectly able to publish the game and expect the players to come up with their own miniatures - after all, this is what (what is left of) the tabletop wargames hobby does. (i'm a card carrying member.)

From your last comment, it sounds as if you are writing this game to provide the crunchy goodness of the tabletop tactical combat experience set within a context that lends coherence and continuity to the action. I love this idea! That bit of context, whether generated via a "story structure" or a "strategy structure" is absolutly essential for me to get into a tactical game (other than as practise/learning curve).

So i take it you have most of the details of your actual tactical engine worked out?

I'll assume that is so, and throw out some questions for you:

1. How (what system) do you plan to generate the situations that will be resolved in the tactical game?
2. Do players only control one character? If so, why not more? Are helper "mooks" a possibility?
3. How do you plan to make the effects of a tactical success or failure carry over between scenarios?

To get back on the thread's topic, i'd like to point out that all the characters abilities - Body, Spirit, &, possibly, Mind - should feed into the tactical combat engine, and that engine should in turn drive the advancement of the game from situation to situation.

I know i'm assuming a lot here, but i fthe Tactical Combat is the core of the game, the thing you want everyone to get into, everything in the rules should pour into it, make it hum.

- SDL (with all the zeal of a newbie convert)