In the time honored tradition of second guessing the game designer. (A favorite pastime of players who have never, and will never, design a rpg themselves). I had the following observation...


I was browsing the rules the other day, and it occured to me that you can easily combine HT and TO, and also Wit and Per. And you only have Reflex, instead of aim and reflex. (Yes, you still have KO and KDn).

The above stats seem to me to be interrelated enough that combining them to have only 8 stats, and the Reflex attribute, would have no noticable effect on the way the game is played or run. Not that it would make a difference if we were to all change over. But in play I doubt anyone would notice the diffrence either.

Perhaps. But personally, I have no problems with a few more stats. I like the granularity they provide, and besides, as it is now no stat is "a lot" more important than any other.

True, ten stats does provide a little extra refinement, and play balance. You have a point.

I'm not advocating a change of any kind. it's fine that way it is. And as I think about it the ten attribute system does keep some of the stats from being overly dominant. But from a melee munchkin's point of view it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference either way. And I probably should have qualified my observation that way.

It's when you try to give your character some useable non-combat skills that the ten attribute system is more favorable.

Heh.. If more stats make your eyes bug, just wait until I start posting about Mage Blade again.. 15 stats makes 10 look almost reasonable...

I prefer the greater number of stats. As Mokkurkalfe said, the extra granularity is worth it. Besides, if you throw in the derived stats, the number goes up to 15, or 20, if you're playing a sorceror. 10 or 20 stats isn't really that unwieldly. It's not like you have to memorize them all. That's what character sheets are for :-P.

I've played WFRP for years. It has 14 stats, and never had any trouble. I prefer this over the, say, 6 stats provided in D&D, and the 4 in GURPS.

I sincerely hope that TRoS will someday be one of the major market RPGs.

And when, years from now, Jake and Co. put out the 2nd and 3rd editions, I'm going to buy these just to find out how they've streamlined the system.

I would like less stats too. Maybe not as few as Big Eyes Small Mouth (the Tri-Stat system), but a few less.

Gene Ha

I prefer a smaller number of stats too. When going from the fastplay to the full rules, I was disappointed that the elegant 4 stats suddenly became 10.

IMO it would be better to amalgamate HT and EN. TO is useful enough as it is without giving it the effect of HT too, while HT and EN are both of generally marginal use.

I guess the best answer is "do what works for you and your group". I'm in the camp who quite like having more stats. It really isn't that much more work looking at a different number on the character sheet, and seperating out TO, EN and HT lets you differentiate between those aspects, such as a huge tough troll who tires quickly or an extremely fit sprinter who could run you into the ground but catches a cold very easily and doesn't take pain well.

Or whatever. But yeah, one of the cool things about TROS is how easy it is to concatinate stats down, you can get down to a single Temporal and a single Mental stat, if that's your bag.

Brian.