Should characters even have different combat numbers?

[Kaelik]

Why exactly do you say it didn't get better?

In Oblivion if I had the choice between building/buying a +X item to Int or a +Y to mana, I had to pause the game, go to the wiki and grab a calculator to check which one would give the better boost.

In Skyrim only the mana stat boosts mana so crafting and gear management goes a lot smoother.

Your stupidity aside, Intelligence creates a larger pool of mana, which allowed you to cast more powerful spells, but willpower effected mana regen rate, allowing you to sustain lower spells over a longer period. This distinction is helpful.

Things covered by the Speed and Agility stat didn't become simpler in Skyrim, they stopped existing at all in any form.

Being able to level up and get better at all things by leveling up is better than having less options so that people who are stupid can grasp it more quickly, but then things are the same, except that they lose out on tons of other things you can buff.

[PhoneLobster]

Skyrim was bad, and it's dumbing down and removal of... stuff... was bad.

But to be clear, the attribute system in elder scrolls games before that was so incredibly bad that if I were to make up a flawed strawman attribute system to attack then it wouldn't have the incredibly stupid bullshit in it that the elder scrolls attribute system had in it because if I included that no one would believe that my crazy strawman could possibly be real.

Seriously who the fuck picks THAT attribute system to defend as a paragon of using attribute mechanics in RPGs?

Thats some serious WTFuckeryFuckFuck picking of the wrong hill to die on right there.

Because yeah, the predominant thing the say, Oblivion attribute system was known for was the bug fuck insane way it advanced and the bug fuck insane broken game play behaviour it promoted in order to properly max out your attribute advancement. Countless attempts to fix the fucking broken attribute system were some of the most popular and nessacary mods the damn game had, it was indeed so bad that of all the things Skyrim removed when it removed THAT bullshit everyone who ever played an elder scrolls game fucking cheered involuntarily and spontaneously where-ever they were and whatever they were doing despite not knowing why because it was just that big a disturbance in the god damn force.

[Kaelik]

Seriously who the fuck picks THAT attribute system to defend as a paragon of using attribute mechanics in RPGs?

Good thing no one did that.

Because yeah, the predominant thing the say, Oblivion attribute system was known for was the bug fuck insane way it advanced and the bug fuck insane broken game play behaviour it promoted in order to properly max out your attribute advancement. Countless attempts to fix the fucking broken attribute system were some of the most popular and nessacary mods the damn game had

Good thing the advancement system in Oblivion (which is even different than the one in Morrowind) is exactly same as having attributes at all, otherwise this would be you pointlessly wanking on about how incredibly stupid it would be for someone to defend something they weren't defending.

[PhoneLobster]

Since for Kaelik denying he ever said what he fucking obviously just did is the closest he gets to just backing down and apologizing for being obviously wrong...

...It's Ok Kaelik, we accept your apology for being obviously wrong just there.

[Kaelik]

Since for Kaelik denying he ever said what he fucking obviously just did is the closest he gets to just backing down and apologizing for being obviously wrong...

...It's Ok Kaelik, we accept your apology for being obviously wrong just there.

Since it is Phone Lobster claiming that his HATED ENEMIES totally said whatever arbitrary strawman he made up in his post without any fucking evidence while claiming the evidence is so totally obvious that he shouldn't have to actually provide it, which is the closest he ever gets to just backing down and apologizing for being obviously wrong...

...It's Ok Phone Lobster, we accept your apology for being obviously wrong just there.

[Aryxbez]

This has definitely been talked about before, far as Elder scrolls series and/or Skyrim.

Ideally races should be differed by actual abilities. For example, you could preserve the martial feel of orcs by giving them a rage ability that was as useful to spellcasters as it would be to rogues and warriors.

This notion sums up my thoughts on races, including what's been said about Elder Scrolls races/4e (once change stats to choice instead of set) having abilities than simple numbers. I think the challenge is then coming up with enough races to have these interesting abilities apply to multiple classes, or having multiple abilities each one can pick to apply to certain type of class.

Why can't the Rogue class just have an attack bonus of +2 at level 1, and that's what your attack bonus is?

Long time ago, I would've cared about the idea of two characters or even monsters of the same level having the same numbers (felt less organic or whatever nonsense). Nowadays, I feel like I don't care enough, played other games where PC's & like have similar numbers anyway, so its more important to just make things work. Course, maybe I'm missing some important thing here, I think even Frank once mentioned the value of having similar type monsters (like a wolf & hyena) with slightly different values.

[PhoneLobster]

This notion sums up my thoughts on races

K's ideas about races don't work for me. It's not the "abilities not numbers" thing that is really the problem, that's fine, abilities ahead of numeric bullshit as much as possible is nice.

I don't like the other aspects of his plan.

No synergy with class abilities? I think that is at the very least hard to do, but even aside from that I think it is possibly something you SHOULDN'T do. Even if achievable it then risks making the abilities you write dangerously close to irrelevant or useless.

In the end one of the basic concepts your race mechanics need to support is big mclarge huge minotaur barbarians. And the minotaur bit SHOULD be able to interact positively with the barbarian bit, and DOESN'T need to interact positively with the wizard alternative.

The trick is properly valuing that synergy and properly permitting individuals to defy racial norms/stereotypes in order to instead get their class appropriate synergy options if they want to. And you want to have that stereotype defying option open for individuals anyway because anything without it is dangerously archaic, not very flexible, and borderline racist anyway.

And K's system has no answer to making more potent "races" or monster characters playable, it only opens up the question of "how many utterly generically appealing and yet never class specific race themed options CAN you write up without writing useless shit?".

And any way of handling races in a D&D knock off RPG that cannot handle fairly advanced Monster PCs in SOME way post... wow, 2003 when Savage Species admitted there was a player base for it then threw the giant up yours finger at them can go die in a ditch as failure to provide for the demands of modern gaming.

If all K's plan to write generic class agnostic nothing as a solution for races can do is provide a very marginally better way of writing up Dwarf/Elf/Human than what we had 20 years ago then it just plain isn't good enough.

[crasskris]

I don't give two fucking shits if there are races with different stats, I'm just saying the game is noticeably less good without Willpower/Int/Strength/Speed/Agility. Luck could go either way, and Endurance was at least implemented poorly, but could work out, and who gives a flying fuck about Personality, but the game didn't get better when they took out those stats.

But hey, while you are complaining about filthy racism, you are also full of shit, because the fucking Nords are literally exactly as dumb as the redguards, and have on average worse personality (Black women are considered nicer than scandanavian women).

So if you want to be a stupid shithead about it, you aren't even doing a good job. Yes, you can make up all kinds of stupid complaints because starting stats vary based on race and gender, but none of those are even going to count. 1) Because you are stupid and don't bother to actually look this up and come up with good complaints, and 2) Because literally no specific combination of stats could possibly be on it's own as racist as the idea that black people are their own race, as different from white people (well, the three different races of white people, Germans, Italians, and English) as they are from Cat people and Fish People.

Let's see, ad hominem*, tu quoque (I think?), ad hominem, double ad hominem, and relative privation. And in only ~150 words, no less.

Impressive. Do you have to fulfill a quota per post?

Is there a general quota per post? If so, why has nobody told me that? I don't want to be banned for underperfoming on my fallacy count.



But as Kaelik so helpfully and eloquently points out, attributes based on genetics and gender can lead to casual, often unintended stereotyping of a kind that the real world is actively trying to avoid, at least in some parts.

Part of the problem is the tendency of attributes being personal traits. You could achieve the same level of complexity with more abstract and/or skill-based attributes like, say, 'combat experience' or 'academic acumen'. But those would be cultural, not racial advantages, if you want to give some measure of them out as a starting bonus based on choice.



* Yes, I know ad hominem is the equivalent of a punctuation mark on the Den. Still makes one seem awfully defensive if used in abundance.

[TiaC]

You don't understand ad hominem, and also, you're a fuckwit.

(See, if I had said that you don't understand ad hominem because you're a fuckwit, that would be an example of ad hominem. However, I merely called you a fuckwit because I felt like insulting you, so it's not ad hominem.)

[crasskris]

You don't understand ad hominem, and also, you're a fuckwit.

(See, if I had said that you don't understand ad hominem because you're a fuckwit, that would be an example of ad hominem. However, I merely called you a fuckwit because I felt like insulting you, so it's not ad hominem.)

Fair enough, point taken, so it's tu quoque, ad hominem, and relative privation.


At least I don't have to worry about quotas any more, a one to fifty words ratio I can manage.

[Kaelik]

Fair enough, point taken, so it's tu quoque, ad hominem, and relative privation.


At least I don't have to worry about quotas any more, a one to fifty words ratio I can manage.

You also don't understand tu quoque or relative privation (Or you can't read my post). Also, your belief that the statement "Because you are an idiot and don't look these things up" constitutes and ad hominem is also silly. If someone states that they know better than the Supreme Court whether marriage is a fundamental right, but also admits to never having read the constitution, then the criticism "Because you are an idiot and have never read the Constitution" is not an ad hominem. The reason they are wrong is ignorance of the relevant considerations, and the idiot commentary is an implied statement that they really should have know they were ignorant and kept their stupid mouth shut.

PS: relative privation only applies when you say X isn't a problem because of Y being a more important problem. You fail to grasp the scope of the problem. You are saying "we can't drive the car because the key is missing" and I am telling you, "the key was in the ignition when the care went through the compactor." Your proposed fix addresses a problem we don't even have, but even if it did, we would just have the same fucking problem, because the actual problem is that we can't drive the car, because it was compacted.

I'd explain Tu quoque to you, but I can't even figure out what you think constitutes that, since at no point do I refer to anything else you ever said in the past as being inconsistent with your current stupid output.

[crasskris]

Also, your belief that the statement "Because you are an idiot and don't look these things up" constitutes and ad hominem is also silly. If someone states that they know better than the Supreme Court whether marriage is a fundamental right, but also admits to never having read the constitution, then the criticism "Because you are an idiot and have never read the Constitution" is not an ad hominem.

That one might argue that the Nords are presented in just as much of a bad light due to below-average intelligence as the Redguards does not change that all Redguards are presented as genetically having below-average intelligence. It just doubles the implied racism as long as smarter folks are around in the game.

So that information is about as relevant to the discussion as the knowledge that the most recent try to beat the blowjob record had to be aborted at orgasm number 150.

I was, in fact, acutely aware of the stats of the Nords in Oblivion, having played the game excessively, but I didn't bring them up because they don't change my original message a bit. Automatically implying that I don't know them and using that to lessen the credibility of my argument (garnished with an insult) is, by definition, ad hominem.

PS: relative privation only applies when you say X isn't a problem because of Y being a more important problem. In this case, I said both X (The stats allocations are racist) is not a problem, and pointed out that the very existence of the races without stat differences, alla skyrim, is already maximum racism.

Huh.

Yes, you can make up all kinds of stupid complaints because starting stats vary based on race and gender, but none of those are even going to count. [...] Because literally no specific combination of stats could possibly be on it's own as racist as the idea that black people are their own race, as different from white people (well, the three different races of white people, Germans, Italians, and English) as they are from Cat people and Fish People.

Denial of X being problematic...check.
Explicitly mentioned causation...check.
Comparison of X and Y, stating Y to be greater...check.

Enlighten me again where this differs from the definition you yourself quoted just there?


But whatever, that the idea of having races (especially human sub-races) is racist in itself also does not change that the stats given to the Redguards implicitly say that all Redguards are less intelligent than the average by virtue of birth.

Nothing you wrote changes that the argument „Your example about a combination of race and attributes unwittingly creating racist stereotypes in Oblivion is wrong because the game has EVEN MOAR RACISM!!!“ is about as logical, impressive or convincing as wearing a turd as a summer hat.


Racist implication is racist implication, full stop.


Oh, I'm sorry, forgot my manners: Racist implication is racist implication, fuckwit.

[ishy]

In the end one of the basic concepts your race mechanics need to support is big mclarge huge minotaur barbarians. And the minotaur bit SHOULD be able to interact positively with the barbarian bit, and DOESN'T need to interact positively with the wizard alternative.

The trick is properly valuing that synergy and properly permitting individuals to defy racial norms/stereotypes in order to instead get their class appropriate synergy options if they want to. And you want to have that stereotype defying option open for individuals anyway because anything without it is dangerously archaic, not very flexible, and borderline racist anyway.

I might be misunderstanding you here, but you can't have minotaurs are shitty wizards and minotaurs need to defy race bullshit to be great wizards at the same time.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

Make it their backstory. Nomadic minotaurs lack magical colleges, so the special snowflake minotaur has to leave the herd, and prove himself to the college. He finds himself in a Kung Fu Panda situation, he's oafish and stubborn and that makes him a difficult student. But maybe he demonstrates why a minotaur can make a wizard, like maybe his bull rage and alpha male instinct give him a boost to Concentration checks, as anyone trying to corner him discovers he grew up in the society that INVENTED bullying.

[PhoneLobster]

I might be misunderstanding you here, but you can't have minotaurs are shitty wizards and minotaurs need to defy race bullshit to be great wizards at the same time.

I'm trying to underline that the fundamental issue that K's hypothetical class agnostic race options are STILL an inflexible stereotype.

It is that straightjacket of "your race gives you a fixed option package final destination no variants for individuals" that causes class synergy issues and the best K can ever do is fight a losing battle to mitigate the degree of that issue.

Meanwhile mechanically supporting individual differentiation means that you CAN have options on the list that are synergistic with class or other options, because it's OK if "has big muscles" is a "physical" trait that any individual (and "many" members of whatever stereotype you insist on) can have that strongly synergizes with being a barbarian and is maybe even a must have in ways that it is NOT OK if "has big muscles" is exclusively, but also compulsorily, what you MUST spend your "race" build resources on as an orc.

The ideal solution isn't K's "minotaurs don't have anything good for being a warrior, or anything else specific", its "Many minotaurs have things that ARE good for being a warrior, but YOURS does not have to". (and more than that really, K's solution I don't think even extends to options as far from humanoid as a minotaur)

It really isn't hard to represent individual variation for physical "race" options mechanically. And I would argue almost certainly easier than writing up every physical "race" or "monster" physical ability ever as a magically class agnostic zero synergy option.

[Red_Rob]

Meanwhile mechanically supporting individual differentiation means that you CAN have options on the list that are synergistic with class or other options

...

It really isn't hard to represent individual variation for physical "race" options mechanically. And I would argue almost certainly easier than writing up every physical "race" or "monster" physical ability ever as a magically class agnostic zero synergy option.

So, are you suggesting having a generic list of mechanical options like "well muscled" and "natural weapons" available to any character and using these to represent being a member of an unusual race? So if you wanted to be a Minotaur Barbarian you would pick options that help in combat and if you are a Minotaur Wizard you just wouldn't do that?

Or are you saying that each race would have a short list of possible abilities and you would select the ones that were applicable to your character concept? So Minotaurs might have Horns, Powerful Build, Maze Magic, Charge and Cursed as options and you would pick 2 or 3?

[nockermensch]

The problem with the idea that races shouldn't give combat numbers is that among your races you have shit like gnomes and ogres. A system where both deal the same base damage strains suspension of disbelief.

[Ice9]

If both Gnomes and Ogres are playable though, what would you expect them to do? At that point, you really just have two options:

1) Gnomes can't be brawny warrior types, either explicitly by the rules, or implicitly in that they suck at it. The closest they could be is dextrous combat types like Rogue and such.

2) Gnomes can be brawny warriors and be good at it. It can be rare in the setting, but at least a few gnomes are going to have mighty strength.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why can't the gnome and kobold suckage of brawny warriors be strictly a low-level thing? It strains suspension of belief if a 1st or even 3rd-level gnome wrestler is the mechanical near-equal of an ogre wrestler, but by 8th level or so the amount of extra strength a gnome has versus an ogre shouldn't even matter since the class abilities the superwrestler provides completely dwarfs the racial bonuses. Having it such that the extra 300 pounds of muscle you get makes a mechanical difference at the realm in which generic superwrestlers can in fluff bench-press construction vehicles lies 4E D&D and Elothar territory. I mean, obviously you would still want to gate the superwrestler abilities by level to avoid Captain Hobo territory such that that brawny kobold wrestlers are a mid-level concept, but I don't know of any class-and-level game that says that all concepts should be available right from the gate.

To this end, stat-XOR would be helpful. When making wrestling checks, you can either add your raw strength bonus (which starts out big but doesn't get better) or your Wrestleman level (which starts out small but improves every level). Ogres are the master race for wrestlers out of the game but their marginal utility decreases until by level 4 they're the equal of human and elf superwrestlers and by level 6 they're the equal of halfling and gnome superwrestlers, and by level 8 they're the equal of frost giant and fairy superwrestlers.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

Well that's another thing that has to be fixed too. High level Gnome Wrestlers shouldn't have to be Elothared in order to throw ogres into the sun. Probably goes hand in hand with making racial perks into flavor.

[PhoneLobster]

So, are you suggesting having a generic list of mechanical options like "well muscled" and "natural weapons" available to any character and using these to represent being a member of an unusual race? So if you wanted to be a Minotaur Barbarian you would pick options that help in combat and if you are a Minotaur Wizard you just wouldn't do that?

Yes. There are a few other things that you should/need to do to support that, especially the common character build resource cost thing, but, yes.

It's the way of the future of RPGs that we should have had 10 years ago, but probably still won't 10 years from now.

[Kaelik]

That one might argue that the Nords are presented in just as much of a bad light due to below-average intelligence as the Redguards does not change that all Redguards are presented as genetically having below-average intelligence. It just doubles the implied racism as long as smarter folks are around in the game.

Uh... Yeah, maybe you aren't familiar with the concept of racism. See, when someone says "I'm not a racist, I hate black people, but I hate all people" they are lying, because they are racist. But if, hypothetically, they were not lying, they would not be racist. Because saying "Black people are ignorant pig monkeys, just like white people" isn't actually racist. Treating races as the same is not racist. Treating them different is what constitutes racism.

Automatically implying that I don't know them and using that to lessen the credibility of my argument (garnished with an insult) is, by definition, ad hominem.

1) "Automatically implying" (whatever the fuck that means) you don't know something, regardless of whether you do or don't know it, still isn't an ad hominem. Presenting new information, even in a mean way, and saying that someone is wrong because of that new information is not an ad hominem, and never will be.
2) I didn't "Automatically imply" you didn't know it. You didn't know it, because you are a fucking idiot who didn't look it up beforehand, and you are now lying about it and coming up with rationalizations because you picked a side, and you will defend it to the death.

Yes, you can make up all kinds of stupid complaints because starting stats vary based on race and gender, but none of those are even going to count. [...] Because literally no specific combination of stats could possibly be on it's own as racist as the idea that black people are their own race, as different from white people (well, the three different races of white people, Germans, Italians, and English) as they are from Cat people and Fish People.

Denial of X being problematic...check.
Explicitly mentioned causation...check.
Comparison of X and Y, stating Y to be greater...check.

Enlighten me again where this differs from the definition you yourself quoted just there?

Well you could always try reading my actual posts, like the one you quoted part of but then removed the part where I denied X was a problem because of completely different reason, or alternatively, the one I just made, where I explained exactly why "The keys are missing" is not a correct problem in the first place, just like "the stat distributions say mean things" is also not a correct problem in the first place.

But whatever, that the idea of having races (especially human sub-races) is racist in itself also does not change that the stats given to the Redguards implicitly say that all Redguards are less intelligent than the average by virtue of birth.

But the stats don't say that. Therefore you are an idiot.

Nothing you wrote changes that the argument „Your example about a combination of race and attributes unwittingly creating racist stereotypes in Oblivion is wrong because the game has EVEN MOAR RACISM!!!“ is about as logical, impressive or convincing as wearing a turd as a summer hat.

Actually, it is quite convincing, but you can't see it, because you are an idiot. Because see, your point is both false, and also not helpful even if it were true.

[nockermensch]

Why can't the gnome and kobold suckage of brawny warriors be strictly a low-level thing? It strains suspension of belief if a 1st or even 3rd-level gnome wrestler is the mechanical near-equal of an ogre wrestler, but by 8th level or so the amount of extra strength a gnome has versus an ogre shouldn't even matter since the class abilities the superwrestler provides completely dwarfs the racial bonuses. Having it such that the extra 300 pounds of muscle you get makes a mechanical difference at the realm in which generic superwrestlers can in fluff bench-press construction vehicles lies 4E D&D and Elothar territory. I mean, obviously you would still want to gate the superwrestler abilities by level to avoid Captain Hobo territory such that that brawny kobold wrestlers are a mid-level concept, but I don't know of any class-and-level game that says that all concepts should be available right from the gate.

To this end, stat-XOR would be helpful. When making wrestling checks, you can either add your raw strength bonus (which starts out big but doesn't get better) or your Wrestleman level (which starts out small but improves every level). Ogres are the master race for wrestlers out of the game but their marginal utility decreases until by level 4 they're the equal of human and elf superwrestlers and by level 6 they're the equal of halfling and gnome superwrestlers, and by level 8 they're the equal of frost giant and fairy superwrestlers.

I see absolutely no problem with this.

[K]

It really isn't hard to represent individual variation for physical "race" options mechanically. And I would argue almost certainly easier than writing up every physical "race" or "monster" physical ability ever as a magically class agnostic zero synergy option.

"Easier" is not better. The designs that are the hardest to get right are usually better.

Certainly, there are easier design choices. It takes a lot of creativity and thought to come up with good designs for abilities that are useful to all classes, and that's what you have to do to get a better design for races than RPGs use today. The easy designs have been used and we know how well they work (not great, and usually racist).

For example, you wouldn't give Minotaurs a list of abilities that are good for only melee characters like a regular melee horn attack that monsters use. That shit is so incredibly easy to design that you could pull ten guys out of a con randomly and ask them to design minotaur abilities and 9/10 would have "horns" somewhere in their design.

If I went the hard design rout, I'd probably give minotaurs a Powerful Charge ability that lets them break free from and through terrain features, thus negating a lot of combat-control situations. For spellcasters and warriors, the ability would be both a defensive ability and an offensive way to ignore things like Walls of Ice that can bork spell and attack targeting. This is pretty fitting with the theme of minotaurs as maze runners since it means that they are really good in mazes because they can burst through walls and obstructions Kool-aid Man-style while hunting prey, but it's also useful to other classes because fantasy RPG players constantly need to negotiate fields of black tentacles, walls of ice, units of chaff blocking a BBEG, force spheres, entangling animated vines, getting trapped in cubes of semi-sentient jelly, littered fields of bones, pools of oil (burning sometime), etc, etc, etc, in order to survive and make attacks.

Now, you may not agree with my evaluation of this as a good ability, but I think it's pretty nice considering I spend thirty seconds thinking about it. It's certainly good enough to make it into a first draft and get some playtesting.

If instead my design philosophy was "easiest", then I'd just add some stat bonuses and be done with it. I could write a whole playable game in an afternoon if all it needed was numbers.

---------------------------------

As an aside, things like natural weapons shouldn't ever be bought with race or class slots. Having horns on your head really should not be better or worse mechanically than simply wearing a horned helm.

Being physically powerful really should be a function of class abilities. The gnome wrestler beats the ogre wrestler because the gnome is supernaturally powerful and the ogre is just meat-powerful. Class really is supposed to represent the core of character while stats should be the minor variations that make two PCs with the same class feel a little different (I know, this statement is RPG heresy).

That being said, "a gnome so powerful that he can wrestle ogres" sounds like an iconic fantasy PC character if I ever heard one, doesn't it?

[momothefiddler]

"Easier" is not better. The designs that are the hardest to get right are usually better.

Not sure I object to your basic design, but even with "usually" in there you're claiming a much stronger correlation between labor and value than I'm willing to accept. It's trivially easy to come up with designs that are very difficult and also terrible (race writeup is one paragraph, each race has as many racial powers as the race name has letters, each power writeup is an anagram of the race writeup).

What's more, my general experience in all of life has led me to be skeptical of people who say "Yeah well my way is harder so that makes it better because life is fair!"