The Gaming Den

If your RPS system isn't obfuscated enough then people will always pick what they perceive to blast the most ass. If it IS obfuscated enough, then that's annoying because you've gone and hidden gameplay systems that people use to make informed decisions... and in RPS, when you see your opponent pic...

So I've been wanting to do a design concept thread for a while but nothing was inspiring me. Until some off hand comment about Rock Paper Scissors. And I think Rock Paper Scissors type balancing mechanics are basically a plague on TTRPG mechanics. It's pretty basic. People introduce some sort of RPS...

Point for clarifying...

Rejakor wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 20, 2021 12:43 pm

in my game mental attributes are

vim
rhetoric
cheerfulness
rhythm
chutzpah
and a certain je ne sais quoi

..you must be fucking joking right?

It's OK that it's not the entire game. We can talk about the bit we've been told about. It's kinda the only viable option for discussion.

so it still has the same sort of "btw, when you want to do things outside the rules, make something up" stuff in there. You understand the jarring chasm between that description and presenting something as an example of a good novel game mechanic that also meets one of your primary goals ...

Nah... Or rather yah. Since you basically just say "Nah, that IS exactly how it works, but it's called agility. Now watch me ramble pointlessly about the derivation of the value. And insist on using the word Stat a lot just to cloud the already muddled jargon on the matter." I mean, it do...

it's impossible to know what he means by weasel words like SLIGHT and MEANINGFUL. Slight was your word. I advised you that your game needs a cut off point somewhere . Maybe at the point YOU described as "slightly" different and impossible to value at a sensible minimum value. It's importa...

so it's okay if you don't care what a player wants? If someone only wants to be slightly better at jumping, that's no longer an option? If it's slightly then yes, I don't care if they want it. To be barely measurably better at a thing or in a way that doesn't noticeably matter to the game we are pl...

but now you need to assign a point value to becoming slightly better at jumping vs climbing vs swimming vs running vs balancing vs ice skating vs etc etc etc Slightly is the hang up. You don't need to do slightly. You do not need tiny granular increments for all possible actions. It's OK to have bi...

It seems really weird to complain about having to contribute character building resources toward a group of abilities, because what if you wanted to only spend resources towards one of those abilities............. in a class based game. Then its the same limitation for the same reason raising it's ...

What does PL think the actual problem with attributes is? He seems to say they are fundamentally unworkable, a drag on the ultimate goal of something or other, but I can't quite divine why. Dead GM wasn't too far off on some of the problems I see from attributes. I mean, minus wiafus, and what was ...

That was obvious hyperbole, and notably hypocritical hyperbole. Taking the same potential game system with the same final detail of character build and the same number of functional mechanics and either splitting or combining the "choices" only really changes the granularity and variety of...

In a point based system, you always have the issue of a character choosing to do these three things versus another character that chooses only to do two of them. No, you don't. In any system you might have that issue if you don't have specific limitations to prevent it. ALL character build choices ...

Neo Phonelobster Prime, there is a major problem with the freedom of point buy systems that don't enforce stereotypes at all: So... if you can learn a thing that belongs to a class (that doesn't exist in that system) and you call yourself another class (that doesn't exist in that system) while lear...

Once again, I think you're conflating two things. Your argument appears to be predicated on an assumption that anyone should be as good as anyone else at anything they choose to do. Why on earth would you think that? I just want to remove a clumsy and needless hurdle that obfuscates and prevents pl...

You keep making the mistake of assuming that because one specific implementation of attributes doesn't yield the results you want to see that every implementation couldn't possibly yield the results you want. I think what most of your post is doing here is picking off individual examples and saying...

I really wish phonelobster would stop saying "attributes are bad because racial attribute modifiers are bad" It's mostly the other way around, racial attribute modifiers are bad because base attributes are bad. I mean, Race mechanics in general are something nasty stuck to the bottom of g...

Should you care about Race attribute modifiers and the way they punish real people who want play fictional people against fictional racist stereotype? Did you care about Gender attribute modifiers and the way they punished real people who wanted to play fictional people against fictional gender ster...

If they are strong, they'll likely be good at other Strength-based skills besides weightlifting. This is the reality we all live in. Only two things, it isn't reality, it's a game, and it isn't likely, attributes make it set in stone. And what are the other strength based things? For example... Swo...

Shoulda made that fifteen minutes. Now I gotta wait for it to time out...

I am unsure of what interpretation you got out of what I said. My interpretation was you are still, how many years now, promoting, but not doing, "infinite numbers of infinite bonuses" for social mechanics, now as a solution for Charisma as a base attribute being kinda bad. But because yo...

I'm not sure there's a way to make stats themselves more interesting. You can make them more useful for sure but a stat/skill/bonus will always just be a thing that says a person is better or worse at something. I tried replying to this but everything you said cancelled itself out with something el...

It is however definitely not OK when all wizards are not orcs. Or ever charismatic. Or that if a wizard takes a little strength to invest in a little swording on the side, instead of the simple cost of spreading their investment of character resources slightly, they pay a cost of being seriously und...

Third Edition is not a good example of MAD. Wizards bump Intelligence at all times, and every other stat is 'nice to have'. Monks on the other hand need Str/Dex/Con/Wis. What. That IS a good example of MAD. The wizard has less and the monk has it pretty bad, before also sucking for all other reason...

I think anyone can agree there is at least a point in MAD where a character is genuinely crippled by it, where there just aren't enough attribute resources to go around for the final result to function. I think people would disagree as to the exact point where. But I also think anyone should be able...