Why have ability scores in skill rank driven games?

[Catharz]

It's a fairly simple question. Why bother with attribute scores if you're assigning numbers to abilities anyway?

[Voss]

Other uses?
A+B is a more interesting formula than just A?

[Catharz]

1196582653[/unixtime]]Other uses?

That's a good reason, I think, but care to elaborate?

1196582653[/unixtime]]A+B is a more interesting formula than just A?

So why not have two setts of attributes scores as well as skills? That should be three times as fun, right?

The problem, IMO, with A+B is that if the quantity is meaningful, certain valid concepts are killed. For example, if Drive is tied to Agility, the obese expert driver (drives everywhere, resorting to a scooter when necessary) can't drive well enough to compete. Same thing with un-fit marksmen or weak-willed diplomats.
You could make sure you're using enough attributes that every concept can work, but at that point it's possible that your skill-to-attributes ratio is nearly 1.

On the other hand, if all you ever care about is the skill rank than a character with enough ranks in the skill is going to be skilled and a character without ranks won't be.

[Voss]

I meant that attributes generally have other uses than just being tied to skills.

As for the other, it depends. You don't necessarily have to tie the kind of flaws your talking about directly to attributes. I've met plenty of out of shape fuckers who happen to be good shots with guns, and plenty of weak-willed diplomats.

[cthulhu]

Some games like Deadlands: savage worlds, don't actually use their ability scores except for a few tests (like soak). Its rather arbitary really - you don't even default into the attribute linked to a skill.

[Catharz]

1196584671[/unixtime]]I meant that attributes generally have other uses than just being tied to skills.

So in a game like D&D that has skills with ranks but uses attributes alone for attacks and defenses, you still need the attributes? That's fair, but in a truly skill-driven game you might even have carrying capacity come from something like 'athletics'.

1196584671[/unixtime]]As for the other, it depends. You don't necessarily have to tie the kind of flaws your talking about directly to attributes. I've met plenty of out of shape fuckers who happen to be good shots with guns, and plenty of weak-willed diplomats.

Right, that's what I mean. At that point why bother with attributes? To be an 'agile' character you just need Acrobatics and maybe Stealth. To be a 'strong' character Athletics should be enough. Minor flaws can account for the occasional athletic character who can't swim.

-

On a related but totally different note, in a lot of games I think that three ranks of skilledness (0, 1, 2) are almost always enough.
Example: Guns 1 means you know how to use guns. You can fire pistols, shotguns, and rifles just fine. Guns 2 gives you the military knowledge (automatics, grenade launchers, LAW rockets, etc). Medicine 1 means you know first aid. Medicine 2 means you can perform surgery, accurately diagnose, and prescribe drugs.

This kills fine distinctions between surgeons and bone setters, but for PCs in most RPGs that's not a distinction that's needed mechanically.

Can you come up with any skills which would not fit this model well? For a while I was thinking that 'stealth' wouldn't work this way, but it seems to fit too.

[Voss]

The question that comes to mind is, OK, you can do x,y,z (first aid, but not surgery, with medicine 1), but how do you use it? What would the success test be based on when having the skill is basically a matter of turning on a specific use?

[Username17]

Attributes are just skills that everyone has. This makes them good picks for opposed checks of various kinds because you know that the target actually has something to roll.

But yeah, if you were giving someone a static system of resistances (like say AC, Fort, Ref, and Will) then you don't need attributes at all.

-Username17

[Crissa]

Some games take this into account, and give you price curves or target numbers instead of max ranks. So in that case, the Dex guy spends less on his marksmanship, but then paid a bunch of the Dex to be better at Dex stuff.

Attributes are like broad task groups and Skills are narrow task groups.

Some games even allows you to buy up groups of skills as if they were an attribute, so you can even more layers of abstraction. This can be good or bad... If I recall, it's an optional rule in Champions and was in an earlier rev of Shadowrun and is also in the simplified version of GURPS (you buy the broad groups instead of specific skills; Attributes even have sub-attributes you can buy or sell).

It all matters how you wish to build your game, what options and stories it can or should suppose.

-Crissa

[ckafrica]

I have the same issue as Cartharz. Why does strength make you a better at hitting in melee than dex or intelligence or wisdom? Seems that you should just have a "good at hitting stuff with X weapon" skill and why exactly you are good at it chaulked up to flavor. Break down the attributes into broad component skills. Level zero skills represent what the average person can do in that skill is. For computer use it means surf the web for porn but for astrophysics it means fuck all. For combat it means to average untrained people can slowly beat the crap out of each other with their fists and drive a car or ride a horse in simple conditions but flying an airplane will like result in death.

[Koumei]

1196585870[/unixtime]]Medicine 1 means you know first aid. Medicine 2 means you can perform surgery, accurately diagnose, and prescribe drugs.

Medicine 0 represents thinking a given medical problem is Lupus.

[Manxome]

The fact that you don't like the way a particular attribute is used in a particular game doesn't necessarily imply that all attributes are stupid.

Attributes (in skill-based games) are usually used as a way to specify that several skills are related and that people who are good at one tend to be good at another (or: being good at two related skills is easier than being good at two unrelated skills).

You'll find concepts that break the abstraction in any game, with or without attributes, unless you reduce the game pretty much to magical tea-party. I think attributes are a pretty reasonable mechanic for creating "synergy" between skills.

[PhoneLobster]

Though I agree attributes are used as a mechanic to associate "similar" skills I think that in that way they are really stupid because that's a bunch of twoddle as outlined in this thread.

I think the more functional aspect of attributes is indeed the attribute check, not because of the "its a skill everyone has" aspect, but because it covers the skills nobody has.

So when trying to determine how to make a Ski use check and having decided that Driving, Riding and Acrobatics don't fit, bam, you can fall back on the last resort before magical tea party and just call it a Physical attribute check (probably against an arbitrary DC).

That's what I see as the attributes place (or best justification) ,the final option for resolution before just making shit up without any guidelines at all.

Now in my current home brew I'm doing away with attributes and all this generic skill bullshit. So when I end up falling back on an action that doesn't fit available abilities its a roll with no bonus against an entirely arbitrary DC.

[Username17]

I think the more functional aspect of attributes is indeed the attribute check, not because of the "its a skill everyone has" aspect, but because it covers the skills nobody has.

These are actually the same thing.

In RPGs there are actions where the character rolling the dice has chosen the action: The Wizard casts his fire spell; The Ninja throws his poison shuriken; The Demagogue tells his elaborate lies; whatever. In these cases the player will generally have already purchased whatever skills are required to make those actions work and whatever game mechanic you use is largely irrelevent save to determine how much it "costs" to be "good" at whatever those actions are.

But there are also actions in which the active player has not chosen the action: The Barbarian has a fire spell cast at him; The Mutant is the last man standing in the cockpit; The Hacker drinks the poison Koolaid; whatever. In these circumstances it is imperative that the character have something to roll. Sometimes these are easily classified as "resistances" and you might have standard elemental resistances set up to handle a poison or a fire bolt. But sometimes these really really aren't. When the mutant is the last guy in the cockpit the plane is going down one way or another and the player is going to want to make a pilot check or something. Since he obviously didn't put any points into a pilot skill (or whatever), he needs a mechanic to fall back upon.

So Attributes can serve as default sets of die rolls for situations where you are the active character in a situation you have been placed in which you did not forsee when creating the character. In most good campaigns, this will happen a lot.

-Username17

[Manxome]

1196635117[/unixtime]]Though I agree attributes are used as a mechanic to associate "similar" skills I think that in that way they are really stupid because that's a bunch of twoddle as outlined in this thread.

If you extracted something like a unified argument to that effect from this thread, could you please restate it for me?

I got:

1) Attributes might have functions assigned to them that don't make sense, and thereby prevent me from playing reasonable character concept X. It seems to me that the functions assigned to attributes should mostly be reasonable in a well-designed game, and the remaining situations aren't that different whether you use attributes or some other mechanic. The game system always has to choose to support particular storytelling conventions at the cost of others.

2) Some games choose to use attributes for some things and not use them for other things, seemingly arbitrarily. That's a problem with those games, not with the concept of attributes, unless you can come up with a generalized problem that necessarily occurs unless attributes are applied arbitrarily and inconsistently.

3) Attributes require managing an additional number. With marginally clever record-keeping (write down attr+skill on your character sheet instead of adding them every time you use it), this shouldn't be a problem, as long as attributes are applied consistently.

[Crissa]

Is there really a problem with characters choosing an attribute score to go with their skill, if you're doing the a+s system?

I don't really care if you use strength, dex, int, or wisdom to choose how you pilot the vehicle. (Admittedly, you could give a different synergistic value, but that's added complexity.)

-Crissa

[PhoneLobster]

If you extracted something like a unified argument to that effect from this thread, could you please restate it for me?

So, I state that something has been covered in the thread and you demand a grand unified theory?

Go and re-read Catharz's posts, especially the second one where he mentions dead character concepts, its excellent and covers the point I refer to very eloquently.

Read it slowly.

If that isn't enough I'll reword it from my own point of view, which means rambling on for AGES.

Or I THINK I may have railed on about this, or something close, around here some years ago if I could dig it up.

Just don't say I didn't warn you.

[Catharz]

1196642195[/unixtime]]Is there really a problem with characters choosing an attribute score to go with their skill, if you're doing the a+s system?

I don't really care if you use strength, dex, int, or wisdom to choose how you pilot the vehicle. (Admittedly, you could give a different synergistic value, but that's added complexity.)

-Crissa

My first thought was that it wouldn't have any advantage over a simpler system, but that is an idea with real potential. If you have no training in fencing, you're stuck using Dex, but if you've studied it for years you do it more strategically and use Int.

The problem is the following: Every character should max one attribute and use it for every skill he has.
That's actually not necessarily a bad thing. You'll have very distinct characters (in terms of attributes) which can still avoid really glaring weaknesses (both the hacker and the ninja are good at sneaking, they just do it different ways).

Unfortunately, that's just the same as a system with no attributes, except every character might have one subset of untrained abilities she's good at. At this point if you really want the distinction of attributes, you could have all trained skills automatically get the maximum attribute bonus. Your actual attributes are only used for untrained tests. Then the main issues will be (1) that you're encouraged to minimize the attribute you have the most skills tied to, and (2) making sure that the untrained uses are relatively balanced.

[Manxome]

1196642201[/unixtime]]So, I state that something has been covered in the thread and you demand a grand unified theory?

Well, given that I thought I had already addressed the arguments raised in the thread, and you posted that I was wrong for-reasons-already-discussed, I thought perhaps one of us was misunderstanding the other.

I thought that going through all the arguments I had noted point-by-point (i.e. providing clarification of my position) and asking you to clarify yours was a fairly reasonable response to that.

I've already made a counter-argument against Catharz's objection--twice now, in fact. So if you were referring to Catharz's objection, either you haven't read my posts, or you think that my counter-argument is so wildly off-base that you didn't even consider it relevant. Whichever one of those is the case, would you care to explain why?

[Manxome]

1196651676[/unixtime]]My first thought was that it wouldn't have any advantage over a simpler system, but that is an idea with real potential. If you have no training in fencing, you're stuck using Dex, but if you've studied it for years you do it more strategically and use Int.

The problem is the following: Every character should max one attribute and use it for every skill he has.

One could specify a set of relevant attributes for each skill and allow the character to add the highest from that set. Which might still end up being a set of one for most skills, but would allow you to say things like "you can have good accuracy either because of high dexterity or because of high intelligence."

[Catharz]

1196652239[/unixtime]]..."you can have good accuracy either because of high dexterity or because of high intelligence."

The problem with that is there are plenty of stupid clumsy fucks who are none the less very good shots.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Because we want our heroes to be all-around awesome, not just awesome in their specialties. And we want it to be a natural gift, not the result of long training.

If you disagree with either of these, feel free to do away with attributes...

[PhoneLobster]

or you think that my counter-argument is so wildly off-base that you didn't even consider it relevant.

Bingo!

It was so unremarkable that I skimmed right over it without even realising it was MEANT to be a refutation of Catharz claims.

OK. So, apparently tangential points like complexity aside (and really you think "smart record keeping" is a good thing to require to make the game functional?)

Catharz says, hey The bad thing about skills tied to attributes is it kills many otherwise valid character concepts.

You say two things.

1) The good thing about Attributes contribution to skills is it creates groups of skills that are related.

Which if you actually think about it translates directly into Catharz's point only you see such pointless restrictions as a GOOD thing to mechanically enforce.

2) Even though attributes contribution to skills causes dumb restrictions in the given examples, and in ever situation I can imagine, you state that it doesn't HAVE to be that way, but then give no examples.

Look if you break up all human capabilities into several categories ANY categories, then there will always, always, be abilities that span multiple categories.

Just think about Climb and Jump and where they fall in Strength, Endurance or Agility.

What about Hide compared to such broad and abstract "attributes" as Physical and Mental?

You name me a set of attributes and I will name you any number of skills that fall under two or more of those attributes.

This is basically the same concept as character classes, if you have classes at all then you are destroying all sorts of potentially viable character concepts.

Attributes do exactly the same thing that classes do by tying character concepts up in bundles and saying they can't be mixed.

Only attributes do it in a way that is probably even stupider and sneakier.

[Manxome]

1196652623[/unixtime]]The problem with that is there are plenty of stupid clumsy fucks who are none the less very good shots.

OK, then depending on how many hairs you want to split, they either use some third attribute that's considered acceptable, or they've got so many skill ranks that it doesn't matter that they're using a sucky attribute.

Next are you going to complain that you can't play a stupid, inattentive, uneducated nuclear physicist?

If you really want to have people that are just nonsensically good at something, despite all indications to the contrary, I suppose you could introduce some kind of "idiot savant" trait that lets you substitute a large, fixed number for your attribute when using a specific skill (if that's easier than just increasing the skill rank for some reason).

But yes, it's true that there will always be conceivable character concepts--even interesting ones--that don't work under a given mathematical system. That's true whether you use attributes or not. You could just as easily be complaining that you can't make a character who's great at climbing trees but doesn't know how to climb cliffs, or yearning for a character that can use a pistol intuitively but doesn't have any sense of how to use a mounted gun, or pining for a character that's a wiz at piloting helicopters but doesn't know how to drive a car.

In that respect, attributes do not create any new problems, they just make the problem a little more noticeable by introducing broader categories. I don't think the severity of the problem is increased substantially by adding attributes if you design them sensibly; you're just picking slanted examples.

[Manxome]

1196655369[/unixtime]]OK. So, apparently tangential points like complexity aside (and really you think "smart record keeping" is a good thing to require to make the game functional?)

I think it's going to be required to a greater or lesser extent whether we want it to be or not. I can make any RPG impossible to play by embedding the relevant information about my character in a disorganized mass of fluff (or of anything else, for that matter).

1196655369[/unixtime]]1) The good thing about Attributes contribution to skills is it creates groups of skills that are related.

Which if you actually think about it translates directly into Catharz's point only you see such pointless restrictions as a GOOD thing to mechanically enforce.

OK, let's say that you're correct and that I consider skill synergies good and Catharz considers them bad.

You can't have everything in one RPG system. Catharz is arguing a universal negative; that there is never a need for attributes. If I presented a plausible case in which someone wants an effect that they generate, then I've already proven him wrong. I am not obligated to argue (nor do I intend to argue) that every system ever should have attributes.

1196655369[/unixtime]]2) Even though attributes contribution to skills causes dumb restrictions in the given examples, and in ever situation I can imagine, you state that it doesn't HAVE to be that way, but then give no examples.

Look if you break up all human capabilities into several categories ANY categories, then there will always, always, be abilities that span multiple categories.

I don't believe I said that they don't have to cause restrictions; I may have said they don't have to cause stupid, genre-inappropriate restrictions. This is true because you can obviously rearrange the system to eliminate any small set of example problems; e.g. if you want an obese driving expert, you can make driving dependent on an attribute that doesn't imply general physical fitness.

But you seem to have overlooked my primary point, which was (to steal the words of another participant in this thread):

1196655369[/unixtime]]Look if you break up all human capabilities into several categories ANY categories, then there will always, always, be abilities that span multiple categories.

Absolutely, 100% true. And do you know what skills are? They are categories for human capabilities. The system under consideration has this problem already, whether you use attributes or not. In order to present a case against attributes, specifically, you need to argue that there's a problem with using attributes that doesn't already exist simply because we're using skills. Which you haven't done.

Skills are actually worse, because in addition to having abilities that span multiple skills, you usually can't even pretend that skills are either injective or surjective; there are abilities covered by no skills in every skill list I've ever seen, and usually there are overlapping skills, too.