No D6 in No Order

[PhoneLobster]

See, the problem with engaging with a Shadzar thread is that any sucker drawn in is basically making an argument from at least ten years ago. Actively pointing out anything from 2nd Ed is terribad and pointing out the existing alternatives is, well, boring.

It's WAY better if someone puts forward a more crazy idea that WASN'T a massive failure in 2nd Ed and we talked about potential ways to advance and move on from modern RPG systems rather than marching the old well trodden ground.

And I personally would like to see more discussion of this sensible alternative crazy idea, that really hasn't had NEARLY enough talk around here...

No D6 in No Order
Having base attributes at all. Should we even be doing that?

Previously when looking at base attributes somewhat recognizable as D&D base attributes the conclusions reached, well personally, but I think it was widely agreed on here, were that they did the following things.

1) Acted as the basis for a fall back mechanic for bullshit not covered by specific skills or abilities.
2) Differentiated characters within the same class.
3) And a whole bunch of largely BAD things.

And it's kinda questionable if we even really want attributes when you consider that the bad things are pretty broad and fairly nasty. MAD bullshit, prime attribute cookie cutter characters, various poorly conceived attributes in the first place, the sheer stupidness of trying to differentiate between "agile theif" and "very slightly less agile theif", and yeah "3d6 in order" bullshit, or even the potential problems from ANY rolling scheme, and the fairly complex nature of point buy or selectable arrays and so on compared to the minimal pay offs.

All those things just aren't particular worth it, and when you consider that attribute systems tend to encourage fairly cookie cutter attribute layouts by class/build your "2)Differentiate characters within the same class" is looking to be on shaky ground.

SO. Lets say you just said "fuck it, we'll devolve the fall back mechanic all the way to completely arbitrary rolls or throw it back up a level to a wider range of attributes that more resembles something traditionally called a skills system, or something". At that point you pretty much may as well remove attributes from the game.

So what, if anything, do you put in it's place?

My own solution
So I declared "fuck it" on the "why attributes?" point 1, I tossed some of the stuff up a level to more complex stealth and social systems, and most of the rest down a level to "screw it, if it's arbitrary bullshit anyway 'Strength 15 vs Arbitrary Bullshit' is basically barely any better that just plain arbitrary bullshit'.

Then, on point 2 I instituted a "Good Trait, Bad Trait" system.

Because players like to say things like "My character is Strong!" or "My Character is Fast!" or "My character is Smart!".

So everyone's character picks a single "good trait" like Fast, Strong, Tough, Tricky, etc... and it doesn't work like an attribute it works like a special ability Strong characters could spend a resource for extra damage, and less effects could block their attacks. Fast characters acted sooner and could spend a resource for extra movement. Tricky characters are a bit more resistant to some stealth and social tricks and get to re-roll against characters that aren't tricky, etc...

Similarly people got to pick a "Bad Trait". And in fact, had to pick one. But while bad traits might introduce some penalty or weakness into your character, they weren't purely negative and all ALSO included some sort of up-side, primarily in the form of again, special abilities. So Feeble characters got less Energy points but could spend their health as Energy, Slow characters acted later in the turn, but could cancel out Slow on their actions at a resource cost (bonus if the action would have been Slow regardless of having the bad trait), Cowardly characters were vulnerable to Scary attacks but got a small boost to their basic defenses for being so cowardly.

Now there are some similarities between this trait system and a base attribute type system. The choices COULD effect derived attributes in a simple numeric manner. The choices potentially might have sufficient specific synergy to create a cookie cutter situation (though oddly enough this does not seem to have been a significant problem).

But in the end the 1 Good Trait, 1 Bad Trait system appears to have avoided the pit falls and largely been an improvement, and I attribute a lot of that to the increased simplicity. When you are basically writing up one selectable ability it's a lot easier to make it something fairly universally useful to a large number of classes/builds, that is not nearly the case with base attribute type systems and I don't see you achieving altogether significantly better than what 3E managed in that respect.

The other thing of note about the 1 Good Trait, 1 Bad Trait system is just how well it has been taken aboard and adopted in my admittedly small scale experiments with my gaming groups.

I'll be perfectly honest, I thought it was going to be an uphill battle. I THOUGHT that when I said "no rolls, no attributes, pick one thing off the good list and one thing off the bad list" I was going to get dumbfounded stares and anger and such. I thought that in play people would be bitching about it. I thought it was a gamble unlikely to pay off.

But players seem to really like it in practice. It arguably might be one of the most successful and popular mechanics I've introduced into my game design.

So there. If we are going to talk about crazy ideas to do with attributes I'd rather talk about something genuinely different and far lest slimey 2nd ed.

So call it a question Removing Attributes, Would you do it? How would you do it?

[Voss]

so... you're trying to out-shad the shadzar?

[OgreBattle]

Just remove attributes and adjust the math to be something your class+level+skill proficiencies give you.

So if you're a dude with the Acrobatics skill, you get access to acrobatic maneuvers like flipping over tables effortlessly while running. A guy with the Athletics skill can smash through doors like they're curtains while running. A guy with the endurance skill can run under the blazing sun while carrying the other two.
*Not having the skill means you have a chance of failure, having it means you can take 10.

[Avoraciopoctules]

This "Good Trait, Bad Trait" thing sounds a lot like FATE. Personally, I think FATE Core is a really appealing game in theory, but I want something a little more tactical in practice.

Replacing D&D attributes with Aspects seems fairly defensible to me, but I still like the idea of having different numbers for different skills.

Now, if I was choosing traits from a specific list that had an effect on my stats beyond being something you could invoke to spend Narrative Imperative, there's some room for problems. If this is like WR&M and abilities that passively boost your fighting ability are bought with the same points as interesting abilities, that would be kinda sad.

[MisterDee]

I've toyed with a similar idea, that of divorcing the combat minigame from the attributes.

Instead of Strength giving you a bonus on attacks and damage, and Dexterity giving you a bonus to ranged attacks, you'd have an Offense score and a Defense score.

Maybe it's because you're strong, or maybe you're nimble. Maybe you're super intelligent at combat, or just plain lucky. You can have high offense or defense regardless of your body type.

Being actually strong (to lift stuff and other feats of strength) would be treated the same way as being trained in a relevant skill. (I'd get rid of most of the granularity there, but that's another story)

[PhoneLobster]

so... you're trying to out-shad the shadzar?

Idea is reverse Shadzar.

Instead of "Why do this perfectly functional thing when you could go back to crazy 2nd ed!"

It's "Why do this perfectly functional thing when you could go forward into crazy future!".

It's a DEEPLY more interesting discussion, if for no other reason than the fact that all those fucking Shadzar threads were been and done with already when we DID already move on from crazy fucking suck ass 2nd edition.

[PhoneLobster]

Instead of Strength giving you a bonus on attacks and damage, and Dexterity giving you a bonus to ranged attacks, you'd have an Offense score and a Defense score.

Attributes actually being directly applicable narrow and specific bonuses is certainly a move away from the D&D style base attributes scheme and one I certainly could get behind.

The whole thing where you have a number, turn it into a bonus, apply it to five other numbers, then do that six times is a bit less than ideal, and that's in the 3E fairly close to ideal situation for that style of mechanic.

Cutting out the middle man and just saying "AC and Attack Bonus ARE your base attributes!" (and possibly extending that to other things like saves etc...) seems like a pretty much purely positive move.

Being actually strong (to lift stuff and other feats of strength) would be treated the same way as being trained in a relevant skill.

So shunting off the "fall back mechanic" to a fairly standard skill type system, or alternatively taking that part of your base attribute mechanic, calling it a skill system and shunting it off into largely deserved obscurity.

Sounds good.

[Mask_De_H]

This "Good Trait, Bad Trait" thing sounds a lot like FATE. Personally, I think FATE Core is a really appealing game in theory, but I want something a little more tactical in practice.

Replacing D&D attributes with Aspects seems fairly defensible to me, but I still like the idea of having different numbers for different skills.

Now, if I was choosing traits from a specific list that had an effect on my stats beyond being something you could invoke to spend Narrative Imperative, there's some room for problems. If this is like WR&M and abilities that passively boost your fighting ability are bought with the same points as interesting abilities, that would be kinda sad.

Pretty much this: in a simple classed system, attributes should honestly be FATE Aspects: you get a passive bonus/penalty and can spend Narrative Bullshit Points to perform something spectacular. Although what Av is saying about WR&M abilities can also apply to Aspects unless they're strictly regulated. It's the "is Batman" problem again.

Also, if there comes a time where gradation is necessary, things could get messy. Even FATE Accelerated keeps what could be reasonably considered ability scores. Granted, FAE is classless, but there will still exist certain situations where Strong can mean "lift a dog", "lift a horse", "lift a car," or "lift the planet".

[ckafrica]

I absolutely agree that getting rid of attributes completely is a wonderful idea. I was planning to completely remove them from GURPS 4e a while back but the campaign never left the planning stages.

Obviously though you will have different considerations for a leveled game and a levelless game. I was working on a system were you were either bad okay good or awesome at something but how good good was depended on your level. What it was looking like was a level 1 awesome sneaker would likely succeed against an okay L1 spotter but might be only even odds for a L5 okay spotter a slight against a L10 okay spotter. This would mean that a street urchin pick pocket could be a valid plot device at lower levels without have to be impressive in any other category but wouldn't be usable to send into the kings chambers past his elite body guard. Unfortunately I was in the middle of statistical analysis of my numbers when my laptop was stolen.

[PhoneLobster]

Now, I'm insufficiently familiar with Fate, but I'm pretty certain Av is misunderstanding my stuff on this. The resources spent for my version of Good Bad Traits are basically what amount to a very small pool of rapidly regenerating mana points (which I am fairly confident are nothing like FATE Narratice points), and the abilities granted aren't "tell a related story time!" they are very specific mechanical abilities like "Add X damage to any damn thing you just did" or "act one phase sooner". They are intended to be fairly narrow, entirely described but also potentially useful to a wide range of builds/archetypes. Almost anyone might want to routinely act sooner or do more damage and being expected to apply their Traits constantly reinforces that "This guy is Fast, this guy feels Fast, because this guy does Fast things a lot" etc...

Also, if there comes a time where gradation is necessary, things could get messy.

Much of the point of the thread is, "Is Gradation actually nessecary?" and if so, how much.

My experiments would indicate the amount of gradation that players seem to really like is enough to say "My Guy Is Really Fast!" or "My Guy is Normal Speed (but something else awesome)" or "My Guy's bad trait makes him Sloooow". And that is plenty. And to be honest, the Slow Gradation, is largely a bonus gradation that might not even be needed.

The important thing is the assignment of a talking point and mechanics that encourage it's repeated use to reinforce the image that "This character is being Fast".

Players genuinely do not care about the difference between 18 Dex and 17Dex. They don't even seem to care about the difference between 18 Dex and 16 Dex. 16 and 12 Dex is absolute no-mans land of "Whatever". And so on. All they want is to "be the guy with the awesome dex" or to have some other equivalent schtick to talk about for their character.

In fact, a player arguable has more and better Schtick for being "The clumsy guy with No Dex" than being some sort of middle range incremental who-cares guy. Especially if you actually in some way mechanically reward them for having a bad trait (and ideally directly with a mechanic that derives straight from the trait rather than through infamously exploitable bonus build resources for "taking negative points" in a weakness).

So really I need some sort of explanation for why I'd care about gradations that weren't just flat out level based advancements at upper teirs. Because for...

but there will still exist certain situations where Strong can mean "lift a dog", "lift a horse", "lift a car," or "lift the planet".

To be a viable explanation for graduated base stats you are basically suggesting we might want a game where that specific gradation is possible within generated starting characters.

And even then, that gradation isn't exactly the sort of fine toothed +1 at a time bonus we see in D&D, which provides us with a pile of gradation within something like the gap between the first two options for no particularly good reason.

I was working on a system were you were bad, okay, good or awesome at something but how good good was depended on your level.

OK so maybe I edited that for punctuation and stuff. But what I'm getting there is that actual granularity/advancement/gradation whatever you want to call it was purely level based.

But your "Base Stats" was basically a choice on which advancement scheme you get for that stat.

So you get say, Bad Stat=1/2 level, Average =Level, Good=2xLevel and Awesome = FiftyBajilliontyXLevel

To be honest I still see that as very close to a base attribute system, and possibly closer than other propositions here. Still it's clearly different in a number of ways, some of which might well be advantageous.

Failing anything else it clearly meets the requirement of letting players say "My Dude is special because he is Awesome Fast".

But ultimately you still have a bunch of numbers, and we are still going to be pretending there is a difference between a 5 Speed and a 6 Speed character which are various things I don't see the point of.

Mind you at least the intended goals are largely better sounding than the mostly non-existent justification for Base Attribute systems as they currently stand.

[Username17]

Now, I'm insufficiently familiar with Fate, but I'm pretty certain Av is misunderstanding my stuff on this. The resources spent for my version of Good Bad Traits are basically what amount to a very small pool of rapidly regenerating mana points (which I am fairly confident are nothing like FATE Narratice points), and the abilities granted aren't "tell a related story time!" they are very specific mechanical abilities like "Add X damage to any damn thing you just did" or "act one phase sooner". They are intended to be fairly narrow, entirely described but also potentially useful to a wide range of builds/archetypes. Almost anyone might want to routinely act sooner or do more damage and being expected to apply their Traits constantly reinforces that "This guy is Fast, this guy feels Fast, because this guy does Fast things a lot" etc...

Fait has Aspects, Fate Points, Abilities, Stunts, Refresh, and Skills. For a rules-lite, it is actually somewhat cumbersome. And considering that the books generally run to several hundred pages, I'm unsurprised you aren't super up on it.

The primary thing that works basically like an attribute is a Skill. It's rated on a verbal scale, but that is bullshit, it is actually a number that is added to relevant rolls. Where it veers off into its own territory, it is that you don't have to have any particular skills. People are just assumed to be +0 at tasks they didn't write on their character sheet, so if you don't want to bother with writing down how strong or wise you are you just don't. Suffers a bit from the "Skill: Is Batman, Rating: Awesome" problem, but most rules-lites do.

The main shtick of FATE is the Aspects. These are basically narrative hooks that can be used as a coup excuse for the plot or to modify rolls. They generate and are powered by your Fate Points. Whenever you make a plot invocation or roll modification against your perceived interests, the Fate Point cost is negative, and when you change the plot or modify a roll in your favor the cost is positive. Again, the aspect "Is Batman" is much more useful than the aspect "Is a Janitor".

And then people have abilities, spells, feats, stunts, and whatever the fuck in various Fate spinoff games. These are basically actual abilities that do specific things. Some of them cost Fate points to use, some do not. Some of these are just situational bonuses to various skills. Like +2 to initiative in social conflict tests (note, the RNG is small in that game, and +2 is quite a large bonus). Or they might let you do weird shit like use your deceit skill to take stuff from other people. Still others come with a small package of stuff, like if you're a Ghost Speaker then it comes with the ability to see ghosts, but also that you get to make contacts rolls to get information from ghosts and that ghosts show up and give you missions and shit. These are extremely tenuously balanced, and run the gamut from adding +1 to a roll you will probably never make to auto-succeeding on difficult and important tasks. So um, yeah.

Not really sure how closely any of this corresponds to what you are mapping out in your head because you aren't very good at explaining yourself.

-Username17

[hogarth]

Instead of Strength giving you a bonus on attacks and damage, and Dexterity giving you a bonus to ranged attacks, you'd have an Offense score and a Defense score.

Attributes actually being directly applicable narrow and specific bonuses is certainly a move away from the D&D style base attributes scheme and one I certainly could get behind.

The whole thing where you have a number, turn it into a bonus, apply it to five other numbers, then do that six times is a bit less than ideal, and that's in the 3E fairly close to ideal situation for that style of mechanic.

Cutting out the middle man and just saying "AC and Attack Bonus ARE your base attributes!" (and possibly extending that to other things like saves etc...) seems like a pretty much purely positive move.

That's the direction that Champions/HERO and Mutants & Masterminds have moved in, and I think it works well enough.

As for your particular system, there aren't enough details to criticize it (not surprisingly).

[...You Lost Me]

It's a good idea. But I feel like losing attributes means a lot of actions will use the same numbers (all DCs at level 12 are 16, all saves are 8). Perhaps that's easy enough to solve though.

[Schleiermacher]

Well, Mutants and Masterminds avoids that with a tradeoff system. It has a balance problem in that high defense is less valuable than high toughness, because failure on Toughness saves is by degrees, but getting hit is binary so if you were going to get hit anyway there's no incentive not to sell off all your defense. If all attacks were Autofire for free, I think it would be more balanced.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Now, I'm insufficiently familiar with Fate, but I'm pretty certain Av is misunderstanding my stuff on this. The resources spent for my version of Good Bad Traits are basically what amount to a very small pool of rapidly regenerating mana points (which I am fairly confident are nothing like FATE Narratice points), and the abilities granted aren't "tell a related story time!" they are very specific mechanical abilities like "Add X damage to any damn thing you just did" or "act one phase sooner". They are intended to be fairly narrow, entirely described but also potentially useful to a wide range of builds/archetypes. Almost anyone might want to routinely act sooner or do more damage and being expected to apply their Traits constantly reinforces that "This guy is Fast, this guy feels Fast, because this guy does Fast things a lot" etc...

Okay, then it definitely sounds like the closest thing I've been exposed too is the the trait system in WR&M. All I can say is, if combat is a big part of your game and there are traits more useful out of combat, you should probably divide those into separate pools. You shouldn't be buying "Strong" and "Photographic Memory" with the same points in a combat-oriented RPG.

[infected slut princess]

As for your particular system, there aren't enough details to criticize it (not surprisingly).

I think PhoneLobster's nearly-complete system is in the My Own Invention forum somewhere.

[codeGlaze]

I mulled over doing something akin to 'attribute feats' in place of attributes.

So using.... points or something you'd "buy" Strong! (1) and Wise! (1). For... 2 points or however it gets weighted.

My thoughts were maybe allowing for the attFeats to give bonuses as your power level (CL) goes up with multiple ranks giving better bonuses or something along those lines. Probably break up the buys for Physical/Mental/Social, possibly allow for classes to give a free rank/point to a certain stat or two.

Ranks could be used to easily compare against people who have also invested in those attFeats when having an opposed attribute contest. Initially the thought-exercise was to try and solve two things.

1) Not force people to invest in shit that isn't "special" about them.
2) Try and think up some sane way to have Strong! contests between various sized individuals in an easy to understand way. So maybe ranks in Strong would allow you to increase your size-category eventually (or at least the category you're competing in). So it's be Strong![M 2] for a human and Strong![L 1] for a giant.

That was the basic gist, I've never sat down to try and reconcile all the problems, though.

[Orion]

In most cases, I would rather see attribute feats work by chains rather than by autoscaling. Heracles and Aragorn both want to start with Heroic Strength, but only one of them needs Impossible Strength, while the other instead goes for Necromastery and Impossible Charisma.

[Chamomile]

It's rated on a verbal scale, but that is bullshit, it is actually a number that is added to relevant rolls. Where it veers off into its own territory, it is that you don't have to have any particular skills. People are just assumed to be +0 at tasks they didn't write on their character sheet, so if you don't want to bother with writing down how strong or wise you are you just don't. Suffers a bit from the "Skill: Is Batman, Rating: Awesome" problem, but most rules-lites do.

While the rest of your post is accurate in the current edition, neither of the statements in this paragraph specifically are true. In FATE Core, there's still a verbal scale, but it's presented alongside a numeric scale and you're asked to use whichever you prefer. Unsurprisingly, I prefer the scale that makes sense.

Also, in FATE Core there is a default skill list. GMs are encouraged to modify the skill list to suit their campaign, however all characters in that campaign must still pull from the same list.

[Plague of Hats]

While the rest of your post is accurate in the current edition, neither of the statements in this paragraph specifically are true. In FATE Core, there's still a verbal scale, but it's presented alongside a numeric scale and you're asked to use whichever you prefer. Unsurprisingly, I prefer the scale that makes sense.

Also, in FATE Core there is a default skill list. GMs are encouraged to modify the skill list to suit their campaign, however all characters in that campaign must still pull from the same list.

These things aren't even new. "The Ladder", as the descriptor/numeral core of FUDGE/FATE is called, has been the way it is for close to two decades. Maybe more. There's also been some sort of suggested skill list or guided skill list creation in all the "generic" versions of FUDGE and FATE.

Complaining seriously that someone will show up to your Fate game and declare they are the guy with "Skill: Batman, Rating: Awesome" is equivalent to biting your nails over the guy who shows up to your typical D&D startup and declares they'll be playing a 20th level balrog. But I'm sure Frank knows and cares deeply about his mistake already.

[virgil]

Complaining seriously that someone will show up to your Fate game and declare they are the guy with "Skill: Batman, Rating: Awesome" is equivalent to biting your nails over the guy who shows up to your typical D&D startup and declares they'll be playing a 20th level balrog. But I'm sure Frank knows and cares deeply about his mistake already.

OR it could be a reference to the majority of FATE/FUDGE games, where the established skill list ranges from specific to broad. The Psychic skill has way more applications than the Blades skill, yet the two are frequently given equal value in resource cost. But I'm sure you know and care deeply about understanding his point rather than trying to sound smug with attempted 'gotchas'.

[Plague of Hats]

OR it could be a reference to the majority of FATE/FUDGE games, where the established skill list ranges from specific to broad. The Psychic skill has way more applications than the Blades skill, yet the two are frequently given equal value in resource cost. But I'm sure you know and care deeply about understanding his point rather than trying to sound smug with attempted 'gotchas'.

That's a fair rejoinder if that's what he meant, but I don't think I'm wrong. There's enough spew in that post it'd be pretty incredible for him to expect to be taken as making a serious statement about "the majority of FATE/FUDGE games."

[virgil]

It's been brought up in a more eloquent manner before, so I'm inclined to take it the way I described.

[Chamomile]

Worth noting again that in FATE Core (unmodified, at least), you can't have "magic" or "psychic powers" or whatever as a skill. It has to be some kind of stunt or aspect.

[virgil]

Worth noting again that in FATE Core (unmodified, at least), you can't have "magic" or "psychic powers" or whatever as a skill. It has to be some kind of stunt or aspect.

One of their big names, Spirit of the Century, has the Fists skill. You can punch people with it. Then it has Science, which lets you perform first aid, gather information in a lab, and throw technobabble for a free tagging. We can next look at Bulldogs, which actually has Fists and Psychic as separate skills.

I mean, sure, you can say implementation can keep out the overly broad skills; but published designers are wont to do so anyway.

Since it needs to be said, I am not saying FATE/FUDGE is a terrible system. I enjoy it and wish I could play more of it. But I am saying it has real flaws, and one of the major ones is everyone's attempt to justify Firefly's Jayne as a fully developed character in RPGs.