"In my game the Mental Attributes are..."

[deaddmwalking]

PL doesn't like stereotypes. He doesn't want the person who is good at stealth to (likely) be good at picking pockets. You see, if you automatically make someone who is good at stealth also good at picking pockets, you're not supporting the CONCEPT of a character that is good at one and bad at the other.

Though he'd probably call that a strawman. He's more concerned that if STR contributes to melee, then waifu isn't as viable, and he thinks the best way to ensure that if River wants to kick ass is to make sure that combat statistics aren't tied to any kind of underlying base logic (like strong people hit harder, or agile people dodge better).

To me, it seems that if you're 'waifu' character isn't actually weak/small, then they're not really a waifu character. If River has 20x the build points of the Reavers, it's not at all impressive that she kicks their ass.

[OgreBattle]

5e literally just has "+1d4 damage" from the Enlarge spell, which is fine except for the requirement of more rolls per attack every round, but it's a good direction.

Higher level monsters such as ancient dragons and various giants have high STR and CON built into the statblock, and aside from great natural armor (also scales with level) DEX tends to be low so it doesn't blow the RNG through the roof.

But in 3e mechanics, figuring out the effective Spell DC (assuming a base of 4 + 1/2 level + 10) would pretty much be derived at later levels by using either FnK Tome or Kaelik's version of stat growth, take the number value from what's assumed to be the primary casting stat bonus, and add it.

I figure that's a problem with scaling the core mechanics and scaling 10+ levels. Spells kinda have that sorted out with adding d6's to fireballs

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

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 Firefly? FFS, Firefly? DeadDM really is immersed in bad fiction.

The skills they presented are actually almost a pretty good example. Lets make it a little more obvious than picking pockets though and point out Lock picking vs sneaking.

These two skills are bundled together by a base attribute in 3.x and (thanks to blind tradition) many other systems.

When you invest in the required base attribute to build a character good at sneaking, you are also paying for that character to also be good at lock picking regardless of how that meshes with your actual planned character build.

Sure, a sneaking AND lock picking thief might be fine. But why does a sneaking pick pocketing thief HAVE to pay to be good at lock picking? Why does a sneaking sniper have to be good at either lock picking or picking pockets? Why does a Rogue need to invest in the wisdom of a Philosopher to be competitive at spotting things? Or the intellect of a Scientist to search a room for treasure properly? Why do ranged attackers have to be good at sneaking? Why does going first in combat make you good at picking locks? Why does being good at surviving a fire ball attack make you good at tight-rope?

It's basically fundamental to bundling a bunch of options together and forcing you to buy them in bulk.

I don't mind (as much) with classes. They do exactly the same thing but it's usually more thematically appropriate and even when not thematic is usually at least more transparent and obvious. But attributes are just taking a bunch of vague descriptive concepts and then arbitrarily bundling options into them in ways which are often not clearly intuitive and frequently surprise the less mechanically savvy player with weird associations that don't make sense and undermine both their preferred build goals and also just the basic functionality of their organic characters.

And you might say. "Hey. 3.x is a good counter example, even lock picking and sneaking can be invested in separately with skill ranks", then in the same breath say something like, "Hey, there is no way you could possibly build final derived values/entire characters WITHOUT base attributes!". And I hope that pointing out that those two things are contradictory arguments points you in the right direction.

Even traditional systems that use base attributes have OTHER character building mechanics in them. Even more than just Class choice as well, if you would believe it. In fact, it's actually pretty weird in a complex TTRPG for almost ANY final derived attribute to be exclusively determined by base attribute. All the items, ranks and feats and other more direct types of mechanical investment into derived values and abilities are in my view good things (well at least in this respect).

You can just use those portions of existing character building mechanics and drop the base attribute contribution. It would work fine. Personally, I do other things, but we don't need to advocate for every last thing that I'm currently up to to just to remove base attributes.

Of course then people panic about "defaulting" when characters do not invest anything in a final derived value. Like they've never seen a zero in their life. But I'd argue that not investing in an option SHOULD see characters defaulting to zero, or whatever other less elegant number or effect your system decides. And that instead defaulting to various arbitrary probably too low to matter numbers because you coincidentally invested in tightrope walking is not qualitatively any better and IS needlessly more complex.

All this is only part of the issue with base attributes. A lot of the worst things they do is when you combine them with other bad mechanics, like Race mechanics. Or when they sabotage borderline mechanics like Class mechanics. But I think those have been mentioned enough and the whole "Why did you bundle that? You didn't need to bundle that. Bundling that was stupid. Look at what you did by bundling that." is effectively the underlying and most unavoidable issue in the end, even the ultimate source of all the emergent issues with the mechanic.

And no, lets not see another "but what if bundle was perfect!" argument either. They are never perfect. It's inherent in the bundle being arbitrary and the players desire for customizing their character being arbitrary. No "better bundle", no matter how hypothetical, can solve the conflict between arbitrary and arbitrary.

[Foxwarrior]

Personally, I do other things

You gonna release a fully playable out of the box version of Mousetrap soon?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

We'll all gonna release fully playable TTRPGs soon!

[Foxwarrior]

Nah I released a pair of them years ago.

And PhoneLobster's got really close to being fully playable in 2017.

[MGuy]

I wonder how common it is for people to be confounded by the idea that an agi character being a bit better at going first, being accurate, and typically making better thieves. Seems like something that would be right in line with people's expectations when you're making a DnD esque game. I guess this is just another one of those personal PL things.

[Kaelik]

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.

Like if you want to argue that a PB game like Champions shouldn't have attributes, at least under PL's argument that could kind of make sense.

But "It's not fair that when I choose to be good at picking things up I'm also slightly better at smashing people with a mace because I should have total severability in my character resource choices, now excuse me as I take a level in Rogue which gives me Trapfinding, Sneak Attack, and Evasion."

[merxa]

PL ideas are no less arbitrary -- why must I be good at picking all locks? Maybe I only want to be good at picking mechanical locks and not magical (or digital) locks, why isn't there 2 or 3 or 4 lock picking skills and don't get me started on disable device -- it's outrageous my character is as good at disabling wagons as they are at disabling pressure releases. I want my points back so I can perfectly model my snowflake character who can lift 1000 pounds but not damage objects.

[Kaelik]

PL ideas are no less arbitrary -- why must I be good at picking all locks? Maybe I only want to be good at picking mechanical locks and not magical (or digital) locks, why isn't there 2 or 3 or 4 lock picking skills and don't get me started on disable device -- it's outrageous my character is as good at disabling wagons as they are at disabling pressure releases. I want my points back so I can perfectly model my snowflake character who can lift 1000 pounds but not damage objects.

I did specify "Maybe kind of make sense" because it would be extremely contextual on the game, what it is designed for, and what the skills are.

I just wanted to narrow down on how a long rant about it is NOT OKAY to have to have FAST and RAGER be linked, because what if you want them unlinked! And then taking a level in barbarian for Fast Movement and Rage sort of just like.... What?

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

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 head for the class mechanic. And if you have a problem with that you should escalate to a Classless system, something I think is also a good idea. It's just, another incremental step further than dealing with base attributes.

Remember, I do think Classes have loosely this same problem. If I were getting the full wish list of character design freedom, or even the full "that seems actually achievable" cut down version of it I am definitely going, no base attributes, no classes, no races. Not in recognizable forms anyway.

It's just that I think that class mechanics are more forgivable as a means of arbitrary bundling of options because that is ALL they exist for. a "Samurai" class doesn't exist because someone thinks they can simulate human beings with 6 numbers and things escalated in unexpected ways and now we have to deal with the complex fall out. It exists for the explicit purpose of bundling an arbitrary set of abilities. It does what it says on the box and that is important.

Base attributes masquerade as a realist descriptive element when they are, like classes, an arbitrary bundling of abilities, just without design discipline and stomping all over your character description as well as it's mechanical function.

If base attributes were purely an intentional transparent option bundling mechanic. They would just BE a Class mechanic and your class would be "Strong" or "Smart" etc... And that would be better. But still pretty limiting.

(But don't imagine d20 Modern is an example of doing that well, since it isn't an example of doing anything well.)

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

PL, I appreciate your continued crusade against the oppressive, hierarchical class system. Supreme character customization derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical Gygaxian ceremony. You can't expect to wield real customization just because Monte Cook threw a class at you.

[JonSetanta]

We'll all gonna release fully playable TTRPGs soon!

Mehhhhh I thought my FHB "Domain" was ready but then PF2 came out and I was all... "Crap. Action points per turn is so much better." then I was like "Wooo no initiative rolls!"
Then we started discussing statless RPGs, I've been collecting articles and blog posts, and implemented everything.
Literally, every mention of any stat has to be fixed.

Sweatdrop.

PL, I appreciate your continued crusade against the oppressive, hierarchical class system. Supreme character customization derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical Gygaxian ceremony. You can't expect to wield real customization just because Monte Cook threw a class at you.

Show me on the owlbear plushy where the Rules Compendium touched you.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Show me on the owlbear plushy where the Rules Compendium touched you.

Other way around. The owlbear touched me. Killed everyone I knew, too.

[JonSetanta]

Oh. Forgot to mention.

NPL's rants could essentially be distilled into the following categories, of which I MOSTLY agree about the classes determining capability of role, but even then I use the term "class" loosely.

No classes, no stats (NPL)
Classed, no stats (My heartbreaker as of last month, but even then there's only two classes and it's essentially gestalt-style combinations of the two)
No classes, 6 stats
Classed, 6 stats (Gygaxian)

[JonSetanta]

Ok so hear me out, I mutated the PF2e action system into something really weird.

That's fine that each action allows another attack, but there should be more stabbity stabs with daggers and slap pow bam punches, the smaller the weapon the more attacks, and greatwrapons would be lumbering with the recoil but deal greater damage and have reach which allows for hitting first when entering melee range.

Weapons and physical attacks all have a size value; 1 for smallest such as dagger or fist, 2 for short sword (can be used in a grapple) and longsword (one or two handed), and 3 for typical Big Damage Weapons like greatsword and axe, so a player standing toe to toe with an enemy could, offensively, make 4 dagger stabs, grab a limb and impose penalty to the foe's Dodge rolls and get some Backstab damage bonuses per attack X3 that turn, or stab twice and double move (no AoO unless you take the feat for it).

Spells are pretty much feats you can pick an Attack, Control, and Defense each round out of one spell per fantasy trope style Fire or Ice or Stone elements, but also utility things and low level Teleport and easy Summons and Half-Morph (a kind of lycanthropy sort of option), sometimes even an out of combat ritual too for more range and damage, but essentially a Mage pumps more actions into a spell for greater damage/range/number of targets.
Each round, if straight out dealing damage, a Mage can blast energy 4 times at targets, or spend all actions to do one big blast with a single save (Dodge vs Willpower, Resist vs Willpower, or opposed Willpower roll )

So, I thought if action points each round determine how often/how hard/various special effect feats/mobility, or spell options that scale with every 5-level increment called a Rank, I needed to provide more action points at Rank 1 (4) and either +1 or +2 per Rank beyond that.

[MGuy]

Merxa summed up the ultimate end point of PLs argument. Infinite bonuses and abilities for every possible thing that exists. What the take home message actually is can't be derived from the arguments PL has made. That's just gibberish. PL just doesn't like attributes or classes or racials. That's it. The rest you can ignore because PL just describes what these things do and what they might lead to or makes an argument that doesn't lead anywhere like "how could you cut a person of from making one of an infinite number of characters?!" or "what bundles of things get associated together is arbitrarily decided".

[angelfromanotherpin]

Ok so hear me out, I mutated the PF2e action system into something really weird.

So, you looked at PF2 and decided that it needed to be... more convoluted.

Good luck.

[merxa]

Remember, I do think Classes have loosely this same problem. If I were getting the full wish list of character design freedom, or even the full "that seems actually achievable" cut down version of it I am definitely going, no base attributes, no classes, no races. Not in recognizable forms anyway.

I know I've given you plenty of shit, but this is roughly my plan for an alpha -- no classes, just point buy for various abilities. In my mind this is mostly to try and understand, in an imagined playtest, where things break or what people tend to group together which can then turn into classes or if point buy sticks around, at least be presented to new players as recommended kits.

But again where I fall flat imagining your mousetrap system is that you must make some bundling decisions. Take the concept of 'athletics', maybe someone that is good at running doesn't necessarily have any advantage otherwise in jumping (lets not think too hard if someone wants to just be good at the 100m hurdle race), 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, it is clearly a tangle of opinions and as soon as you decide the least important improvement is worth 1 point, someone will find some other more trivial thing that should be worth less then a point.

This doesn't even begin to delve into monster creation, are you going to tell designers, take 300 points and fill out this 200 question survey? A ttrpg needs to be playable, and it needs to be playable by human minds as a first approximation.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

but now you need to assign a point value to becoming slightlybetter 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 big jumps in granularity that are worth enough to be comparable to actual important abilities.

It's OK to simply nominate an option as just not being worth it, not worth being on your points scale along with the "real" options that matter.

It's OK to simply have an underlying default capability for characters that covers your intended play space, like adventuring heroics, without any specific character to character differences. Then you can bring in the differences only for things, and in increments, that measurably matter.

Personally I do not want to know if your character can run 1 ft faster per minute. I care if you double the normal move distance in a single turn. I don't care if you have a very small bonus or even moderately large bonus to climbing very slowly in a non-combat situation only. I care if you can spider climb on any surface without a roll in combat. And I don't care if you think you should be 5% better at star trek trivia, I am not sure I care how good your character is at star trek trivia at all.

Valuation of options, and being capable of recognizing when an increment or an entire option just cannot be on the same scale as the game mechanics that matter is something you need to do regardless of your decision to have base attributes or not, and regardless of the decision to have classes or not.

A slight difference in ice skating skill is, for most games, the exact kind of thing that should be relegated to either your segregated MTP dump mechanics or nowhere at all.

[merxa]

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? yet weren't you ranting how buffing your dex will make you slightly better at both pick pockets and picking locks when you only wanted to be better at pick pocketing and that somehow destroys player agency?

if you don't care if someone can run 1ft faster per minute, do you care if they can run... 2ft faster per minute? or 3 or 4 or 5? your system will have some minimum threshold of caring and that will turn into some minimum threshold of point buy.

how about this, assuming 1 point is the minimum, why don't you tell us all the great things 1 point will buy us in your system?

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

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 playing is meaningless.

They can come back and prod me when they want to be MEANINGFULLY better at jumping. That seems like a goal an actual person who wasn't trolling might have.

And to the point that when I say I don't care, I really don't. So much so sometimes I don't even mind if they ARE 5% better at star trek trivia. That, in particular, they can (even should) have for free for all I care.

how about this, assuming 1 point is the minimum, why don't you tell us all the great things 1 point will buy us in your system?

I feel like you are getting needlessly side tracked.

The very concept that there are things that should be below the threshold of your game mechanics. Which is a thing you should definitely have, identify and select for yourself. Should not require me to prove I have also selected one arbitrarily and then ignored things below it. A thing I could do multiple times at multiple thresholds that wouldn't have any bearing on the basic fact that at some point there is a movement increment or success increment your game mechanics don't and shouldn't care about.

I did NOT think it would be controversial to suggest we shouldn't be tracking movement in 1ft increments and I think you are just being silly.

[Foxwarrior]

In my game that doesn't have ability scores, I still consolidate the various kinds of shows of athleticism like climbing and tumbling and balancing into a single stat, because I want to emulate action movies and the athletic guy in the party is generally supposed to be able to do whatever random stunt the scene requires.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I'm with PL on this one. In a game where skills can go from 0-50, +1 skill point is so boring as to be completely fucking forgettable. In a game where skills go from 1-5, +1 skill point might actually be a decision worth considering. People want to feel like hot shit when they level up, not like they're slightly better at everything than before.

[Whatever Jr.]

trying to make ability scores work better is a fool's errand.

-if they contribute to your primary shtick, then you fuck up everything else
-if they only matter for minor checks, then you don't need that level of granularity. People can just be "strong" without trying to parse out Str 14 vs Str 15.

I want to return to this and explain a bit more. PL is already covering classless systems, so let's talk more about why ability scores are trash for class and level systems.

Let's assume that your classes give players level appropriate abilities. I know that's a big assumption, but we're hoping for game balance here.

Now, if characters can do level appropriate things, and ability scores affect their success rates, then ability scores mess it up in at least one of the following ways:

1) characters can get higher scores than expected and their level appropriate actions/defenses are now too high in unpredictable ways and game balance gets fucked.
2) we assume players will max out their scores and bake that into the numbers. Whoops, now players can fuck up the character creation minigame and lose D&D forever, either by rolling low, or by assigning stats in a way that feels natural/cool/balanced but sucks. Fucked up game balance again!
3) characters are locked into fixed scores very firmly (e.g. everyone gets the elite array of 15/14/13/12/10/8) and now suddenly characters all have half their ability scores as identical. Not just similar, literally the entire party has 14 Con. People "defaulting" on wisdom checks are all rolling exactly the same number (unless they're a wisdom caster and get "high wisdom checks" as a hidden class feature). Congratulations, you hid a bunch of class features in a needlessly opaque and baroque subsystem that doesn't actually DO anything. Just make the relevant stuff part of the actual classes and drop the rest.

Meanwhile, what if ability scores DON'T affect your level-appropriate abilities?
1) then who gives a shit about them, fold them into backgrounds instead of into classes.