Vapourware Doubts regarding Attribute system

[DJOGamer PT]

Warning: long post ahead, please don't vote if not going to read it...


Just a few days ago I finally managed to finish on the design document regarding the Attribute system for my intended ARPG.
But over the weekend I took another look at the system and came with a different more "optimized" version, that's really making ponder the merits of each

Before detailing these different models and what troubles me about, I'll try to give you some brief context of the general system

So players gain XP by completing quests and performing Skill related actions
Players can then at any time use that accumulated XP to invest in Attributes and Skills, provided they have the required amount to make the "purchase"
Attribute points will cost significantly more than Skill point, given the fact there's much less Attributes than Skills
Also there will be a limit to the total amount of XP a player can gain with a character - obviously to prevent from players min-maxing and making characters proficient in too many Skills/Attributes
Plus since Attribute and Skill points are all brought from the same resource pool, it will for interesting choices between improving an Attribute or multiple Skills

As for the distinctions between Attributes and Skills are pretty straightforward
Skills grant the player new Actions he can perform and improves existing ones
Attributes improve the character's latent abilities, making the character more powerful - they also influence various stats and can also can be requirements for some Skills



That's it for the basics, moving on to the models themselves:


Model A

The current one, it will have the most detailed description as Model B is simply a streamlined revision of A

I have 3 categories to separate Attributes - Physical, Mental and Spiritual (these will also be present in Model B)
And there's a total of 9 Attributes:

• Physical > Vitality, Endurance, Strength, Dexterity
• Mental > Perception, Charisma, Intelligence
• Spiritual > Harmony, Willpower

For Model A the "human" limit of any Attribute's value is level 9 - by "human" I mean that past level 9 means a character is superhuman in that particular Attribute, but that can be only achieved with either alchemy or magical means
The "normal" Attribute's level - that is the base starting level that represents the average human's "discipline" in said Attribute - is level 4
Conversely this mean that bellow level 4 and the character is below average, and level 1 and 0 are impossible for a character to reach without recourse to alchemy or magic - Intelligence at 1 would mean the character is pretty much like an animal (all instinct), while level 0 would equal to the character being mindless (literally).


Now for what each Attribute's role:

• Vitality > Pretty much defines the character's total HP, also slightly improves Resistance to Poison and Diseases plus "Lung" (i.e. how long the character can hold his breath) and "Recovery" (i.e. rate at which Stamina recovers)

• Endurance > determines the character's total Stamina, has a better contribution to the Recovery stat than Vitality, slightly improves Resistance to Heat and Cold

• Strength > determines the "Burden" limit (i.e. carrying capacity, and therefore the maximum weight a character can lift), slightly decreases the Stamina cost of strenuous physical activities, increases hand-to-hand damage, determines if the character can break open a lock

• Dexterity > this one took me a bit to figure how to properly implement in a ARPG, in the end I decided that Dex represent a character's overall muscle coordination, flexibility, balance, agility and grace of movement, as such it doesn't increase any stats, rather it influences an expansive number of smaller character properties (his acceleration, momentum control, reloading speed, speed of casting magic hand signs, climbing and swimming speed, balance over narrow surfaces, crouched posture height, etc...) and most importantly it will serve as a secondary requirement to Skill that focus on various complex physical actions (like Pickpocketing, Lock Picking, Athletics, Sneaking and Melee Skills whose moveset is full of intricate and graceful techniques)

If you're wondering what a "secondary requirement" is, it's pretty simple
In this case it means that you can still obtain said Skill level even if your PC doesn't meet the Attribute requirement, but he won't be able to perform the actions that require said Dex level, as they will be locked from him until he improves the Attribute
"Then why make it a non-obligatory requirement?"
Because I value freedom of choice and as long as the player has the XP necessary (which is the one and only primary requirement) he can buy whatever he wants, plus this doesn't imply that all actions in that Skill level require said Attribute and even if they did it wouldn't be the end as like I previously said, players can still temporarily boost their Attributes

• Perception > Now this one was the hardest to find use, you see I didn't intend to include Perception to the PC's attribute (after all it's an ARPG, this level of abstraction isn't suited for obvious reasons), instead it has NPC exclusive Attribute that was meant to handle their level of AI awareness (their senses and capacity to note environmental changes), but I have this maxim for the project's gameplay that "every mechanic of significant impact applies to both PC and NPC", as such I forced myself to look into ways to implement this in a natural manner, where's what I came up with: determines the speed at which the "aim" of long range weapons reach their most accurate point (the accuracy being determined by the Marksman Skill); coupled with the Subsistence Skill and Intelligence Attribute determines the efficacy of a character's medical examination; required to identify items when pickpocketing; very important for trap disarmament as it's what identifies the trap and informs the player whatever or not he has Skill level to match the trap's complexity; highlights secrets and small objects that can be easily missed; adds extra elements to the HUD (sound meter, light gem, enemy HP+St+Con, temperature, time of day, (de)buffs); finally Perception bellow level 4 starts to actually decrease "draw distance" and audition

• Charisma > the charm/influence a character can have on others and his overall understanding of social mores and human behavior: affects an NPC's initial disposition as well as how much a character's conduct raise or reduce said Disposition; Attribute that most improves dialogue choices; lowers Speechcraft and Barter requirements, even unlocks some new ones choices, and is a secondary requirement in certain levels of these Skills; major factor in "influence" spells; lowers the "conspicuousness" of certain actions; lowers the hostility of certain creatures

• Intelligence > Intelligence is fairly simple: it rules the "Comprehension" Stat, which determines the number of spells a character can learn; like all Mental Attributes it will unlock some dialogue choices (but not to the same degree as Charisma), but the most important impact is that bellow average Intelligence worsens available dialogue options; finally it might be used as a secondary requirement for Mage's Skills

• Harmony > first of the Spiritual Attributes, Harmony is the measure of self-awareness, common sense and "insight" of a character, as well as the attunement between his mind and spirit (i.e. its pretty much what DnD represents with Wisdom only I never found that name fitting), as for it's purpose: slightly increases Comprehension; has the highest impact on the "Faith" Stat (there's a belief system and this Stat determines the character conviction in it); and most importantly for Mages, it determines the character's "Focus" limit

Quick explanation on Focus
You see my system doesn't use "Mana" in the traditional way
Instead most spells "fuel" will be Vital Energy (i.e. Stamina and in case the character doesn't possess enough of it, the spell will take remainder from the Health pool) and the task of managing the spiritual energy will be far more tricky
I never liked the notion that the Spiritual Energy was finite like Mana implies, as such in my setting while this energy source will be infinite the "ease of access" and intensity of it isn't, it's this limit that Focus represents
The way it works is this:
- the Focus defines the maximum limit a character can build his Spiritual Energy to (the ways are varied)
- all Spells will require their own specific amount of Focus to be cast
- however just as Focus can rise it can also fall (and the ways are even more numerous)
- should Focus fall bellow of what is need by the spell, then the character can no longer cast said
- and if be he in process of casting it when his Focus was decrease beyond what the spell needs, then the spell will obviously fail

• Willpower > at last Will is also straightforward, has a nice contribution to Faith, slightly improves HP, Stamina, Recovery, Focus and various Resistances, but most importantly it's what determines the character's resistance to all kinds of magical effects and mental influences

And that's it
I think it's a fairly flexible and well defined system
And my objective would be for a smart player that knows how to invest in both Attributes and Skills, be able to max out some 2 Attributes and have another 2 in a fairly high level
If the guy is nuts and tries to level mostly Attributes and not Skills, then he should be able to max out perhaps 5 Attributes

"Ok, so what's your problem with this Model?"

Well
While I tried to avoid providing little Attribute choice and having clearly less important Attributes than others, I think I failed in the latter regard
If look at it, despite its wall of text Perception is a sort of insignificant Attribute (unless the character level in it is below average)
Charisma is a very niche choice to make, and Intelligence which is supposed to be a highly important Mage's Attribute is less worthwhile than Harmony, Willpower and even Endurance

So this is what got me thinking in ways to improve this system...



Model B

And so we arrive at Model B
You can see a sizeable reduction, down to 6 Attributes with the following changes:

• Fortitude > a mix between Vitality and Endurance: determines both Health and Stamina gains per level (player raise level each time they "buy" a Skill or Attribute point, and the average player will hit the XP cap around level 30 give or take), in Model A the Attributes would determine the Health and Stamina pool limit (I thought a gradual increase is more natural, and should this not work I can always go back to previous way); also defines the other aspects of Vit and End, like Recovery, Lung and some Physical Resistances

• Might > functions in the same manner has Strength in Model A, but now also gives a Stamina gain with each level (middling in comparison to Endurance gains)

• Dexterity > also operates like Model A's Dexterity

• Wits > a joining of the Perception and Charisma Attributes

• Intellect > does everything Intelligence does plus takes over one element of Harmony, that is the control of Focus

• Zeal > the union of Harmony and Willpower, so it has complete control over Faith and Magical/Mental Resistances and only a small impact on Focus

Now under this model there sure isn't any "trivial" Attribute
I would also perhaps increase the Attribute cost and rise the "human limit" to level 10
This way a smart player would max out just 1 Attribute and have 2 others in high level, and should he seek to just invest in Attribute, he would max out 3/4 of them

The problems of this Model are perhaps even more apparent than the ones of Model A
Each Attribute might more "tight" in design, but that came at the cost of some flexibility to the character building
Choices will overlap more often between PC's, and especially the Fortitude Attribute I can already it will be a must to any Character be him Warrior, Rogue or Mage (the resources it controls are just too important)
Also as a bit of a nitpick Model A makes more sense in a worldbuilding perspective
After all a Charismatic person might not be all that Perceptive, and someone Harmonious of spirit doesn't imply that his Resolve is particularly strong...



Overall these are my reservations regarding these two systems I came up
If you read all this, voted and even decided to post your suggestion, than I sincerely thank you

 

[LannTheStupid]

If it had been for a table top or traditional RPG with pause (either RTwP or TB), then ponderings about attributes would have made sense.

However, for ARPG everything depends on which part of the combat is related to the player's skill. In Dark Souls even the most broken builds require some skill with the controller. In Monster Hunter there are no attributes at all - only progress in equipment, armor and weapons, and - most of all - the player's ability to attack the monster properly while avoiding damage. In Dragon's Dogma even skills bought by XP have to be timed to the enemies' attacks.

So an _A_RPG designer has to think about action and moves much more than about numbers. If you care about numbers that much then work on a CRPG.

In general - you're thinking about the wrong part of the game.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Combat isn't the be-all and end-all of RPG's, not even ARPG's
I already explained at the beginning of the post, Attributes make the PC more powerful and may even work as requirements, but it's the Skills that unlock new actions

Besides whatever or not the game should have an Attribute system is not the question
That decision is already made, the game will have an Attribute system and there's no argument that can dissuade me of that
The question, which of these two models seem the best designed and most interesting to engage him (should you agree with neither model, then give one of your own please)

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Stength, Constitution, Size, Dexterity, Intelligence, (Magical)Power, Charisma.
Health = Constitution + Size.
Damage = Strength + Size.
Action Points = Dexterity + Intelligence (Dexterities being your character speed and reflexes and Intelligence being the ability to see and seize opportunities to act, acting more efficiently and etc).
Some skills will rely on 2 different attributes (Actobatics is Dex + Stength), other rely on 2x attributes (Navigation is 2x Intelligence).
http://thedesignmechanism.com/resources/TDM110 Mythras Imperative.pdf
Mythras is literally the best roleplaying system...

 

[Wunderbar]

A sounds too bloated, and we don't even know what kind of gameplay systems are going to be in your game

but B sounds like something Josh Sawyer would come up with.

voted A

 

[DJOGamer PT]

http://thedesignmechanism.com/resources/TDM110 Mythras Imperative.pdf
Mythras is literally the best roleplaying system...

Thanks for the PDF mate

A sounds too bloated

Yeah that what I thought too, and why tried to come up with an alternative

but B sounds like something Josh Sawyer would come up with.

Damn that hurt
But yes the fact that B turned out to somewhat "rigid" is the reason I made the thread
I think the biggest, like I said in the post, is the union of Vitality and Endurance
And so perhaps the solution would be restoring those two Attributes but keeping every other change B made
Because honestly I can't see a reason to not keep Wits

 

[gurugeorge]

Just as an interested bystander: Attributes only make sense in a simulationist system, I think, and then in that case all the Attributes have to contribute something (which is unfortunately something many systems fail at). But with that in mind, I'd go more for B.

But it might be worth considering: do you really need Attributes at all for the type of gameplay you envisage?

Anyway, here's my hobby horse re. this topic, which you might or might not find interesting: I was pondering this sort of thing a while ago (again, as someone unexperienced with game design, but interested in it). It occurred to me that if you're simulating, then the "all attributes have to do something" is actually really important. For example, even with physical combat, intelligence matters; or with magic, constitution and wisdom might matter (magic "take a toll" and/or you need to be wise to outwit the spirit beings involved).

But D&D and D&D-like systems, while they have some simulationist intent, they abstract down too much when they have just one attribute governing one thing (e.g. DEX for bows? yes, a bit, but strength is also hugely important for bows, even for accuracy!!!). On the other hand if you were to really get down to the nitty gritty (with all the physical attributes being involved in physical combat, as well as some mental) it would get too unwieldy and complicated. So I came up with something inbetween: the idea of paired-weighted Attributes. So for any skill, two attributes from any category (mental, physical, or spiritual if you have that category) can be involved, but with one weighted more than the other. That way, you're able to have a more fine-grained, choice-based build where every attribute can matter, but it's not so complicated that it can't still be figured out fairly intuitively by the normally smart kinds of people who play these games.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

you're running before you're walking
obtain copies of rules-heavy pnp RPGs and understand what makes them tick.

D&D is not a rules-heavy pnp RPG, FYI. You'll want things like BRP(AKA Runequest, ...), GURPS, and Rolemaster.

 

[WhiteShark]

you're running before you're walking
obtain copies of rules-heavy pnp RPGs and understand what makes them tick.

D&D is not a rules-heavy pnp RPG, FYI. You'll want things like BRP(AKA Runequest, ...), GURPS, and Rolemaster.

GURPS is a good recommendation to investigate. One thing it does differently from most RPGs is that certain attributes are actually more expensive than others because they are more influential. If you have trouble making attributes equally valuable, you can instead simply leave them unequal and make the costs unequal as well.