[Poll] Your Ideal RPG Attribute System

[Jason Liang]

In your ideal RPG system, what are the main character attributes, and how many should there be? Please vote for both
1) the number of main attributes in your system

and

2) which are the main attributes (do not count derived attributes, attribute + skill checks, hp, etc)

 

[Marat]

How are dexterity and agility any different?

 

[Jason Liang]

How are dexterity and agility any different?

Dexterity is hands (i.e. for skills like Steal, Disarm, etc...)
Agility is feet and usually include things like balance, parkour, etc...
Wizardry games separate them.

 

[Beastro]

You may select only up to 11 choices?

Lame.

 

[NecroLord]

Divide attributes into Mental and Physical.
I thought about the inclusion of Faith, a unique attribute which essentially translates to a character's resilience against supernatural attacks, effects and curses and also his ability to shape that Faith into tangible material effects very similar to magic, but actually different from it.
A relatively pious commoner might have a decent Faith attribute, while a prominent religious figure or messiah has a very high Faith attribute.


Physical:
1.Strength (raw muscle power, melee damage, carry weight, used in Intimidation checks).
2.Agility (hand-eye coordination, speed and initiative during a combat turn, ranged weapon accuracy, reflexes).
3. Endurance (physical constitution, resistance to mundane diseases, overall ability to sustain damage and be able to act effectively in a combat turn, the number of wounds one can sustain before taking penalties to actions performed).

Mental:
4. Judgement (wisdom and intuition, the ability to grasp hidden meanings and truths not easily discerned by others, foresight).
5. Intellect (common sense and reasoning, ability to grasp details, ability to learn a variety of languages, mental skills and disciplines, ability to formulate plans and carry them out to fruition).
6.Magic (ability to wield and shape magical power, ability to learn more powerful spells and incantations, this ability is only present in those with magical potential and which carry magic in their blood, those who don't have a Magic score of 0).
7. Faith (general piousness and faith in a deity or ideal, the most "obscure" attribute, resistance to curses and supernatural attacks and abilities, the ability to endure in the face of horror and keep one's sanity).

 

[Marat]

It is difficult and kind of pointless to debate character attributes in separation from gameplay systems, so note I'm writing with the context of my imagined mechanics:

Strength and Endurance for physical potency and fortitude
Intelligence and Willpower for intellectual (possibly magical) potency and fortitude
Agility for all things requiring precision and speed
Perception for good use of one's senses and intuitive (or otherwise) understanding of one's environment
Charisma for social instincts, personal magnetism and ability to read people
Luck because for some people RNG just rolls differently

 

[Jason Liang]

Divide attributes into Mental and Physical.
I thought about the inclusion of Faith, a unique attribute which essentially translates to a character's resilience against supernatural attacks, effects and curses and also his ability to shape that Faith into tangible material effects very similar to magic, but actually different from it.
A relatively pious commoner might have a decent Faith attribute, while a prominent religious figure or messiah has a very high Faith attribute.

Faith and Piety should be the same, no?

 

[Ranselknulf]

The number of attributes isn't the main issue with most games.

The main issue is that most games with these attributes don't incorporate them into the game in meaningful ways.

I'd rather have a system with 3 or 4 attributes where each attribute has a relevant impact on gameplay than 10 attributes where most of the attributes are only used in small ways or side quests.

 

[Jason Liang]

The number of attributes isn't the main issue with most games.

The main issue is that most games with these attributes don't incorporate them into the game in meaningful ways.

I'd rather have a system with 3 or 4 attributes where each attribute has a relevant impact on gameplay than 10 attributes where most of the attributes are only used in small ways or side quests.

This is why I admire the Dark Eye system quite a lot, condensing it down to 5 attributes. CON is so often a dump stat that it makes sense to roll it into STR. In fact in my ideal system there is only 1 "pure" physical stat (Strength) and 1 "pure" mental stat (Intellect), all the other stats have both physical and mental aspects.

The less attributes there are, the less dump stats there are.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

How are dexterity and agility any different?

Agility

Dexterity

 

[Fedora Master]

Where's the KC Option you retarded gook

 

[tomphonse]

A couple of years ago I was developing an Ascii RPG that just ran in the terminal and this was the attribute system I came up with:

(N)ear-sightedness: works like perception does in most other games however we measure it in the opposite (negative values) so -10 near sightedness would be like 10 perception in a normal game

(I)ntelligence: pretty self explanatory

(G)ift-of-the-gab: so like charisma or speech in other games

(G)reatness: like strength in other games

(E)ndurance: like constitution in other games, more health and stuff

(R)unning: like agility or dexterity in other games

I hereby release the N.I.G.G.E.R. system into the public domain if anyone else wants to use it.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

Power thrust from 0 to 600, determined by rolling d 1000 and multiplying the results by 1/6.
Jam density 0-10 you can freely attribute up to 5 points to it.
Kill urself - necessary for character creation

 

[Kabas]

I am a bit conflicted.
Fine with whatever but i do like the simplicity of just 4 attributes, something like Warlords Battlecry 2 is great.

Like something slighly more comlicated too like Wizards & Warriors with it's 8 attributes. It allows you to have more interesting racial differences like Dwarf who have good strength and no penalty to dexterity but terrible speed. Or elephant man who has great strength, endurance and mental skills but abyssmal dex and agility that makes them terrible warriors, etc.
Also like the occasional oddball attribute like Presence from the same W&W which determines the likelihood of you being targeted by monster(or not being targeted if you're monk or ninja).

Not a big fan of having Intelligence or Wisdom as attributes and don't have a problem with replacing them with "Magic", "Power" or "Faith".
Character will only ever be as smart as the player or the writer.

 

[JarlFrank]

Quoting from my personal design document of what I'd consider the perfect RPG:

There are 10 stats in total, 5 physical and 5 mental:

Strength: affects melee damage, heaving up heavy items, forcing doors, wrestling, etc

Agility: affects dodging, evading traps, climbing and other acrobatic skills, dancing, etc

Dexterity: affects manual dexterity, skills related to detailed finger-work, certain artistic skills

Constitution: affects blood loss resistance, ability to use damaged limbs, etc

Beauty: affects physical appearance and the reaction of others to the char’s appearance

Intelligence: affects logic-related skills, as well as every other skill by a small amount

Wits: affects skills based on quick thinking, awareness, etc

Perception: affects the senses and skills such as spotting and searching, ranged combat, etc

Willpower: affects pain resistance, fear resistance, etc

Charisma: affects interpersonal skills, etc

 

[Butter]

Dexterity is hands (i.e. for skills like Steal, Disarm, etc...)
Agility is feet and usually include things like balance, parkour, etc...
Wizardry games separate them.

The only game I'm aware of that uses both is Underrail.

Attributes in Wizardry 1-5:

Strength
Intelligence
Piety
Vitality
Agility
Luck


Attributes in Wizardry 6-7:

Strength
Intelligence
Piety
Vitality
Dexterity
Speed
Personality


Attributes in Wizardry 8:

Strength
Intelligence
Piety
Vitality
Dexterity
Speed
Senses



How many (and which) attributes you use depends on the game. A lot of mechanics traditionally bound to attributes could be class-bound instead. E.g. instead of Strength affecting damage and hit chance, you could give Fighters a bonus to both, Rogues a bonus only to hit chance, Wizards a bonus to neither, etc. This reduces build variety, but also reduces the chance of players making bad characters, and doesn't sacrifice mechanical complexity. It depends what you want out of your game.

 

[Twoiback]

On the topic of Agility/Dexterity:
They are seen as physical attributes, but where exactly would they be on the body?
When you start to think about it, you'll realise that they are actually mostly mental ones.

Consider a character dodging an incoming attack:
First, they have to recognise that an attack is incoming (mental), maybe even predict the attack before it happens (mental), quickly come up with a course of action (mental (smarter characters also make better decisions), and finally dodging (phyiscal (strength - body weight)).
Finding openings, counter-attacking, disarming traps etc follow a similar pattern, and could best be summarised as making quick-witted decisions and quickly/precisely executing them with your hands/body.

As one can see, these are at best derived stats, but probably more skills than attributes and definitely not primarily physical ones.

So, what I'm saying is that Sawyer's a genius and got it right with his smart Barbarians/Fighters :D

 

[Jason Liang]

In pretty much most RPGs where there is only 1 "Dexterity" attribute, it is incredibly overloaded, usually determining natural AC, precision with light weapons, initiative, reflex, reaction, etc... as well as multiple savings throws and skill checks. It is not only the single most useful attribute in combat but often the most useful attribute out of combat as well. Therefore, dividing this overloaded attribute into two makes sense from a balance perspective.

The most basic rpg character system should have 1 purely physical attribute and 1 purely mental attribute (one example of this is Talisman).

3 Attribute System:
Body
Mind
Spirit
(White Wolf's Storyteller system basically divides this as physical, mental and social, VtM giving starting characters 7/5/3 points to divy up in each category)

 

[Phinx]

No girth or length? What kind of attribute system this?!