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Chamomile
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Post by Chamomile »

I have not read and make no comment upon anything outside of FATE Core. It is possible that earlier editions of FATE were terrible, and this is no more a black mark on FATE Core than AD&D 2e is on 3.5.
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Post by virgil »

Chamomile wrote:I have not read and make no comment upon anything outside of FATE Core. It is possible that earlier editions of FATE were terrible, and this is no more a black mark on FATE Core than AD&D 2e is on 3.5.
I haven't had a chance to review FATE Core myself, but judging by how it progressed from SotC to Dresden Files, I fear for its quality. I've heard that it's picked up some of Apocalypse*World's bear mechanics, which worries me even further. I can find out when I actually get the book in hand.
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Post by Chamomile »

virgil wrote:
Chamomile wrote:I have not read and make no comment upon anything outside of FATE Core. It is possible that earlier editions of FATE were terrible, and this is no more a black mark on FATE Core than AD&D 2e is on 3.5.
I haven't had a chance to review FATE Core myself, but judging by how it progressed from SotC to Dresden Files, I fear for its quality. I've heard that it's picked up some of Apocalypse*World's bear mechanics, which worries me even further. I can find out when I actually get the book in hand.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

infected slut princess wrote:I think PhoneLobster's nearly-complete system is in the My Own Invention forum somewhere.
Yep, I'm mulling over bringing my latest generation of documents up to pace and updating it, but it is over here. The Good Traits/Bad Traits system used in the thread it is basically what I'm talking about as my own angle on the "screw it, lets try just dumping base attributes" option. In fact I think if you flip over to page 3ish there is the first play example of characters that are basically only differentiated by a few items and their basic Good/Bad Trait options having taken no other skills yet.

The only significant difference on the Good Traits/Bat Traits angle in the newer generation of rules not currently over there is that I've added a few more good and bad traits to the lists for selection, and frankly, if anything that just pollutes the concept a bit because some of the new traits are a bit more questionable and having larger lists of traits selectable for those options probably over all undermines their role as a common stereotype/theme, since "Oh look that guy is Fast!" is a bit less the case when "Oh look that guy is Fast, or maybe one of those other things a bit like it..."
Frank and everyone else wrote:BATMAN!
It's somewhat off topic. But I'd always like to see a resurrection or a reincarnation of something similar to my "How To Write No Rules" thread, since rules lite mechanics are interesting so I'm more than happy to go off on this tangent.

Yeah, the "Batman: rating Awesome" problem is very common in rules lite skill/attribute type systems. And is commonly a problem, especially in systems with bad pricing weights applied to being "Batman: rating Awesome" and even worse ones commonly applied to "Star Trek (Deep space nine only) Trivia : rating hey why does this cost so fucking much?".

My personal approach to that when writing a rules lite system is to encourage (and write preachy guidelines for) the idea that basically all skill applications are by negotiation and negotiation is expected to be flexible and generous with as many damn skills as possible. Sufficient negotiation over a "Dental Hygiene : Rating Kick Ass" skill could, and probably should make it just as useful as Batman, or close enough to given limited time frames.

If for whatever reason a player does not feel they can negotiate a clearly more narrow looking skill up to batman standards, they should be heavily encouraged to just damn well take a batman standard skill.

It's a kludge and relies on at the table adjudication to make it work... but that's rules lite RPGs for you. And the alternatives are largely bullshit. Because you can't actually just weight "Batman" as just being better than "Blades" or whatever, because it's all bullshit at the table adjudication anyway and it actually is possible (if slightly more bullshit) that the batman skill will genuinely be less valuable in play. And in a much LESS predictable and condemnable way than we can complain about more structured skills in more formal rules systems like a 3.X D&D "Craft: Baskets" vs "Tumble".

Of course... that has relatively little to do with actual base attributes. Unless you want to bring it back to one issue that has occurred in worse editions of various base attribute systems where at least one base attribute falls into the "clearly dump stat" territory of not being one of the batman level attributes. But 3E brought us pretty close to, and almost as close as you are likely to, eliminating that, so I think we can say that alone is only really an issue in the bad systems.

edit:Actually come to think of it, I'm happy to see the tangent of "Rules Lite Systems and the problem with really broad rules lite skills" be a thing... I don't think I'm nearly as comfortable with the Batman example specifically.

Just because A)I personally think Batman is an asshole and hate his work and B)Like every gaming den thread that has ever ended up revolving around Batman as an example has ended up tasting like three sorts of suck.
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Post by Mask_De_H »

virgil wrote:
Chamomile wrote:I have not read and make no comment upon anything outside of FATE Core. It is possible that earlier editions of FATE were terrible, and this is no more a black mark on FATE Core than AD&D 2e is on 3.5.
I haven't had a chance to review FATE Core myself, but judging by how it progressed from SotC to Dresden Files, I fear for its quality. I've heard that it's picked up some of Apocalypse*World's bear mechanics, which worries me even further. I can find out when I actually get the book in hand.
The only _*W aspects I can think of that it picked up are:
  • When you hit, but don't beat the DC you can either fail and take a Fate Point or succeed with a snag.
  • FATE Accelerated Edition uses specific adjectives as skill/stat hybrids. The fantasy heartbreaker makes it the D&D stats instead.
FATE Core does, in fact, have a free SRD to peruse and doesn't have many of the problem elements of the Dresden Files system. The attack skills have been combined into Melee and Ranged, but you still have things like catch-all Craft and Knowledge/Investigation allowing you to make more narrative declarations in more places than "I hit it".
Last edited by Mask_De_H on Wed Sep 25, 2013 5:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Dean »

I like the idea of getting rids of stat arrays and replacing them with Good/Bad keywords but only getting one of each is super lame. Bond is Sexy, Capable, and Rich and I wouldn't want to get rid of any of those words. Nor would I know how you would do someone like Conan who is Strong, Fast and about a hundred other things and where those keywords end and his class features begin.
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Post by Username17 »

I seriously have no idea what plague of hats is even talking about. I'd respond in detail, but he seems to be simply ranting incoherently and there's nothing to respond to.
deanrule wrote:Bond is Sexy, Capable, and Rich and I wouldn't want to get rid of any of those words.
If you don't want to talk about "Batman", James Bond is another great example. His character has the key word "capable". He can do... stuff. He can ski, he can pilot a plane, he can strangle a dude, whatever. He is just universally good at doing things. Any "fill in your skill names" system is going to run into this issue. There are professions like "super spy" that are useful in almost all circumstances and professions like "house painter" probably aren't.

Most versions of Fate run into this issue on Aspects, where the player fills in whatever they want and some aspects give you a lot of narrative control and others don't. Many versions use fixed skill lists of things you could put your numbers/adjectives into. This has the other problem of attribute lists where it's really hard to make a skill or attribute list where all the entries are of equal value. And honestly, Fate games don't even really seem to try. Dresden Files, for example, has Might, Fists, Guns, and Weapons as four separate skills, meaning that a character who wants to be generally good at fighting is really paying a lot for very little. It also has issues of skill overlap, where I'm not really sure what the difference between "distance weaponry" and "guns" is supposed to be; nor am I really sure how Burglary (Infiltration) is especially different from Stealth.

But as previously hinted at, whatever skill you use to invoke your powers is just a lot more useful than other skills. Who needs Guns and Stealth and Climb when you can use the same air magic spellcasting skill to turn invisible, fly, and shoot lightning? Sometimes that's "Psychic", sometimes that's "Discipline". It doesn't really matter what it's called, if all your powers trigger off the skill you use to activate your powers that's obviously a much better skill than whatever the mundane skills are. Partly that's an issue of having too many mundane skills, but you see it even with games that have short skill lists.

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Post by mlangsdorf »

ckafrica wrote: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.
Based on my experience with M&M, it's easy to see how you could remove attributes from d20 entirely and only make the system better.

GURPS 4e is rather more dependent on attributes: for defaults, as meta skills, for basic values such as Basic Speed or Basic Lift. How did you intend to remove them?
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Post by ckafrica »

mlangsdorf wrote: Based on my experience with M&M, it's easy to see how you could remove attributes from d20 entirely and only make the system better.

GURPS 4e is rather more dependent on attributes: for defaults, as meta skills, for basic values such as Basic Speed or Basic Lift. How did you intend to remove them?
It was a few years ago but I believe I was just going to set everything as the base value of a 10/10/10/10 character and each derived ability would be bought up independently. I was planning to use package skills (shoot,hit, science etc..) rather than the obnoxious minutia of the regular skill system.

As the game was going to be a fantasy champions level game I think I was planning to have weapons and magic be designed using the powers rules rather than the spells rules which again go into too much minutia.
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Post by hogarth »

mlangsdorf wrote:Based on my experience with M&M, it's easy to see how you could remove attributes from d20 entirely and only make the system better.
We must have different definitions of "attributes", because I think Mutants & Masterminds has lots of attributes.

To me, an attribute is a value you use for resolving skill checks when no other more specific skill applies. So if your system doesn't have an Arm-Wrestling skill, then you use your Strength attribute to determine who wins an arm-wrestling contest (that's a specific example from 2E M&M).

Of course, that definition just passes the buck on what a "skill" is...
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Post by mlangsdorf »

Attributes in M&M provide a couple of things. They're bonuses to skills. They're bonuses to saves. Strength is a bonus to damage. They may act as prerequisites for feats. They do NOT modify your attack bonus or defense, unlike most d20 games.

Since M&M already breaks the "being strong makes you accurate in melee; being dextrous makes you hard to hit and accurate in range" model of d20 in exchange for a "if you hit hard in melee, you might be strong" model, it's easy to generalize that. A dextrous character has a good ranged attack bonus, high levels in Acrobatics and other formerly Dex-based skills, and a high defense and Reflex save. A strong character has a good melee attack skill, a powerful melee attack, and levels of Super-Strength (1-2 to represent a mundane human weightlifter; many more to represent a superhuman powerhouse). A charismatic character has high levels of influence skills (Diplomacy, Bluff, etc).

If there isn't an arm wrestling skill, two guys who are arm-wrestling both roll d20 and add +0. If one of them is "strong", he has levels of Super-Strength and gets the appropriate bonus for that.
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Post by hogarth »

mlangsdorf wrote:A strong character has a good melee attack skill, a powerful melee attack, and levels of Super-Strength (1-2 to represent a mundane human weightlifter; many more to represent a superhuman powerhouse). [..]

If there isn't an arm wrestling skill, two guys who are arm-wrestling both roll d20 and add +0. If one of them is "strong", he has levels of Super-Strength and gets the appropriate bonus for that.
Replacing an attribute called Strength with a functionally equivalent attribute called Super-Strength doesn't seem like a great leap forward to me.
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Post by mlangsdorf »

M&M already has an attribute call Super-Strength that increases lifting capability and grappling, but not melee damage. I'm not adding anything to the system.

Strength is always complicated in RPGs; going attributeless is easier to explain for the other 5 standard attributes.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

I think that this is interesting; but is harder to develop into a flowchart to hand off to a programmer to turn into a digital engine when aspects of a character are more ephemeral if one wants to create an engine that allows for small, yet noticable, variances between creatures.

I did "something" like this when I erased the 6 Attributes that After Sundown uses, and replaced them with Light/Luck, Fire/Cooperation, Water/Imagination, Earth/Determination, Air/Exploration. Erasing the Combat skills, and shuffling the remaining skills into 4 categories of 5 skills each.

Mostly because I wanted to make a character's "Form"/Retro/Classic stuff more descriptive, and less concrete. Even when locking things down firmly so that writing the operations flowcharts doesn't have the flexibility that AS ' active skills use.

Now, I don't know if this is a good idea, but it's what I'm currently working with.

I'm even contemplating going for a three stat model (Anatomy, Mentality, Psychology) and bring back the combat stat.
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Post by hogarth »

mlangsdorf wrote:M&M already has an attribute call Super-Strength that increases lifting capability and grappling, but not melee damage. I'm not adding anything to the system.
I know, but you're just passing the buck by saying that Super-Strength is not an attribute even though you're suggesting that it will handle everything that the attribute Strength does (e.g. resolving situations where one guy is stronger than another).
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Post by Occluded Sun »

FrankTrollman wrote:Dresden Files, for example, has Might, Fists, Guns, and Weapons as four separate skills, meaning that a character who wants to be generally good at fighting is really paying a lot for very little.
There are Mortal Stunts that permit you to use one fighting skill in place of another - so you can use Fists in place of Weapons, for example, representing your intensive training in close-quarters combat.

Might is a very different skill, and not required for combat effectiveness - particularly if you choose the Fists stunts that represent martial arts training. You don't need to be especially physically strong (as far as the game mechanics go) to be able to redirect an attack from a much stronger opponent and use their own momentum against them.

The rules do say that if you want to be especially skilled at something, it's not enough to put skill points into it - stunts are required to represent extraordinary focus. In some specialties, such as practicing medicine, it's actually mechanically required. Butters is a fantastic medical examiner, but his ability to provide treatment is more limited than an actual practicing physician's would be.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

So anyway, since this thread has inexplicably been necromancied to talk about some obscure point about the Dresden Files instead of, oh, I don't know, it's topic I might take the chance to add this.

Recently I've been adapting a variant of my mousetrap rules for a "Not Really A Horror Game" thing to run one or two specific settings/campaigns in.

One of the things I decided to try out with it is expanding the good and bad traits system.

So anyway. Good and bad traits do pretty much the same thing as before. But now each good and bad trait ALSO grants access to a set of purchasable skills somewhat unique to that good or bad trait. The skills are basically just more special abilities.

It's not the most dramatic variation in the world, and not one I see as something I want to bring back to the base rules set for a fairly standard fantasy setting/feel. But it seems nice as a means of focusing a bit more on the base traits as a character defining concept in settings where the other sources of amazing powas are a bit less interesting.

Now lets see if anyone talks about either my preferred Attribute replacement scheme and removing Attributes by any means in general or if they decide to further entirely ignore anything like the topic and instead continue to wank on about Dresden Files, Fate* and fucking Batman.

*( And what is it about people seeing every damn thing and saying "that looks like Fate!" when it often doesn't? Because I seem to see a lot of that sort of misattribution. )...

...damnit now I'M OFF TOPIC TOO...
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Thu Jul 17, 2014 12:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Laertes »

I like attributes, because they're an immediately obvious way to define who a character is, which makes sense to newbies. "My character is strong" is simple and easy to understand; "my character does strong things" is much harder and requires a great deal more system mastery because you need to think through every place where strength would help and apply it there.

That being said, having attributes which have "correct" values is something which should be avoided. If every Hermetic Magus has an Intelligence of +3, you may as well remove Intelligence and just give the Hermetic Magus class a +3 to int-based stuff.
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Post by tussock »

[*]Remove the things from attributes that make them bad, like level-appropriate combat abilities.

[*]Check that what is left makes any sense at all. Is it still at least story-wise sensible for Wizards to be Intelligent and so on.

[*]See if you can hang some of the newer things like feats, skills, powers, or reactions on them. Maybe try to keep them as a synergy limiter and niche protector in that function.

[*]Check that your fallback mechanics need numbers between 3 and 18.

[*]Ask again if your stats are worth it, and make some sort of sense. They may not be, but it's pretty cheap to write them down, so maybe leave them anyway.
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