/gdg/ - Game Design General

What are some thoughts on asymetrical opposed dice pools, i.e. rolling 3 dice against 4 or 3 to 2, instead of straight 3 to 3?

Completely fine. It's a tool in your box.

okay, two things
1) borders don't matter, you'll be printing them in bulk in bigger pages, you won't be printing each individual card, use the full extent of the card you want to design and then cram it in a big-ass page in an organized grid
and 2) get some info on general graphic design, take a look at other people's work, put weight on the things that are more relevant to your player and leave the rest for the back of the card or for another type of space

your card is criminally crammed to the fucking brim, do you plan to give the card a back design, or are you open to the possibility of using both sides or even many cards at once?

why are you going for stat cards instead of character sheets? what purpose does it serve, and what's your main goal by making them so small?

look at my character sheet for example: as of right now I don't need anything else besides what's already here, I've established a clear and concise design pattern that I use for my choice in colors, font and every element present on it, and it can fit neatly on an A5 sized sheet, meaning I can print 2 sheets at a time because I use A4 for print

could you fill me in on your project a bit more so I (and others) can give you more in-depth observations?

I've been playing with the idea, but now looking at the system again. Trying to fix a thing that has been brought up, which is the imbalanced weight on the Power stat.

Original system:
>Both parties roll 3D12 base, adding to the pool size; most common ways are models ganging up increases attack pool or armor increasing the defense pool
>Successes are score by rolling X+, natural 12's exploding
>If the attack pool roll is at least one success, the attack hits and you add a number of successes equal to the Power to the attack pool
>If afterwards, the attack has more successes than the defense, the target takes a point of damage

It puts a lot of weight on Power, but originally I was looking to limit Power; Power is the weapon, the attack pool is the attacker, so things increasing damage output comes in as dice instead of Power.

The new system I'm looking at switches most buffs over to Power instead, since Power is less important.

New system
>Both roll a base pool of 3D12, adding dice with a few of the previous means (ganging up mostly)
>Score successes as before
>For every success that the attacker beats the defense by, multiple by the Power, i.e. an attack with Power 3 score 2 hits, giving a total of 6
>Compare to the target's armor and if the total is higher than it, the target takes a point of damage

I'm also thinking of it being you get the Power for at least one success, +1 for each additional. To keep number bloat down. But I'm not sure. The big thing I'm trying to achieve is the idea of ganging up to take down a bigger target, but I don't want it to become the go to in most situations. Hence the one point of damage; pile all your guys into one attack to guarantee a hit, but you still only do one point. I'm also worried if I go with the second and limit the number of bonus dice to the pools, it would feel weird when you do get extra dice.

In most of my games suppression prevents a unit from undertaking as many actions as they usually would be able to.

Most units in my games have 2 actions, and can be "Suppressed I" or "Suppressed II", causing them to lose 1 action and 2 actions respectively.

Essentially suppression is fire that forces you to keep your head down instead of activating. It doesn't kill you, but it could affect your morale and it certainly affects your ability to move and/or return fire.

Bump

Right, the reason I'm using cards is because it's a war game rather than a full RPG and as such I want to keep things tight, having a full character sheet for each model (Up to about 16 tops I'd wager) would be far more annoying for people than just having cards.
The game itself is a skirmish based wargame with a focus on deception and dice sets. I'm planning to keep it one sided so the back can have a design/so people can't read the back of your cards, but would be comfortable putting things on the flipside if necessary

>Are they once a week only or something?
Unfortunately we're having trouble keeping them alive theses days.

Time to throw around some bad opinions:
>good luck be called "Fate"
I probably would've opted for something like "Fortune".

>while they cancel out.
Not a fan of this, I prefer the Buddhism perception of Karma applied to luck; Good and Bad are basically separate entities metaphysically, they don't cancel each other out and play out independently.

Fortune is as common as Fate because it's the obvious alternative.
t. someone who uses Fortune Points

You know what's hard? Deciding on a core mechanic. Sometimes I'm in a d% mood, sometimes I want a simple-and-easy 2d6, other days I like Savage Worlds.

The great thing about D100% is you can convert it to d20 easily depending on the setting.

Well, I would develop an overall vision of what you want to achieve with the game and then derive the mechanic from that.

>I prefer the Buddhism perception of Karma applied to luck; Good and Bad are basically separate entities metaphysically, they don't cancel each other out and play out independently

Actually I think I like that idea more as well, not only would it be a little more interesting but it would allow for players to use both mechanics and not just focus solely on one.

Gonna start messing around with some new ideas based on this, thanks!

Depends on the game. If material resources are expected to be a concern, like getting magic items or paying for your starship repairs or whatever, then concrete money makes sense and should be bookkept. If your health comes back and your stuff is mostly irrelevant, then you should abstract it.

If that's the case, put the info that your opponent can know on the back. They WILL see it.

Long post with lots of theorycraft incoming, skip if not interested

I'm designing an attribute system for either tabletop or a rudimentary isometric RPG. I've kind of hit a wall and I don't know which system to pursue.

Here's what the system was in a previous campaign, ie. system 1:

Strength - Accuracy and scaling with str weapons & abilities
Cool - Mana and mental status resist
Dexterity - Accuracy and scaling with dex weapons & abilities
Reflex - Evasion and initiative
Brains - Accuracy and scaling with brains weapons & abilities
Endurance - HP and physical status resist
Luck - Critical chance and extra actions

And here's the 2nd system I was thinking of

Strength - Scaling with str weapons & abilities, critical chance
Cool - Mana and mental status resist
Dexterity - Scaling with dex weapons & abilities, accuracy
Reflex - Evasion and initiative
Brains - Scaling with brains weapons & abilities... and something. possibly extra actions.
Endurance - HP and physical status resist

Some concepts I'm stuck between deciding.

system 1
>strength, dexterity and brains are primary attributes and are more or less mutually exclusive as a balance method. this is to restrict dexterity characters from using strength-abilities to stun enemies and then hit them with a move that takes advantage of a stun.
>thus it would promote teamwork, but make character development more linear.

system 2
>strength, dexterity and brains compliment each other, so each of these attributes would be at least slightly useful for any single character
>would make character development more complex, but you'd have a lot more hybrid character bullshit and people would lose their identities on the team

I like attribute systems where each attribute is roughly as valuable as any other (ignoring specfiic class or archetype requirements). If a player ever looks at your list of attributes and thinks
>why would I ever increase this unless I was class X?
something is wrong with your composition, imho.

>possibly extra actions
Jesus H. Christ, you shouldn't do this under any circumstances, ever.

That's more or less the reason why I tried to come up with that 2nd system. But in practice, the 1st system seems simpler and easier to build a character around.

When I made the 1st system, it was distinctly not supposed to be a serious "roleplaying" system. It was more of a loot-running dungeon-crawling system where you'd pick a main attribute and build around it. For all intents and purposes, DEX, STR and BRN were the main 3 classes. Each of the main attributes had specific abilities designed for them, and so each attribute had a specific thing they specialized at: DEX excelled at attacking in quick succession, being evasive and attacking accurately. STR excelled at crowd-control, closing the gap and powerful singular attacks at the cost of accuracy. BRN was about healing, AoE damage and all sorts of utility.

When you leveled up, you'd essentially make a decision between leveling up your main attribute, or one of the secondary ones like Cool, Reflex, Brains, Endurance or Luck. Thus you could have a Dex Luck build for a high consistent damage output with crits, but it'd be easily disrupted if not protected by the team. Or you could have a Brains Cool build for powerful healing and psionic support abilities, but it'd be weak when confronted alone. Or you could have a Strength Reflex/End build for high-damage counterattacks that does poorly against psionic attacks. The main point is that each build would have its strengths and weaknesses. Everyone would feel vital to the team, since there was always something you were good at and something you weren't. You didn't level STR as a DEX character, but you weren't supposed to, either. Your job was to follow through on the STR guy's stun with your massively powerful Execute move.

In the process of writing this, I'm starting to remember why I originally made these design decisions 2 years ago. Thanks. Here's a bonus pic of what an ability would look like in the campaign.

Ah, I see. GNS theory is much derided but imho the player types are real. I am a genre simulationist, so I naturally gravitate to system 2. If you want a more gamist RPG, system 1 sounds absolutely fine.

Oh and I forgot to mention that weapons did have stat requirements, so you would have to level up a bit of DEX and/or STR as a brains character to be able to use higher-tier weapons as well. Lower-tier weapons were perfectly usable though, so you didn't have to, but it helped and your points weren't wasted if you did spend them on other primary stats.

And yeah, I don't feel bad about the system being gamey at all. There are a ton of systems for pure roleplay. They're not hard to create. I'm more interested in creating systems that are fun and interesting to play, specifically in combat, exploration and problem-solving.

I made this witch themed card game where you collect ingredients for a potion. Players will be collecting around 10 cards in a pile (ingredients), and they would be actively managing only 4 cards on hand (for decicion making) plus a character card.

I was thinking about making the cards tarot sized, would it be too much of a clutter??

Tarot cards are freaking gigantic. Clutter, perhaps not, but have you ever tried to hold them as a hand of cards? Even a small hand?

That said the idea sounds cool either way.

I could just make ingredient cards tarot size.
My other issue is, this cards are played on top of a map, which is where the ingredients are located. Smaller sized cards have a more room like shape, making the map smaller.

So I played around with the new idea. Wasn't too happy with it. On an even playing field, 50% of scoring a success on each die, 3 dice base, you end up with a 12% chance of doing a point of damage. And if using my system of of attacking back in close combat, there's no reason to not attack back and defend instead.

This interests me, considering I've recently started describing my game as Guild Wars x Fire Emblem.

Don't you dare die on me /gdg/

I'm tying /gdg/-related content from other threads in here to bump the thread, maybe it will prompt a debate or at least provoke some thought.

>You cannot simulate genre accurately without metacurrency or a metacurrency-equivalent.
>Case in point: In the Battle of the Bastards, arrow volley after arrow volley misses Jon Snow. By all reason, this is not due to awesome Dodge rolls but due to pure luck - hero's luck. Metacurrency is the modern way to simulate luck, even though there's older alternatives (Luck stat/skill/special trait). There alternatives have fallen out of favor because metacurrency can be used to model other, genre-specific or cinematic aspects of a protagonist's life.
I should have added FATE's use of Fate Points as an example for the last point. Or how Deathwatch RPG's.

How many Fate Points do you need to avoid volley after volley of arrows?

Honestly if you want to simulate cinematics then you don't want the characters to end up dying to a volley of arrows or a torrent of bullets regardless of their possession of metacurrency or not. Just make it so that they're immune to mooks and only take damage from actual enemies, or something like that.

After all, if you have metacurrency, you also have people who run out of metacurrency before they "should" use it.

That depends on how many of the mooks are hitting a moving man-sized target over a long distance. My guess is: not THAT many.

>Just make it so that they're immune to mooks
Ah, but that makes fights against Mooks boring. Something needs to be at stake, imho. Knights of the Black Lily offers a third way:
>www.knightsoftheblacklily.com/system/#challenge

>After all, if you have metacurrency, you also have people who run out of metacurrency before they "should" use it.
You're spot-on. Absolutely, no doubt. But there's ways to address that issue: challenge-driven game design, which I will release material about very soon. The Fortune chapter of the KOTBL Quickstart Beta will go into editing next week, so release as an excerpt chapter is very much impending.
Tbqh, my goal is to shift the game design conversation in general (not here) a bit away from its exaggerated focus on story. Story matters, a lot even, but there's other aspects to consider.

Dear retards: in the Battle of the Bastards, the GM compelled Jon Snow's Aspect of Honor and Family to make him perform a tactical error. The volley of arrows was narration.

Different user, could you elaborate? I'm working on actions right now and I'd like to know other people's thoughts on things like more than one attack per turn or extra time to do stuff.

It's almost always more beneficial to do something weak(er) multiple times than a single strong(er) thing once, regardless of system.

Just google "WoD Celerity discipline".

That is an unsatisfying solution to me. Also, if you look at other pieces of fiction, you will keep noticing the "missing mooks" trend. Sure, you can set the hit chance for all mooks all the time to 0% or close to that. Not sure this is fun though.
Which brings me back to the point of story not being the end-all-be-all of role-playing, merely one important component.

Yeah, it's a literal multiplier. A potential damage multiplier. And mulitpliers are so powerful that you should best avoid them unless you have complete control (now and in the future) of what is being multiplied. Any power gamer will immediately take notice.

Now, maybe that's what you want. It sort of works in Shadowrun.

>After all, if you have metacurrency, you also have people who run out of metacurrency before they "should" use it.
That's mostly the case for "tacked on" Metacurrency, like 40k RPG Fate points, which are X times per session only. And the "prevent death" part is on another axis anyway, since it deducts from your maximum rather than your current value. And it's that way in many other games.

Meanwhile, games with metacurrency as a central part of their mechanics (FATE, Cortex etc.) often grant less power to each single point (I.E. no prevent death effect) and have a massive emphasis on allowing a quick regain of said points.

Any of you guys know of any games with modular magic? Elements and effects rather than long lists of spells

Ars Magica

Looking at system 1, I'm seeing:
>Cool: Mana and mental status resist

but I'm not seeing where mental effects are coming from, from the stat list. Unless this is intended to be what "brains" does, like in the context of spells?

And how does it work out for the gameplay experience?

To be fair, Ars Magica does have spell lists, but, if memory serves me right, all spells are composites of magical/elemental aspects.

You have to have PhD to understand how to cast a spell.

>to play a wizard, you must become a wizard
I can dig it

I've got to warn you though, If you plan to regularly wade into battle as a Wizard your going to get your shit stomped like a real-life Wizard, being a Wizard in Ars Magica means building a fortress for maximum comfiness and only getting involved when somebody comes knocking at your door with a large army.

Had a discussion with my GM today about
>How to integrate Law and Chaos into dice mechanics
>single die -> flat distribution -> swingy as fuck
>multiple dice -> multinomial distribution/pseudo-bell curve -> more consistent results
>pic related

You can probably see where we were going with this. Chaotic characters should use fewer dice than Lawful characters, as a means of mechanically representing their nature.

We disagreed primarily on which dice should be used for whom. GM thought
>4d6 for lawful characters, 2d12 for chaotic characters
Same ceiling of 24, but 4d6 is almost unambiguously better.
>Lower chance of high rolls, but better average and higher floor.
Barely any choice involved, doesn't really display a struggle between law and chaos.

I thought
>3d6 for lawful, d20 or 2d10 for chaotic
to be superior.
>Almost identical mode average, similar ranges
Competitive, represents a struggle.
>3d6 is more consistent around that mode; slightly smaller range, lower chance of critical failure or success
Reflects consistency of Law, but low chance of outstanding failure or success
>2d10 slightly larger range, higher chance of both critical failure and critical success
Reflects raw power of Chaos, but with the cost of significantly less consistency

Am I nuts? Would this work? I think this could be a good alternative to d20 in games which heavily hype the distinction between Law and Chaos. Granted, there are some mechanics which would fiddling with if you tried to apply this to straight D&D.

Shit. Forgot to post the anydice program. Here: anydice.com/program/e9c7

>Am I nuts?
Yes and I love the idea.

But you couldn't use this system with anything that uses ANY plus or minus modifiers nor a roll under resolution mechanic. Your Law/Chaos is better in my opinion.

So I decided to go with roll under for the dice rolls. It just makes the stats cleaner to read and cuts on some of the awkward wording.

Also played with unit sizes. Went from 19-20 per side for the sample lists, down to 14-17.

Also changed the name to Aegeos: Burning Shards, so the acronym does spell out A:SS any more.

How do I get my ass to work?

>No modifiers
Why wouldn't I be able to use modifiers with it? The math looks weird on the surface, but ultimately the central point remains consistent.
>Law dominates in challenges close to the average
>Chaos has better results for challenges further from the average

Modifiers move the curve linearly along the number line, and therefore also its averages. The mode average for 3d6 and 2d10 is almost exactly the same.

>No roll under
Shit, no. I wouldn't use these both in a roll-under system. I like the 3d6 roll-under as it is implemented in GURPS, and I wouldn't change it. This thought experiment is meant to supplement the d20 in systems with lots of Law v Chaos lore.

Hey /gdg/, I'm making a game based on a webcomic that regularly uses themes, tech aesthetic and tropes from 90s vidya. In SKRUB, players can gain new chess based movement types throughout the game, and this is the card that they receive when they learn one of my oc movement types.

There will be a brief description of the specific movement shape underneath the card, but I need to find better software for it. Please ignore the jpg, I'm posting this from my phone. Any comments on the shape/layout?

Have a vision you're excited about.

>Why wouldn't I be able to use modifiers with it?
rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/2654/3d6-vs-a-d20-what-is-the-effect-of-a-different-probability-curve

You can use modifiers, you just need to reset all AC/DCs.

I'm aware of the statistical differences. That's intentional.

3d6 Law
>More reliant on skill (bonuses).
>More generally competent at things inside their comfort zone
>Less _raw_ power, or at least, luck helps less
>Increased reliability allows for better tactical decision-making, since your carefully laid plans are less likely to be btfo by a shitty roll

2d10 or 1d20 Chaos
>Skill doesn't help as dramatically as it does Law
>Less competent overall, exception things at the edge of their ability
>Luck is more fickle, but also has greater potential
>Less reliability means that tactics in combat will likely take a back seat to raw potential.

I think that these difference plenty well account for the struggle of Law and Chaos. The Paladin should always feel the pull and temptation of Chaos when undergoing difficult challenge, and the Warlock or the Rogue should constantly have a love-hate relationship with their luck. My first inclination is to give a mild bonus, +1 or so, to LG characters when performing LG actions, and likewise CE.

I also think that 2d10 is more competitive with 3d6 than d20 is. The choice between 2d10 and 3d6 is more murky and unclear. This is my preference, that the players, or more to the point, the characters should feel the conflict quite often in subtle ways. The difference between d20 and 3d6 is so exaggerated that the choice is much more clear. Depending on the tone, that can be fine. Black-and-white thoughts about cosmological Law and Chaos have been a staple of the fantasy genre.

Well, I'd love it if you could switch freely between Law and Chaos but you'd get Law or Chaos points for doing so. So whether you're Law or Chaos depends on your choices as players.If you want to stay a Paladin, don't choose Chaos. That's how I'd run it because it involves tricky situations for the players.

Hm. I like the idea, but it borders very close to being a hackneyed morality or karma meter. The best implementation which comes to mind immediately is Fate-point style metacurrency. Let the GM hand out Law and Chaos points which can be spent in different ways. Something I definitely want is for players to actively argue why the action they want to perform is in alignment, vis a vis Law and Chaos, so that they can get a minor bonus.

>Earn L & C points by GM compelling you or by your own actions
>Players must argue that something is in alignment, vis a vis Law and Chaos to earn points. Good/Evil is ignored or ancillary.
>Roll for points spent or earned at GM's discretion. 1d4 for Law, 1d6 for Chaos and its greater entropy
>Spend opposite Die points to switch L/C mechanic. Forces player to perform L or C actions in order to switch back.
>At 0 points of either, there are consequences. Could be class based, magical atunement, religious penance, whatever
>Spend Die of points for a bonus; bonus = apropos L:C ratio + (GM/party agrees alignment ? +1 : -2)

Thoughts?

Is it possible to make an entertaining exploration system for a TTRPG? It feels like the only two possible approaches are to have locations and events be randomly generated via dice rolls or to have the DM arbitrarily decide when these things should happen.

Have you ever seen any alternatives to this? Or maybe just a system that made exploration actually feel like discovering something new, and not just waiting things out until the DM decides you're ready?

Having a predetermined map, but no predetermined direction that the players are going, perhaps? That is, a hexcrawl.

Bunp

I see you motherfucker :^y

I have drafted a reference sheet for my game. I need to fill out the parts about the strategic phase (including bidding for the initiative) and the resolution phase. I imagine the next page will simply be for statlines and other basic rules not directly related to turn structure.

Hard to read on my phone, I'll look at it when I get home.

Looks pretty cool, although I haven't the foggiest idea what the movement type is supposed to be.

Big thing, the headers need to pop more. Like "Turn Order" and the phases, and such. It all blends in too much and makes it hard to follow. It took me a few re-reads to realize that the cell after "Strategy Phase" wasn't part of the Turn Order and was the explanation for Strategy Phase.

And if it possible, a space between the two columns would help. right now, its easy to read left to right before up and down. A space between the columns helps lead downwards.

The first time I saw the diagram I noped the fuck out but now that I have drank some bourbon, it's clear that the Augur has three movement vectors, with some rotational transformations possible?

Would Veeky Forums play a hockey card game that is similar to midrange MTG?
Basically you have 5 Skaters (creatures) arranged on the field and your Goalie is essentially your life total. And then you can use action cards that use the player stats to check/steal the puck back and forth.

Sup /gdg/, I need some help.

There was a thread about converting Space Station 13 into tabletop and I got hooked on that idea. I'm trying to achieve it by converting Blades in the Dark and tilting it more into board game territory. It seems to me that the core BitD system fits perfectly into the concept, but I'm having problem with creating the feeling of informational vacuum.

So, basically, you're are part of the Space Station crew and you're trying to do your job. However, in SS13 the process of doing your job is often accompanied by various complications, e.g. sabotage by a traitor crew member, xenomorph infestation, lab experiment went wrong, banal incompetence, etc.

Right now I have a concept that there should be a physical space station map with certain areas being limited to certain groups like engineers, security, administration, etc. Station is its own entity with a character sheet. Players maintain this station by doing PbtA-style actions. The trick is that other players don't necessarily know about what are you doing and where are you. At first I thought that it can be achieved by giving each player a dry erase card which is passed to GM with info about action and target, but then I have no idea how to handle declaration of private results and interactions between players that require being in the same place, like if they were secretly engaged in combat, recruiting others into cult, spotting other players, etc. Passing notes seems pretty on the nose and cumbersome.

tl;dr How to maintain informational vacuum?

You can't, that isn't your job, players shouldn't be utilize out-of-character information.

However you could make it apart of the metagame, players could spend "fate point" to have their character instinctively know something they shouldn't (In earlier version of SS13 you always knew certain jobs would only be picked by people who wanted to grief), you could also have another system called "Warning points" to punish player that act on OOC information without spending fate points.

>How to maintain informational vacuum?
I don't know? Maybe use mobile messaging?

I think the main title will be a darker grey, and the subsection headers will have lighter shades. I imagine sheet 2 will be the one with quick-referenced stats/terrain/etc.

bump

Something I was discussing in the discord and got some feedback out of, but thought I'd ask the general.

I'm looking at prospective races in my game and don't want them to be inherently better or worse at certain roles by giving them straight up numerical or mechanical advantages, and go the route of giving them, if anything, a hefty description that can give you a general idea of what they can or can't do with ease, in the same vein as how I'm handling backgrounds and careers as a vague set of skills, knowledge and experience - except this time looking at innate traits of each race.

Ex:
>Goblins are about a meter tall, and have a keen sense of hearing and smell. Their eyes allow them to see in the dark, albeit with some difficulty. They have a set of sharp and thick teeth that can bite through almost anything short of iron and steel, and their purple tongue can produce a sticky transparent fluid that can be used as a makeshift glue. Their strength is about the same as an average human.

Would you consider this to be a useful description that tells you kind of what you can do as a goblin?
A good suggestion was giving it tags or keywords, but i'm trying to keep it in line with Career and Background traits, as something that may prove useful when dealing with not very complex tasks or knowledge tidbits.

I had a similar thought early on with the system I'm working on now, but instead themed around the fate or stars you were born under. I really like the idea but I'm also planning on having a lot of ways to manipulate dice in the system which might cause issues. Still not sure if I'll end up using it

Do we want to get a summary of best/worst ideas from this thread or start a new thread should this begin to sage?

My favourite post I've seen in theses threads was by a user who made a extremely concise post explaining where you put the fluff is really fucking important, I don't think I've actually ever seen that explained anywhere else.

do you have a screencap?

>...lot of ways to manipulate dice...
Like what? I'm curious.

If it helps at all, I think the biggest consideration is if the different dice are competitive and more or less equally viable. That's why I wanted to express Law and Chaos as having two slightly different ranges but a similar mode average.

Compare Chaos's advantage in the two different ideas. 2d10 has a significantly better chance with outstanding success, and remains competitive with outstanding failure. It's mode is in lockstep with 3d6, also, while being at a significant disadvantage for hitting values near the mode. There are a number of tradeoffs which make the choice of Law or Chaos not always clear. The advantages it has mechanically support that it is a corrupting force. The disadvantages it has make Law tempting for its consistency. (It's also a more viable swap-out replacement for d20)

2d12, meanwhile, has only a slightly better chance to for outstanding success over 4d6, and a significantly worse chance for outstanding failure. It's mode average is worse, and the gap in consistency around the mode is wide for a significant chunk of the values. There is no really compelling reason to switch from Law to Chaos, so it falls apart as a metaphor for a corrupting force.

I mean, it is a valid design choice to make one option obviously better than another, for whatever reason. It just sucks to experience as a player.

Can't use stats anymore, they bug me a lot, they ARE very specific but most system act like they're not, it bothers me that "Dextery" is used for aim, agility, reflexes, coordination, etc...

I used to think that "open-skills/attributes" system would be best, but they don't in practice, also it's strange for you to get so good at "swordsmanship" while having low coordination for example.

What I'm trying to do now is to use "archetypes" (stereotypes) for stats because they make sense into being broad definitions, like:

Brute (strenght, physical resistance, size)
Mastermind (intelligence, logic, memory)

Do you guys have any other name suggestions?

Sage and Leader, perhaps.

I've heard of a system which essentially you just choose something for your character to be good at, and they roll that skill if you can justify why someone of that background might know how to do whatever. You could always piggyback off of that.

I'm not entirely sure of how to approach skills. They'd be divided in tiers either way in the end to signify different levels of knowledge and specialization in order to diversify and grow with your character, but I'm not sure if I should go with the "each skill is under a stat but sometimes you can use it with a different one" or the "these are your gorillion skills, go nuts" route.

These are mostly examples and not representative of the final list of skills of course, but it's out there to kind of give a general idea of how both of them would work.

Now that I think of it, is there any system that doesn't use Attributes AT ALL? Just feats/talents/powers/whatever...

For example you choose the race human, so you just a average human, then you're playing high-fantasy and choose the Barbarian "path" this path has a lot of benefits like for example:

"Barbarians are know to be strong people blah blah blah (insert fluff) ... so every time you do a strenght test/check/save you add 1Dice blahblah"

Toughts on this?

Some versions of Fudge, Fate, RISUS, etc.

In Fate, you are an amalgam of skills or approaches, then some descriptors.

I really like having skills over attributes for the reasons you mention, as I believe most abilities are determined through education and experience more than some cloudy idea of your innate capacities.

The purpose of attributes is to provide some baseline. Also, a fallback number for untrained skill use.

Bump

It shouldn't "stats" are a simple abstraction to simplify something extremely complex into something manageable by a game system.

OK here's my question:
How do you guys feel about the amount of work you do in your first edition? I used to think the first edition should be packed with as much as possible, but now I think I should do as little as possible so that there are less moving parts to go wrong, and the feedback will be more direct.

Also related to that: how do you feel about adding stuff in appendices instead of the core system? There's a million things we could all think of to add, but they should probably wait until the basics are good right?

was this in response to something?

Gorillion skills is always a mistake unless you're on your 3rd edition and all the basics have been forged to something really great and solid.

>how do you feel about adding stuff in appendices instead of the core system?
The Burning Wheel and D&D 4e handled this best by only expanding the core system in clearly labelled books/chunks instead of spreading it out thinly among 20 different splats like GURPS/3e.

>How do you guys feel about the amount of work you do in your first edition?
A reasonable amount to appeal to those who don't want/need extra material goes in the core, anything else goes in sourcebooks/companions.

>how do you feel about adding stuff in appendices instead of the core system?
Appendices are for material that is not useful when using the main text as reference during play. Bext examples: long examples.
Also for handouts/charts required during play.

>was this in response to something?
Yes, the general debate about stats/attributes. If your character does not have a Fast Talk skill, he can at least use Charisma. If he doesn't have Climb, he can use Agility. And we use numbers instead of just descriptions to have different levels of "ableness" and to translate them into something relevant to dice rolling.

if you aren't playtesting a week after the core concept of the system occurs to you you're wasting effort.