The Campaign Builder's Guild

I've been doing some pondering about how I want ability scores in my game. I'm thinking about using the Theory of multiple intelligences for my mental stats, and am trying to think up what to do for physical and other such abilities. I figured I'd start this thread as an area to just kinda do some brainstorming and discussion of different methods of doing ability scores.

In DnD you have three physical stats and three mental stats. Everything you do typically uses one related ability score.
Physical: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution.
Mental: Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma.

In Palladium you have three mental and five physical. Having exceptionally high ability scores gives you bonuses to certain areas. Prior to Rifts Ultimate Edition there was no mechanical difference between a character with a stat of 3 vs a stat of 16. With the new version there are nor penalties for abilities below 8.
Physical: Physical Strength, Physical Prowess, Physical Endurance, Physical Beauty, Speed.
Mental: Intelligence Quotient, Mental Affinity, Mental Endurance.

In White Wolf you have three Physical, three Social and three Mental. All rolls are a combination of Attribute + Ability.
Physical: Strength, Dexterity, Stamina.
Social: Charisma, Manipulation, Appearance.
Mental: Intelligence, Perception, Wits.


I'm sure many other game systems have many different sets of attributes.

How many attribute "categories" is best? How many attributes is too many? Which game has your favourite set of attributes? What are you using for your game?

Well it depends how you go about it. I think that you are trying to go for realism here though (from the feel of things). In that case I would almost suggest meshing attributes in as super-skills of a sort. This allows you to have wide variety. As an example you could have:

Power - measure of how far you can exert your muscles
Endurance - measure of how long you can exert your muscles
Agility - measure of your full body coordination
Dexterity - measure of your fine manipulation capability
Resistance - measure of your ability to cope with physical stresses
Willpower - measure of your ability to cope with mental stresses
Intellect - measure of your ability to store and recall information
Logic - measure of your ability to process information
Wisdom - measure of your ability to use common sense based on known information
Charisma - measure of how your appearance and personality allow you to interact with others

You could of course have more here and that is fine because skills become more of over-attributes that help you set a base for using the skills beneath them.

What I'm going for is a mix of realism with flavour. I'm thinking that ability scores are most likely going to be used as prerequisite for certain abilities and levels of skill. They'll probably be relatively easy to improve, but not have a major impact on game play.

And who says you can't have realism with flavor? :P

So what you are wanting is a tier tree with sub-skills branching out from higher skills? Again I point to my suggestion above as that will probably fit the bill. As an example you could have the section for say archery like so:

Dexterity -> Archery (Required: 10+ Dexterity)

This could allow for some fun and elaborate skill trees where players go further and further in looking for the best routes to get the character like they envision it. So looking at an advanced version the tiers for getting something called penetrating strike(arrow) might be something like:

Dexterity -> Archery (Req: 10+ Dex) -> Precise Shot (Req: 5+ Archery) -> Anatomy(weak points) (Req: 15+ Int/5+ Anatomy(basic)) -> Penetrating Strike(arrow) (Req: Precise Shot/Anatomy(weak points))

L5R uses 5-9 stats, paired onto the 5 elements.

Air is Perception and Dexterity
Earth is Endurance and Willpower
Fire is Agility and Intelligence
Water is Insight and Strength (or something like that, I get mixed up on the mentals for Air and Water since they sound so similar; one's for physical perception and the other's for social skills)
Void is just Void.

Your lowest of the two scores on each element determiens your "Ring", which is used for certain effects. While I don't agree with which abilities they attached to with elements, it ceates the right feel for the world.

Blue Planet has eight primary attributes and four derived attributes.

Quote from: Derived attributes, Blue Planet Player's Guide pg 28- Endurance: stamina and staying power
- Reflexes: initiative and reaction speed
- Strength: overall physical power
- Toughness: resistance to injury and trauma

Derived attributes are, well, derived from the primary attributes (not always on a linear scale, thou).

The average attribute score is 0, scores above 0 are better while scores below 0 are worse.

The typical range for primary attributes is -15 to +12 (although that is on non-human player races). For humanoid PCs the typical range is -3 to +6.

You could always shoot for ultra-condensed and follow BESM's: Mind, Body, Soul.  You can add Fate as an optional fourth.

I like the 6 that D&D uses, but honestly - they could be easily contained into three:
Fortitude
Reflex
Will

Three perfect names; general terms that summarize exactly what a player would ever do in a game. I am surprised that 4E didn't go this route, it was so blindingly obvious during the beta that they could have easily killed the six ability score sacred cow (since they already had killed saves and wrapped them into defenses).

It all depends on what you're after. I'm gradually becoming convinced that realism is a false goal, the voice of Eurydice crying out from behind you. I do go for detail and immersion and grit and delicate moral shading, though, which is almost as good.

Some of you are familiar with my Triad System mechanics, which uses nine stats-- three each of physical, mental, and social varieties-- and encourages players to combine them in novel ways with each other and with more personal, player-created skills. Sometimes, I think that even this is too much.

It also depends on what kinds of actions typically take place in your game (because they determine what stats, if any, are needed to support them.) We tend to have tunnel vision, thinking exclusively about games where each player has one character, and those characters address problems directly, usually through combat. That's not the only way, though! If I were running a game that encouraged players to get elbow-deep in schemes and power plays, balancing influence and indebtedness to myriad different organizations and factions, I'd sure as hell want stats to reflect it all.

Latest thought experiments involve an ultra-streamlined system that eschews mental/physical dichotomies entirely: speed (either mental or physical), empathy/emotional investment, skill/knowledge/know-how, and toughness (again, no distinction between mental and physical.) These four would be tied to the suits of a deck of cards used to facilitate a little randomness.

But that's still in the brainstorming phases.