Variant/System Thought

[Hibou]

I thought this would be the best place to post this.

Earlier tonight I thought of an interesting variant on the d20 system, or a totally different system entirely, depending on you'd handle the idea: a system with no mental statistics.

Has anyone else ever pondered about such a thing, about its advantages and disadvantages, how magic would work and the like?

It seems like it could be a very effective gaming system if done right. What does everyone else think?

[Soup Nazi]

Well it would certainly make things interesting. Without even addressing mechanics (whihc is another animal altogether) what is the exact motivation for the change?

Are you just trying to eliminate the issues of playing super-geniuses, and mega-charismatic characters (when the players are clearly unable to do duplicate their ability)?

I've thought about things like this in the past, but I never really thought it was worth the time and effort to figure out. Just FYI, I'd give the characters a fourth stat (something to represent their spiritual power/ki/or whatever) for a caster stat, if you do actually decide to explore this route.

-Peace-

[Hibou]

Something along those lines. It'd make it easier for people to play their characters, since they don't have to live up to or tone down to anything on the mental side. You can pretend to be strong, agile, or healthy in a fantasy game, but pretending to be smart or unusually charismatic is kind of cheesy, at least in my opinion, since it's not natural.

Removing the 3 normal mental stats and adding a 4th that represents spiritual power would be a reasonable route. The entire thing is a somewhat difficult concept, though.