Are Abilities Necessary?

[LordVreeg]

sorry, I was away last night.


First, some love
[blockquote=PC!]I'm also making a "larger point" on roleplaying paradigms - "ability scores" are so ubiquitous that it seems almost past due that we should be rocking the boat. Most new systems I've seen accept their presence as a given; we had a discussion in this forum not long ago about which ability scores to use, which accepts as its underlying premise that ability scores are necessary, which precludes any discussion on whether they are good. Even if I'm utterly wrong about how to challenge that premise I think there is a fruitful discussion to be had in challenging it.[/blockquote]
Just wanted to start here, because this is displaying an understanding of the proper spirit of questioning a major pillar of the institiution of gaming.  Huzzah!

Now, please understand where I am coming from.  I don't play D&D.  Haven't for decades.  I play a skill-based classless system.  In creating the mechanics, I toyed with geting rid of abilities and with adding more sub-abilities (derived abilities) both. So I speak from the position of someone who has already toyed with this idea and discarded it.  
I also think, as I have said before, that you can create a system to do what you want it to do.  So it is not that I believe that the mechanics are impossible or the idea is totally invalid.  But I do believe that the sytem will be fundamentally inferior in areas of playablity.


Reduntant or Additive?
Sure. Most weightlifters are strong, but there are many strong people who are not weightlifters. By definition, this makes strength separate from weightlifting.

I didn't mean to imply otherwise. My argument is not that strength doesn't exist (that would be silly), it's that tracking it as a score is redundant, because strength is also a necessary part of physical skills.

I disagree. Fundamentally, I see strength as a useful part of physical skills, not a necessary one.  I believe that charactes with average or perhaps even below average strengths may attempt to learn physical skills.  
Moreover, in terms of reality and playability, I see different levels of this 'ingredient' changing the actual ability success score.

Again, I am not saying you cannot change the game mechanic and include the supposition that all people who learn physical skills are strong, but it is an added supposition and a supposition I looked at before and discarded as it removed a large chunk of my major game mechnic.



non Reductus ad absurdum, unanswered
'¦In gaming parlance, a skill is a learned talent, but the ability to succeed at this talent may vary widely, from apprentice to journeyman to master to expert. In your above paragraph, you seem to be using the words 'skilled' and 'expert' as synonyms.

You misunderstand. I was using "expert" to describe particularly egregious breaches of the system; I was giving examples of obviously flawed characters that could be made with a D&D style ability & skill system. I was using a reductio ad absurdum strategy to argue my point, not saying that "skilled" is equivalent to "expert." I argue that the ability system produces, in these extreme cases, an absurd outcome, and that therefore the original assumptions of the ability score system are incorrect.

I think you are correct in that I misunderstood the intention of your argument, but not what your argument is or what you communicated.  You cut of most of my response off, but it included a number of points which I considered very important and valid that you did not address.  

'Just because someone learns a skill does not make them extremely proficient at it. Is everyone with a 'skill' (a learned ability) an expert, such as your dancer or chess player examples? or do you wish to get rid of the whole range of talent levels?
In gaming parlance, a skill is a learned talent, but the ability to succeed at this talent may vary widely, from apprentice to journeyman to master to expert. In your above paragraph, you seem to be using the words 'skilled' and 'expert' as synonyms.
I also point to the above paragraph where you challenge the assembled community to, "to come up with an example of a skill in which you can be highly proficient with a naturally low score in the relevant ability", but the key here is the term 'highly proficient'. One does not have to be highly proficient at something to be able to preform a mundane application of a skill. I can drive, but am not an 'expert driver'. I can operate my computer, but am far from being 'highly proficient'. I think those of you who have made fun of my typing will attest to this lack...'
What about the journeyman and the novice?  You only use the extreme case in your examples, but how will you represent the non-heroic and non epic?  How will you represent the somewhat doltish son of wealth sent to school to learn finances if everyonw who tries to learn finances is assumed to be smart?

MORE FOOTBALL
'¦I may not call a physically weak person "skilled" at football watching them play, but that does not mean they do not understand the game better and might actually surpass the 'football skill' of an less experienced but more physically powerful person.

Skill for tasks like that goes beyond simple mental understanding. Football skills embrace a wide variety of physical, mental, and psychological exercises that, together, form an amorphous thing we call a "skill." D&D isn't held to this standard; why should an ability-less system be? Skills are already abstracted and I don't see any reason why abilities should not either become part of that abstraction or, at most, be represented with feat-style traits that modify skills.

Who cares what D&D does or does not do?  That is irrelevant to me, and I think, to this discussion.  Comparing your ideas to the D&D system is, despite what other adherents might say, setting the bar very low when comapring to a skill based system.  I agree with you that different 'ingredients', to use the term I used before, are embraced in amalgamation as part of a skill.  I think we also have to often include the teaching method and practise as the other major ingredients.
And in the Guildschool rules, we have a rule callde the 'attribute over' rule that takes into account the affect of thse ingredients.  

Realism, finally defined...maybe
'¦The abilities do not merely exist independently from the skill, they often precede it and predicate an advantage or disadvantage for a skill. As such, what you really propose is more of a question of how realistic a game you want to play.

I propose that an ability-less system is more "realistic" than a system with abilities, because the ability-less system rightly treats abilities as the dependent variables that they are. You're reading something into ability scores that doesn't actually exist - Ability scores do not represent what heights you can potentially reach given your natural talents, they represent what your abilities actually are. A strength of 8 actually means that your strength is 8, it doesn't indicate a "DNA potential" or anything like that. You have no way of increasing your strength save for those occasional 4-level bonuses (which don't even come into play for most NPCs in the campaign world, who are apparently incapable of gaining strength or charisma or anything else).

More realistic.  Slippery terminology, especially from someone is trying to reduce the amount of variables in a given situation.  And again, an ascertion of 'what I mean based' on D&D.   In my guildschool system, attributes can be changed based on focusing their development, using attribute kits much the same as we use skill kits.  This incudes Charisma, where the kit is jokingly refered to as the, "How to gain friends and increase your influnce' book.  I have no idea what you mean by '4-level' bonuses.
I will have to say that you might be right that your ideas for an abilities-free system with skills is more realistic than the class-based game system you are comparing it against, but less realistic than other classless, skillbased systems with abilities.

Dude...
'¦Again, love the iconoclasm, and the daring, and am honored to be included in the conversation.

I'm happy to have you.
Keep up the good work!

[Polycarp]

The first point gets at what I think is the heart of the issue - if you don't have some measure of common attributes, then a lot of actions that don't have specific skills or rules may get lost in the shuffle. So you end up needing something: some way to infer unspecified abilities from related skills, or a set of common attributes, or just every character is the same.

I disagree. Fundamentally, I see strength as a useful part of physical skills, not a necessary one. I believe that charactes with average or perhaps even below average strengths may attempt to learn physical skills.[/quote]You cut of most of my response off, but it included a number of points which I considered very important and valid that you did not address.[/quote]What about the journeyman and the novice? You only use the extreme case in your examples, but how will you represent the non-heroic and non epic? How will you represent the somewhat doltish son of wealth sent to school to learn finances if everyonw who tries to learn finances is assumed to be smart?[/quote]non-combat[/i] task, since combat has its own special case rules.  To use a quote from snakefing,

The ogre issue doesn't bother me that much. Who cares what the ogre's Strength and skill is? What matters is that his club is dangerous, reflected in his attack bonus, damage potential, etc.

ranks[/i] (meaning learned talent) or abilities/synergy.  To paraphrase, "who cares what the somewhat doltish son of wealth's intelligence and skill are?  What matters is that he is good (or not good?) at finances, reflected in his bonus to skill checks."

On an important note, when I say "who cares," I mean that only from a mechanical perspective.  As a roleplayer I care very much about the personality of our spoiled little brat (;)) and his personality quirks.  That, however, is something that needs to come out in roleplaying.  Two fighters could have a total attack bonus of +11; that does not mean they are the same fighter.  In especially significant cases an ability-less system would allow for mechanical customization in the way systems like GURPS already do, with advantages and disadvantages (which I've referred to as a kind of "trait").

Comparing your ideas to the D&D system is, despite what other adherents might say, setting the bar very low when comapring to a skill based system.

Be that as it may, it's the only system I've ever actually played with, so there's nothing more I can offer you.  I think there's a general assumption here that folks have rather broad RPG experience, and I do not.

This really disallows me from commenting on the last part of your post.  I can only comment on what I know, and I don't know that.  My argument so far has been based on 1) playing D&D, 2) reading the GURPS rules, and 3) reading other people's "new system" threads on this site.  If I assumed your argument was based on something it is not, it is only because I lack the requisite background knowledge to discuss it on your terms.

PS. "4 level bonuses" means, in 3rd ed D&D, the +1 bonus you are able to add to a single ability score at every 4 levels.  As a result, since most NPCs do not reach 4th level - let alone 8th, which (given even ability scores) would be what you needed to increase the actual bonus - most people in the game never become stronger, smarter, more charismatic, or less so (except when they get old and old age bonuses/penalties start to kick in).

[Nomadic]

Ok I understand what you mean. I feel that you just need some way to reflect innate ability. Like Vreeg said you can go without but the system will wind up inferior to one that has it (Having experience with this sort of system I can tell you that what he said is fact not assumption). So looking at what you have I am thinking it might be a dropdown style similar to guild school. Fine with me since I like that system. It might go something like:

[ic]
Muscular Strength - x ranks + x synergy = total
Arms - x ranks + x synergy + x muscular strength total = total
Legs - x ranks + x synergy + x muscular strength total = total
Back - x ranks + x synergy + x muscular strength total = total

Perception - x ranks + x synergy = total
Spotting - x ranks + x synergy + x perception total = total
Listening - x ranks + x synergy + x perception total = total
Scenting - x ranks + x synergy + x perception total = total
[/ic]

Note that the above is just a vague example as I am trying to figure out what it is you want in the system.

[Polycarp]

It might go something like:

Not quite, because in my proposed system there are no ranks in "muscular strength" or "perception."  My basic argument is things like strength and perception, while they do describe some skills, are not in themselves worthy of being separate because they are implied within those skills.

Rather, all skills in the "Perception" category are given a synergy bonus determined by how many ranks the character has spent in skills within the Perception category.  For general rolls, a roll is made as if it were a skill within the proper category.  For example, if you wanted to do break down a door, you would first decide that breaking down a door fit into the "muscular strength" category better than any other category.  Then, you would roll it as if it were a muscular strength-type skill, adding the synergy bonuses (if any) that you would normally apply to a regular muscular strength skill.

Basically, general rolls are a concession to the idea that every valid system needs some kind of ad hoc component in unforeseen circumstances.

[Polycarp]

On a somewhat related note, I've been thinking a lot about the "talent" line of thought put forward in this thread.  We all seem to agree, to a lesser or greater extent, that skills should have some kind of talent input.  What I'm wondering is if it actually matters.  If one artisan is better than another artisan, is it mechanically important whether his higher level of ability is based on learned skill or innate talent?  Obviously the dichotomy between the naturally talented youngster and the experienced elder is great roleplaying material, but is it necessary to have that show up in the mechanics, since ultimately (at least, in dice systems) players just want to make the roll?

[Nomadic]

Yes it is, and I can give you a real life example here. Ok first off I am a lefty (handedness) with certain mental peculiarities (asperger's, ocd, etc). These things I have had since birth basically. They predisposed me to be better at certain things. Am I good in a social situation, no my asperger's makes me bad at interacting with people and my left-handedness can get me curious looks in a fine dining environment (especially when I am bumping the person next to me's elbows constantly). On the other hand it makes me naturally better than someone else at artistic based design and creation. The first time I took part in an art activity (in kindgergarten) I was already drawing far more advanced things than other students (meanwhile I was doing bad in the social department as talking to me creates alot of awkward moments). I had not been trained here (0 ranks basically) however I was pre-disposed to be better at certain things (bonuses from inborn talent).

As I have grown older and experienced things my ranks as you could call them have grown. My abilities get better because of my training. However my abilities have gotten better faster than normal people in the art (and reading and certain other departments) because I am predisposed to them and catch on faster to new techniques. On the other end those I am predisposed against (speeches, socializing, etc) have developed much slower since I don't have the innate ability to catch onto their nuances well.

As it is you can ignore this and have a rank only system. However you will have issues with confused players wanting to know how much of their skill is natural talent and how much is learned (in the case of guild school natural talent helps your experience mod so that your skills level faster; something I feel meshes with real life well). Furthermore you need to avoid a system that becomes too 2d (its fun to have dynamic characters who are naturally predisposed to certain abilities and again it meshes well with real life).

[Hedgewriter]

As I have grown older and experienced things my ranks as you could call them have grown. My abilities get better because of my training. However my abilities have gotten better faster than normal people in the art (and reading and certain other departments) because I am predisposed to them and catch on faster to new techniques. On the other end those I am predisposed against (speeches, socializing, etc) have developed much slower since I don't have the innate ability to catch onto their nuances well.

The company I work for (and many others) use a tool to identify strengths and weaknesses called the Predictive Index.  The premise behind it is exactly what you describe.  People are predisposed to certain skills and have difficulty learning others.  The skills they are good at come easily and the more challenging skills for that individual can be learned, it just takes extra effort.  If you do not continuously train the challenging skills they tend to deteriorate faster than ones you have talent for.  
The interesting part about taking a PI is that all it is is a list of descriptors and you select the ones that you believe describe you.  I found mine to be freakishly accurate and once processed basically nailed my personality and tendencies perfectly.

[LordVreeg]

As I have grown older and experienced things my ranks as you could call them have grown. My abilities get better because of my training. However my abilities have gotten better faster than normal people in the art (and reading and certain other departments) because I am predisposed to them and catch on faster to new techniques. On the other end those I am predisposed against (speeches, socializing, etc) have developed much slower since I don't have the innate ability to catch onto their nuances well.

The company I work for (and many others) use a tool to identify strengths and weaknesses called the Predictive Index.  The premise behind it is exactly what you describe.  People are predisposed to certain skills and have difficulty learning others.  The skills they are good at come easily and the more challenging skills for that individual can be learned, it just takes extra effort.  If you do not continuously train the challenging skills they tend to deteriorate faster than ones you have talent for.  
The interesting part about taking a PI is that all it is is a list of descriptors and you select the ones that you believe describe you.  I found mine to be freakishly accurate and once processed basically nailed my personality and tendencies perfectly.

I will be happy to list PI as an effective predicitive tool once it is willing to go through peer review.  Currently, they have refused every attempt by the APA and other pscholological organizations to have their methodology and results analyzed.

[Nomadic]

True however that does not change the hard fact the people are predisposed towards being strong in certain fields and weak in others.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I had a further thought on the ogre example. A single-attribute system also does not allow for the creature with poor aim that really hurts when it hits.

The ogre's not very good with its club, but it swings for the fences.

[Polycarp]

I had a further thought on the ogre example. A single-attribute system also does not allow for the creature with poor aim that really hurts when it hits.

The ogre's not very good with its club, but it swings for the fences.

I don't know why you would think this.  There's no reason that, for instance, aim and damage could be represented by two different skills in two different categories.  I haven't even thought of how a skill combat system might work, so your conclusion seems a little premature.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Typically skill-based systems use your skill roll to determine base damage then add strength mod.

Having a separate damage-dealing skill is definitely skill bloat and really starts to feel like you are trying too hard to make something work over a simpler solution: Attributes.

Don't get me wrong, I like the simplicity of pure skill-based. But if you have to add more and more skills or tones of feats/advantages to compensate for not having attributes (or ability scores if you like that term), you've lost the simplicity aspect.

[Polycarp]

An even simpler solution would be to finally make good on all those complaints about D&D being too combat oriented and treat combat like any other skill - that is to say, abstract it. :)

[Atlantis]

i havent the time to go back and read the whole thread, and i'm not sure if this argument has been used, but Polycarpp, the football player became the football player because he was able to become a good football player because he was strong, and stayeed a football player because he was strong. Training in football then increased his stength.
  Abilities are just as important as everything else. Everything depends on abilities, but abilities depend on everything else.

[Polycarp]

Abilities are just as important as everything else. Everything depends on abilities, but abilities depend on everything else.

Once again, my point is not that abilities don't exist or don't matter, it's that there is no need for them to be tracked separately.  I agree that "everything depends on abilities [and] abilities depend on everything else," and I think that inextricable connection is a good argument for why ability and skill shouldn't be alienated.

It's occured to me that maybe what I really want is just this, a closer and more sensible relationship between abilities and skills.  I think removing abilities as a separate mechanic can accomplish this, and I really like the idea of synergy making skills self-reinforcing, but I think it's also likely that a system that tracked abilities would still be satisfactory if the relationship between abilities and skills was close and dynamic.  Having immutable abilities that give a fixed bonus to skills doesn't cut it for me, and as you can see in the OP it's the impetus behind this thread in the first place. :)