How to make a numberless (but stat-heavy) system WORK

The 'what makes an RPG' thread has become a 'Can you do a numberless RPG but keep the stats' thread. Unfortunately its bogged down in the realm of 'why would you want that?' and 'you can't do that', instead of taking off into something more constructive.

So here's my proposal. EvoG has set down compelling arguments for why a system which removes numbers from the view of the player ought to be considered . He has not suggested that stats themselves be removed. The game can be as stat-heavy as any other. Just that the player is never to be presented with a stat-sheet at any point.

I submit that we assume for this discussion that there will be a benefit to such a design - that players will be more likely to roleplay, and that it better approximates 'real life', or simlpy that it gives a unique atmosphere and game experience. Whatever.

So the purpose of this thread is purely to reflect on ways of making such a system work. If enough ideas for a workable system can't be conceived, then perhaps the 'you can't do it' side has won.

Can I suggest that EvoG summarise his ideas, as well as others like Section8 with his suggestions for prose descriptors?

My suggestions (weak as they are): The player be given an opportunity sheet. So you have played the game for a bit, and you want to join the mechanists. You are told you need a 'good' skill in repair, and a 'very good' skill in construction. You go away and do whatever it takes to build those skills. The game keeps track of what you have shown an interest in, and once your skills are high enough, tells you 'you have a new opportunity'. You check your opportunity sheet, and 'join Mechanists' is now listed as well. The sheet could comprehensively list everything your stats allow you to do, rather than the stats themselves.

Also a combat suggestion: How about the player is simply told, at the outset of any combat encounter, 'you have a very good/good/reasonable/poor/impossible' chance of defeating this enemy. The game checks your skills and bases its advice on how you tend to play, not on a perfect use of the skills.

I do believe that if you resort to having a sheet with merely ranges instead of numbers, it's a 'Claytons' stat-sheet. In other words, I feel you should not even have a sheet with a list of skills, and words like 'good' or 'very good' next to them, because its defeating whatever purpose is behind it - you might as well have numbers.

Some major hurdles put forward so far:

Saint: How does this allow for different types of skill advancement, other than the strict progress-by-use system? How will it allow an XP buy system like Bloodlines, or a character level = new skill points system like Fallout and d20, or a hybrid system like Prelude?

Kris: How will my player know how good s/he is, especially after I leave the game for a few days, or if I have multiple characters?"

Okay I'm here, just not here right this moment. I'm tired, AND, I want to think this through a bit.

But I just wanted to check in. :D

Thanks Twinfalls

Twinfalls said:

Just that the player is never to be presented with a stat-sheet at any point.

Click to expand...

A bit like I said before. for me the major hurdly lies in how to show what the character can and can not do, but inherent in that is the very important thing of creating the character.

for if you create a character and choose between "good", "very good" and such in abilities and skills then it is in no way different from a stat RPG. Then we either scrap creating character completly (console RPG or action game that EvoG only had examples of) or use a alternative system. I can think of three other systems, both building on fleshing out the background for your character.

Build a character by asking questions (Dark lands, Elder scrolls and Jagged alliance used this to some extent). In this case some questions must be quite clear as to what they will make of your character as if most questions where fussy then the creator will not know his character and the less he knows the more frustrated he will be, not to forget detached. so with clear questions you could create the kind of character you want and know fairly well what his strenghts and weaknesses is.

The second would be to have a playable background. The thing Fable tried but failed completly in since the background didn't matter at all and you still only played their character with their background story about you. No I would want a interactive background where you can make real choices that flesh your character out. Did he go to some school? Get into a lot of fights? Sneak around stealing to get things? Follow his dad to the tavern all nights? There is a lot of great roleplaying opportunities here. Problem is of course that this could be hard to make and flesh out, especially with the graphics craze we live in now. More so since me and most others would want to choose some things like what background ENVIROMENT he came from and in a graphics heavy game you can't give many options here... in fact even in the graphics lacking you would have problems. I could give some examples on how to do this later.

Third option would be to choose background packages. In Dragon age you just choose one package that define what your background was. You could instead try to expand this by choosing several in a row, like this: 1. choose where you was born. 2. choose parents. 3. choose how the childhood was. 4. Choose education/work in younger years teens. 5. complimentary education/work for later teens. 6. Possibly complimenting with more choices of what the character did like "Dark lands", more choices making you older...

thoughts?

Okay Kris, I'll answer you tomorrow, so dont fear. :D I just wanted to outline a few things before I go to bed, just so I dont forget.

Goal:

• Ideally, to see if we can find a way to leverage and exploit what a computer does best(computing), deemphasizing the power gaming focus of numbers, and emphasize character roleplaying in an RPG; to see if we can create an rational ambiguous system with non-ambiguous reaction, without reducing complex interaction or character expression.
  
• Exchange individual ideas geared towards progress rather than argument; its ABOUT seeing if this could work, not if its stupid to someone.

Motivation:

• There's nothing wrong with the current system; Why fix/change what isn't broken? Being different for the sake of being different is fine, but shouldn't be the entire motivation.
  
• Do we try this to appeal to players interested in playing a deep RPG, but otherwise intimidated by complex systems?
  
• Do we try this because it may be fun? Fresh/new?

Methods of the System:

• Well this is what this thread is going to hopefully reveal.

Results:

• Pro's and Con's
  
• Did we achieve our goal? Were our methods unique to warrant effort?
  
• Did we merely over simplify existing systems? Over complicate?
  
• Is the ambiguity fighting the system or freeing the "character"?
  
• Has the player maintained a high level of choice and reaction in the game world, and does he understand his choices and relevent reactions?
  
• Is the player missing the old paradigm?
  
• Is it fun?

These can all be elaborated on, and I'll want to at least discuss "motivation" right away, as I dont want to misrepresent "why" I'd want to do this. Its important that this isn't merely self-indulgent, but fueled by a desire to explore something new. This also doesn't mean something new WILL emerge, but rather a brainstorming session to see if this is valuable. Section8 would do well to perhaps expound on what he hinted at on the other thread, which were all outstanding ideas.

I think this could at the very least be a fun discussion, and at the most, a real working concept.
Cheers

[work in progress]

I'm fairly spent, and collation of ideas requires effort, so expect to see something tomorrow when my brain is switched back on.

For me, the goal of this exercise is pretty much an exploration of ideas outside of "tradition". Ever since Baldur's Gate showed up how D&D does not instantly translate into a decent CRPG system, and is fraught with flaws and shortcomings, in addition to lacking the flexibility of Pen and Paper RPing, I've toyed with the notion of a CRPG doing things that a P&P game can't.

One of the ideas was the notion of a character system that had such complexity that you'd need a pure maths degree and a ream of scratch paper to play it outside of a CRPG, and from that idea, came some ponderance of effectively conveying the information to a player in the absense of simple statistics.

In addition to an effective interpretation of the character, the player must also have a means to develop their character with at least some active input, and to this end, the idea of basing character goals partly on the actions a player takes, and partly on specific introspection arose.

And so basically, a lot of the ideas brainstormed with regard to this, surfaced in the resurrected thread about RPG definitions.

The other goal that might be interesting to throw into this happy mix once it's all reasonably collated would be some form of article/discussion of the ideas so there's some RPG content beyond the endless stream of Oblivion posts and previews.

But anyway, the *real* post tomorrow.

Section8 said:

One of the ideas was the notion of a character system that had such complexity that you'd need a pure maths degree and a ream of scratch paper to play it outside of a CRPG, and from that idea, came some ponderance of effectively conveying the information to a player in the absense of simple statistics.

Click to expand...

Makes me think of Rolemaster using all the most complex rules. That was in the end almost to much work for a normal PnP roleplaying session so things had to be a bit simplified and I cheated on calculations by assuming some figures instead of locking them up. A computer need not do that, it can check all variables, read all tables and compute just the result of your actions. Surely the most realistic PnP combat system I encountered, but as said, a bit to much for PnP.

Of course if I made a combat system for a computer RPG (turn based quite likely...) I would take in a bit more options on for a tactical aspect. Not that I find it important, just to have the combat like in rolemaster (a consequential system) I would be fine. For I find combat to be non consequential and that leads to problem I have with computer RPGs = to much combat, combat easy, fast leveling from rat to demi-god and injuries nothing to care about.

enough about this now

Fuck that.

There's all the effort I'm willing to put forth.

What about starting with a "blank" character. Meaning, character creation is no more, and instead you start with a character that has low "stats" in everything. What your character becomes depends on how you start to play out the game. For instance, in a fantasy setting, if you fight a lot, your fighting "stats" will increase, as well as other fighter-aligned stats. You mold your character into a Fighter, instead of just starting out as one. Same for a Thief. If you tend to do thieving things, your in-game play defines your character as a Thief.

Then, abilities specific to a class can be earned after a certain point of development. This would be role-playing in its purest form. Don't select your type of character, role-play to become your type of character via your in-game play.

If this sucks, I just wasted 60 seconds of your life.

I like Kris' package idea: selecting several packages that loosely define your character's starting stats in the game. If they were in-depth enough, and the game was designed in such a way that new packages could be added, this could be a novel way of defining a starting character. And, with this sort of set up, it would be fairly easy to hide the numbers from the player.

However, part of the "reward system" for playing a traditional RPG is the continual improvement of the character you're role-playing. So, the question with this approach is, fairly obviously, how do you reward the character without displaying the stats?

I can think of three possible approaches to this.

First is total transparency. By this I mean that the game tracks usage of various skills - most specifically the number of successful outcomes of that usage. At a given point, the stat governing a particular skill gets incremented: without the player being advised. This means that how you play the character defines the skills that your character advances in without you ever being aware of what the stats are. I'm not entirely sure I'd like to play what would be, in effect, a rewardless system and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be very popular.

The second approach is a slight modification of the above. I'm assuming here that the "numberless system" would still have some form of "hero sheet" (which would not be neccessary with the first option). As part of the description of your character (derived from the packages you chose at start up), you could have comments like "You are generally recognised as the best bare-knuckle fighter in [Town Name]" or "Locals joke about your archery in the local taverns". As your skills improve in a particular area, the comments about your character would improve.

A third possible approach is also a possible answer to the question "How would an XP buy system work in a numberless stat system?" This is the use of trainers to get the advancement. I'm not talking about specific trainers here - no "Long Sword Trainer" - but generalist trainers. As you go along, you accumulate XP until you have anough to train with one of them. However, instead of buying an increase in skill X, the trainer advances you in a specific skill set that you have used more than any other. So, if your response to a problem is to whip out your trusty sword, the trainer would advance you in sword skills and (possibly) strength or agility, with perhaps some blocking thrown in. However, if your response was to step back and start muttering arcane phrases, the trainer would train you in magical arts instead.

Caveats
I realise that option 2 doesn't answer twinfalls' criterea that ranges not be shown, however I do feel that - even in a numberless sytem - there should be some indication for the player of how they are progressing.

These are just some off the top of my head ideas that you can rip to shreds if you feel that I'm approaching this in the wrong way. I am intrigued by the idea of a numberless stat system and wanted to cast a few crumbs on the water, as it were, while I think of other ways this could be approached.

I'm glad to see that this discussion is being started fresh. The last couple of pages of that previous thread were getting to be some pretty heavy yes-tis-no-it-isn't slogging.

My real motivation for advocating a stat-sheet-free game is that it would help in immersion immensely. In Fallout I would only look at the character sheet when I was leveling up. Apart from that, I was having so much fun exploring, questing and talking to characters it was almost a chore to go into the character sheet and weigh the pros and cons of assigning character points. It makes you step out of the game as a world to explore.

On to the question of how to reflect character advancement:

I think that the standard XP-assign system just wouldn't work properly in a system like this, trainers or no. They definitely have their place, but if what we are really after is an immersive experience, it wouldn't make any sense to go out and earn points stabbing rats, take these points to a trainer and buy yourself some skill in chasm-jumping. A much better way to do an XP-assign system is to either have the trainers offer teaching based on personal reputation as in
"I hear you've been out stabbing rats. I remember back in the day when I used to do that. Why, I used to ...."
or to have an XP-assign system with multitudes of different XP-points that apply to different areas. Have a set for close-combat, a set for magic, a set for arts and crafts, etc. and allow the player to modify their character that way.

My personal preference is to ignore the XP-point system entirely. It is, after all, a completely artificial construction. The real costs to improving yourself are time, money and dedication to a goal. If I have the money and the determination to obtain enough training to become as skillful a swordsman as Mushasi, it doesn't matter if I have stabbed 3 rats or 3000, it is just a matter of time and training.

I realize that this doesn't feel quite right for a computer game, though. I would probably have three different values for a skill- potential, actual and perceived( as was mentioned in the other thread). Training would improve your potential skill. After all, you can only train so much before you need to go out and put it into practice. Application of a skill would improve the actual skill level. Perceived skill level could float around depending on the character's performance in executing the skill.

Finally, as far as feedback about a character's general skill level, I would try and supply most of that information visually and audibly while the character is trying to apply themselves to a task. Anything from having the character worridly muttering "Oh shit oh shit o shit" at the start of a battle with an ogre to having him pounding his fist on the table when he's having trouble carving a wooden duck. A bit of on-topic heckling from the Unwashed Villagers can never hurt either:
"Hey Mulciber- Remember to hold the sword pointy-end out this time!"

Without reading the entire thread....

I have an approach I started to take but have yet to finish. Replace numbers with levels for attributes/skills:
ABLTY_DESC_POOR,
ABLTY_DESC_AVERAGE,
ABLTY_DESC_GOOD,
ABLTY_DESC_EXCELLENT,
ABLTY_DESC_SUPERHUMAN,
ABLTY_DESC_DEMIGOD,
ABLTY_DESC_GODLIKE

Then for any test, you have a difficulty rating:
TEST_AUTO_PASS, /*Small chance of failure*/
TEST_EASY,
TEST_AVERAGE, /*Baseline*/
TEST_DIFFICULT,
TEST_VERY_DIFFICULT,
TEST_IMPOSSIBLE /*Small chance of success*/

Then use a given race/class combination, establish a baseline. For me, I decided that the average schmuck was POOR in all attributes; I also had no intelligence or wisdom based attributes, instead I used a cool attribte for all mental related tasks.

The difficulty of a task was baselined vs the average attribute/skill in question. Then the actual attribute level modified the difficulty level. So a person with a POOR attribute attempting something of AVERAGE initial difficullty, would automatically get the difficulty level bumped up a notch to DIFFICULT--with a 50% of the time, that test would be VERY DIFFICULT. Note that this is only a test to see if an action succeed/failed...the amount of success or failure is determined by the intial attribute level.

So for example, a POOR baseball player hitting a DIFFICULT pitch will rarely get a hit. And when they do, its not ilkely to go very far. A GOOD baseball player--3 out of 10 times--has a better chance, and when they do, it is less likely to be a foul and more likely to be a single or double, with a homerun only rarely. A godlike player would constantly hit, with each hit likely being a homerun--but godlike is not "god", so there is still chances for failure.

Advancement was slow and limited...it's relatively easy to go from POOR to AVERAGE, and very difficult to go from AVERAGE to GOOD. It was impossible to go from GOOD to EXCELLENT, unless you started out with GOOD, at which point EXCELLENT was the best you could hope for. Take for example, shooting a gun. First time you shoot a gun, chances are you won't be very proficient. But practice just a short while and you would become an average shot. Getting to good? Better practice a long time.

The idea was eliminate numbers so that stats were more descriptive; certainly not the firsrt, I think the Infocom Battletech game used a similiar system.

Anyway, it has seemed to work out pretty well for as far as I was able to take it (which isn't that far, yet), and eliminated the need for numbers, but not stats/skills...

Edit: As far as presenting the stats, I see no difference between having a screen of skills or requiring the player to remember his pc skills. Not the point of the thread I know, but it sounds like the problem is more a presentation issue than a system/gameplay issue, sort of a variation of the automap vs make the player map question.

Bar graphs.

Bar graphs.

Well, if what you are doing is a waste of time (which it porbably is) then there is nothing constructive in doing it.

I think if you guys could explain better, people might change their minds.

First off, I have a lot of work to do, so I cant respond to a lot of the good ideas you all had just yet. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow.

Bryce, I mean this in a non-confrontational way, but thats a VERY naive and narrow minded view. No form of discussion is EVER a waste of time, purely for the fact that we CAN have a discussion, and people enjoy participating. Intellectual stimulation is not a waste of time. If that were the case, debates on philosophy, politics, religion, theoretical math, quantum physics, astronomy would all be a big waste of time.

Any form of communication involving an exchange of ideas relevent to a discussion is inherently constructive.

As for "explaining" better, realise that this is page 1 of this thread and everyone has to get some thoughts out before forumlating solid criteria. We're more or less explaining this to OURSELVES let alone everyone else. This is an EXPERIMENT. This isn't a thread explaining to everyone else why this is the way you should think. Its not about changing minds, as that would imply we're trying to tear down the old system, which isn't the case. This is to try something different.

To everyone who's obsessed with deriding the concept, perhaps just give it time to evolve and understand where its going before interjecting. Whats NOT constructive is negativism and derision which is rampant here. Sometimes its funny, but damn, you have problems with Bioware or GasPowered or Bethesda for "dumbing down" RPG's and then you turn around and bash a group of dedicated RPGer's who THINK LIKE YOU and want to experiment on something fresh...AND YOU BASH THAT? How fucking hypocritical is this? You dont give a shit about RPG's, you only care about your self-serving view of how YOU like to play YOUR game. Who wastes that much effort riding a small group of people having a discussion about a topic you should ideally care about when you can go and bash the developers that have "ruined" RPG's otherwise?

Excuse the rant, it wasn't aimed at anyone specific, just a general feeling that perhaps everyone can grow up a bit. I'm sarcastic. I bash stupidity. I can be an asshole. But there's a time and place for it, and thats aimed at deserving people...stupid people. I dont see anything at all wrong with what we're doing to elicit any sort of negative response whatsoever. No one is bashing the old system. No one is calling anyone else names. No one is 'angry' over anything, so why the hostility?


Alright like I said, I'll respond to everyone as soon as I finish these anims, but so far I like what I'm reading.


Cheers

Twinfalls said:

The player be given an opportunity sheet. So you have played the game for a bit, and you want to join the mechanists. You are told you need a 'good' skill in repair, and a 'very good' skill in construction. You go away and do whatever it takes to build those skills. The game keeps track of what you have shown an interest in, and once your skills are high enough, tells you 'you have a new opportunity'. You check your opportunity sheet, and 'join Mechanists' is now listed as well. The sheet could comprehensively list everything your stats allow you to do, rather than the stats themselves.

Click to expand...

I like the idea of the player receiving opportunities as a result of personal improvement, but I don't agree with the idea of it being presented to them in a comprehensive sheet, as that seems a bit too close to the stat sheet that we're trying to avoid. It also seems a bit too restrictive for my tastes. As a player, I want my character to be free to try anything... Free to succeed and free to fail. What if the opportunities were presented to the character some other way: If the character has been acting very sociably, perhaps taking a few etiquette courses, his character starts to receive invitations to the palace parties. If he's been getting into bar fights, a fighting promoter propositions him next time he is in town.
Gearheads had a very simple way of providing this information. Every time someone wanted to get in contact with you personally, they would send you an email. Everytime something of world interest happened, it would be in the news. You could check both of these if you had a personal computer. It was able to provide all of the information and keep it in the game world, where it belongs.

Mulciber said:

Twinfalls said:

The player be given an opportunity sheet. So you have played the game for a bit, and you want to join the mechanists. You are told you need a 'good' skill in repair, and a 'very good' skill in construction. You go away and do whatever it takes to build those skills. The game keeps track of what you have shown an interest in, and once your skills are high enough, tells you 'you have a new opportunity'. You check your opportunity sheet, and 'join Mechanists' is now listed as well. The sheet could comprehensively list everything your stats allow you to do, rather than the stats themselves.

Click to expand...

I like the idea of the player receiving opportunities as a result of personal improvement, but I don't agree with the idea of it being presented to them in a comprehensive sheet, as that seems a bit too close to the stat sheet that we're trying to avoid. It also seems a bit too restrictive for my tastes. As a player, I want my character to be free to try anything... Free to succeed and free to fail. What if the opportunities were presented to the character some other way: If the character has been acting very sociably, perhaps taking a few etiquette courses, his character starts to receive invitations to the palace parties. If he's been getting into bar fights, a fighting promoter propositions him next time he is in town.
Gearheads had a very simple way of providing this information. Every time someone wanted to get in contact with you personally, they would send you an email. Everytime something of world interest happened, it would be in the news. You could check both of these if you had a personal computer. It was able to provide all of the information and keep it in the game world, where it belongs.

Click to expand...

Damn I didn't want to respond to these yet, but this caught my attention moreso :D :

Mulciber is right, there should be a contextual method of 'receiving' quests/invitations. Moreso, I dont want to restrict someone based on less-than-desirable ability. Its far more organic that, as in Mulcibers example, the character was cool with the the party in question, and perhaps convinced them that while he might not have the absolute minimum skill, he should be given a shot. This fits more with the system of ambiguity. How do THEY know you're not capable? "Lets give the kid a shot". This way you can succeed or fail in context. Perhaps they tell you this is still too dangerous a job and you really do need more experience, so come back later...but they gave you a shot first rather than just toss you aside! On the contrary, you could've just so happened to do VERY well, and not only does this encourage the group to keep you around, one steps up and decides to mentor you! Now you're learning a solid new skill or improving a skill you had OR, this NEW skill he teaches you makes the old one obsolete, as its a better way to do 'whatever' than you initially thought. Now you're experiencing character growth, but within the context of the game world.

This way, you had a threshold of success, so decisions about you or your abilites were not black and white. The ambiguity has to extend throughout the system, not just with your character.

HardCode said:

What about starting with a "blank" character. Meaning, character creation is no more, and instead you start with a character that has low "stats" in everything. What your character becomes depends on how you start to play out the game.

Click to expand...

This goes to think about the "character is a kid" thinking if you are not good at anything. Of course if you put up that lower level to something it won't be a big difference from any other game where you are a weak lvl1 character.

a big problem here and with any skillbased system is to where limits should be put. For if there are no limits on maxing all things then you only end up making a uber-Fable like character that is a master in everything. One option would be to have skillprogression as slow as to not be able to max more than a few skills (or none at all!) with playing trough the game doing everything. Another one would be to have skill regression as you don't us it or train to much on something else.

HardCode said:

For instance, in a fantasy setting, if you fight a lot, your fighting "stats" will increase, as well as other fighter-aligned stats. You mold your character into a Fighter, instead of just starting out as one. Same for a Thief. If you tend to do thieving things, your in-game play defines your character as a Thief.

Click to expand...

As said above, the master of all syndrome awaits. If the game design doesn't avoid overbearing combat then I would bet that pretty much ALL characters will be good fighters.

HardCode said:

Then, abilities specific to a class can be earned after a certain point of development. This would be role-playing in its purest form. Don't select your type of character, role-play to become your type of character via your in-game play.

Click to expand...

Exactly how is this purer roleplaying? It isn't, it just make a difference in whether you roleplay a character that you predefined or a character that you slowly build up to becoming whatever you fancy. I am not exactly in favour of the latter as it can easily be about jumping to easily between being different things, not that this says it is less realistic. (I still think this would be best to have in a childhood/teen part of game as that is when we really build up who/what we are)

HardCode said:

If this sucks, I just wasted 60 seconds of your life.

Click to expand...

No you wasted more as I replied! :D

I dont inherently have a problem with what Hardcode said, but what I like more is what you said Kris, about limiting skills and avoiding the "master of all". I know I'm saying this a lot, but I just had THIS conversation now today. In all fairness, I'm actively trying to work out these concepts on my end with my group, so its not like this is a huge coincidence, but it does reinforce that many of us are on the same page. :D

But yea, the biggest problem I have with powergaming is that games that promote replayability and custom character creation seem to always boil down to "whats the most balanced character I can create and grow to see and do everything in the game". I'm guilty of this. If you have a completely combat oriented character, and then come across a door that is locked and very difficult to pick, and your lockpick skill is very low, knowing full well there is some prime loot on the other side, you'll just kill the hell out of everything in sight (because you're good at it in the first place!) and farm points to dump entirely into lockpick so you can gank the stuff. This sucks and is not roleplaying by any stretch. Yes it IS in roleplaying GAMES, but that doesn't make for truly playing a character.

Funny, with this said, it seems class based systems were onto something. If you're were a fighter, you most certainly wouldn't be picking locks ever. (Don't worry, I'm not implying we create a class based system, just stating a little fact.)

So yes. I'm in total agreement that one of the main aims in a system like this is to eliminate or at least discourage the "jack of all trades" powergaming mentality in an open class-less system. Good call Kris.

kris said:

Of course if I made a combat system for a computer RPG (turn based quite likely...) I would take in a bit more options on for a tactical aspect. Not that I find it important, just to have the combat like in rolemaster (a consequential system) I would be fine. For I find combat to be non consequential and that leads to problem I have with computer RPGs = to much combat, combat easy, fast leveling from rat to demi-god and injuries nothing to care about.

enough about this now

Click to expand...

I think I just touched upon this indirectly in my last post above (also for you) but yea, thats the impetus to trying this all out. To remove the arbitrary conventions RPG's hold dear to.

Witches Wake was a very interesting and successful attempt at deemphasizing combat, and psychologically what eneded up happening, as yea, I was avoiding combat simply because they offered nothing more for me other than perhaps some cheap loot. Removing the XP from fighting COMPLETELY focused me on the story and puzzles, which in all honesty worked. It was very refreshing. Combat wasn't less fun, it just wasn't the answer to the problems presented in the game. I dont recall, but when you did have to fight 'I BELIEVE' that undead dude near his tomb, that was to retrieve an item, nothing more, so that gave me a GOOD reason to fight, not to farm XP. That and because I wasn't needing XP arbitrarily, I didn't miss it, and hence had no desire to farm for it (assuming for a moment I could).

That and ultimatly, what was important was the story, and I found it very interesting. Of course that was also a bad thing, because they never finished it!


Cheers

OverrideB1 said:

I like Kris' package idea: selecting several packages that loosely define your character's starting stats in the game. If they were in-depth enough, and the game was designed in such a way that new packages could be added, this could be a novel way of defining a starting character. And, with this sort of set up, it would be fairly easy to hide the numbers from the player.

Click to expand...

I do too, a lot. We already have concepts (when I say we, I mean us developing this on my end) regarding a completely narrative character creation system. We're torn with either a full 'background paragraph method, or an ad lib method, or a combination or what, but yea, this is definitely a strong direction to head in, helping establishing the narrativist intent here.

OverrideB1 said:

However, part of the "reward system" for playing a traditional RPG is the continual improvement of the character you're role-playing. So, the question with this approach is, fairly obviously, how do you reward the character without displaying the stats?

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One of the oft asked questions here(office). But one question we are also asking is "DO rewards have to be JUST character growth". Odds are sure, because its familiar and its a solid metric for defining progress. Hidden stats are not the antithesis of growth or reward mind you. We simply have to work on a compatible system of reward. Titles? Medals? Visible accoutrements? Self-Reflective Narrative (thanks Section8)? We know how to do it, but the question is how do we make this information easily digestible to the player.

On that though I argued that perhaps the DESIGN should not require the player to obsess about growth. The design is flawed if the player is constantly worrying about his abilities or his progress when this information should be clear in the context of the game, assuming the player is paying attention.

Other games reward progress with new level art, better weapons or enhanced character ability (jump further, lift heavier objects, etc). All these things can be derived empirically.

Keeping with the lockpicking paradigm, I dont see ANY value in KNOWING what your lockpick skill is. You can either pick a lock or you can't. If couldn't pick that chest, and later in the game you meet a master thief named Garrett, and he teaches you a trick to the more difficult iron locks, you ideally are thinking perhaps you could open that chest you tried earlier. I dont see a need to explicitly state anything more than a journal entry next to your lockpick skill that says "Today I was offered an opportunity to watch a master at work...and he let me in on some of his secrets! Locks beware for I'm the master...um...picker of the night!" (humor optional and mileage may vary )

OverrideB1 said:

First is total transparency. By this I mean that the game tracks usage of various skills - most specifically the number of successful outcomes of that usage. At a given point, the stat governing a particular skill gets incremented: without the player being advised. This means that how you play the character defines the skills that your character advances in without you ever being aware of what the stats are. I'm not entirely sure I'd like to play what would be, in effect, a rewardless system and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be very popular.

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Skill growth through usage vs. assignment is controversial, but I dont inherently have a problem with usage only. The number one arugment is:

"how can you ensure that there are enough tasks for every skill for the usage to be consistent...like combat...you're ALWAYS fighting, so you're inevitably always gonna be a better fighter later on"

While this is true, the design is at fault. Too much combat for one thing, and an imbalance in skill advancement in general. Not all skills need to proportionaly increase relative to eachother, they should be based on the complexity of the task. Meaning, you might have to beat the hell out of a lot of bad guys to gain significant ability in combat, but you might only need to break into one house at night to significantly improve your thieving skills. In combat there is pressure to perform, but out of combat, we can adjust complexity without a huge presence of urgency and balance growth relative to the story or situation. (well fine stealing shit is urgent, but perhaps less so for arguments sake? )

There inevitably WILL be more opportunity to fight if you include random encounters, so unless every skill has their own random encounter set, combat will always be disproportionate and make every character a fighter.

This is also a problem with the model of constant character growth. Growth perhaps should appear in spurts rather than linearly. An "ah ha" moment with ability improved due to a significant occurance. This follows well with our concept as players are then less focused on the next kill. Their "ah ha" moments will come when appropriate, so there's no need to powergame yourself to your next level.

OverrideB1 said:

The second approach is a slight modification of the above. I'm assuming here that the "numberless system" would still have some form of "hero sheet" (which would not be neccessary with the first option). As part of the description of your character (derived from the packages you chose at start up), you could have comments like "You are generally recognised as the best bare-knuckle fighter in [Town Name]" or "Locals joke about your archery in the local taverns". As your skills improve in a particular area, the comments about your character would improve.

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I like this and was what Section8 suggested. I talk about this a few paragraphs up. Like this a lot.

OverrideB1 said:

A third possible approach is also a possible answer to the question "How would an XP buy system work in a numberless stat system?" This is the use of trainers to get the advancement. I'm not talking about specific trainers here - no "Long Sword Trainer" - but generalist trainers. As you go along, you accumulate XP until you have anough to train with one of them. However, instead of buying an increase in skill X, the trainer advances you in a specific skill set that you have used more than any other. So, if your response to a problem is to whip out your trusty sword, the trainer would advance you in sword skills and (possibly) strength or agility, with perhaps some blocking thrown in. However, if your response was to step back and start muttering arcane phrases, the trainer would train you in magical arts instead.

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Yes! Perhaps this is part of the "ah ha" moments I was talking about above. A "master" recognizes a particular ability in you, so he approaches and asks if you'd be interested in what he can teach you. This method encourages and even enforces maintaining the 'character path' you chose at creation, stengthening the role you're playing and severly limiting the "master of all syndrome".

OverrideB1 said:

These are just some off the top of my head ideas that you can rip to shreds if you feel that I'm approaching this in the wrong way. I am intrigued by the idea of a numberless stat system and wanted to cast a few crumbs on the water, as it were, while I think of other ways this could be approached.

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Excellent crumbs and no, no ripping or shredding. You get it fundamentally. Thanks a bunch and don't disappear. Keep them rolling bud.


Cheers

What an interesting thread. I very much like the idea of a numberless system. Stats were invented to simulate a world in P&P games, since computers do numbers great, they were carried over to CRPG's - but they were always means to an end for me, NOT at the heart of rolplaying.
The main question a numberless system obviously faces is how to give feedback to the player. The stat sheet is a very simple easy way to give this feedback to allow the player to assess his capabilities in the simulated world. It is also very abstract. If we accept that RPGS are also "Fantasy World Simulators", than thats not really the best possible solution. By the same token I will not go into any "non-realistic" feedback methods such as hud indicators, as that would just relocate the problem, not solve it.


The problem with feedback is that a computer (at this point) can only give visual-, audio-, or text-based feedback, while real-life feedback to your capabilities is much more complex. Nevertheless, lets break feedback down into a few categories:

-Social: People will let you know if you are very good or very bad at something. They will not usually comment if you are average, or of course if its a skill or talent they have no means of knowing about. Examples would be people commenting on your fighting prowess after a duel, or telling you about either your great verbal skill or your uncouthness after talking to you.

- Result: You will judge your skills by attempting a task and judge your success by wether or not or to what degree you achieve your goal. Examples would be running 100 m under a certain time, hitting a target with a bow, attempting to climb a wall and either making it or falling.

- "degree of mastery" (I can't find a better name for this) The extent to which you "know" a skill relative to others in the field or what you know is achievable it's related to result, but not quite the same I think. E.g. the number and fluidity of martial arts moves you know relative to your teacher. The realism of a drwawing after the life you make. The number of programming languages that you mastered.

- Contextual: Feedback your senses give you as to how difficult a task "feels". Examples would be the strain on your hands an muscles when you try to bend a steel bar or lift something heavy. The burning of your lungs when you try to run too fast. the helpless confusion in your head when you try to solve a difficult riddle. The wobbling of your sights as you try to shoot a target.


The first two categories would seem to be fairly simple to implement in a CRPG, in fact this is often done already. Hoowever it would be more important that they are done well in a numberless system. for example there could be NPC (friends, trainers), that you could specifically ask what they think about your skills. There could be clues on progress (NPC: I am impressed, X, you are much stronger now than last time I saw you!)
The third category can and has been implemented for specific puposes too: Gothics "new plus more fluid moves" during combat, the number of spells or force powers (KOTOR) you have, Oblivions announced skill perks.

The fourth category is the real problem, and you will basically have to find ways to map this to the mentioned visula-, audio-, and text-based clues.
A few ideas:
Strength feats: audio clues: breathing, grunting, PC vocal comments ("that was easy!")
Mental feats: time needed for a taks, textual clues. Visual clues (e.g. head scratching)
dexterity feats: Aiming, lockpicking: shaking, wobbling - DeusEx did this well for aiming e.g.. Visual clues: fluidity of movements
Social feats: Actual textual or vocal errors (stuttering, "errrrrr...", etc., visual clues (nervous behavior, flushed face, facial expressions)

Its easy to see that a lot of these are more difficult for first person games, as there is no visual representation of the player.

The main difficulty would be to mesh all of these clues tight enough that the player obtains a real and approximately realistic mental image of his characters capabilities.

What you bring up GhanBuriGhan is an interesting topic itself.

Two things:

• Is the PLAYER capable of assimilating this information on character creation? We all talk about games dumbing down, giving no credit to the players ability to retain details. "He needs to be spoon fed information." Does he? How important is it to constantly reinforce the abilities of a character if the player chose that character? The nature of player created characters is that have some inherent knowledge about THEIR character. Feedback on the other had, from the gameworld is a given, and you cite examples that work just fine. NPC's in Fable barked at the player for example.
  
• How important is it that characters go through continuous and substantial growth? I see a problem inherently when your character grows so quickly, you begin to lose the identity of the character, constantly needing to see "where he's at". When you begin a game, you have a pretty clear picture of what the character can do, as you spent time creating him. There's no real issue. But once you start assigning points every other hour, modifying the character based on what you've experienced in the game or you simply changed your mind, the character becomes fuzzy, losing any of the starting idiosyncrocies that made him who he was.

This begs to ask how interconnected was the old paradigm, that certain elements came to be out of necessity for the paradigm? Where did this need for constant growth arise? Other genres reward players in other ways, not intricate character growth. You're already crafting the character of your choice at the begining of the game, so why does the breadth of the experience require this to be a constant state? Stats in most RPG's do not go up after you've rolled them, unless temprorarily with a potion or even rarer, finding someone or something that can permanently increase a stat. This seems to be accepted just fine, so growth is stunted there. Skills of course do improve with time and use, so why would this be terribly difficult for the player to assume his player is in a constant state of improving as he adventures? Locks get easier to pick, monsters easier to kill, damsels easier to woo. Peasants respond to your heroic medical skills. You find more gold and purchase finer armours and weapons or medical bags. You purchase property. You've solved many of what ails your fellow countrymen. Growth and progress is just a natural extension of exploration and interaction and reaction. Its all around. You can't miss it!

Reward and progress is VERY important to gameplay, so dont misconstrue what I'm saying here. Its about WHERE this reward and progress is focused that is important.


Cheers

Hi, I mostly lurk - but I have to say I really like some of the ideas here. Given the number of times I've seen someone post that overt stats are needed to make an RPG, its nice to see a thread show that this isnt necessarily the case.

If you never get to see your stats, then the progress by use system is obviously going to be the default. You could have trainers assess your worth with terms like Poor, Average, Good, Master etc., but then is this not effectively making the trainer a stat sheet that you visit, with the trainer giving you your current level?.

I liked the suggestion that failure, or clues such as grunts of exertion could give you an idea as to the abilities of your character.

Equally imagine that different guilds have different tasks - if your character has managed to achieve a highish rank in that guild by achieving a task and gaining his peers respect - then he/she must be pretty good. How good? No-one really knows - you may have fluked the mission but it at least gives an idea of the quality of your character without giving a "pseudo level"

It might be a little unsubtle, but could the look of your character itself give visual clues as to your abilities? I appreciate that people like to control the way that their character looks, but it would make a degree of sense that a strong character would have more muscle, an athletic character might be thinner. The problem with this is that it opens the can of worms that is stat tradeoffs, and dont really want to confuse the issue.

Will players, (and in particular some RPG players - who love the levelling up thrill) accept a game based on invisible stats? I think increasingly the answer is yes. I appreciate that these two examples may not be entirely appropriate, but in both Call of Duty 2, and Halo 2 there is no visible health bar. If FPSers can take this kind of uncertainty, I dont see why RPGers could not accept it on a wider scale.

Imbecile said:

If you never get to see your stats, then the progress by use system is obviously going to be the default. You could have trainers assess your worth with terms like Poor, Average, Good, Master etc., but then is this not effectively making the trainer a stat sheet that you visit, with the trainer giving you your current level?.

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Hey Imbecile. (for once I can say that without it being taken the wrong way!) :D

Well as I've been stressing, its important to make sure the design doesn't require people obsess over their 'status' at every turn. I wanted to avoid the aspect where a trainer will always be there, waiting at your beck and call for a "character update". That would be silly, so I agree, why not just put that in your character bio, accessible at the click of a button.

The goal to a system like this is to MAKE your status ambiguous. No need to worry about it and no need to micromanage it. This does not mean there are no skills, no stats and no progression. It means story, characters and exploration are the most important aspects of the game. Where the player is rewarded for role-playing the character THEY created, not just showered with XP so he can become a superhero.

Imbecile said:

I liked the suggestion that failure, or clues such as grunts of exertion could give you an idea as to the abilities of your character.

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One part of the whole, yes. This really falls under 'attention to detail'. Verisimilitude. It enhances the game on many levels AND yes, can be a good indicator for difficulty or ease of task.

Imbecile said:

Equally imagine that different guilds have different tasks - if your character has managed to achieve a highish rank in that guild by achieving a task and gaining his peers respect - then he/she must be pretty good. How good? No-one really knows - you may have fluked the mission but it at least gives an idea of the quality of your character without giving a "pseudo level"

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Exactly! Instead of being of high rank based on some set min. level, you actually rose through said ranks based on manipulation, forgery, dumb luck, etc. The ambiguity of your skill allows for ambiguity in the gameworld. Introducing the "grey" into an otherwise "black and white"(no not the game B&W) type of gameplay.

Imbecile said:

It might be a little unsubtle, but could the look of your character itself give visual clues as to your abilities? I appreciate that people like to control the way that their character looks, but it would make a degree of sense that a strong character would have more muscle, an athletic character might be thinner. The problem with this is that it opens the can of worms that is stat tradeoffs, and dont really want to confuse the issue.

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I see this more or less as a given, and I don't see any confusion coming from it.

Imbecile said:

Will players, (and in particular some RPG players - who love the levelling up thrill) accept a game based on invisible stats? I think increasingly the answer is yes. I appreciate that these two examples may not be entirely appropriate, but in both Call of Duty 2, and Halo 2 there is no visible health bar. If FPSers can take this kind of uncertainty, I dont see why RPGers could not accept it on a wider scale.

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This is what I was hinting at in another post (and then was accused of wanting to make a first person action game with choice or some shit :shock: ). The goal is to present a world and system that does NOT require the player obsess over leveling. They WILL get better. They WILL become more powerful. This isn't about removing the conventions of being heroric, its about bringing about charater roleplaying rather that spreadsheet roleplaying. The world is no less rich in detail or interaction. The world is just more responsive to player interaction and perhaps more forgiving so players can experiment without fear of terminal retribution at every turn. The design has a strong feedback system so the player constantly understands where his character is at without stepping 'out of the game' to study a sheet and where to spend his points.

As I stated in another thread, ambiguous but rational character interaction with non-ambiguous world reaction.

Does this mean your lurking days are over now? :D


Cheers