Notes Toward an RPG Codex Authored CRPG Rule-Set

As per bits of coversation in this thread, I thought I would go ahead and take the initiative to get the ball rolling on a thread to discuss (create?) an "original"--at least as original as is possible, considering the work of many game creators before us--rule-set (more) ideally suited for computer role-playing games.

The conversation thus far:

Monte Carlo: I've come to the conclusion that CRPG developers need to wean themselves off of brand recognition and make their own reality....but the suits won't let them do it. Result? Generic, bland, sub-console pap.
Me: Makes me think we should write our own ruleset collectively here on the forums. After all, if the arch-critics of the RPG Codex can't write a suitable rule-set for CRPGs, who can?
Sabotai: Well, there are certainly a lot of opinionated, knowledgable people with lots of game ideas on this forum. So, why don't we? Has anyone given creating an alternative to the d20 system any thought? Or might have heard about a similar project being developed right now?
Monte Carlo: It depends what you want to use it for. I think an interesting project would be to try to develop a generic RPG mechanic (rules, not technical) that was geared towards CRPGs and not a McGuyvering of an existing PnP ruleset. Sort of a pen & paper version of Freeware My own favourite is the Chaosium D100 system used for RuneQuest, Stormbringer and Call of Cthulu. Elegant, intuitive and easy to learn. As it's based on percentages it would be easy to program. If I were to design my own I'd use that as inspiration, rather than D20. This system, like any I would personally set out to write, is classless, level-less and devoid of alignment.
udarnik: And if I were to build a computer RPG, I wouldn't use a rule system at all. I would make something similar to a first-person-shooter but add dialogue and exploration. In order to represent the character's progress (gaining levels, so to speak) I would augment the player's ability to control him. Guns would bob less, you could run faster, see in darker light, jump higher, see farther, receive warning messages of impending danger, be able to do different combat moves with melee weapons, etc. Of course, I love wargame/rpgs, too, but I'd like to see an immersive Doom/System Shock/Morrowind kind of game.
Me: I think the whole d20 premise is wrong for CRPGs. I'm no programmer, mathematician, or game dev, but something seems intuitively wrong about basing a computer game rule-set on the number 20. 10 or 100 makes much more sense.

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So, I don't how interested folks are in really trying to flesh out a rule-set for CRPGs, but at the very least it might make for interesting conversation. I, for one, would be interested in seeing this project manifest a useful tool for CRPG development....after all, if we build it, we might someday reap the rewards in game play.

Sounds like fun, bring it on. We have some time to kill anyway till ToEE comes out. At very least it's going to be a fine mental exercise.

Just a sidenote, agreeing on the "d20 makes no sense in CRPGs".

Notice how Fallout and Arcanum used very complex skill systems that took advantage of the computer, rather than just simulating some swarthy guy rolling dice?

I think its no coincidence that their systems inspired rich gameplay.

I can provide the critisisms. :D seriously, if we understand a rule-set as a bunch of rules for doing stuff (independent of the setting), I'd like to see class-less, skill based system with a twist. different from the way 'heroic' systems work. more gritty.

aside, I tried to think hard about anything else possible, but only class-based or skill based or some mixture come to mind. I don't want to start debate on one against the other, but something has to be decided on which way to go.

I want everything to be a skill, from running speed to smoothtalking, to maintaining weapons.

I'd like to see 'skill decay' intoduced, i.e. if you neglect to use a skill for long enough time, it actually goes DOWN. or perhaps even disappears and frees a slot for a new one. never seen that done, so, maybe this is new, maybe not. this would also clamp down on min/maxing and uber skill combos, the bane of skill based systems.

skill combos, like when running and jumping reaches a certain level, you become an 'acrobat', or something which opens up a new skill subtree (hmm, doesn't turn into a class since you can still lose it)

in general more things that when combined create a new effect on the gameworld.

out with alignments. instead, local faction reputation system for tracking NPC attitudes. group all NPCs into factions with their ideologies. non-linear scale from -100 to 100 per faction. by 'non-linear' I mean if you piss them off more and more, the PC's rep withing a faction slides down faster and faster. in extreme, every NPC is a faction. (same can be adapted for the Gods/Pantheons if any)

a system without leveling or EXP gathering. pure skill manipulation.

every single character creation option should matter in some way birthsign, sex, where the PC comes from, faction loyalty, age, affinity to magic, etc..., but perhaps this is setting dependent.

base statistics of SPECIAL + traits are sufficient I think for character creation, since traits can be customized. I like the Luck statistic.

how about combat?? RT/TB/ that's another can of worms... (I like both in different circumstances isometric vs. first person - how to reconcile?)

Some ideas.

I agree with the 10/100 rules. abilities/skills

Ability scores should be just that abilities. Screw luck and wisdom and all like stuff. An ability is your natural born abilites that should take things into account such mental aptitude as well as your physical aptitude. I think three abilities from each is sufficient.

Skills, are important, because the ideal generic system should not have classes. Instead skills are what should determine what kind of character you are. If you are good at first aid, then you are a bloody cleric simple as that. Just kidding.

SKILL HIERARCHY (did I spell hierarchy right?) This is so bloody important, because some skills have crossover, and skills that are in the same subcategory should be in someway related. Here is what I mean, take speech and barter, and let us pretend they are in the class called diplomacy. If I have a speech of 100 and a barter of 10, then I should be really good at getting my way, except when I want to buy something, right? WRONG! I think all skills in a subgroup should give a value for your diplomacy class group which in some ways will correct anomalies like this. This is just a rough idea that can be hammered away at.

OK back to work now, my next post will discuss generic combat ideas.

Follow-up thoughts:

Classes: I've been thinking alot about class vs. no class. I think that I like the idea of the base ruleset being classless, but being able to plug-in starting stats and advancement schemes when desired. I think this can add flexibility as where I prefer classless for single-character focused games, for party-based games, I do like classes. In general, I'd like to see the rule-set be as universal as possilbe without sacrificing gameplay or balance.

Skills: I think I prefer improvement of skills with use rather than arbitrary point assignment. This takes advantage of the strength of computers, in this case a level of tallying and information-recording that would be unworkable with PnP. I also like the idea of skills "fading" with neglect, though I think this should be handled with kid gloves; otherwise I think it could feel too harsh for the player and engender a lot of pointless skill using to avoid loss of potency. Another idea to increase the universality of the rule-set, I think it could be useful to draw broader categories for skill definition, like with what JE was saying about combining the throwing and missle weapon skill in a possilbe FO3. For instance, there could be a generic "technology" umbrella under which would fall either magic or machines, depending on the setting. This is still very vague in my mind, so I'm sure there are some major glitches I'm not considering there.

Combat: I think most of us would immediately agree on Turn-Based. Personally I believe that combat should be as interesting and thought-provoking as any other component of a good CRPG. I really liked seeing percentages in combat, ala Fallout. I also like 3E's AoOs, or perhaps "Openings" would be a better, non-copyrighted name. Something I loved from FO is the in-combat taunting, but I'd like to see it matter. Perhaps at the cost of one or two "action points," a character can attempt to fluster or demoralize an enemy combatant with a "taunt" action, based of course on the character's speech skill and/or "charisma" attribute. I realize 3E does this in some way or another, but I've never used it in NWN or PnP, so I'm not super sure exactly how it works. I think this can add viability to a diplomatic character when the attempt to avoid combat altogether fails.

Miscellany: I'm not so sure about alignment. I actually like it, but definitely feel it should accrue as a result of actions, not the other way around. I definitely liked the Karma "score" in FO. Reputation with factions is more interesting if I have to choose, but I like the idea of some combination of the two better. I wouldn't want to lessen the attributes; I think that is a move toward simplifying the rule-set, which is obviously good for PnP, but again I think we should take advantage of the strength of CPU over human brain. Which is not to say that the rule-set should be overly or arbitrarily complicated, but rather that it could account for as many factors as necessary, and that this could be done in such a way that is "invisible" to the casual gamer, but offers many levels of depth of play to the more "hardcore" gamer.

Okay. Enough from me for now. I'll check back in after class. Glad to see everyone so positive and enthusiastic.

Ok, then. There are many good ideas in this thread, but I suggest that we take it one step at a time. So first, let's start with the 10/100 ruleset as everybody seems to like it. Next let's define the abilities. I agree with triCritical on luck and wisdom and on general definitions:

triCritical said:

An ability is your natural born abilites that should take things into account such mental aptitude as well as your physical aptitude. I think three abilities from each is sufficient

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Let's start with 6 abilties then. The physical ones: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution. The mental ones: Intelligence, Perception, and Personality (which would affect both charisma-related skills and willpower-related skills).

So, all in favour say aye, otherwise let's talk about it. When we agree and done with the abilities let's move to skills.

Vault Dweller said:

Let's start with 6 abilties then. The physical ones: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution. The mental ones: Intelligence, Perception, and Personality (which would affect both charisma-related skills and willpower-related skills.

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I won't block anything from moving forward, but I would vote for 8, adding Wisdom to mental and Agility to physical. I think it's better to have more attributes because I think a wider variety of skills can be defined and differentiated enough to make stat choices matter; fewer is better for PnP, but I'm harping again on taking advantage of computers' power of calculation. Also, I think it just makes for more unique and well-rounded characters. I would like to make a charismatic character that gets in over her head because she is not so wise. Or maybe my character is wheel-chair bound, but very good at manipulating mechanical things. Again, I wouldn't make a stink, but I'd like to hear if anyone else agrees with me.

Wisdom doesn't really enter most CRPGs' gameplay outside of conversations and the odd saving throw. Charging into stupid situations is much more an effect of metagame thinking (namely, the I'll-do-anything-for-ten-thousand-XP attitude) than it is players portraying their PC's low WIS score. Except for a few extra-persuasive dialog options--most of which are also granted by high CHA or INT--WIS doesn't do anything except serve as the priest's spellcasting trait.

As for Agility, doesn't it overlap with Dexterity?

Psilon said:

As for Agility, doesn't it overlap with Dexterity?

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I think I can be convinced on wisdom, but as for agility vs. dex, I think AGL would govern speed and acrobatic movements such as jumping or dodging blows, whereas I see DEX as the ability to pick a lock or pickpocket.

Incidentally, what are the cons of a level-based system in a levels vs. no levels discussion?

You'd probably do well to do a bit of research. I'm not the all-time conoisseur of gaming, but I used to play PnP with a group of 30-somethings who had thought about this stuff entirely too much, and a lot of this has been done already.

Check out Rolemaster. It covers most of what's been brought up here. Hopelessly complex for any but the most masochistic PnP players, but okay for something like this. The main thing to consider is abstraction. PnP settings abstract the mechanics to make things simpler to play out. That's not necessary for a computer. On the other hand, you want a level of abstraction from the player's end so that things are understandable without too much effort and making and advancing a character doesn't take hours (though I personally could live with a little more complexity than I'm usually given in CRPG's).

With skill atrophy, something this same group I played with came up with is that it only works for high levels of skill. If you're just good, it doesn't take maintenance. That's pretty much true; if you're just proficient at a task, you can get back into the saddle without much difficulty, but if you are world-class at just about anything, it takes all your time just to maintain your skill level. To switch that into game terms, it meant that skills that you were very good at reduced the number of skill points you got when levelling up or training. That represented the hours every day it took just to maintain your present skill level. If you quit practicing, that's fine, you have time for other pursuits, but your mastery would atrophy and eventually disappear, and you'd have to go through the training all over again to back to that level. Master three or so skills, and you're spending all day practicing pretty much, no time to learn anything else.

Levels are okay. For the length of your typical CRPG, I think they're probably a good thing. I don't enjoy babysitting a few pixels on a screen so they can go up a few points at what I want them to every time I play the game. I don't want to have to seize every opportunity imaginable to get the expected level of proficiency at esoteric skills, either. Talk all you want about how some mythical system in the future will get rid of that; it's what it always boils down to. Experience is an abstraction that works fine, there's not much reason to change it. It's no less realistic than doing a task "in the field" a few times and magically getting good at it, either. I'd say an extended period of training and practice is probably the most important thing when it comes to learning and getting good at most skills, but that's boring. So ditch it. It's really no less realistic if I hit these plateaus that simulate the learning process than if I go from some po-dunk kid who never saw a gun to the world's best marksman by shooting 1000 guys during a period of a couple of weeks.

You need to have a broad idea of your games mechanics before you decide what stats you are going to use. Otherwise you start designing a system to fit your stats, not your stats to fit your system.

If, for example, you are going to use a percentile system then I would argue that stats should be synergetic with them. That is to say you could have stat ranges of 1-100, or 1-10 or even 1-50.

Again, you need to consider combat and non-combat options. Are we going to have a game that supports climbing and jumping? If so, an Agility stat is important. If not, a generic Dexterity stat might suffice.

I also think that a hardcore, intellectually stimulating ruleset that is streamlined is possible. I want to pull my hair out at all the totally fucking arbitrary rules that litter D&D like so much game-designers egotistical bat-guano.

What will your character do in this game? He'll communicate, right? He'll very probably fight stuff. He'll use skills to bypass problems both technical and natural. The stats need to come from this.

So, yep, I'll throw my 2 pence in. If it looks like SPECIAL, well, hey, SPECIAL is pretty good if you take away the levels.

STRENGTH (obvious; melee damage, encumbrance and I'd add a secondary HP bonus too)
HEALTH (ditto; damage points, stamina, resistance to disease, poison, radiation or whatever)
PERCEPTION (mainly a skills-related stat but would impact on ranged weapons attacks)
INTELLIGENCE (dialogue, skills and like RQ3 it should also give a combat bonus and be one of the most important all-round stats)
WILLPOWER (an arbitrary stat that can help determine all sorts of miscellaneous crap, a combination of Wisdom and Luck)
AGILITY (does exactly what it says on the tin)
APPEARANCE(a purely physical barometer of attractiveness; I would use secondary calculations from INT and WILLPOWER to determine "charisma" in given situations)

Seven stats isn't too many compared to other systems. I'm going to advocate a system of 10-100 for all of them (10 being sub-handicapped, 100 being near super-human) and add a percentile bonus to base skills from those figures.

Sample Skill Adjustment

Firearms (SMG)
Base 10% + STR bonus (a strong character can keep a firearm steady whilst firing it, thus increasing accuracy) + Perception (obvious) + Intelligence (a smart guy knows how to get the most out of his weapons, judge factors like wind direction and recoil, fall of shot etc).

Oratory
Base 05% + INT bonus (a smart guy knows the arguments and counter-arguments in advance) + minor bonuses for Willpower (a passionate advocate who foccusses on the argument can be more convincing) and Appearance (looking good never hurt anybody in a debate).

Cheers
MC

Aboot already-existing rulesets, how about adapting the Codex [it's the name of a hungarian RPG, in case you're wondering ] rules? [for a fantasy / medieval CRPG]

- They're level based, in a way. If you get 100 xp, you level up, simple as that; skills don't increase by using them [which is very unwieldy in CRPGs as Snails pointed out]. This also makes it easy-ish to gauge the strength of encounters / the player / equipment.
- Stats [and especially HP] are constant. No need to explain this, here. Let's assert we're using a 1-10 scale for now.
- You don't gain XP for fighting. You gain XP by solving problems, then when you 'level up', you can distribute those 100 XP to the skills you used to gain that level to begin with. Example: Joe is asked to solve a hostage situation. If he busts in and kills both the hostage and the kidnapper [or the kidnapper kills the hostage and he kills the kidnapper], he gets 2 xp which he can spend on combat skills later on, plus the appropriate reaction penalties from the town's population. If he lockpicks the air vent and drops in on the kidnapper, killing him, he gets 5 xp which he can use on lockpicking, stealth and combat skills. If he talks the kidnapper out of it / tricks him to let down his guard / sneaks up on him and knocks him out, he gets 5 xp which he can use on the particular skills he used to solve the problem.
- Alternate rule: you can't spend more than 5 xp per level on any skill, but you're limited to increasing skills you've used / were trained in since your last level up. No other restrictions.
- Skills become increasingly harder to increase after a point. After 30 they all gain a multiplier [some might already have one; 'melee' is x10, a style is x3, but a specific weapon is only x1], after 50 another, after 75 yet another and they can't progress beyond 80+average_of_related_base_stats unless the character specialized in that particular skill; in that case it can get to 85+avg. It can be temporarily boosted above 95 (in a minor way) with magic, but that's it.
- Skills do gain synergistic bonuses from related skills and stats.
- Combat is governed by skill trees. I can post more info if ya'll want, but it's basically like this:
This allows for specializing in one specific style / weapon or becoming a [overall less effective] generalist, as well as a multitude of strategic / tactical choices. [a dagger beats a spear if the guy with the dagger closes in, but otherwise he's toast] However, you need to have high base skills if you want to increase the specific skills beyond a certain point [ie. if Bob has a 0 melee skill, a 20 close combat skill and a 40 dagger skill, he needs to increase his melee skill in order to increase close combat, which he needs to improve if he wants to increase dagger; also if he does that and wants to use a dagger according to the 'brawn' style (hey, it's possible, though it has huge penalties), he'll lose the bonus from the close combat skill but retain the dagger skill in combat calculations]
- Combat is lethal and not as random as say, d&d. Everyone has a 'defense value' calculated from their weapon skills / styles that goes down as they fight [exhaustion] and as they take hits. When it goes down to 0, they start taking hitpoint damage (since the toughest PC can have like 20 hitpoints at most, this won't last long) mitigated by armor and their effectiveness decreases. This is kind of like Betrayal at Krondor, with the exception that most attack spells and ranged attacks damage hitpoints directly [and are therefore deadly]. OTOH it's very hard to hit a moving target and magic is very low key. This also means that adapting this for a modern environment [where guns dominate] would either fail or be forced to rely a lot on missing / cover / etcetera. (somebody did a 'high-damage mod' for JA2 and it, frankly, sucked. Realism doesn't always == fun)

just tossing some ideas out there...

-- Z.

Walks with the Snails said:

With skill atrophy, something this same group I played with came up with is that it only works for high levels of skill. If you're just good, it doesn't take maintenance. That's pretty much true; if you're just proficient at a task, you can get back into the saddle without much difficulty, but if you are world-class at just about anything, it takes all your time just to maintain your skill level. To switch that into game terms, it meant that skills that you were very good at reduced the number of skill points you got when levelling up or training. That represented the hours every day it took just to maintain your present skill level. If you quit practicing, that's fine, you have time for other pursuits, but your mastery would atrophy and eventually disappear, and you'd have to go through the training all over again to back to that level. Master three or so skills, and you're spending all day practicing pretty much, no time to learn anything else.

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Something I was thinking about in this regard is having milestones at every 10 points. There is incremental advancement between the milestones; with neglect, one can loose some ability, but only as far back as their most recent milestone. Example: I reach 40 in my lockpicking skill, and continue happily going places I shouldn't be. Eventually I reach 47, but then go on a long quest that doesn't require any door opening. My skills deteriorate back to 40, but no lower. I think this better reflects the way this might happen in reality. You practice something and obtain skill; you don't use the skill for a while; you need the skill, and find that while you're a bit rusty, you haven't really lost the ability.

XJEDX said:

I think this better reflects the way this might happen in reality. You practice something and obtain skill; you don't use the skill for a while; you need the skill, and find that while you're a bit rusty, you haven't really lost the ability.

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I agree with WwtS, only mastery should be affected by inactivity, anything else should not as you don't want a player feel pressured and have a checklist of things to practice today. Mastery however is a different thing, as in order to be exceptionally good at something you have to practice and excersise your skill constantly, also it would stimulate a player to seek the masteries only in skills that are vital for the character, etc.

By the way, I suggest again that we leave minor things for later, and discuss abilities otherwise soon it's gonna be a huge thread of random, unrelated opinions. So anyway, where were we?

XJEDX said:

I would vote for 8, adding Wisdom to mental and Agility to physical...I think I can be convinced on wisdom, but as for agility vs. dex, I think AGL would govern speed and acrobatic movements such as jumping or dodging blows, whereas I see DEX as the ability to pick a lock or pickpocket.

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I think that Wis is a pointless attribute and technically is a mix of intelligence (abstract) and common sense (practicality). The later could be replaced by a broader definition of Perception (an ability not only to notice things but also to understand things that could not be understood by Intelligence)
As for Ag and Dx, I don't know. I would rather not add a whole ability that would be useful for one "class" only, i.e. anyone who wants to have some theiving skills gotta invest in Dx. I think the system should make all abilties equally important for all types characters. What do you think?

Vault Dweller said:

I think that Wis is a pointless attribute and technically is a mix of intelligence (abstract) and common sense (practicality). The later could be replaced by a broader definition of Perception (an ability not only to notice things but also to understand things that could not be understood by Intelligence)

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I'm liking this more and more. I was thinking of perception in a really narrow way, i.e., "seeing" things, "noticing," or "observing."

As for Ag and Dx, I don't know. I would rather not add a whole ability that would be useful for one "class" only, i.e. anyone who wants to have some theiving skills gotta invest in Dx. I think the system should make all abilties equally important for all types characters. What do you think?

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That's a tough one, though I think a lot of non-thieving skills could be governed by DEX(manual dexterity): repair, craft, music, art, piloting/driving, small weapons, writing/forgery, mechanical...maybe others. Again, I can probably be convinced that DEX is superfluous.

Great initiative XJEDX with this thread, although it will probably require a lot of time, effort and debate to come up with something playable. But that's a challenge.

XJEDX said:

Psilon said:

As for Agility, doesn't it overlap with Dexterity?

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I think I can be convinced on wisdom, but as for agility vs. dex, I think AGL would govern speed and acrobatic movements such as jumping or dodging blows, whereas I see DEX as the ability to pick a lock or pickpocket.

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I'm very much in favour of having Dexterity and Agility as seperate abilities. Etymologically speaking "dexterity" comes from the Latin word dexter meaning "right" (as in hand or side) and "dexteritas" meaning handy. It has almost exclusively to do with hands and the abitiliy to use them. Agility has more to do with the fitness, flexibility and speed of the body as a whole.

IMO Dexterity has inpact on everything that can be done with your hands, including how quick they can move. This will of course include lockpicking, pickpocketing, but also repairing, making things and affecting the ability and speed to wield weapons.

Agility has everything to do with the nimbleness of your body, the acrobat as someone mentioned in an earlier post; running, swimming, doing somesaults and backflips, climbing, squeezing yourself through tiny holes, the way you move in combat and are able to dodge blows/bullets Matrix-style.

A character can have very quick hands (high Dexterity), but as he might have low Agility, running, climbing and dodging blows will be much harder. This can be a big muscular, fighter who is good with his sword, but because he's so big it's more difficult for him to do backflips or climb. Or this can be a fat magician who is very skillfull with the hands (to make thing disappear) or a smith ( to make and repair things), but very clumsy when it comes to body movements.

XJEDX said:

As for Ag and Dx, I don't know. I would rather not add a whole ability that would be useful for one "class" only, i.e. anyone who wants to have some theiving skills gotta invest in Dx. I think the system should make all abilties equally important for all types characters. What do you think?

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That's a tough one, though I think a lot of non-thieving skills could be governed by DEX(manual dexterity): repair, craft, music, art, piloting/driving, small weapons, writing/forgery, mechanical...maybe others. Again, I can probably be convinced that DEX is superfluous.

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Ah, while I was typing you were ahead of me and posted. As you can see from my above post we seem to think alike.

I'm with Vault Dweller with regard to the Perception-ability. I like that very much.

Interesting points about Ag vs Dx, but I'm somewhat concerned about Ag being actively used. So far the applications of Ag that were mentioned are: running, swimming, doing acrobatic things, climbing, getting to hard to reach areas, moving in combat and dodging.

Well, swimming, climbing, and acrobatic jumps are minor activities unless every area in a game is going to have a wall and a river , running away is always an option, but hardly worth spending points on it, dodging sounds more like a skill one can learn, but combat moving is important, so the question is how important?

I would like to see a system that does not have any weak spots that would result in maxing out one ability by minimizing the other. It should not be an easy choice, I want a player to think about each point spent. So, what would be the reasons for a player to spend a point for Ag vs any other attribute? It's nice to be able to move an extra point or two, but is it as good as hitting harder or shooting faster or talking better or being tougher or noticing more (would be nice to be able to notice a weak spot in armor ). More opinions?

Vault Dweller said:

I would like to see a system that does not have any weak spots that would result in maxing out one ability by minimizing the other. It should not be an easy choice, I want a player to think about each point spent. So, what would be the reasons for a player to spend a point for Ag vs any other attribute? It's nice to be able to move an extra point or two, but is it as good as hitting harder or shooting faster or talking better or being tougher or noticing more (would be nice to be able to notice a weak spot in armor ). More opinions?

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Hmmm...I definitely agree about making the distribution of stat points matter, making them have (lasting) consequences. I guess the fundamental question is "Does more specialization make them matter more, or does less specialization?"

I would say that specialization should be a matter of skills not abilities. For example, Strength is important as an ability to hit harder, but it should be balanced out by the skill to wield a weapon and being able to use a weapon at maximum damage capacity. But what should make abilities important is their broad range of influence on many skills and gameplay elements, far too many to be easily substituted by skills and perks. So if an ability's effects could be replaced by trainings or ignored as not nearly important as those of others regardless of intended specialization, then this ability should be replaced by skills.

Vault Dweller said:

I would say that specialization should be a matter of skills not abilities. For example, Strength is important as an ability to hit harder, but it should be balanced out by the skill to wield a weapon and being able to use a weapon at maximum damage capacity. But what should make abilities important is their broad range of influence on many skills and gameplay elements, far too many to be easily substituted by skills and perks. So if an ability's effects could be replaced by trainings or ignored as not nearly important as those of others regardless of intended specialization, then this ability should be replaced by skills.

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Nicely put. But the importance of abilities remains quite subjective, depending on the player and on the kind of game. If it's a battle heavy game, Str, Dex and Ag will be important. But if a game has a lot of other quests which require climbing, swimming, diving, diplomacy, persuation to solve then Ag, Wis, Int will be important.

Sabotai said:

If it's a battle heavy game, Str, Dex and Ag will be important. But if a game has a lot of other quests which require climbing, swimming, diving, diplomacy, persuation to solve then Ag, Wis, Int will be important.

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Well, I would definitely like to have a system where all abilities are important regardless of a game, where making a cliche fighter with high st, dx, cn at the expense of "soft" skills just does not make any sense even for a pure fighter.

For example, Intelligence should affect your ability to learn (more skill points, more training, extra perks that should be availble to characters who got the concept of a skill - a figher can get a perk for high weapon skill increasing the damage and speed for instance, but if he is also smart, he can qualify for a perk increasing criticals which means that he does not just deliever a blow after blow, but actually thinks where to strike), Perception in its battle application affects ranged weapons and helps you notice weak spots on armor and creatures' vulnerability, spot traps and ambushes, figure out who the leader is and take him out first thus lowering morale and coordination of remaining enemies. Personality can ensure that you have someone who fights by your side, and that you are able to actually lead your party by issuing specific orders and maintaing control over party members in the heat of a battle, strong personalities should be able to resist mind effects better.

I disagree. If I want to play a fighter whose only solution to things is "ME SMASH!", why shouldn't I? Why should I be forced to learn all this diplomatic hoopla and lock-picking skullduggery? How it works in games with your system is that high intelligence diplomats are able to develop both combat skills and non-combat skills to very high levels. Meanwhile, the dumb fighter types are barely able to achieve high skill in their martial art of choice. I don't think this makes sense.

I think the solution here is to take a note from D&D 3E and key each skill to an ability, but take it a bit further. Normally, your melee skill's base score is derived from strength but is improved by skill points gained through intelligence. I think it would work better to make your score in a skill's key ability what determines the numebr of skill points you get. So, instead of gaining eighteen skill points thanks to your intelligence of six, you would gain three skill points from each of your six abilities, which all have a score of six (of course, the number six is totally hypothetical; I'm using it because it divides neatly into eighteen, another arbitrary number) that can only be used to buy ranks (I'm using bits of D&D terminology because, well, it works) in skills keyed to that ability. Thus, a high strength low intelligence character has an easier time of learning how to use his fists in a fight then how to barter, since he gains more strength skill points than intelligence skill points.

Another solution is a Morrowind-style progression-by-use system, but I don't like these at all, personally. It just seems... iffy.

Spazmo said:

I disagree. If I want to play a fighter whose only solution to things is "ME SMASH!", why shouldn't I? .

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You absolutely can. I'm against all restrictions. We haven't reach a point where we discuss leveling up and such, but I think that a person who chooses to play a dumb and butt ugly fighter should be given enough options to develop his character accordingly: enough skill points, appropriate perks, even rewarding a narrow specialization to a degree, etc. It wouldn't and shouldn't be as interesting and rich experience as playing a better rounded character, but the system should penalize a player only in areas that a player chose to ignore himself. It's a fair trade.

How it works in games with your system is that high intelligence diplomats are able to develop both combat skills and non-combat skills to very high levels

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It's definitely wrong and one of the reasons we are talking about designing a new system is to fix all the problems of the existing ones.