GameBanshee Forums

Sup Folks,

First, let me apologize in advance for the long post….feel free to ignore.

Bored and such, I decided earlier today that I’m gonna be the guy who creates the perfect system to quantify the attributes of people in an RPG system. ;-0

I’ve written down 14 values and what I am going to make them mean. The list below is meant to be both exhaustive and exclusive. From these essential attributes, I’m going to derive attributes. First I need help.

If you want, read them all through and hit me up with the following comments:
1. Is the list exhaustive? What I mean is: is there anything not measured about a person (in an RPG) setting that is both not on the list and which cannot be derived from the list. For example, there is no attribute for “Speed” because I intend to quantify speed as a derivative of one’s physical strength, agility, and reflex, divided by size (or something like that). Another example is that power is a function of one’s strength considered with his size. Another example is that courage will be a function of one’s essence considered with his resolution. (See below).
2. Anything else you can think of to add, refine, or better refine these rudimentary descriptions would be helpful.
3. Is there a better way to split up the sum of the whole of all attributes considered together?
4. Is there a way to package them in neat little divisions (e.g. physical, intellectual, spiritual, interpersonal)?

I intend to use a static scale and apply it across the board to all of these attributes. I.e., a quantification of, for example, 1 to 20 will be used across the board, with a baseline defining the average. I dunno…

Size
Size is an expression of physical mass, representing how much one weighs. While volume and density are not truly part of the equation comprising Size, the scale against which Size is measured is human. Thus, Size is meant to express also how much space one occupies.

Strength
Strength is a measurement of one’s ability to move mass relative to one’s Size. In this system, strength is not defined against a static scale, but measures one’s physical power against his own bodyweight. This bears some explanation, because the range of Strength will be from 0.1 to 2.0 against bodyweight. Therefore, a given human could lift anywhere between ten percent and two hundred percent of his own bodyweight. I think this may work (strength being such a difficult thing to measure in RPG systems across individuals) because a “perfectly” strong person could lift twice his bodyweight in a single motion. Therefore, though improbable near to the point of impossibility, a human could be found who weighed 400 pounds and could lift twice that, 800 pounds. This is interesting as a mechanism of definition, where a spider can lift and carry ten times its body weight.

Fortitude
Fortitude is an expression of one’s physical resistance to external or alien effects (poison, damage, medicine, etc.)

Stamina
Stamina represents one’s ability to sustain physical activity over time and recover from sustained physical effects.

Agility
Agility measures bodily control, kinesthetic sense, nimbleness, and flexibility. It expresses how much control one has over one’s body in motion.


Dexterity
Dexterity represents manual aptitude and deftness, the ability to manipulate physical objects digitally, and coordination between hand and eye.

Reflex
Reflex is a measure of physical reaction time. It represents how quickly one’s body responds to an event, and how quickly one’s body responds to its own mental commands.

Comeliness
Comeliness is an expression of physical attractiveness relative to the eye of a human beholder. Sociological, aesthetic, and biological conceptions of beauty control what is attractive, and Comeliness represents an individual’s natural qualification of those conceptions.

Comprehension
Comprehension expresses the ability to grasp, extract, understand, and learn. Strictly, it is the measurement of one’s ability to understand new concepts, ideas, and postulates.

Memory
Memory measures one’s ability to commit a learned thing to storage within the brain and his ability to recall that thing. It also measures the length of time such a learned thing will remain for recall relative to its complexity and other learned things also stored.

Reason
Reason is the ability to apply things learned and memorized. It measures one’s ability to solve problems through the application of understood and stored information. It also measures one’s ability to solve problems in the absence of information through logic, induction, and deduction.

Essence
Essence is a tricky one. It is meant to quantify the nonphysical presence of an individual in the physical world; in that sense, it is almost the intangible metaphor of size. From a spiritual perspective, it measures the force exerted by the very existence of an individual in ways not quantifiable. It can be said to express the strength of fabric that composes one’s nonphysical self.

Resolve
Resolve is a measurement of one’s strength of will, sort of an expression of both Stamina and Fortitude. It expresses a natural sense of discipline, self-control, and willpower. It defines ones perseverance, commitment, and faith in the absence of understanding.

Perception
Perception measures the acuteness of the five senses together, one’s ability to observe physical events, and general sensory power and sensitivity.

Intuition
Intuition is extra-sensory perception, measuring the ability to observe events and occurrences not perceptible to the physical senses. It expresses observatory power regarding events in a metaphysical sense, along with one’s ability to empathize with the expressions of other living things.


Charisma
Charisma is one’s control over his own physical and nonphysical presence, and measures his natural manipulation of how others perceive him. Like Comeliness, it is defined relative to human conceptions of attractiveness.

In my opinion its an impossible task you have set out for yourself. No list of atributes can ever be complete and precise. I have never seen a system that i think have even remotly logical choice of atributes if you dont also consider the world it is meant to be used in.

Instead I think you should look to in what world you will atempt to use these atributes, and take it from there. For example if your world empathize alot on contact between humans, you use many atributes that connect to this and perhaps only one or two that concerns physical aspects.

Just my pov though.

Very good , but two things - Firstly, the 'essence' one is dodgy. It seems as if you've thought about how it's going to apply in a game, but couldn't really think of the words for it....So what is it about? Is it going to have effects for magic users?...ahh that's another thing: I think you've missed some things out - How about Knowledge. You haven't included how much experience and knowledge of the world someone has, also the speed that they can run at is important, as is how well they talk. One's expressiveness and skill at explanation and oratory - (although I suppose that will be decided by who is roleplaying ) and is also covered vaguely by CHA I suppose.
And may I ask, once you have these STAT scores...what are you going to do with them?

Frogus

Essence...yeah its tricky. As far as what it affects (without touching upon what type of genre for which this will be used), think of your body (physically). It can be described as taking up space, displacing the air around it, being perceptible by others, and it can be affected. Essence is meant to describe those exact qualities about you, but in a strictly nonphysical sense. Your aura, I suppose.
If your body displaces matter in the physical world, your Essence displaces matter in the nonphysical world. You occupy the ethereal world with your Essence.
If your body can be perceived by the five senses of others, your Essence can be perceived by the intuition of others (you're in a dark, silent room holding your breath, masking your scent. I cannot perceive you with my senses, but the hair on the back of my neck stands up. I "feel" that you're there. I have other, extra-physical senses, and your Essence is tangible to them).
As far as effects, your Essence is affected by things also extra-physical. This is in part emotional or spiritual or even psychological effects. Essence would then determine your ability to endure prolonged periods of emotional stress, spiritual upheaval, psychological damage. It would determine your resitance to psychic negativity and trauma.
In a game with magic (such involving the extra-physical) it would definitely play a part in the use of magical energy...perhaps as your ability to act as a conduit.
I think the following concept is kind of neat in reference to your question:
Inside a lightulb, that little wire is Tungsten (one of the elements). Tungsten has a quality of resistance, which measures how much it impedes electrical current. When you flip the light switch, voltage is discharged across the tungsten in the form of current. Because tungsten has such a low impedence value, it begins to glow (it is slowly being burned by the current passing through it). Tungsten is such a weak material that, were it not encased in a vacuum (the bulb) it would instantly burn up were even one amp passed through it.
Essence (in reference to metaphysical energy) quantifies the same resistance value in a person. So, were you to choose to use yourself as a conduit for magical energy, your ability to withstand the energy passing through you would be relevant in determining how much energy you could conduct without "burning out," like a light bulb.
There's all kinds of neat stuff surrounding the idea of "Essence." So much that I'm starting to think I may need to divide it up into other attributes.

In answer to your other questions:
Knowledge is not appropriate as an attribute because knowledge is really a collection of skills, experiences, and ideas. Knowledge is best in this setting as being a result of the amount of experiences to which one is exposed over time, his ability to understand those experiences, and his ability to store those experiences. If you look to your learned skills, you've quantified how much you "know."

Same idea with speed. How fast one moves is (roughly) dependent upon how much energy he can generate physically (Strength) divided by how much mass he has to move (Size). That's really an over simplification because one's control over his body (Agility) is really a part of determining how fast he can move (clumsy folks don't use their strength as efficiently as nimble folks do). So Speed will be a derived value, determined by one's Agility, Strength, and Size (and maybe even Endurance).

As far as oratory, it is largely determined by Charisma like you said, perhaps averaged with Reason (you must be able to understand something if you want to explain it). Refining oratory is, also like you said, a skill (to be worked on waaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the road, if I ever get that far).

Umm...what to do with them. I don't know...that's pretty complicated. I have to come up with a numerical system that:

1. Can be applied across all of the attributes (I want them all ranked on the same number scale).

2. Has the same average (median) for all attributes (like an average dude has an eight, etc).

3. Makes mathematical sense in every possible equation to which I need to apply it.

Lemme know whatcha think

Given that the quantification of Strength in this system expresses Strength relative to bodyweight, there will be no way for me to express an average numerical value for Strength. This is because I cannot say the average person has a Strength score of X without also giving at the same time the average Size score.

For example, the bodyweight of the average male is 160 lbs. Now, lets say that the average male can lift 150 pounds above his head. So a guy of both average Size and Strength would have a Size score of 8 (20 pounds of weight per point at 160 pounds equals 8) and a Strength score of 9 (9 divided by 10 equals .9 This guy can lift .9 times his bodyweight, or roughly150 pounds).

But the equation changes when my guy gets bigger and can still only lift 150 pounds. Let’s say he weighs 200 pounds (larger than average). If we still want him to be of average strength (able to lift 150 pounds above his head), we cannot assign him a Strength value of 9. That would mean he could lift .9 times his body weight (180 pounds). Instead we’d have to give him a Strength Value of 8 (7.5 rounded up) to have him lifting roughly the same weight as the average guy (150 pounds).

So in this system it doesn’t look like on a scale from 1 to 20 you could say, “The average character has a Strength Value of (insert number between one and 20 here).” You’d have to say, “The average character can lift 150 pounds above his head.”

How much does a dragon weigh? I dunno, let’s say 20 tons (40,000 pounds). Let’s say a dragon could pick up a wood frigate over his head (about 20 tons) before he maxes out. The dragon would have a Size of 2000 (40,000 divided by 20) and a Strength of 10 (he can lift his body weight over his head).

Now let’s say you got a pretty athletic dude. He weighs 160 pounds and can lift over his head 240 pounds. He has a Size of 8 (160 divided by 20) and a Strength of 15 (he can lift 1.5 times his body weight over his head.

Looking only at the score of the attribute and not the effect, the 160 pound dude is stronger than the 20 ton dragon.

But he is only stronger in proportion to his bodyweight.