From: apace@mta.ca
Subject: Re: net.rpg: Character Stats (LONG)
Reply-To: apace@mta.ca
Organization: Mount Allison U, Sackville, N.B. Canada 
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 04:33:59 GMT

In article <Bxvv78.4y0@acsu.buffalo.edu>, leet@acsu.buffalo.edu (Brian D. Leet) writes:
>Well there is some basic interest I guess so here is an excerpt from a 
>system I've been toying with:
>(I'll try to justify each area and then give an example or two so hit n when 
>you've read enough :-) )
>Stats:
>  Physical:
>    Strength:
>      Power, Build, Speed
>    Toughness:
>      Endurance, Resistance, Pain-threshold
>    Dexterity:
>      Accuracy, Agility, Flexibility
>  Cognitive:
>    Reasoning:
>      Logic, Comprehension, Faith
>    Wisdom:
>      Intuition, Charisma, Perception
>    Knowledge:
>      Memory, Experience, Studiousness
>  Energy:
>    Magic:
>      Invocation, Alteration, Channeling
>    Psychic:
>      Equilibrium, Synchronicity, Essence
>    Innate:
>      Control, Force, Focus
	Very interesting. I think that this system is particularly compatible
with Magnus's (or was it his... in the FAQ anyways) suggestion of a system
with no division between skills and stats.
	Here's my suggestion of how to do this.
	Each characteristic (skill, stat, it matters little) has a ranking 
Thus, in the example above, Energy would be a rank 1 characteristic, Magic
would be rank 2, and so on. 
	Assuming a 1-20 spread, (this isn't rocket science boys and girls,
so bear with me) each next ranked characteristic would be one lower. Thus,
if you have cognitive 10, then you would automatically have Knowledge 9
and Memory 8.
	The higher the rank number of a particular characteristic, the
easier it becomes to buy it up to a greater level.  You may also wish
to sell down a particular characteristic, and naturally, the lower the 
rank, the more it is worth. This should be carefully designed so that
GURPS style power-charging is impossible. Perhaps a maximum of three new
characterictics on a branch, and the points for selling down the stat being
a factor of three (?) less than the next lowest stat.
	If you don't use the intervening stats, simply use the rank numbers.
You might wish to limit the maximum disparity between closely ranked
characteristics to prevent minmaxing.
	A few current problems, though.
	To me, it looks a little too much like Vampire.
	It could be easy to get lost in the mass of intervening stats.
	Some of the current stats look unworkable.  The main problem
IMPO is that any combat oriented character will tend to sell down 
Energy for points. A short term solution could be to decide (modularity 
again) which aspect of Energy the campaign will focus on, and make that the
base stat for the power aspect.  You could also make Luck (Synchronicity?)
an important part of the game.  Actually, now that I think about it, if
you used the card-game rules this could be easily dealt with by making this
the number of cards you have in your hand.
	IMPO, Charisma should be higher on the heirarchy as well.

(Here I go again, contradicting everythig that I've said before)
Anyways, I hope I've provided some concepts to work from (even if they get 
torn down).

						Tony Pace
						apace@mta.ca