This is very, very, very hard issue...

I can hardly see any other ways to express characters capacities/abilities than numbers describing his basic abilities like Strenght or Agility. At the end these are just computer games and you/I can''t implement anything even close to real life.

I don''t think it''s the way either that you just choose skills and after it it''s all you have, nothing more. It''s limited, way too much far away from real life. It''s not good to be close real life or too far away from it.

Numberless system, impossible, since computer uses 1 and 0. When we get super biotec computers after hundreds of years after this it could be possible, but not now. How would you handle hitting in combat situations?? Or showing players experience?? You can''t do that.

Someone said something about temporary increasement? WTF is that? If I start jogging every morning before I go to work, my stamina increases. My endurance grows and I can become even more stronger, so if player whacks 200000 goblins before he starts doing his quests doesn''t his fighting skill improve, at least agains goblins?

I''ll take example, Fallout(2), It''s one of the most versatile single player RPGs, but could you think about it with some sort of personality system without any other way to increase? Well, I couldn''t. Of course it *could* work in MMORPGs or whatsoeveres, but what I expect from typical RPG is to waste some baddies, do some quests and have fun. I don''t think it would be accepted by burgerplayers if their characters would be personalities as cool it could be.

Then another thing, how would/could you handle experience? If someone could tell me how to evade numbers I would be hella-happy, since now you guys have show only poor speculations what it *could* be. One way could be stuff that has been written by story writer, but then the game would take step closer to books which I consider a bad thing.

Althought some players like Basher rules where you create hellowa charachter who kicks everyones ass and hardly dies, but I as a desinger prefer rules where you can''t kick too much ass. I have made rules for my current game, they were bashing based so that I could get cool combat system and even make it so that you can be good fighter, but then I "unbalanced" it so that the player must have some social skills instead of just having Huge Gun and lotsa Ammo. I also added possibility loot everything, so that finally you can be real thief without constantly doing hide in shadows tests. Those rules are purely based on numbers which is probably good thing, because there must be way to show player how he is doing, what he is doing, how well is he doing and where he is good at.

As I said this is very hard problem.

PS. Oh, The Great Fish of Land, shall I ask from thy highness what is thou current project? Is it commercial one?


Time comes, time goes and I only am.

On the contrary, you HAVE to tell someone what personality boni/mali you get, otherwise your character devellopment is more or less a shot in the dark.

Besides, if the personality affects other stats someone will just do the work an try everything out until he´s got the stats.

The temporary stats change idea is nothing new, it´s just skill-increasing/decreasing items or events. It´s been done, but, as in your example, it kills the whole idea of a personality/character.

If your barbarian can buy a conversationalist spell at the shop around the corner you´ll probably end up with the "average optimum" again -> no matter what you start out as, you´ll level out your deficiencies with items/spells....
So in the end it wouldn´t matter what character you played.


The only thing that can make a good RPG experience is strengths and weaknesses that can ONLY be countered by good roleplaying.
If your Barbarian is a daft dumbass you´ll have to live with it and work with it, maybe you´ll have to cope with not being invited to banquets and such, not just shoot up some personality drugs and be the toast of the party for the evening.

Sonic Silicon -

if you don´t tell a player their modifiers someone will just sit down with a mug of coffee and try everything out. They´ll go through character creation several times, putting the same amount of "points" on a skill/stat/whatever and then compare the results. You can easily figure out the modifiers then.

A primitive example:

select Barbarian, spend equal amount of skill points everywhere:

str 6, ch 3, in 3

then select Mage, do same as above and get str 3, ch 5, in 4

then if you spent x points on each (say 1) you´ll get bases for Barbarian (5,2,2) and Mage (2,4,3).

It does not matter if your character creation system is far more complicated than that (skills affecting each other, skills increasing by a raised/lowered factor), except making it very hard to balance it out it´ll just mean that the players will spend more time doing math.

I think that Hase had a good idea with the seperation of traits the character has. One way you could break it down is that a person has three different "areas of measurement".

Call one of them attributes (for familiarities sake), these would be things you can develop with training. Running, swimming, weight lifting, all these incorporate your body growing and developing. Not really influenced by how many goblins you hack down or what quest you complete, rather the time and effort you take to train your character.

Another one would be skills. These are things you learn. It''s what school is for. Sure, punching and kicking a punching bage all day will make you stronger, but practicing a form, technique, thats what makes it a skill. Even though things like sword play and martial arts are physical, they take thought and learning to develop.

Last, and I think most overlooked in all games (table and computer), are the traits. Is the character polite? Learns quickly? Can s/he remember the king''s nephew''s son''s dog''s name?
These things can''t really be changed no matter how you grow, it''s just the way you are. People don''t change, so neither should your characters.

Just some thoughts.

Ok, here''s an idea for improving the stats system.
1. A stats starting point remains for the entire game
2. The power of stats fluctuate depending on ingame situations like: At start of day str = X %, at mid of day str = Y % and so on.
3. The lower a stat the more it fluctuates.So a magic str potion would affect someone more with lower str.

This makes the player treat their character like a living thing rather than a sculpture that he''s working on. i.e. my weak swordsman can become the incredible hulk if i look after him.

Another way of balancing stats is to remember certain facts like muscle is heavier than fat so someone very strong would also be very heavy. This extra weight then effects the characters co-ordination and balance.

- The question mark is the symbol of interaction -

Paul