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Original post by bleagh
Also the connection between the stats and the effect in-game tends to be woefully opaque - which is why you have to ask the question.

For example why not just have a health stat and if you level up then you can increase that directly.

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Because the CON attribute is a stat determining the _amount_ of hp gained at each level.

-Luctus

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Statisticly seen, most things happens to other people.
[Mail]

oh I was just showing various examples to illustrate the fact that there are quite a lot of possible approaches.

I didnt even mention things like various dice being use for various damage calculation (1d3+2 for a dagger, 2d8+2 for a sword, etc),
damage multipliers system (a weapon does a certain amount of damage multiplied by the margin of success of a combat roll),
or even damage classes (say, a dagger is class (A), a sword is class (D). The actual damage being based on the Margin of Success of a dice roll, looked up in the appropriate class table. These tables tend to give number that increase exponentially rather than geometrically like the damage multipliers).

My point is there is a SHITLOAD of way to approach the problems and each has its own advantages.

And as you put it nicely, each is designed to fit in its own universe (or rather, the universe stats are calibrated to fit the system).
Some systems are rather lethal (most modern systems I know of, in fact), while some emphasize "clash of titans" experience (the old ones, Warhammer and Dungeon and Dragons for instance).

Which type you prefer to use is a rather difficult question, as the classic DnD like systems, with their "clash of titans" attitude, will tend to make the game quite enjoyable in the paradigm of a computer game. Stats that increase regularly, bigger and badder monsters to fight. All this is good for the reward process (positive feedback, IIRC ?) that seems to work best for a cRPG.
On the other hand, in a pen and paper RPG, the emphasis is on campaign play, which means that players SHOULDNT improve too quickly and should be more careful about what they do. This is term is translated in game mechanisms that make everything much more difficult, lethal.
Attacking a full plate armored knight on horse when you are a footsoldier with leather and a pitchfork is doable with a *lot* of thinking and roleplaying on the player's part, but a brute force approach like you would see in a cRPG would get killed you. In one go, probably.

Again, I think these little things are much easier to comprehend when one has actually played proper roleplaying games. Not just the computer kind.

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Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

[edited by - ahw on February 10, 2004 1:33:20 PM]

There have been so many stats systems over the years, that it doesn't really matter what one you base yours on. But don't get caught in the whole pen and paper mentality since they don't need to apply to computer rpgs. In fact why not take advantage of computing power and include a massive number of stats. why have 6 when the computer can handle 60 just as easily? The player might not be able to keep track them all, but thats fine don't show them to the player. You could have the body divided in into:

                           Head,            upper left arm, torso ,upper right arm,left hand lower left arm              lower right arm, right hand                           trunk              upper left leg , upper right leg          lower left leg          lower right leg      left foot                             right foot

then give each body part its own set of stats.
With this you could perform tests using specific body parts. Right handed and picking a lock? Thats right hand corrdination + lockpicking.
Your Female character trying to pursuade the male guard to let you pass. Thats head beauty + torso beauty + speaking skill.

basicly don't get bogged down using an existing system, instead create one that you feel is most approprite to your game.

-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document



[edited by - TechnoGoth on February 10, 2004 1:27:27 PM]

[edited by - TechnoGoth on February 10, 2004 1:29:03 PM]

quote:

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Original post by TechnoGoth
Your Female character trying to pursuade the male guard to let you pass. Thats head beauty + torso beauty + speaking skill.

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mention the above to my girlfriend and that would be my
head->attachment_to_torso = false.

Erik of Ekedahl

I am a madman running through the halls of computer latency, freeing the dark-suckers from their pedistals of atrophy... man I need some sleep.

Thanks for all the time and input, I kinda think what I will be doing is something similer to Diablo2 for health (vit stat) if you dig around in modding stuff they have a set base for health then (per character) an amount of health added per vit level. This looks to be the easiest method for that, (and no, just cuz the computer can compute complex systems doesn''t mean I have a hope of balanceing them).

As for the other stats I''ll be working with some friends who are big in RPGs and see what we can do. We probably will not be doing anything we PNP RPGs, we''ve never actually played any of them or had any interest in them. (pulling out flame retardant covers for PC) But will be baseing our choices on RPG games that we have played (see any RPG made for Genesis, Sega CD, PS 1&2).

Thanks again for all the input.
Erik of Ekedahl

I am a madman running through the halls of computer latency, freeing the dark-suckers from their pedistals of atrophy... man I need some sleep.

quote:

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Original post by Luctus
Because the CON attribute is a stat determining the _amount_ of hp gained at each level.

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See, that''s what I mean... There''s no biological link between constitution and health - it''s just a D&D habit.

If you''re not familiar with the D&D stuff then CON is CONfusing. At the beginning of the game you have to make a choice about whether to increase CON or some other statistic - but you are not equiped to make this choice, since you have no experience of the game world.

Much better in my opinion to offer the player a choice on level up when he/she has experience of the game world. And much better to offer a direct increase in a stat - should you increase health or sword-fighting skill?

RPGs offer very interesting gameplay but they are really hampered a reliance on historical terminology - hit points, stat abreviations like CON, d20 + 1, etc. - all of which is very alienating to people who are new to the genre.




-game design monkey-

That''s because you are using old RPG systems
I started DMing Tribe 8 two weeks ago, and most of the 7 players had never heard of Tribe 8, let alone pen and paper RPG for most of them. But they caught on really quickly to the whole system.

Of course, subtleties like which stats to increase to have better chances of survival take a bit of experience, but that''s why I am here to help, eh.
Still I have been waiting for a VERY long time to see a damage system on computer that would be as interesting as many of those I have seen on pen and paper RPG. I have always been surprised at the level of "realism" PnP players actually WANT compared to computer games where they could be handled totally transparently, but are not :-S
Go figure...

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Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

I''d like to support the various suggestions for making your own. The oldest systems were based on the Greek virtues. There were virtues of the mind/soul (the Greek word "psyche" [pronounced "soo-kay"]means both, but is often translated just as "soul") like wisdom, intelligence and justice, and there were physical virtues ("gymnasticae" ["him-nas-ti-kay"]) which were strength, speed, agility, endurance, dexterity, and the like. How complex do you want your system to be?

Final Fantasy Tactics had like four stats for the character, and the rest were defined by class. I think they had brave, faith, speed and basic attack and defense stats, which were almost totally bound to equipment. Others just use attack and defense as their standards (combat being the primary activity) and match STR against CON for physical damage, DEX against AGL for hit %, and INT versus WIS for magical damage.

Read as much as you want, and assimilate features you like, but don''t feel constrained. I''ve often complained about the general lousiness of HP systems, but they do the job just fine for most. Good luck with your project.

That reminds final fantasy tactics had an intersting system for armor. Bascially armor had two stats defence and HP as well as possibly some other bonuses. Defense decresed the damage you took, and HP increased your characters HP, in other the characters HP was not just how much damage the character could absorb but also how much their armor could absorb.

so a character with 50HP puts on a suit of platemail(Def 50,HP 250). The characters final HP would be 300. Also you could destroy armor so destroying the plate mail would reducde the characters HP to 50.

-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

Creation of RPG system is comparable to writing compiler. I did it 2 years.

So I would recommend to learn from existing RPG systems and hope they wont bite you becose you'd not be able to understand them completely.

RPG from consoles are in fact more or less using just one system, more or less modified.

quote:

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mention the above to my girlfriend and that would be my
head->attachment_to_torso = false.

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She dislikes her face and torso? Strange.

[edited by - raghar on February 11, 2004 5:52:00 PM]