Having such a far-reaching stat isn't a good idea. What skills does it apply to?

1. If it applies to everything, it'll be impossible to balance
2. If it only applies in certain spots, it'll be annoying/immersion-breaking when you expect it to have an effect and it doesn't.

If you're going to have a "luck stat" it should either be

1. Not visible
2. Not a base stat (just a buff)

The only time I ever paid attention to luck was in Final Fantasy 7. And outside of determining Critical Hit chance, I don't think it did much else.

By the time you could really do any grinding to build it up (Basically a process of killing a specific enemy with a special command to get the item for it), you're near the end of the game, so there isn't much chance for someone to get overpowered early on through it.

I can't see luck as being something someone should be able to easily change through leveling up. Though I think it'd work better as a hidden attribute, and with some kind of cap on big of an effect it has.

And do the effects have to be 'realistic'? Like, if someone's using a gun, would luck affect accuracy, or could it do something unexpected like adding a free shot? So if you used a Machine Gun, and fired off 10 shots, maybe they got hit with 12 with no extra ammo loss for the player.

Let's just say that I have ways of knowing for certain that Ragnarok online included the capacity for this, though... official... servers disable the capability in some of the ways you mentioned.

First, luck influences one's minimum damage, in addition to being the base statistic for Critical chance. Further, every 3 points (I think, it's been a while) added 1% "perfect dodge" which was essentially a 1% chance to completely avoid an attack without regard for any of your opponents statistics, and one that did not interfere with the normal hit/flee dodge mechanic. These are all a core part of the attribute, and many classes (Perfect Dodge Sin, Crit/Katar Sin, ect) are built around the fact that this random stat influences everything from power to evasion. Heck, even some of the skills were LUK based (Turn Undead comes to mind).

As I mentioned above, however, it also influenced item drops. This was disabled on the official servers and is rarely enabled on private servers with good reason. Why should a player get better loot for having different stats? That basically encourages players to make an alt with high luck just for grinding. There's no real benefit to this in an online multiplayer game. For a tabletop that's about cooperation instead of competition, then I could see it as being beneficial in a small manner.

In a single player game (or such an RP), it's possible to make the increase in rare finds balance could be balanced by the fact that they wont be as strong in other areas. It's a subtle balance. In the case of a multiplayer game, it's one that must also take into consideration any feeling of inequality that less mature players might feel if PlayerX is getting all the good loot while PlayerY isn't.

Anyway, I noticed this example wasn't mentioned, but LUK was an important stat (for certain classes anyway) in Ragnarok Online, and it incorporated some of what you were talking about. I just thought I'd offer up an example and perhaps some food for thought.

This is ancient, but when I played RO it was like my bible. It explains more about the stat, if you were curious.

Thanks for the RO info Zouflain.

I can't help but wonder if the main problem with luck is the frequent rejection of variability you find in narrative-focused RPG games. Random battles, for instance, get pilloried by narrative-focused players because these events get in the way of delivering the story. (You might also argue that they introduce meaninglessness into a medium that depends on meaning.)

A sandbox game I'd think would live and die on variety. Luck would be a way of controlling some of that variety and be integrated into the process of character building. If it takes points to build Luck then it's also a strategy, and the question becomes what the game plays like with combinations of different stats where luck is high vs. low (I *think* anyway).

A high strength, low intelligence, high luck character then should play different from a low strength, high intelligence, high luck character. It's true that it would be difficult to balance, but this seems to be generally true of ANY stats you could add.

Devil Summoner 2, for the PS2, had an interesting approach to luck.

1. You had a base luck stat. You also had these things called Luck Locusts, which you would occasionally encounter as a random battle. You could catch a certain number of these, based on how many locust cages you had (which were given out at certain plot points and I believe for doing certain sidequests). Luck Locusts would add to your base luck stat.

2. Luck actually affected in a lot in DS2. The most obvious thing is that, fairly often, you'd get a slot reel pop up at the beginning of battle. This would either be a reel of good effects or bad effects, based entirely on your luck.

3. Luck Locusts were also a fairly big plot point, meaning that gameplay and storyline actually related to eachother, which is always nice.

I think a lot of RPG devs have a tendency to believe that more stats = more depth = better game. This isn't really the case. More stats usually just means more things to balance, more points where your design could fall apart, and more reasons why your gameplay system would be difficult to understand.

Luck, especially if it's not going to do something obvious and transparent, should probably be omitted.

Quote:

Original post by Tom Sloper Quote: Original post by Wavinator High luck could affect chance gossip you hear, or let you walk through dangerous areas with no or minimal encounters. It could even affect the chance to meet special NPCs, like an entrepreneur who's looking for someone just like you. But bad luck? Weapon jamming, equipment malfunction? Not sure. Luck should come into play whenever there's anything random going on in the game. With good luck, increase the chances of the desirable outcome occurring.

+1

I like luck as a stat. I'm using it in my little project. It doesn't have to be applied to everything involved with the RNG, but used in key parts of the game, it can be an interesting mechanic. Additionally, players love stats, at least this one does. ;)

"Fortune favors the bold."

Personally, I've never liked the concept of Luck as a stat. From a technical standpoint, if your "affecting" the outcome, it really isn't luck any more, it's more skill.

Also as a stat, is Luck really representing Luck in general, or more specifically Good Luck?

Like the gun jamming example, your adjusting the unlikely hood that the gun will jam. If it were luck in general, I would think it would equally increase the likelihood something bad could happen too. Of course if this were true, it would be negating any real benefit (back to 50/50).

I had an idea in mind for this.

Basically luck wasn't a player modified stat, but rather a randomly generated thing on log-in.

When you log in there's a little fortune cookie in the shape of a star and you could get positive or negative prospects.
If you chose not to look at the fortune, you'd just have a normal chance of certain events happening.
You get to see your possible fortune once per day.

Whether you have a good or bad fortune doesn't effect the player's ability to play or drop rate or anything.
It just changes what happens in dungeons when they're generated.
There might be traps on treasure chests or certain super hard challenges if a player has bad fortune, forcing them to work harder for their reward.
People with good fortune might get it easier.
It also affects a few other things, but it's not designed to be a gamebreaker like 'Oh I have bad fortune I can't play today', because it just changes the chance for certain things to happen.

It's meant to be fun not frustrating, either way.

I think luck can do wonders for the game. It wasn't so long ago I checked out the sourcecode in a old game named Dungeon Master. There the luck had a specific basevalue for each character. Everytime something "unlucky" happend the luck went up, and if something "lucky" happend the luck went down. Meanwhile if nothing happened the luck went slowly back to the base value. Because this was a hidden stat the feeling for each character grow because you somehow got a feeling that some characters without any specific reason survived longer, got more lucky hits, wasn't injured as often as other characters etc. etc.

I think that hidden stats as luck could give a more personal feeling to the character you are playing with..

If luck was a character trait, then it wouldn't really be luck. It would be more like a combination of perception (to perceive opportunity) and preparedness (to capitalize on it). Luck itself is inherently 100% chance. Maybe it's a semantics thing, but I think it's an important distinction, since luck as its own indivisible stat is very rigid and one-dimensional. Pure luck would be if something (good/bad?) landed in the player's lap out of nowhere, no player agency involved. I'm not sure how the stat would make sense in that context, or how it would add to the game outside of flavor.

Luck is the residue of design. (Or was it opportunity and design?)