I was thinking about this, and thought to myself, are stats just in an rpg because of past technological limitations?

If your character''s muscles visually expanded as he got stronger, his general speed increases as he got faster, people respect him much more as he becomes more intelligent etc, do we really NEED stats to represent these things anymore? Is the primary draw of the word RPG, the numerical stat? Would a newbie rpg''er be drawn to an rpg because there are 100 stats you can look at?

I think the old d''n''d system of numerical stats should be left behind. It just puts off any newcomers, and makes a game into a math lesson rather than what d''n''d at its heart aimed to be, adventuring.

This is my goal for my game. I don''t want stat comparing, it''s meant for board games and that''s where it should stay.

I am taking a similar approach myself. All of the characters, the pc as well as the npc''s, have a prestige method associated with them which takes as an argument the character he is talking with. This prestige function adds up the value of land holdings and past deeds of the character in question, but only includes the deeds/property of the other character''s home city, since those are the ones that will have any personal meaning to the other character.

We differ in that I consider this a completely seperate character attribute from combat ability. I''m only using this for non-combat character interactions. My combat system is a typical turn-based system, but I''m trying to take the focus off of combat anyway and have more politically-oriented game goals.

On a semi-on-topic note,

quote: All the RPGs, good or bad, original or cloned share the obsession for constant character growth, also known as leveling.

quote: If you take away character advancement from RPGs, doesn''t that change it from an RPG into an Adventure game?

I have to disagree with the underlying assumption of both these statements that character == physical ability. When you''re asked what kind of a person somebody is, do answer with how much he can bench or your estimate of his ability with weapons? Of course not, you say stuff like "he''s shy, he''s honest, he can hold a grudge". I''m not picking on Diodor or Kylotan, I just want to make the point that CRPG''s , IMHO, should move away the widespread falsehood of using physical prowess as the definition of character if they are setting their sights on incorporating real role-playing.

Sean

Everyone,

Once again, my favorite topic returns! I totally agree with Diodor''s premise that leveling in RPGs turns attention away from roleplaying in favor of mechanical advancement. My favored solution, and the one I''m sticking to, is Zero-Sum advancement in which the character''s distribution of talent changes as he does different things, but the overall ability pool remains constant. I''ve mentioned this one so often that I ought to write up the technical details and post it to my web page, so I can direct people to it every time this topic comes up.

I like Diodor''s idea of renown changing the way people react to you, and I even rather like the idea that your renown makes you more powerful (although it only makes sense in settings where reality is subjective, so belief impacts the physical world, or some other weird thing is going on). In my opinion, any idea that pulls the focus toward RP and away from mechanics is OK.

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

quote: Original post by Garott
I was thinking about this, and thought to myself, are stats just in an rpg because of past technological limitations?

If your character''s muscles visually expanded as he got stronger, his general speed increases as he got faster, people respect him much more as he becomes more intelligent etc, do we really NEED stats to represent these things anymore? Is the primary draw of the word RPG, the numerical stat? Would a newbie rpg''er be drawn to an rpg because there are 100 stats you can look at?

I think the old d''n''d system of numerical stats should be left behind. It just puts off any newcomers, and makes a game into a math lesson rather than what d''n''d at its heart aimed to be, adventuring.

This is my goal for my game. I don''t want stat comparing, it''s meant for board games and that''s where it should stay.

I agree with you, hidding the stats would help a lot to suspend disbelief.

Taking this idea a bit farther, making everything believable and hidding everything that doesnt make sense if you were in real life.

No numbers. Not for hp, mp, damage, etc...

I would try to represent money graphically and make money rare, also have lots of different currencies. ie: 17897$ could be represented like this: seven pieces of copper, nine pieces of silver, eight pieces of gold, three pieces of platinum, two ruby (which are worth approx two platinum pieces each) and one uber-rare gem that is worth a damn lot.

No interface, no minimaps (You need minimaps? then you''ll have to buy a parchement, a quill and learn to draw a map.

No menus.

Very little text (use voice instead!).

No full motion videos as it break you from immersion (use complex in-game scripts instead).

Strip virtually everything that kill immersion!

Hey, someone will release a quickly hacked tool to retrieve the underlying numbers used in the game 3 days after your game will be out. But what are you going to do! If he wants to kill the game for himself...

quote: Original post by hpox

Hey, someone will release a quickly hacked tool to retrieve the underlying numbers used in the game 3 days after your game will be out. But what are you going to do! If he wants to kill the game for himself...

I used to do a lot of game hacking myself , and I know if someone is determined enough to bother, it''s because they''re finding a major limitation within the game. Now as a game maker, I''d hate someone to do that to my game but like you say, it''s down to them.

quote: Original post by hpox

Very little text (use voice instead!).

I like all your ideas except one, the voice acting. How difficult and expensive would this become, I''m talking quality voice acting like in Planescape:Torment and Baldur''s Gate, to have every line of dialogue voiced? Also lip-synching would be a major factor aswell. I''ll stick to text for now.

quote: Original post by Sean99
I have to disagree with the underlying assumption of both these statements that character == physical ability. When you''re asked what kind of a person somebody is, do answer with how much he can bench or your estimate of his ability with weapons? Of course not, you say stuff like "he''s shy, he''s honest, he can hold a grudge". I''m not picking on Diodor or Kylotan, I just want to make the point that CRPG''s , IMHO, should move away the widespread falsehood of using physical prowess as the definition of character if they are setting their sights on incorporating real role-playing.

I don''t think most RPGs are setting their sights on such a thing, that''s my point I doubt there''s anything beyond a very niche interest in "real roleplaying" in single-player games anyway. And you can still do such a thing if the game has lots of stats.

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Hpox: I think that''s the kind of idealism that SOUNDS good on paper, but in practice falls shorts of expectations. I believe letting the players see stats is very much a design feature, that is pretty much universal in computer RPGs. The reward element of CRPGs *IS* a big factor not to be taken lightly or discounted. Not only, it lets players decide more accurately the development of their characters. Hell, games like Diablo 1&2 are based very much on the advancement/reward of levelling up... in addition to actioney elements.
That said, the best done menu/interface for seeing stats I''ve ever seen comes from Fallout 1 and 2. Instead of been almost arbitary numbers figure and abbreviations, it gives a decent explantion of every skill/attribute you click on. I think this is the kind of quality/polish game designers should focus on to justify the idea of visible stats.

As far as stats in general goes, you definetly use them, because they''re the easiest to control the balance with. Essentially just tables - which are easy to deal with. Hidden or not, they''ll be in CRPGs for a long time.

Also, the other suggestions you propose, DOES make for a more ''immersive'' experience. But they also make for a more FUSTRATING experience, which is NEVER a good design feature. As it stands, the very nature of the control scheme and the viewing format DESTROYS any chance of a real immersive experience. But regardless an utterly realistic experience in the case of RPGs (some genres DO benefit.. like driving games...) is never a good design decision. Because then you''d have to go into the bad old days of managing food... which was one of those things I hated as a kid.

As for the original poster: I think if you watch action movies and see what ''stats'' they focus on you''ll be able to reach somesort of satisfying conclusion... if not I''ll give it to you here: level advancement should stop been so arbitary, and increase in powers should focus more on the ability to hit while not been hit... instead of increases in HP. But even then, you''ll need to carefully balance it -> you''ll realise how fustrating it is when your level 30 character is hit once for death, after dodging around for 30 minutes...

Zaptruder

Everyone,

I must say I agree strongly with hpox on the immersive interface issue. And such an interface can be implemented without becoming annoying... ever played Grim Fandango? Every piece of text was voice-acted, and there were never any menus or icons on screen. The character''s head acted as a pointer: he''d look at nearby interesting objects, to show that something could be said or done about them. The inventory was the character''s jacket, out of which he''d draw and store various things.

Now Grim Fandango was an "adventure game," not a "role-playing game." But in my opinion it involved more actual playing of a role than many RPGs: you controlled what your character said and did, and followed him on the course of his life. And the methods used in Grim Fandango could in my opinion be applied to more traditional RPGs with great success.

Imagine: instead of worrying about what "level" you are or what your "attack bonus" is, you send your character to practice at the local gym until he''s gotten strong and quick (a process you need not supervise), then go out for a bit of adventure confident that your strength training has given you a physical edge over most problems. Or send him to the library to study chemistry... his muscles may weaken a little, but he''ll gain skills necessary to create useful compounds. Just a simple conceptual example, but I think it can be seen how this could work.

One point on which I must disagree with hpox, however, is the issue of voice acting. The issue is not quality but repetition. Even the best acted lines get pretty boring after you hear them the 700th time, and unless you want to record innumerable variations on "Hi, how are you?" you''ll run into repetition eventually. In order to reduce the annoyance factor, include "subtitles" and the ability to turn the voice acting off.

Just my humble opinions.


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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

Voice acting on a large scale needs a good deal of money...

hell, the only RPG that''s done it in my recall, is FFX... and that deals with the more repetitive voice elements by NOT doing them at all... (i.e. villagers)

Zaptruder