Quote from: Agkistro;889479I've got a mechanic I want to develop further, but right now it hums perfectly if I keep stat and skill ranges limited to 3-  stats range from 1-3, skills range from 1-3.

Mechanically it's great for what I'm doing, but I worry it has a bad....I dunno the term. Mechanical mouthfeel?

As a player, would you feel awkward or limited in a system in which everybody bad has a 1, everybody average has a 2, and everybody excellent has a 3 in whatever stat is being considered?

I'm keeping it small because it's a dice pool system- these numbers determine how many dice are rolled, so I don't want it too big.

The other obvious problem is advancement- it's hard to have a sense of gradual improvement when things can only be improved once (or twice at most). I think I've got that covered through the 'gear' aspect of the game, though.

I generally don't have a problem with limited character advancement games, they generally have a shorter run and become gear advancement and great deed games.   Heck Traveler was that kind of game, I can't ever remember improving a skill by more than 1 and never more than a few, and loved it.

I would say that your range is very small, maybe too much for me.  A range of 1-6 is a sweet spot I feel for many such games.  I play a dice pool game, Atomic Highway, it uses state ranges of 1-6 and skill ranges 1-6.  1 die per stat, +1 modifier per skill level.  Up to five dice, any dice over 5 count as auto successes.  Success on 6, failure on 1.  It works like a dream.   A long way of saying that having more than 3 dice works, and I personally like a good handful of dice as a player.

I've become a convert to a dice pool approaches so would love to hear more.

Quote from: Agkistro;889912It's funny that narrow stat ranges would be a hard sell on D&D players when for all practical purposes the stats in that game range from -4 to +4.

So true, used to think that way myself and its still ingrained in me from my youth to some degree.  It really comes down to a philosophy does every stat point make a difference or not.  I'm torn, but I generally try to reduce the deriving a number from another number thing, and then using the derived number.  A good thing abut the D&D 3-18 range, it allowed rolling a D20 or 3D6 against a stat to determine things.  Heretical I know.  Let me say in my older edition D&D experience stats rarely if ever went up permanently.  Down, oh yes, and in a way they functioned as a hit point system for certain things.  It was all about leveling.

I am pretty sure I played a game with abilities and skills that were on a 1-3 scale...

I don't remember it causing any issues, on the other hand I also cannot remember what it was so it obviously was not that successful.

Quote from: jadrax;898726I am pretty sure I played a game with abilities and skills that were on a 1-3 scale...

I don't remember it causing any issues, on the other hand I also cannot remember what it was so it obviously was not that successful.

Silcore maybe? (I believe the skills are 1-3, not sure about abilities).

Quote from: Agkistro;889479I've got a mechanic I want to develop further, but right now it hums perfectly if I keep stat and skill ranges limited to 3-  stats range from 1-3, skills range from 1-3.

It can work, but it depends on the dice, as others have said.  Personally, I'd have two concerns about narrow stat ranges: first, is there enough room for character progression?  Maybe that's not important; depending on your game, character advancement may not be important.  Some day I'd like to experiment with a game with minimal experience and progression, like old Traveler.  My second concern would be whether or not there is enough differentiation between characters.  With only three possible values for every stat, characters could start to feel very samey.  Depending on your mechanics, you can get around this by combining stats, like skills and abilities (i.e. Intelligence + Science).  I do feel like 1-3 is a very narrow range.  You can only be average, below average or above average, it would seem.

If the ranges turn out to be too small, I would think you could scale them up by using different dice.  Again, this depends on the exact mechanics.  For instance, many games of my own design rely exclusively on the D6.  If I replaced this with the D10, I'd have to scale up most variables, and that would lead to wider ranges.

I don't like low ranges, unless the thing measured is really that crudely measured, or unimportant to gameplay. If it's an important ability of the character, then having to just be poor, average, or good, means my character's ability level is highly generic and there's little/no way to improve or interact with it, or to worry about whether you can beat other good people, etc. It's the opposite of what I usually want, unless the point is to de-emphasize that thing. So, if your game is about combat, and every fighter is either poor, average, or good, that's ultra-lame/minimal as a combat game, IMO, unless there is some other brilliant interesting thing about your game.