I had an idea last night while pondering the Tristat game.  I have a love/hate relationship with the system, really I do.  A huge part of it comes from what is considered the very core of the game... the Tri-Stat itself.  That is where this idea came to me.

To sum up the system a bit, and my problem with it: you have three stats which may either be randomly generated or created by points distribution. On top of that you add all sorts of special abilities.  The three stats are averaged together to get your (possibly primary) substats for combat.

Traditional game design: Get stats, use stats to find out capablilities.

Only, you don't really. presuming you go with the points generation (which is the default as I understand it) you wind up with the same attack and defense ratings for every character, regardless of how they distribute their points.  Other than health and power pools, to my mind you virtually never us the stats themselves for anything.  Bear with me if I gloss over some of the fine points, it's been four years since I've played it.

See, this fits the anime style to an extent. A smart hero is just as good in a fight (though differently) than a tough hero.  Makes sense then that no single attribute should dominate combat. Only, this makes for cookie cutter stats. What matters, stat wise, is your starting point only.

This led me to my idea.  Generating stats actually is unimportant. The Tri-stat is an appendix in game design terms, disposable, a legacy of older game design theory. Presuming you want equal starting points of 'capablilty', you just assign the value of attack and defense, which gives you a decent idea of starting health and energy.   It's hardly perfect, mind you, but its the start of looking at 'breaking the mold'.  

See the REAL core of the Tristat game has always been the 'abilities' you buy. These are how you truly define your character to me, where the meat of the character lies. They are hardly perfect, mind you, but as the start of some new paradigm of game design they are not bad.


Here then is the thing.  I've been wrestling with my own game system for a while now.  I've had some solid ideas, and I've had some interesting ispirations (including Cadwallon....) that I've been revisiting.  Part of it is a vague dissatisfaction with the games I already have. I've been unable to really work out a concept or two to my satisfaction lately, and part of it is the traditional mold.  I don't want to do different for different's sake, that way lies ruin.  But I can't just keep doing things the same way they've always been done.... and I'm not exactly happy with the 'new wave' stuff I've seen yet.  BESM, ironically, seems to have come closest, yet still missed the mark horribly... at least as far as I am concerned.

So, here lies the heart of the matter.

I am partially rejecting the work I've done so far in favor of this new, backwards idea.  Its all rough draft, concepts and cores rather than text and tested ideas, but I'm ditching 'stats' to start with. All together. They just don't work for me.  I may be ditching the 'wargame' side of things all together, or perhaps bringing in the 'new wargame' mindset.  I'm moving skills to the sidelines, where previously I was making ranked abilities primary.

So, what do I have left?  I have my core idea, my feats, my talents, my abilities, these define the character above all else.   How you define your character actually defines the character. If you want to be good with a gun, you would buy 'good with a gun'. if you want to happen to be familiar with guns you could instead buy the skill, but it wouldn't be as defining, or as 'powerful'.  How to scale between the two?  Dunno yet, it's still early.

the starting point is this: A character starts from a baseline 'average' in terms of capability.  This will probably be a set of numeric values rating, not actual attributes, but generic activities (combat for example)... possibly looking like the Cadwallon attitudes (pugnacity, style, subtlety, opportunity, discipline...) to some extent or other. Not directly, by any means.  

By buying defining abilities, they would indirectly add to these baselines, or even directly buy up those baselines.  Note that these baselines are NOT strength or intelligence, etc.  In practice, buying a 'strong dude' ability would raise your attack, but not on a one for one basis, and possibly negatively impact other areas.  The baselines would be something that floats around the background. Recall my idea is that baselines start at 0, which should keep things in simpler to figure out.  

Hmm... as an idea, I was thinking of frontloading the abilities. You buy 'strong guy' as an ability, and you are suddenly stronger than everyone else measurably.  This gives you the bonuses and penalites against everyone.  If you want to buy extra strongness, you can, but you only gain added value when confronting other strong guys (who you don't otherwise have those bonuses against), making sort of a ranking.  So, say 'strong' costs five points. Just because.  Everyone who is strong is better than those that are not strong. If you spent SIX points on strong you are still strong, but now you count as strong vs. the guy that only spent five points, while against you he would not have his 'strongness'. For that matter another six pointer would negate your strongness, while a seven pointer would get it against YOU.  Because all these extra levels don't provide added value against people who aren't strong, they are self determined point values.

Other than the horribly stated example, anybody got anything?

Quote from: SpikeOther than the horribly stated example, anybody got anything?

Not a bad start--its got some similarities to OVA You have no default abilities (or rather "average" is zero. Then you purchase traits that give you your dice to roll   but you only buy what you have.

I like your subtleand abstract element a bit better--you might want to examine Truth & Justice, Fate, and OVA, then work on this since they have similar (but not identical) ideas.

You might want to have a look at HeroQuest, too.

Silver, I'm not sure what you meant by my subtle and abstract idea, could you clarify a bit? :confused:

Quote from: droogYou might want to have a look at HeroQuest, too.

I bought Heroquest back when it first hit the shelves.  The list of my issues with it are long and slightly irrelevant. I acutally intend to have specific abilities for people to select from first of all, and that little fish-hook looking symbol? Gah!

The old D6 System book (the generic one) had a short section on attribute-less play that looks a wee bit similar.

OVA?

Quote from: SpikeSilver, I'm not sure what you meant by my subtle and abstract idea, could you clarify a bit? :confused:

OVA: Open Versatile Anime (What's replaced BESM for me these days--leaner and meaner, similar ideas but better especially with the hoary shape it looked like 3E was going to take.)

The binary base nature of a trait; You have it or you don't, and value only applies if other people who have it need to compare--while someone without it won't and can't compare.

Does that make sense? Kinda addled

Basically "I am superstrong" in anything involving strength to non-super things you win. When you need value is when someone else "I too am superstrong" (might be interesting to do a game like that--sorta Amber with dice--no ranks, except temporary by d6 roll for a given task)

Quote from: SilverlionThe binary base nature of a trait; You have it or you don't, and value only applies if other people who have it need to compare--while someone without it won't and can't compare.

Does that make sense? Kinda addled

)

yeah. I have mixed feelings about it.  It makes sense to me, indeed it does, yet on the other hand, it feels like it removes a bit too much complexity.  I'll probably wind up compromising, some things will have actual ranks, others will be purely binary, but with the abiltity to 'improve' above the basic for the purpose of comparison.

Another possible way of handling it might be to have a 'strong' and a 'sorta strong', each ranked only against themselves. So the Strong guy, regardless of ranks, is stronger than the sorta strong or the ordinary fellow, and the sorta-strong guy will collapse helplessly, no matter how much extra he put into it, in the face of the Strong guy.  Now, maybe you don't have to buy 'sorta-strong' to buy 'Strong', but sorta-strong would be cheaper and/or have other benefits (or lack a penalty to speed, say, for Strong).  In a pure strength contest he is better than average, but worse than the ox over there, but pure strength isn't really rated.

This is still in the baby steps phase.  Discussion, ideas, critiques!!!! Help?!

Quote from: Spike.  In a pure strength contest he is better than average, but worse than the ox over there, but pure strength isn't really rated.

This is still in the baby steps phase.  Discussion, ideas, critiques!!!! Help?!

Well Amber uses Human, Chaos, and Amberite then ranks the highest level

H&S my supers games has fixed attributes too but uses Ordinary, Exceptional, Spectacular--then uses three scales human, superhuman, cosmic.


Perhaps coming up with a ranking system using words?


For example: Swift (Trait), Exceptionally Swift (for the better than Swift)

In my fantasy game I've gone a bit with freeform traits to allow someone to detail "Strong as an Ox" or simply "Swift"--but then used "Lesser" "Greater" "Legendary" to compare them (albeit I use numbers too--a bit like Truth & Justice)

I seem to have set myself a challenging balancing act.   I like levels of ability, yet I don't want people rushing out to purchase the highest level simply to be 'the best', making it a closed ended system where there is an objective best.  That, to me, is one problem between having a 'strong' and a 'stronger' ability set against eachother.

Maybe a smoke and mirrors solution?  Strong representing just being stronger than average, and then something like 'Brute' which describes a strong person who is monsterous. Larger than average, hypberdeveloped musculature. They would have actually different mechanics. That is brute wouldn't be just 'stronger', but actually represents a totally different concept, freakishly strong but perhaps slower or something...

I want to avoid the 'race' to be the 'strongest' and reward concept creation.  But again, with the balancing act, I'd also like to keep the abilities relatively complex in play.  

But yes, Brute really would be Stronger than Strong in the end. Like I said, smoke and mirrors.  I gotta figure out where my balance lies. Also, I need to figure out the actual way to work these with a resolution mechanic (still partial to the simple 2d6 roll, and I really want to go with my 'points' combat... I've surrendered the idea of morale driven combat mechanics as too 'weird' for the average gamers.... sigh)