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So in developing my own system, I spent weeks figuring out what combination of numerated characteristics I would use.
Clearly, there is a surplus of examples out there.

SPECIAL from Fallout
the 9 Attributes from Vampire
the 6 from D20

And I settled with 8 attributes, four in the body, four in the consciousness; but this wasn't until after play testing and changing them around again.

So, I'm just curious, what's you're favourite core "Attributes" and if you had to build a game to your primary play style, right now, what would those statistics be?

Quote from: WizardofthePress;897076So in developing my own system, I spent weeks figuring out what combination of numerated characteristics I would use.
Clearly, there is a surplus of examples out there.

SPECIAL from Fallout
the 9 Attributes from Vampire
the 6 from D20

And I settled with 8 attributes, four in the body, four in the consciousness; but this wasn't until after play testing and changing them around again.

So, I'm just curious, what's you're favourite core "Attributes" and if you had to build a game to your primary play style, right now, what would those statistics be?

Completely depends on the type of game, but in general, I like one for physical prowess, maybe one for endurance/stamina if the distinction fits the genre,and one for coordination. On the mental side, one for perception and one for willpower. Everything else is optional.

I like the 6 stat approach with d20- my favorite stats are in Marvel Advanced's FASERIP.  I think it's easy to chase the rabbit down the hole with too many stats- here's where you put your gross motor skills score.  Ok, now let's figure out your fine motor skills score..

What are the four physical and four mental you're using?

As many as necessary to differentiate characters.

As few as possible.

The only game I can recall liking that had more than six characteristics was Dragonquest, although only six were primary, with others computed in various ways. I think at a minimum I like physical ability, mental ability, perception ability and interaction ability (like charisma); any of these can be refined if appropriate for the game (e.g., if you care whether the character's mental ability stems from intelligence, learning or intuitiveness, or physical ability from agility, dexterity, strength or stamina), and others can be added if separate from all of these (e.g., magical ability if distinct from mental ability), but it gets hard to track if the number gets too high. An approach to have a lot more might be to have every ability be the median and give each character a small number with a bonus and a small number with a penalty, so that they only track the ones that differ; we could call them aspects. I think Twerps with only one characteristic, Strength, was more playable than you might expect, but it does leave characters linearly ordered from weakest to strongest rather than tending to be better and worse in different things, so there should be two at a minimum - differentiating characters, as robiswrong said.

In the game I'm slowly making, I have been mulling over seven: three physical, three mental, and one social.

Quote from: robiswrong;897096As many as necessary to differentiate characters.

As few as possible.

Yeah, this. Six or seven should be fine. Call of C'thulhu has a "Sanity" stat which is useful for that genre. Runequest has a "Power" stat which is useful for that system.

Personally I feel 4 is too few, one of the problems I have with GURPS is that most characters start looking all the same due to having only 4 stats and the way they are priced. I love Hero but it is rather stat heavy, at least they are priced so there can be a wider array. Hero still has a problem with Dexterity being the be-all-end-all stat. (Or am I wrong in this? Has it been changed enough recently?)

Playing with the notion of utilizing the four suits of the Tarot and their myriad associations as a set of abstract attributes for the fantasy game I'm working on, in the vein of Everway. For example:

SWORDS
Intelligence, Problem-solving, Perception, Physical and moral conflict
CUPS
Empathy, Intuition, Charisma, Congeniality, Dreaming
WANDS
Passion, Creativity, Stamina, Coordination, Energy
COINS
Health, Strength, Wealth, Stability, Resourcefulness

Three.  Fighty, Talky, Thinky.

Quote from: robiswrong;897096As many as necessary to differentiate characters.

As few as possible.

robiswrong is right.

I don't know how many is best for particular genres.

Warhammer 1e has a long stat line, but oddly it works.

I feel Palladium's stat line is odd and disconnected from the actual game (even though I love several PB settings).

When thinking about game design, my choice is 6 stats because you can randomize them on a D6 and because of D&D, but that doesn't make that work for anyone but me.

But whatever you do, follow robiswrong's advice.  Make sure your game has enough stats to do the job, but keep it lean.

Quote from: Spinachcat;897142robiswrong is right.

My God! What a wonderful, splendid, awesome Paradox! ;)

Fantasy Trip sold me a long time ago on the beauty of minimal stats.

Always felt MEGS/DC Heroes covered it well with 3 physical, 3 mental, and 3 mystical attributes that are broken down into 3 Action/Opposing, 3 Effect, and 3 Resistance Attributes. Seems to cover all the bases. At least for my purposes and superhero games.

Quote from: TristramEvans;897116Playing with the notion of utilizing the four suits of the Tarot and their myriad associations as a set of abstract attributes for the fantasy game I'm working on, in the vein of Everway. For example:

SWORDS
Intelligence, Problem-solving, Perception, Physical and moral conflict
CUPS
Empathy, Intuition, Charisma, Congeniality, Dreaming
WANDS
Passion, Creativity, Stamina, Coordination, Energy
COINS
Health, Strength, Wealth, Stability, Resourcefulness

Is this "Pretentious: The RPG"?

Quote from: Matt;897647Is this "Pretentious: The RPG"?

No, it's Kiss My Ass : The Wargame

Strength
Agility
Mind

And that's it.  Feel like fewer=more powerful effect, less chance of dumpage.

Quote from: TristramEvans;897116Playing with the notion of utilizing the four suits of the Tarot and their myriad associations as a set of abstract attributes for the fantasy game I'm working on, in the vein of Everway. For example:

SWORDS
Intelligence, Problem-solving, Perception, Physical and moral conflict
CUPS
Empathy, Intuition, Charisma, Congeniality, Dreaming
WANDS
Passion, Creativity, Stamina, Coordination, Energy
COINS
Health, Strength, Wealth, Stability, Resourcefulness

Sounds neat. Would the stats themselves be generated with the cards, or simply represented by the suits?

Quote from: Arkansan;897709Sounds neat. Would the stats themselves be generated with the cards, or simply represented by the suits?

In the context of the game, character creation is done by combining templates. The game itself uses a mix of dice and card draws.

I think there's something very special about the 6 stats from D&D, 3 physical, 3 mental. But I think you can also make due with 4 stats.

Quote from: cranebump;897668Strength
Agility
Mind

And that's it.  Feel like fewer=more powerful effect, less chance of dumpage.

Sounds like the game "Warrior, Rogue, and Mage" (where the stats are Warrior, Rogue, and Mage).

Quote from: Xúc xắc;899018Sounds like the game "Warrior, Rogue, and Mage" (where the stats are Warrior, Rogue, and Mage).

Really? I haven't seen that one. I know that Bare Bones fantasy expresses skills as professions, but they didn't go whole hog on professions as abilities.  Anyhoo, I'll look it up. Thank you.

People often seem to have a phobia against many stats, but I disagree. After I played Artesia , I found that many stats are almost as easy to use as just a few, as long as there is a clear list of them in front of you on your sheet (this does have an upper limit of course, but it is much higher than most people would think. Artesia has 15 stats, and this might be close to the limit for me, but not at all as bad as many think). Skills tend to get messier because of their variability. even leading to players forgetting that they have a certain skill. Stats tend to be clearly laid out on the sheet.

Of course you could also play a game in which stats and skills are two sides of the same coin, with no strict distinction. In this case I would try to limit myself to several broad categories, with an upper limit close to the same as stats above.

Quote from: TristramEvans;897116Playing with the notion of utilizing the four suits of the Tarot and their myriad associations as a set of abstract attributes for the fantasy game I'm working on, in the vein of Everway. For example:

SWORDS
Intelligence, Problem-solving, Perception, Physical and moral conflict
CUPS
Empathy, Intuition, Charisma, Congeniality, Dreaming
WANDS
Passion, Creativity, Stamina, Coordination, Energy
COINS
Health, Strength, Wealth, Stability, Resourcefulness

This is very close to my system in La Vendetta. Did Everway use something like this too?

Quote from: Xúc xắc;899018Sounds like the game "Warrior, Rogue, and Mage" (where the stats are Warrior, Rogue, and Mage).

Very good game. If I had a group that wanted Point Buy Fantasy, I'd go WRYM in a heartbeat.

It's a free download and now it's a Open Source SRD thingie
http://www.stargazergames.eu/games/warrior-rogue-mage/

Quote from: Trond;899036This is very close to my system in La Vendetta. Did Everway use something like this too?

Everyway used a custom "tarot-like" deck ("vision Cards" or something hokey like that, iirc) and used the four classical elements as suits and character's attributes Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.

I have a meta-attribute system. On one axis I have Mind, Body, Spirit. On the other I have Power, Accuracy, Speed. It creates 9 different meta-attributes. I derive the attribute set from there.

So the two "obvious" sets I've found in published RPGs:
Mental (Mind's Power, Accuracy, and Speed combined)
Physical (Body's Power, Accuracy, and Speed combined)
Spiritual (Spirit's Power, Accuracy, and Speed combined)

And...
Health (Power of Mind, Body, and Spirit)
Precision (Accuracy of Mind, Body, and Spirit)
Speed (Speed of Mind, Body, and Spirit)

But a more fanciful one I've used derived from my meta-scheme:
Muscles (Body's Power and Speed)
Brains (Mind's Power and Accuracy)
Senses (Speed of Mind and Spirit)
Nerves (Accuracy of Body and Spirit)
Heart (Spirit's Power)


I'll always have a place in my heart for D&D's 6 attributes, but really, I find Constitution to be redundant with hit points to a degree, and Strength to be so narrowly focused that it seems better to just be an "add-on" Ability for those characters who are above average.

Quote from: Lunamancer;899316I'll always have a place in my heart for D&D's 6 attributes, but really, I find Constitution to be redundant with hit points to a degree, and Strength to be so narrowly focused that it seems better to just be an "add-on" Ability for those characters who are above average.

D&D's attributes are all redundant with class. The way it always works out in play is every fighter has high Strength and five other attributes. Every wizard has high Intelligence and five other attributes. It would be a lot simpler to just say characters have a "doing stuff" stat equal to 10+(level/2). Then give each class/race a bonus to the stuff they're good at: fighters are strong, wizards are smart,  gnomes are annoying, etc. That would also eliminate the problem of saying a class is good at something when they are only good at it if you have the right stats.

Anecdote: I once had some lucky rolls in a short AD&D2 game and played a wizard with a really high strength. Another player in the group rolled poorly but decided to run with it anyway. He barely qualified for Fighter. My wizard never cast a spell until he was 2nd level because bashing kobolds with his staff was sufficient. My wizard was better in melee combat than the fighter.

Quote from: Xúc xắc;899344D&D's attributes are all redundant with class. The way it always works out in play is every fighter has high Strength and five other attributes. Every wizard has high Intelligence and five other attributes.

... but this doesn't at all resemble how I play D&D, and I generally play BtB. I can't tell if this describes how you actually play or if this is just a hostile caricature of the game. Either way, I don't think it's at all accurate.

QuoteIt would be a lot simpler to just say characters have a "doing stuff" stat equal to 10+(level/2). Then give each class/race a bonus to the stuff they're good at: fighters are strong, wizards are smart,  gnomes are annoying, etc. That would also eliminate the problem of saying a class is good at something when they are only good at it if you have the right stats.

Why does my fighter have to be strong? Why I can't play one who is smart, quick, or charismatic instead? What you suggest isn't "simpler." It's just really generic and really boring.

QuoteAnecdote: I once had some lucky rolls in a short AD&D2 game and played a wizard with a really high strength. Another player in the group rolled poorly but decided to run with it anyway. He barely qualified for Fighter. My wizard never cast a spell until he was 2nd level because bashing kobolds with his staff was sufficient. My wizard was better in melee combat than the fighter.

This sounds fishy. I'll spare the number crunching and just say this is equal parts how you choose to play and exaggeration.

But even if this is really were true of D&D, so what? The game was designed for randomly determined attributes to matter.

HERO SYSTEM 6th Edition has 17 core stats. Why do I play this game I do not know...

The game that I'm working on uses 5 (so far):

Eye (perception, understanding and intuition)
Face (personality, social skill and reputation)
Heart (resilience, persistence and vitality)
Guts (athletics, combat skills and strength)
Soul (connection with nature and spirits)

I might change Heart because it makes me think of Captain Planet.

There are also 5 "classes" that sync up to these.

Quote from: LouGoncey;900444HERO SYSTEM 6th Edition has 17 core stats. Why do I play this game I do not know...

That one just made me laugh.

Quote from: robiswrong;897096As many as necessary to differentiate characters.

As few as possible.

A marvelously vague and yet critically accurate statement.

My favorite stat breakdown remains the 8 stats from Dragonlance: Fifth Age--Strength and Endurance, Agility and Dexterity, Reason and Perception, Spirit and Presence. NPCs can generally collapse the pairs down into 4 attributes--Physique, Coordination, Intellect, Essence.

It's nicely symmetrical (Physical/Mental, Power/Technique, Active/Reactive) and is close to the D&D 6 I grew up with while diminishing Dexterity's "uberstat" tendencies and Wisdom's kludging-together of awareness and willpower.

YMMV, but we pretty much ignore half the abilities in D&D. I feel a little guilty for ignoring a chunk of the system, but ability checks just feel lame. All social interactions are roleplayed or skipped over, so Charisma reduces to attractiveness. Intelligence and Wisdom never seem to come up except as they mechanically relate to the spellcasters. We could probably get along without all of the physical stats either; the divide between the three has always felt clunky.

So "as few as possible" for me would be two or so: Strength and Magic. Maybe a Size attribute to model an Ajax/Hector kind of fight.

Quote from: Dumpire;900773YMMV, but we pretty much ignore half the abilities in D&D. I feel a little guilty for ignoring a chunk of the system, but ability checks just feel lame. All social interactions are roleplayed or skipped over, so Charisma reduces to attractiveness. Intelligence and Wisdom never seem to come up except as they mechanically relate to the spellcasters. We could probably get along without all of the physical stats either; the divide between the three has always felt clunky.

So "as few as possible" for me would be two or so: Strength and Magic. Maybe a Size attribute to model an Ajax/Hector kind of fight.

You might like the Prince Valiant system.

I tend to favor fewer core stats. There are always cases you can find for splitting stats, because it is always possible to subdivide. Specialized talent - like being particularly good at manual dexterity, or having aim, or skill in languages - can be handled by something like advantages. For core stats, the question is whether that distinction is useful for all characters.

I think there are a few common splits or combines.

1) Strength vs. Constitution :  In terms of fiction and reality, figures who are really strong are usually also tough, and vice-versa. Thus, I favor a general "Body" stat for how big and fit you are. In D&D, there are a number of characters with low Str but high Con, but I see this more as a game mechanical artifact that comes from system choices. (i.e. hit points are always useful, but for many characters strength is largely irrelevant)

2) Intelligence vs. Wisdom : This is a rather peculiar D&D-ism. I find it strange and arbitrary to say that Perception and Medicine is based on Wisdom, but Nature and Religion are based on Intelligence. In practice, all the recent versions have that animals have low Int but reasonable Wis - so that Gorillas would make good doctors, but bad theologists - which makes no sense. I think the other common split is better where the split is instead Intelligence vs. Perception. An eagle or bloodhound will have high Perception but low Intelligence, while a thick glasses-wearing scholar might have low Perception but high Intelligence. That's an easily understandable split.

So, I'd tend to prefer Body and Dexterity for physical; and Mind and Perception for mental.

For social, having a single Charisma stat is fine for me. The split of Presence and Manipulation that White Wolf uses is also OK by me - it seems workable, and fitting for many archetypes.  A general or other authority figure has high Presence, but a sneaky scheming con man has high Manipulation. Splitting it into three stats seems too much, though, like with physical and mental.

Whatever the system needs to run properly, and as long as it runs well.

Quote from: TristramEvans;900831You might like the Prince Valiant system.

I'll look into it ... I vaguely remember the cartoon from when I was about five years old.

Ok I'm looking it up in the Artesia rules, since I remember this has a lot of stats (characteristics) that still worked rather well:

Physical (total is Body score or hit points)
Appearance
Strength
Stamina
Dexterity
Technique

Mental (add up for Mind score, similar to sanity):
Perception
Willpower
Memory
Imagination
Reason

Spiritual (sum up for Spirit points, similar to magic points):
Presence
Conviction
Courage
Empathy
Wisdom

Quote from: Tetsubo;900737A marvelously vague and yet critically accurate statement.

Deliberately vague.

The actual number would depend entirely on the setting and genre and goals of the specific game you're making.  The actual number will depend on any number of factors, so the best answer I can give is how to find that number for a given situation, not the number itself.

Quote from: LouGoncey;900444HERO SYSTEM 6th Edition has 17 core stats. Why do I play this game I do not know...

mind if i ask what they are never played hero system

Quote from: Necrozius;900449The game that I'm working on uses 5 (so far):

Eye (perception, understanding and intuition)
Face (personality, social skill and reputation)
Heart (resilience, persistence and vitality)
Guts (athletics, combat skills and strength)
Soul (connection with nature and spirits)

I might change Heart because it makes me think of Captain Planet.

There are also 5 "classes" that sync up to these.

captain planet he's a hero gonna take pollution down to zero.......

I used to do ad libbed systems and the players get to vote on the stats and how we generate them and the system.

The fewest I ever used was 3  = Prowess, Lore , Guile  (I use these three in a couple of card / baord games I developed and so this is why they transfered across)
Usually people default to 6 but add in Perception and drop Wisdom.

The most unusual was in a Star Wars game using the Amber engine and we had I think Force, Warfare, Mechanic , Pilot, Strength

Generally I think Vampire oWoD was very clever with its Tri-stat with 3 splits So I personally favour
Mental = Perception, Knowledge, Reasoning
Physical = Strength, Endurance, Agility
Social = Appearance, Charm, Leadership (I know Appearance is really a physical trait but meh what can you do)

Quote from: kosmos1214;900982mind if i ask what they are never played hero system

I'm not sure about 6th edition, but previously there were eight core stats and six derived stats.

Strength - how much force you can apply to lift/hit
Dexterity - how quick and accurate you are
Constitution - how tough you are (mattered mostly for derived stats)
Body - how hard you are to kill
Intelligence - how perceptive and sharp you are
Ego - how strong-willed you are
Presence - how impressive and charismatic you are
Comeliness - how good-looking you are

Derived stats:
Physical Defense (PD) - defense vs. physical attacks
Energy Defense (ED) - defense vs. energy attacks
Speed (SPD) - how many actions per turn you get
Recovery (REC) - how quickly you recover Endurance and Stun
Endurance (END) - how long you can keep acting
Stun (STUN) - how hard you are to knock out

And yes, I also think it's excessive. Mostly they will scale with each other, like PD and ED being usually the same.
If you really want a character who is hard to knock out but easy to kill, you could take a limitation or disadvantage for that,
rather than making different stats for everyone.

The changes HERO 6th made were:
1. Making the previously figured Characteristics independent,
2. Dropping Comeliness in favor of a "Striking Appearance" Talent,
3. Treating OCV, DCV, OMCV and DMCV (formerly ECV) ad Characteristics.

From jhkim's description I'd say that Body and Constitution seem too similar, but otherwise I don't think this is too much at all.

Quote from: Xúc xắc;899018Sounds like the game "Warrior, Rogue, and Mage" (where the stats are Warrior, Rogue, and Mage).

I like this one as well. I'd probably expand to:

Knight
Knave
Heathen
Wizard
Hallow
Jester

What would Hallow represent?

Quote from: daniel_ream;897123Three.  Fighty, Talky, Thinky.

Which is pretty similar to BESM/Tri-Stat's Body, Spirit, and Mind, if I remember them correctly.  (Which then was enhanced with various advantages disadvantage to, for instance, give you a +2 on dexterity/speed related rolls.)

I liked the DC Heroes game - MEGS? (Yeah, Mayfair Exponential Game System) had it split into Body, Mind, and Spirit, but then each of those had a sort of accuracy, a power, and a hit-point sort of pool - so, for physical stuff your Dexterity was how well you could use your strength, your strength was how powerful you were, and your body was how much damage you could take.  And the same with your mind and spirit.  A nifty idea, but unless you're doing mystic adventures, the spirit doesn't get used a lot.

Depends on the character and how atypical they are.

Completely generic bystanders may have zero to one stat, effectively, which is:

Effectiveness - used for practically everything, but they're bystanders so is rarely checked. "Zeroes" are just assumed to have the baseline ability level (10) in everything. Some are assumed to be more or less effective in everything (8-12).

For fighters, I want at least two stats, to differentiate types a bit:

Strength
Dexterity

This is from the first RPG I played, Melee, from The Fantasy Trip (TFT).

Having played TFT for years, I'm also comfortable enough with most people essentially having three stats:

Strength
Dexterity
Intelligence

But also having my interest in detail outgrow both TFT & GURPS (in some ways), while those three are good enough for many characters, I find all of them sometimes ought to be broken down to distinguish atypical characters. Typicaly when someone is strong in one of those areas, they are not really strong in EVERY application of that area, so really, the can and should each be broken down for the more interesting and exceptional characters, rather than just making them Uber in one area. Strength is the exception, except that if you're not careful, ST gets used for things like resistance to disease, for example, and not all strongmen are immune to disease.

Even diehard TFT players tend to end up making "superscript" attributes available, which are ways to focus ability without increasing the whole attribute. In TFT house rules, these tend to look something like:

Strength
       Muscle
    Fatigue
Dexterity
       Speed
    Agility
    Talents which give bonuses to certain uses of skill.
Intelligence
       Smarts
    Memory

GURPS may have only four stats per se, but it really has many different advantages and disadvantages which can modify the attributes for different purposes, and of course hundreds of skills giving the effective levels for specific tasks. I like this because it lets me use only the detail level I need for a character, while still allowing any level of detail I want, especially since I make up house rules if something isn't quite what I need.

Generally though for making a very detailed character like a PC, I tend to consider the following possible detailed values:

Strength
       Muscle (power)
    Fitness (resistance to fatigue)
    Grit (resistance to damage)
    Structure (capacity for damage)
    Health (resistance to health problems)
Dexterity
       Speed
    Agility
Intelligence
       Logic
    Wit
    Self (will, emotional maturity...)
    Empathy    
    Senses

I also like the GURPS system of instead of rating lots of things for everyone, noting exceptions via a list of advantages or disadvantages (or just traits). So I don't sit around for everyone thinking what they're specific Logic versus Wit scores should be - I tend to just give almost everyone a general average-ish generic IQ rating, and a few of them some specific noted differences like Weak Will or Acute Vision or Gullible or whatever.

Quote from: jcfiala;901104Which is pretty similar to BESM/Tri-Stat's Body, Spirit, and Mind, if I remember them correctly.

It's actually an even-more-simplified version of FAE's Approaches.

QuoteI liked the DC Heroes game - MEGS? (Yeah, Mayfair Exponential Game System) had it split into Body, Mind, and Spirit, but then each of those had a sort of accuracy, a power, and a hit-point sort of pool

The in-game terms for them were Acting Value and Effect Value vs Opposing Value and Resisting Value.  The RV is usually also the hit point stat, although it didn't go down as you took damage.

QuoteA nifty idea, but unless you're doing mystic adventures, the spirit doesn't get used a lot.

Both the Marvel and DC comic book universes up to the 1980's had a lot more mysticism in general - not just in their flagship sorcery titles - than any contemporary superhero RPG really addressed besides DC Heroes.  Most games treated psionics and magic as the same thing, or just failed to have any rules for anything non-physical.

Quote from: TristramEvans;901084What would Hallow represent?

The theological element.

My original thought was to put Bishop instead of Hallow and Reeve/Sheriff for heathen.

I like heathen because it can cover barbarian/druid/ranger well and stands in constrast to hallow.

Quote from: daniel_ream;901122It's actually an even-more-simplified version of FAE's Approaches.



The in-game terms for them were Acting Value and Effect Value vs Opposing Value and Resisting Value.  The RV is usually also the hit point stat, although it didn't go down as you took damage.



Both the Marvel and DC comic book universes up to the 1980's had a lot more mysticism in general - not just in their flagship sorcery titles - than any contemporary superhero RPG really addressed besides DC Heroes.  Most games treated psionics and magic as the same thing, or just failed to have any rules for anything non-physical.

Marvel addressed it way better than the DC game.