TheRPGSite

What do I mean?
Statistics is a mathematics discipline that tries to make predictions through models. These models can reveal information in interesting ways.
Humans have capacities for various tasks that can be (to one degree or another) measured and quantified. Showing the range of human performance from the world record (human maximum) to Zero (no function).

We can call the measured capacities a set of related tasks an "attribute". moderately easy to point at muscles and the work muscles can do. looking at the whole person overall as a sort of "average"- allowing training and for various exceptions, can we have a "strength score"?

The same follows for movement, how do we quantify the human range for the speed of movement, the balance of the body, and the quickness of reactions/reflexes?  should hand-eye coordination and the precision of action be a separate attribute (throwing darts, drawing lines and shapes, etc)?

Can the attributes be accurately defined by a model and give us a Metric for comparison? can the metric be Consistent?
Yes, this topic will piss Woketards off likely triggering cries of "Abilist", "sexist", "Racist", and all the "phobes".... sorry. it is going to happen, they can't help themselves.

Of it works in the game then go for it. I remember seeing such thoughts in a few rules sets: directly translating Strength into the amount of mass that can be lifted/carried is a fairly common one, sometimes providing a bell curve distribution.

Quote from: PSIandCO on May 09, 2022, 10:24:24 PM
What do I mean?
Statistics is a mathematics discipline that tries to make predictions through models. These models can reveal information in interesting ways.
Humans have capacities for various tasks that can be (to one degree or another) measured and quantified. Showing the range of human performance from the world record (human maximum) to Zero (no function).

We can call the measured capacities a set of related tasks an "attribute". moderately easy to point at muscles and the work muscles can do. looking at the whole person overall as a sort of "average"- allowing training and for various exceptions, can we have a "strength score"?

The same follows for movement, how do we quantify the human range for the speed of movement, the balance of the body, and the quickness of reactions/reflexes?  should hand-eye coordination and the precision of action be a separate attribute (throwing darts, drawing lines and shapes, etc)?

Can the attributes be accurately defined by a model and give us a Metric for comparison? can the metric be Consistent?
Yes, this topic will piss Woketards off likely triggering cries of "Abilist", "sexist", "Racist", and all the "phobes".... sorry. it is going to happen, they can't help themselves.

Even the metrics we use are commonly debated (IQ tests) So, no I dont think we can REALLY quantify attributes with a strict numerical value. Same goes for skills TBH. However, without some means of determining a characters chance to succeed at a given task, we might as well be writing a novel, or playing a story-telling game.

Screw that.

Quote from: Trond on May 09, 2022, 10:28:43 PM
Of it works in the game then go for it. I remember seeing such thoughts in a few rules sets: directly translating Strength into the amount of mass that can be lifted/carried is a fairly common one, sometimes providing a bell curve distribution.

Old Dragon (A Brazilian RPG that calls itself OSR) does this for all six attributes. IIRC STR has load to lift, carry, drag, chance of kicking down a door or bending some iron bars.

It doesn't take into consideration the sex of the character tho.

But, AD&D did have those tables with sex differences as to the maximum/minimum per race/sex, so with a bit of extrapolation you could combine those tables.

True. is the progress of the "Strength" attribute linear, additive, logarithmic, or exponential?
What does that mean for an "Agility" attribute, shouldn't the metrics be applied in a similar fashion?
What of intelligence? if the increased "Capacity" of an attribute metric increases by an exponent what does that "Mean"/"define" someone with a "lower score"?

is the "Bell curve" an accurate model for humanity?
Can we really create realistic characters by rolling 3d6 and modify our totals by assigned modifiers for Gender/Race/etc?

I don't want to get into debates about "Why" certain measurements are inaccurate, or why having ability scores can "hurt feelings".
Reality hurts feelings all the time and crying about it does nothing.
Example: I have multiple endocrine failure (six different autoimmune diseases). The effects of these diseases include; Chronic fatigue, muscle withering, shaking, and a host of other odd movement tics affecting everything, even the way I walk. I have to eat a fistful of pills to get out of bed, and take shots to keep my heart from exploding.

as the saying goes, "asking for a wheelchair ramp is fine... demanding everyone must use wheelchairs, is not".
The woke are the kind who demand preferential treatment (and the abuse of others) for a "victim status", real or invented.

Back to the topic
based on the "Leah thomas" bullshit, we can see that a MAN who was 642nd in men's competitions comes in first in women's swimming. So much so that "She/He/It" (let's just call trans "Shit" for short) beat ALL of the female swimmers by at least 32 seconds...

That's a reality check. just like comparing men's and women's world records for a wide number of athletic feats.
It may hurt your feelings to discuss it, but it doesn't change the reality/truth. 

can ability scores be based on reality/truth and an accurate metric be had? I can just say "Yeah man, just divide the world record for weight lift cling/jerk or bench press by 18..." and let the players sort out the odd bits (exceptions to the average).
what would a Sports physiologist/bio mechanics expert/Psychology metrics expert and statistician say about it?

I would like to know.

There is this game system called 'GURPS'....

- Ed C

Or see Hero System.

for reasons I have mentioned above... my real life 3.0 D&D ability scores REALLY suck now.
Strength is likely 6-5, Dexterity is probably 8-7, and constitution is 3.
On the old I.q. tests that measure out to 180 my I.q. is 144
on current I.q. tests that measure out to 140 my I.q. is 136
I am by no means, a genius. neither am I a fool.

I have noticed how 3.0 D&D gave estimated weights that one could carry or max lift, but 3.5 D&D gives a short list of monsters to compare ability scores to, and 5e D&D/Pathfinder 2e make no mention at all of "what an ability score Means"...
(*IMHO, too fucking woke to acknowledge reality)

Having some indication of what the ability scores track to in any system is of course useful for context but equally most systems have enough abstractions that it doesn't really help all that much.

Equally there is fun to he derived from rolling the dice and seeing what result you get. The more accurate/specific and mechanical the ability scores are the less the dice roll makes sense.

AD&D and Villains & Vigilantes both map some stats to real world limits. AD&D STR is the prome example as it mapped loosely to lifting limits.

Should stats map to RL metric?

Yes. A normal human in Call of Cthulhu can not bench press a truck. Etc. Even D&D characters map within human limits for some stats for the baseline. Then magic and class tricks factor in.

Does it matter if there's a table somewhere that maps strength scores to the weights lifted in real world competitions? The DM is still arbitrarily deciding how much things weigh, and the DCs or target numbers or whatever of the challenges. The precision and research is just a false veneer. Underneath, it's just still just arbitrary judgment calls.

And in almost all cases, the mechanics are completely divorced from reality. For instance, a lot of games have opposed strength checks where an ordinary person has a chance of beating a very strong person. That's not realistic. In reality, a really strong person will win an arm wrestling competition or whatever not just most of the time, or 99% of the time, but effectively 100% of the time. There are similar problems with skills. A lot of time it's whether you have advanced training or not.

If you want a greater sense of realism, then it's probably a lot more useful to look at how the system resolves comparative differences between different native or learned abilities than to just do something superficial like map them to real world equivalents.

But I don't think most people want that. Games are more about mechanics that are easy to understand, the ability of the players or the GM to assess their chances, and how the mechanics create an interesting dynamic in play. The elements of simulation are just there to trick people into suspending their disbelief.

Not to worry Hybrid has it covered!

When considering the "model" aspect of a game, remember that models are always abstractions.  Abstractions have levels, such as the Bjourne Stroustrup discussion in his original C++ book of you don't talk about building a house of wood atoms, bricks, and rooms all at the same time.  And when you are considering things at the "brick" level, it's rarely meaningful to talk about "rooms" and vice versa.

A game should be built on the proper level of abstraction.  The exact level can vary from game to game, and sometimes from sub system to sub system.  However, within a given game, and certainly a sub system, there is some level of abstraction that fits, and as much as possible the game should use that in its modeling.  There are, of course, other concerns besides the model, and those can sometimes lead to elements in the system that stray from an exact fit on the abstraction.  Even so, something that starts to diverge too much will still be a problem.

Given that then, I would say that ability score can be somewhat analogous to real world metrics, in a sort of rough and ready way, subject to the abstraction level of the model.  I would not call this comparable.  For example, in D&D, given what "strength" actually does, it's not merely lifting.  It's muscle tone, some general fitness (though not all of it), muscle/eye coordination (though not all of it), etc.  And in fact, I find game models typically work better when the label is not read too literally, with some overlap between the elements, as with D&D strength, dexterity, and constitution. 

If you want, for example, that model to be more closely analogous, then the underlying system needs to acknowledge that hitting something with a sword is really influenced by Str and Dex, while being able to fight for more than a few seconds is influenced by Str and Con.  This is necessarily a complication of the model and the system. Likewise, the model could pull back a little, say, collapsing Str and Con into one score or even collapsing all three into some kind of "physical" or "body" or whatever score.  The proper level of abstraction depends on what is happening in the rest of the game that uses those ability scores. 

Finally, you also have to consider the rest of the the model and what it is doing, how much overlap you want, etc.  For example, in the D&D example, one of the things hit points model is rough and ready stamina in a fight.  The D&D model is concerned with two states and a counter.  I'm either still in the fight or I'm not.  The hit point counter is how close I am to not being in it any more, subject to the uncertainty of getting hit or not.  So it is probably a not very useful complication to the system to make some kind of directly comparable stamina mechanic based on Con or even all the physical attributes.  That's already covered by a different mechanic--at a different level of abstraction.  Or if you do want to have such a mechanic (similar to Hero System's endurance), then that means how hit points work also needs to change to remove that part of it. 

Quote from: PSIandCO on May 09, 2022, 10:24:24 PM
Can the attributes be accurately defined by a model and give us a Metric for comparison? can the metric be Consistent?

I would say its possible but not practical.

The problem is that attribute tests are situational. There is always something else, a person or object, against which the attribute is tested. If you define strength as weight carried, it has little to do with kicking in a door. There would be some correlation, but it would be inconsistent. Agility against an active foe is different from walking a tightrope. And what about attributes like wisdom and knowledge? You would need more attributes than practical in a game.

The models that attempt it are found in games with skills, which can be considered 20, 30, or 50+ specialized attributes that the game cares about.

It depends on your goal.  Are you making a game that knows its a game? Or making a game that is trying to be a simulation?  D&D is a game that knows it is a game, ability scores have some basis in reality but are obscured and detached from reality as well, it very clearly is not trying to simulate or stick to reality.

Short Answer: No.

How are you going to quantify anything other than the most basic strength & speed type activities? Is there some universal metric for Wisdom or Charisma?

Even for things like Strength, it can't be done without creating weird unrealistic consequences or just-plain-bad game rules. In the real world there's a difference between deadlifts and pushups and gymnastics and track & field events, but a game doesn't (and mostly can't) have the resolution necessary to mechanically differentiate these things.

It cannot truly be done.  ;) Otherwise Hospitals would have been using RPG parameters at Emergency Room triage by now. Nothing you think as "realism" truly is enough, let alone playable. Let that dream die and embrace suspending disbelief.  8) It's OK, it won't hurt.

Can it be done?  Certainly.  Is it useful?  Well, that depends.  Strength and intelligence are probably useful to model in real world terms - they're easy enough.  We have various measures of those two that we use all the time.  Knowing that a character with Strength X can deadlift Y pounds is useful, since it connects our real world intuition.  The rest of the ability scores, one would have to make up a real world scale, which would give at best limited benefit.

Quote from: Pat on May 10, 2022, 05:20:33 AMDoes it matter if there's a table somewhere that maps strength scores to the weights lifted in real world competitions? The DM is still arbitrarily deciding how much things weigh, and the DCs or target numbers or whatever of the challenges. The precision and research is just a false veneer. Underneath, it's just still just arbitrary judgment calls.
And in almost all cases, the mechanics are completely divorced from reality. For instance, a lot of games have opposed strength checks where an ordinary person has a chance of beating a very strong person. That's not realistic. In reality, a really strong person will win an arm wrestling competition or whatever not just most of the time, or 99% of the time, but effectively 100% of the time. There are similar problems with skills. A lot of time it's whether you have advanced training or not.
If you want a greater sense of realism, then it's probably a lot more useful to look at how the system resolves comparative differences between different native or learned abilities than to just do something superficial like map them to real world equivalents. But I don't think most people want that. Games are more about mechanics that are easy to understand, the ability of the players or the GM to assess their chances, and how the mechanics create an interesting dynamic in play. The elements of simulation are just there to trick people into suspending their disbelief.

**************
a quick glance at d20 games...
Rather than deriving ability modifiers thus: Stat -10, then divide by two. 20=+5, 18=+4, 16=+3...
try revising the math to have a greater reward for ability scores above 10 and punishing ability scores below 10.
Like this: ability modifier = Stat -10. 
this makes every point count, including the odd numbers!
someone with a 15 can beat someone who has only a 14.
Someone with a 4, is beat by everyone with the same attribute being 10 or higher.

Pathfinder 2e, the proficiency rank mechanic:
untrained is 0 + ability modifier and other modifiers.
Trained is 2+ your level+ ability modifier and other modifiers.
Expert is 4+ your level+ ability modifier and other modifiers.
Mastery is 6+ your level+ ability modifier and other modifiers.
Legendary is 2+ your level+ ability modifier and other modifiers.
They haven't written "epic/mythic" play yet.

Anywho, during the playtest for PF2E, untrained was -2 and the proficiency ranks were only +1 per stage:
trained+1, expert+2, Mastery+3, Legendary+4.
in the current 2E Gamemastery guide, there are rules for NOT including the Level in anything.

let us combine these ideas and see what happens to the game play:
Stat-10= ability modifier, +2 for each proficiency rank, Not including level. 
The effect is that your ability scores have a huge impact, and your proficiency rank with skills also matters.

Test: Educated Genius (Int 18) Vs. uneducated Idiot (int 6)
Idiot- rolls a 20, ability modifier is -4, training is 0= 16. The idiot can never get a "20" even rolling a 20!
Genius- Rolls a 10, ability modifier is +8, training is expert +4= 22.

now, a skill Expert average joe (int 11) Vs. Uneducated genius (int 18)
Uneducated genius rolls a 10, +8 modifier, +0 for skill= 18
Average Joe rolls a 10, +1 modifier, +4 for skill= 15

The genius wins, but what if the challenge was neurosurgery?
the skill rules allow many things to be attempted untrained, and plenty more require training in the skill to even attempt.
Being untrained, the genius can still recall and reason, but won't have the knowledge to complete the task.
Being an expert "Average joe" has the knowledge but struggles to recall every step of the task and apply what he does know.

Now... Opposed arm wrestling. an "Athletics" skill check.
Hank has 18 strength and is an athletics expert +4.
Gustav has a 17 strength, and is also an athletics expert.
if they both roll the same on the d20, Hank will always be +1 ahead.

The effects on pathfinder 2e, Monsters of all kinds would be a threat regardless of level.
Being Min/maxed becomes important as a difference of +/-1 can decide who wins and who... doesn't.
With these rules in effect, the 3.0/3.5 magic item rules could make a comeback with some tweaking.
You would want high-level characters to have earned magic items that push their ability beyond the mortal limits.
thing is, this invalidates anyone who doesn't get specific magic items...
The idea of a "Character" to role-play is brushed aside by a shopping list of MacGuffins.
best not to do that then. winning "Bling" can be fun, but it too easily becomes "the point" of the game.

I agree, changing how the math is done, models a realistic outcome.
Personal experience; back in the sixth grade I had never learned how to "Block" in football games.
I got pit against a 6'4" at 320lbs giant. the result is that he flipped me out of the way everytime.
yet, another kid my size who did know how to block effectively was able to Keep the giant back, the giant couldn't take one step forward.

Training does matter. it is a HUGE difference.

Thank you for the insights, all of them!

Quote from: Zelen on May 10, 2022, 06:53:24 PM
Short Answer: No.
How are you going to quantify anything other than the most basic strength & speed type activities? Is there some universal metric for Wisdom or Charisma?
Even for things like Strength, it can't be done without creating weird unrealistic consequences or just-plain-bad game rules. In the real world there's a difference between deadlifts and pushups and gymnastics and track & field events, but a game doesn't (and mostly can't) have the resolution necessary to mechanically differentiate these things.

Devastating, and right. you are right.
The more realism I would like, the more convoluted the rules become.

Quote from: Opaopajr on May 10, 2022, 07:54:57 PM
It cannot truly be done.  ;) Otherwise Hospitals would have been using RPG parameters at Emergency Room triage by now. Nothing you think as "realism" truly is enough, let alone playable. Let that dream die and embrace suspending disbelief.  8) It's OK, it won't hurt.

Sigh... correct. too much realism makes game play impossible.

Quote
An old issue of Dragon magazine had an interesting alternative to determining Dungeons & Dragons ability scores, all of which were based on the player's actual abilities. Dragon #8, published back in 1977, had an article written by Brian Blume that offered a "realistic" approach to determining a D&D character's ability scores that were meant to reflect the attributes of the player controlling the character. By using this method, a character would have the stats of the player instead of stats that represented an extraordinary character.

Instead of using dice to determine a character's stats, players were to calculate their stats using six simple tests, one for each attribute scores.

The tests were as follows:

Strength: Divide the maximum amount of weight you can military press by ten.

Dexterity: Time yourself running 440 yards and then subtract your time from 80.

Constitution: The number of consecutive months you've gone without missing a day of school or work due to illness.

Intelligence: Divide the result of your most recent IQ test by 10.

Wisdom: Subtract the average number of hours you spend playing or planning D&D by 20.

Charisma: Multiply the number of times you've appeared on television or had your picture in the newspaper by two.

https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-and-dragons-realistic-character-stats/ (https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-and-dragons-realistic-character-stats/)

Quote from: Mishihari on May 11, 2022, 12:31:24 AM
Can it be done?  Certainly.  Is it useful?  Well, that depends.  Strength and intelligence are probably useful to model in real world terms - they're easy enough.  We have various measures of those two that we use all the time.  Knowing that a character with Strength X can deadlift Y pounds is useful, since it connects our real world intuition.  The rest of the ability scores, one would have to make up a real world scale, which would give at best limited benefit.

Agreed.

I would like some detail, and "meaning".
Yet, generalities become necessary and exceptions being to multiply.

take a bodybuilder, Did he or she develop all of his or her muscles with proportions, or did they specialize for a sport?
A boxer will have a different build from a runner, from a gymnast, from a swimmer, from a cyclist.
what if someone is very lean but has Densely chorded muscle? the metric and what it represents gets tossed out the window...

Quote from: Shasarak on May 11, 2022, 01:13:18 AM

Quote
An old issue of Dragon magazine had an interesting alternative to determining Dungeons & Dragons ability scores, all of which were based on the player's actual abilities. Dragon #8, published back in 1977, had an article written by Brian Blume that offered a "realistic" approach to determining a D&D character's ability scores that were meant to reflect the attributes of the player controlling the character. By using this method, a character would have the stats of the player instead of stats that represented an extraordinary character.
Instead of using dice to determine a character's stats, players were to calculate their stats using six simple tests, one for each attribute score.
The tests were as follows:
Strength: Divide the maximum amount of weight you can military press by ten.
Dexterity: Time yourself running 440 yards and then subtract your time from 80.
Constitution: The number of consecutive months you've gone without missing a day of school or work due to illness.
Intelligence: Divide the result of your most recent IQ test by 10.
Wisdom: Subtract the average number of hours you spend playing or planning D&D by 20.
Charisma: Multiply the number of times you've appeared on television or had your picture in the newspaper by two.

https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-and-dragons-realistic-character-stats/ (https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-and-dragons-realistic-character-stats/)

Very interesting, but the charisma test is very flawed given the internet and social media these days.
And intelligence testing has changed, tests top out at 140, not 180.
Thank you for the research.

Quote from: PSIandCO on May 11, 2022, 01:22:58 AM
And intelligence testing has changed, tests top out at 140, not 180.

Damn Millennials dragging everyone else down.

Ability scores are sufficiently abstracted that a direct comparison is useless. It would require a far more simulationist approach. However, a broad point of reference is helpful to give sense to the numbers in a "what does the score mean" kind of way. Moreover, most tasks would require a mix of attributes. For instance, even carry weight would be depended on strength to lift, dexterity to balance with the load, and constitution for endurance.

Mental scores are another kind of problem all together as it is not possible to effectively roleplay a character far in excess of the player's own metal capacity. One could portray a caricature there off, but one cannot think like someone much smarter than oneself. It invariably leads to trying to roll WIS/INT/CHA at a problem without any appreciation of how it would apply.  Mechanically, I would argue for  separate caster power stats and have the mental stats as Knowledge, Intuition, and (Force of) Personality.

Although I'm a simulationist, in my current project I decided to move away from trying to describe character capability in terms of fundamental descriptors of capacity like str, int, etc.  Instead I went with talent covering categories of skills:  attack, defense, athletics, perception, guile, and magic.  So far I like where it's headed.  Frex, if someone has a high athletics score then he has a combination of strength, coordination, endurance, spatial awareness, and discipline that makes him "good at sports" (though in the game it covers things like climbing, running, and brawn rather than football).  It doesn't try to define the particulars because they don't matter - it's the overall effect that's important.

Quote from: PSIandCO on May 11, 2022, 01:22:58 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on May 11, 2022, 01:13:18 AM

Quote
An old issue of Dragon magazine had an interesting alternative to determining Dungeons & Dragons ability scores, all of which were based on the player's actual abilities. Dragon #8, published back in 1977, had an article written by Brian Blume that offered a "realistic" approach to determining a D&D character's ability scores that were meant to reflect the attributes of the player controlling the character. By using this method, a character would have the stats of the player instead of stats that represented an extraordinary character.
Instead of using dice to determine a character's stats, players were to calculate their stats using six simple tests, one for each attribute score.
The tests were as follows:
Strength: Divide the maximum amount of weight you can military press by ten.
Dexterity: Time yourself running 440 yards and then subtract your time from 80.
Constitution: The number of consecutive months you've gone without missing a day of school or work due to illness.
Intelligence: Divide the result of your most recent IQ test by 10.
Wisdom: Subtract the average number of hours you spend playing or planning D&D by 20.
Charisma: Multiply the number of times you've appeared on television or had your picture in the newspaper by two.

https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-and-dragons-realistic-character-stats/ (https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-and-dragons-realistic-character-stats/)

Very interesting, but the charisma test is very flawed given the internet and social media these days.
And intelligence testing has changed, tests top out at 140, not 180.
Thank you for the research.

Not to mention the performance of a 400m sprint has nothing to do with Dex.  That's all STR and CON. Dex would be how many consecutive cart wheels or something dumb like that.

Dex is traditionally for dodging (AC) and shooting arrows.

Which means.... two completely separate talents.

Charisma, yeah, there should be a better metric. Maybe number of friends?

Constitution would have something to do with endurance, IMO, although the game doesn't make this distinction. Health is hard to measure...

Wisdom is for perception and will power in modern D&D. Again, completely separate issues.

Strength and Intelligence might be the easiest to measure.

In short... well, it is doable, but not particularly easy, and not particularly useful.

This is a lot easier with some stats than others. The easiest is with Strength, Speed (if that's a stat) and Intelligence. Shadowrun, IIRC, has Speed as meters per second you can run. Strength usually maps out to an exact amount of weight you can lift.

Intelligence is a bit trickier. If you map it as your Intelligence times 10 is your real world IQ, you run into an issue of too high and too low. By that metric, anyone with an Intelligence below 8 would be hardly functional, and this gets worse the lower you go. On the other hand, by the time you go around 18 Intelligence, you've gotten highly intelligent, basically super-genius level. While that maps well, any higher and things start getting nuts.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on May 11, 2022, 09:36:43 PM
Dex is traditionally for dodging (AC) and shooting arrows.

Which means.... two completely separate talents.

The best way I've seen this done is to split it into two ability scores, one related to hand coordination and the other more to foot/whole body coordination.  Things like pick locks use the former and things like dodge use the latter

One of the things to consider is that strength isn't just an attribute, it's also a skill. Strength gains made within the first few weeks of weight lifting are actually you getting better at lifting. Actually improvements to muscle strength that would be applicable across all movements come after. You can have people that are equally strong for general activities, but one is much better at lifting or carrying heavy objects.

So the problem comes when you try to have the stats model something specific, how detailed do you want to go? There's no end to the rabbit hole.

My head is spinning. There is a lot of genuine, intelligent, and educated commentary...
I am impressed.

Now, How do I "Upvote" everybody?

because I was expecting snark and put-downs, I did not expect such... insight.
You all have really helped me on this topic.
It helps me understand the modern I.Q. test using phrases such as "Standard deviation" and such.
The Deviations ARE abstractions...

less meaning, but might be usable.
I will strive to reply to every message here.
I need time to think/process.

off to the side (joking) Has anyone experimented with Diamagnetic Levitation?
look it up. you might notice something; NO LIQUID GASSES, NO CYRONICS!
How about "ramping it up" and experimenting to see if Diamagnetic materials can improve;
bullet trains, (without liquid gas storage tanks, no radiators, no expanders, no compressors, no pressure cells, no pipes, no valves... none of it!)
electric motors, (Magnetic field lines never cross. Magnetic fields radiate outward from inductor coils. the further they spread, the weaker the force...
solenoids, and (What if a sheath of Diamagnetic materials CAN act as mirror/insulator to magnetic fields?...
generators... (can you imagine the possibilities of controlling the shape of magnetic fields?)
Any Electrical engineers, any physicists, any mechanical engineers on this site? ;)

cuz, I mean... Damn. I fantasize about being as smart as some of you...
I am broke as a joke and can't conduct any experiments myself.
I feel there is a potential here; Annealed Pyrolytic Graphene, Strontium, or that forbidden archaeology "Oxygen rock" that is 70 or so % oxygen.

You might be happy with ultra-capacitors made via "laser scribed carbon" but what about X-ray scribed strontium!
Looking at the diamagnetic numbers for all of the chemical elements, most elements have only Single-digit diamagnetism...
Strontium has a 2,000+ Diamagnetic rating. Imagine making a capacitor with THAT!

okay. enough joking around. I need to crash. my battery light in the lower left corner of my field of vision is flashing red. Ultraman needs a nap.

Quote from: PSIandCO on May 09, 2022, 11:19:43 PMI have noticed how 3.0 D&D gave estimated weights that one could carry or max lift, but 3.5 D&D gives a short list of monsters to compare ability scores to, and 5e D&D/Pathfinder 2e make no mention at all of "what an ability score Means"...

The 5e D&D Player's Handbook has a chapter on your ability scores and what they mean. The rules for carrying and lifting are simple: the weight you can carry (in lbs) is 15 times your Strength score, and the amount you can lift is 30 times your Strength score.

The rules have certainly changed over the editions and they haven't always improved with revisions. I would rank them: 1e > 2e > 3e > 5e > 4e in terms of how well they approximate the top end of the strength scale as a proportion of possible characters from a population. 1st edition AD&D was the only one to consider the character's weight as a factor which puts it way out in the lead in terms of accuracy.

Quote from: Pat on May 10, 2022, 05:20:33 AMGames are more about mechanics that are easy to understand, the ability of the players or the GM to assess their chances, and how the mechanics create an interesting dynamic in play. The elements of simulation are just there to trick people into suspending their disbelief.

The trick is maintaining the suspension of disbelief. And nothing breaks it more easily than a jarring edge case due to a poor mapping of the game rules to mundane experience. We are experts in the mundane. Suspending disbelief about magic gloves that give you the strength to lift a wagon over your head is easy. But if your average village labourer can do the same without magical assistance...

Quote from: mightybrain on May 12, 2022, 06:08:09 AM

Quote from: PSIandCO on May 09, 2022, 11:19:43 PMI have noticed how 3.0 D&D gave estimated weights that one could carry or max lift, but 3.5 D&D gives a short list of monsters to compare ability scores to, and 5e D&D/Pathfinder 2e make no mention at all of "what an ability score Means"...

The 5e D&D Player's Handbook has a chapter on your ability scores and what they mean. The rules for carrying and lifting are simple: the weight you can carry (in lbs) is 15 times your Strength score, and the amount you can lift is 30 times your Strength score.

The rules have certainly changed over the editions and they haven't always improved with revisions. I would rank them: 1e > 2e > 3e > 5e > 4e in terms of how well they approximate the top end of the strength scale as a proportion of possible characters from a population. 1st edition AD&D was the only one to consider the character's weight as a factor which puts it way out in the lead in terms of accuracy.

  If you could save me the digging up of the PHB, is that a lift overhead like a clean and jerk or strict press, or is that a lift off the ground like a deadlift?  Does the book specify I guess is the question. 

Quote from: migo on May 12, 2022, 03:33:02 AM
One of the things to consider is that strength isn't just an attribute, it's also a skill. Strength gains made within the first few weeks of weight lifting are actually you getting better at lifting. Actually improvements to muscle strength that would be applicable across all movements come after. You can have people that are equally strong for general activities, but one is much better at lifting or carrying heavy objects.

So the problem comes when you try to have the stats model something specific, how detailed do you want to go? There's no end to the rabbit hole.

Another thing to consider is that peak athletic performance is a result of specialized training, and successful athletes cycle between different types of training, sometimes within the same workout. And this is as much an art as a science. There is ongoing debate on training methods. Some athletes live in the gym, others train for an hour a day, every day, and focus on perfecting their form and methods. Should you train to exhaustion, or train to 80% of that and get in more sessions?

Diet also figures into performance, and athletes in heavy training often have very specialized diets.

Boredom also factors into physical fitness, no really. If you're in an environment where working out is all there is to do, you're going to work out more if you're inclined to work out at all. Soldiers stationed in remote bases overseas come back ripped because they do a normal maintenance workout in the morning, pull their shift, then work out again at night just to pass the time.

Should any of that have an impact on Joe Adventurer, whose lifestyle is nothing like a modern athlete's?

So here's an idea:

No Stats for things like STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA. Instead everything is rated on your ability to perform certain tasks. Chaosiums QuestWorlds game does this. Everything is based in "keywords." Some examples of Keywords might be "Swordmaster" or "Impulsive" or "Parkour enthusiast". Characters would be assumed to be average unless they took a keyword like "Mighty". There is no master list of keywords, they are tailored around your character concept.

The idea is that there are so many factors into a persons ability to perform a particular task. However, with most things, training is more important than an attribute. For example, a samurai is going to be FAR more adept with a katana, than the musclebound peasant he's facing in combat could be, even though the samurai is of average strength and agility.

Quote from: oggsmash on May 12, 2022, 07:56:16 AMIf you could save me the digging up of the PHB, is that a lift overhead like a clean and jerk or strict press, or is that a lift off the ground like a deadlift?  Does the book specify I guess is the question.

It doesn't. But I assume it means overhead because then a 20 Strength character is lifting just above the human record. If it meant deadlifts it would be barely over half the record.

Quote from: PHBPush, Drag, or Lift. You can push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to twice your carrying capacity (or 30 times your Strength score). While pushing or dragging weight in excess of your carrying capacity, your speed drops to 5 feet.

Quote from: Godsmonkey on May 12, 2022, 09:39:42 AM
So here's an idea:

No Stats for things like STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA. Instead everything is rated on your ability to perform certain tasks. Chaosiums QuestWorlds game does this. Everything is based in "keywords." Some examples of Keywords might be "Swordmaster" or "Impulsive" or "Parkour enthusiast". Characters would be assumed to be average unless they took a keyword like "Mighty". There is no master list of keywords, they are tailored around your character concept.

The idea is that there are so many factors into a persons ability to perform a particular task. However, with most things, training is more important than an attribute. For example, a samurai is going to be FAR more adept with a katana, than the musclebound peasant he's facing in combat could be, even though the samurai is of average strength and agility.

This is a great way to do it. Another way is to have a few core attributes as well as skills. Each skill is supported by an attribute. If there is no skill for something, then invent one or test against the relevant core attribute.

You can also test against a combination of attribute and skill. Say you have Archery as a skill and Strength and Dexterity as attributes. A long range shot could be tested against Archery + Strength and a targeted shot could be tested against Archery + Dexterity. The newish Paranoia does this. The new Twilight 2000 does this in a limited way, as well.

Quote from: rytrasmi on May 12, 2022, 11:50:46 AM

Quote from: Godsmonkey on May 12, 2022, 09:39:42 AM
So here's an idea:

No Stats for things like STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA. Instead everything is rated on your ability to perform certain tasks. Chaosiums QuestWorlds game does this. Everything is based in "keywords." Some examples of Keywords might be "Swordmaster" or "Impulsive" or "Parkour enthusiast". Characters would be assumed to be average unless they took a keyword like "Mighty". There is no master list of keywords, they are tailored around your character concept.

The idea is that there are so many factors into a persons ability to perform a particular task. However, with most things, training is more important than an attribute. For example, a samurai is going to be FAR more adept with a katana, than the musclebound peasant he's facing in combat could be, even though the samurai is of average strength and agility.

This is a great way to do it. Another way is to have a few core attributes as well as skills. Each skill is supported by an attribute. If there is no skill for something, then invent one or test against the relevant core attribute.

You can also test against a combination of attribute and skill. Say you have Archery as a skill and Strength and Dexterity as attributes. A long range shot could be tested against Archery + Strength and a targeted shot could be tested against Archery + Dexterity. The newish Paranoia does this. The new Twilight 2000 does this in a limited way, as well.

Most games link a skill to an attribute, but not all. Even going back to RuneQuest days, your skills would be modified by a combination of attributes that contribute to your skill.

What QuestWorlds does is remove attributes completely. If you want to be better or even worse (there is a flaw system in the game) than normal, it becomes a keyword. You can augment abilities with other abilities with GM approval. Take your example, If someone has "Marksman" as a keyword for example and also has something like "Mighty" he might use mighty to augment his  Marksman. However, lets say the character is a worshiper of Orlanth (wind god) he could use his knowledge of wind currents gained from "Worship Orlanth" to guide his arrow.

So not only does it allow characters to use raw natural talents, it opens up the possibility to augment with anything that makes sense narratively.

That sounds like a really smart way to do it. I'm familiar with BRP and will have to check out QuestWorlds.

Quote from: rytrasmi on May 12, 2022, 12:11:06 PM
That sounds like a really smart way to do it. I'm familiar with BRP and will have to check out QuestWorlds.

QuestWorlds was formerly known as HeroQuest, just an FYI. the new version is in late development, and the SRD is available:

https://questworlds.chaosium.com/

There is also a great blog for it:

https://worldsofqw.wordpress.com/

Quote from: oggsmash on May 12, 2022, 07:56:16 AM

Quote from: mightybrain on May 12, 2022, 06:08:09 AM

Quote from: PSIandCO on May 09, 2022, 11:19:43 PMI have noticed how 3.0 D&D gave estimated weights that one could carry or max lift, but 3.5 D&D gives a short list of monsters to compare ability scores to, and 5e D&D/Pathfinder 2e make no mention at all of "what an ability score Means"...

The 5e D&D Player's Handbook has a chapter on your ability scores and what they mean. The rules for carrying and lifting are simple: the weight you can carry (in lbs) is 15 times your Strength score, and the amount you can lift is 30 times your Strength score.

The rules have certainly changed over the editions and they haven't always improved with revisions. I would rank them: 1e > 2e > 3e > 5e > 4e in terms of how well they approximate the top end of the strength scale as a proportion of possible characters from a population. 1st edition AD&D was the only one to consider the character's weight as a factor which puts it way out in the lead in terms of accuracy.

  If you could save me the digging up of the PHB, is that a lift overhead like a clean and jerk or strict press, or is that a lift off the ground like a deadlift?  Does the book specify I guess is the question.

I believe it was a military press, but I don't have 1e books myself to check. So I'm not quite sure if that's because it was specified, or because that makes the most sense with the weights they have.

Quote from: Godsmonkey on May 12, 2022, 09:39:42 AM
So here's an idea:

No Stats for things like STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA. Instead everything is rated on your ability to perform certain tasks. Chaosiums QuestWorlds game does this. Everything is based in "keywords." Some examples of Keywords might be "Swordmaster" or "Impulsive" or "Parkour enthusiast". Characters would be assumed to be average unless they took a keyword like "Mighty". There is no master list of keywords, they are tailored around your character concept.

The idea is that there are so many factors into a persons ability to perform a particular task. However, with most things, training is more important than an attribute. For example, a samurai is going to be FAR more adept with a katana, than the musclebound peasant he's facing in combat could be, even though the samurai is of average strength and agility.

That's a clever idea and it has potential.  I do have some concerns with implementation though. 

A character's skills are his means to interact with the world.  As the saying goes, "If all you have is a hammer, then everything is a nail."  Skills determine how a game is played.  Frex if the rules are full of spy skills, that's what you're going to be doing.  Same for combat skills, magic skills, stealth skills, athletic skills, whatever.  You'll need to make sure that PCs and NPCs choose skills that are at least in the same genre.  If not you might have one player trying to play an investigation game, while another plays a melee game and a third plays a stealth game, which isn't going to make anyone happy.

Since skills define the game, when players choose skills they are essentially collectively designing the game on the fly.  Choosing what skills to include and the boundaries between them is what game designers do, and it's not a simple task.  Having the players do so in random fashion could easily produce a poorly designed game.

And all of those skills need to be thought out.  Things like results, cost, exceptions, and special cases all should be worked out ahead of time.  Again, not a simple task and it transfers a lot of work from the designer to the GM and players.

It's intriguing, and I'm not saying it can't be made to work, but I don't think it's as simple as it sounds.

Quote from: oggsmash on May 12, 2022, 07:56:16 AM

Quote from: mightybrain on May 12, 2022, 06:08:09 AM

Quote from: PSIandCO on May 09, 2022, 11:19:43 PMI have noticed how 3.0 D&D gave estimated weights that one could carry or max lift, but 3.5 D&D gives a short list of monsters to compare ability scores to, and 5e D&D/Pathfinder 2e make no mention at all of "what an ability score Means"...

The 5e D&D Player's Handbook has a chapter on your ability scores and what they mean. The rules for carrying and lifting are simple: the weight you can carry (in lbs) is 15 times your Strength score, and the amount you can lift is 30 times your Strength score.

The rules have certainly changed over the editions and they haven't always improved with revisions. I would rank them: 1e > 2e > 3e > 5e > 4e in terms of how well they approximate the top end of the strength scale as a proportion of possible characters from a population. 1st edition AD&D was the only one to consider the character's weight as a factor which puts it way out in the lead in terms of accuracy.

  If you could save me the digging up of the PHB, is that a lift overhead like a clean and jerk or strict press, or is that a lift off the ground like a deadlift?  Does the book specify I guess is the question. 

I have my 1E book on the shelf next to my desk, so, "... a character with 3 strength is able to lift 30 pounds above his or her head in a military press, while a character with 18 strength will be able to lift 180 pounds in the same manner."  It's not too much of a stretch to think that later editions will work in a similar manner.

Quote from: Lurkndog on May 12, 2022, 09:37:52 AM

Quote from: migo on May 12, 2022, 03:33:02 AM
One of the things to consider is that strength isn't just an attribute, it's also a skill. Strength gains made within the first few weeks of weight lifting are actually you getting better at lifting. Actually improvements to muscle strength that would be applicable across all movements come after. You can have people that are equally strong for general activities, but one is much better at lifting or carrying heavy objects.

So the problem comes when you try to have the stats model something specific, how detailed do you want to go? There's no end to the rabbit hole.

Another thing to consider is that peak athletic performance is a result of specialized training, and successful athletes cycle between different types of training, sometimes within the same workout. And this is as much an art as a science. There is ongoing debate on training methods. Some athletes live in the gym, others train for an hour a day, every day, and focus on perfecting their form and methods. Should you train to exhaustion, or train to 80% of that and get in more sessions?

Diet also figures into performance, and athletes in heavy training often have very specialized diets.

Boredom also factors into physical fitness, no really. If you're in an environment where working out is all there is to do, you're going to work out more if you're inclined to work out at all. Soldiers stationed in remote bases overseas come back ripped because they do a normal maintenance workout in the morning, pull their shift, then work out again at night just to pass the time.

Should any of that have an impact on Joe Adventurer, whose lifestyle is nothing like a modern athlete's?

If you're really trying to baseline athletic performance, it's probably better to start with real world examples and avoid highly artificial environments, like most weightlifting competitions. How much someone can bench press isn't useful in a game; you generally want to know something harder to quantify, like how much they can carry before getting fatigued, or how big a statue they can push over. Going back to examples in history, say the Jim Thorpe era, is one way, because athleticism wasn't quite as a specialized. Another is to focus on things like performance recommendations in the military, which are applied to broad groups of people.

But while modern training and diet has helped shatter records, it's also useful to remember the margins between top athletes is razor thin, far too small to be measured in most games. In many games, the #1 athlete in the sport, the #300 athlete in a sport, and the #100,000 athlete in the sport may have the exact same score. Focus on the normal bell curve with an eye toward the outer realms of possibility, not on the small differences at the very top end of the scale.

Quote from: Opaopajr on May 10, 2022, 07:54:57 PM
It cannot truly be done.  ;) Otherwise Hospitals would have been using RPG parameters at Emergency Room triage by now. Nothing you think as "realism" truly is enough, let alone playable. Let that dream die and embrace suspending disbelief.  8) It's OK, it won't hurt.

Schools and the military have various systems. Some well before D&D came out. The ones I  saw though were for very narrow fields.

Quote from: Pat on May 12, 2022, 04:45:54 PM

Quote from: Lurkndog on May 12, 2022, 09:37:52 AM

Quote from: migo on May 12, 2022, 03:33:02 AM
One of the things to consider is that strength isn't just an attribute, it's also a skill. Strength gains made within the first few weeks of weight lifting are actually you getting better at lifting. Actually improvements to muscle strength that would be applicable across all movements come after. You can have people that are equally strong for general activities, but one is much better at lifting or carrying heavy objects.

So the problem comes when you try to have the stats model something specific, how detailed do you want to go? There's no end to the rabbit hole.

Another thing to consider is that peak athletic performance is a result of specialized training, and successful athletes cycle between different types of training, sometimes within the same workout. And this is as much an art as a science. There is ongoing debate on training methods. Some athletes live in the gym, others train for an hour a day, every day, and focus on perfecting their form and methods. Should you train to exhaustion, or train to 80% of that and get in more sessions?

Diet also figures into performance, and athletes in heavy training often have very specialized diets.

Boredom also factors into physical fitness, no really. If you're in an environment where working out is all there is to do, you're going to work out more if you're inclined to work out at all. Soldiers stationed in remote bases overseas come back ripped because they do a normal maintenance workout in the morning, pull their shift, then work out again at night just to pass the time.

Should any of that have an impact on Joe Adventurer, whose lifestyle is nothing like a modern athlete's?

If you're really trying to baseline athletic performance, it's probably better to start with real world examples and avoid highly artificial environments, like most weightlifting competitions. How much someone can bench press isn't useful in a game; you generally want to know something harder to quantify, like how much they can carry before getting fatigued, or how big a statue they can push over. Going back to examples in history, say the Jim Thorpe era, is one way, because athleticism wasn't quite as a specialized. Another is to focus on things like performance recommendations in the military, which are applied to broad groups of people.

But while modern training and diet has helped shatter records, it's also useful to remember the margins between top athletes is razor thin, far too small to be measured in most games. In many games, the #1 athlete in the sport, the #300 athlete in a sport, and the #100,000 athlete in the sport may have the exact same score. Focus on the normal bell curve with an eye toward the outer realms of possibility, not on the small differences at the very top end of the scale.

A bench press isn't going to be much use in a game, but a clean and jerk is raising a gate so people can get under it to either escape or enter a fortification. So you can actually look at specialised athletic events to see what the realistic limits are for a lot of activities that might happen in a game.

Quote from: Mishihari on May 12, 2022, 04:25:55 PM

Quote from: Godsmonkey on May 12, 2022, 09:39:42 AM
So here's an idea:

No Stats for things like STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA. Instead everything is rated on your ability to perform certain tasks. Chaosiums QuestWorlds game does this. Everything is based in "keywords." Some examples of Keywords might be "Swordmaster" or "Impulsive" or "Parkour enthusiast". Characters would be assumed to be average unless they took a keyword like "Mighty". There is no master list of keywords, they are tailored around your character concept.

The idea is that there are so many factors into a persons ability to perform a particular task. However, with most things, training is more important than an attribute. For example, a samurai is going to be FAR more adept with a katana, than the musclebound peasant he's facing in combat could be, even though the samurai is of average strength and agility.

That's a clever idea and it has potential.  I do have some concerns with implementation though. 

A character's skills are his means to interact with the world.  As the saying goes, "If all you have is a hammer, then everything is a nail."  Skills determine how a game is played.  Frex if the rules are full of spy skills, that's what you're going to be doing.  Same for combat skills, magic skills, stealth skills, athletic skills, whatever.  You'll need to make sure that PCs and NPCs choose skills that are at least in the same genre.  If not you might have one player trying to play an investigation game, while another plays a melee game and a third plays a stealth game, which isn't going to make anyone happy.

Since skills define the game, when players choose skills they are essentially collectively designing the game on the fly.  Choosing what skills to include and the boundaries between them is what game designers do, and it's not a simple task.  Having the players do so in random fashion could easily produce a poorly designed game.

And all of those skills need to be thought out.  Things like results, cost, exceptions, and special cases all should be worked out ahead of time.  Again, not a simple task and it transfers a lot of work from the designer to the GM and players.

It's intriguing, and I'm not saying it can't be made to work, but I don't think it's as simple as it sounds.

You're right about your concerns about free-form description of skills. But there's another bit for how it works - you're limited to 100 words, so it's built in to keep a player from writing a 3-page back story. They have the freedom to design whatever character they like as long as it's in 100 words. So depending on the players you play with, it may well be worth working around the drawbacks of that system because of the benefits it provides.

In general though I would prefer a fixed and focused skill list, like for instance in Technoir.

Quote from: migo on May 12, 2022, 03:27:10 PMI believe it was a military press, but I don't have 1e books myself to check. So I'm not quite sure if that's because it was specified, or because that makes the most sense with the weights they have.

1e edition AD&D  - military press
2e - snatch
3e - unspecified lift above the head
4e - unspecified lift off the ground
5e - unspecified lift off the ground

Quote from: migo on May 12, 2022, 05:53:37 PM
You're right about your concerns about free-form description of skills. But there's another bit for how it works - you're limited to 100 words, so it's built in to keep a player from writing a 3-page back story. They have the freedom to design whatever character they like as long as it's in 100 words. So depending on the players you play with, it may well be worth working around the drawbacks of that system because of the benefits it provides.

In general though I would prefer a fixed and focused skill list, like for instance in Technoir.

My issue with skill list centric play is the game becoming a button pushing exercise of "what do I have on my character sheet" instead of roleplaying and declaring "I want to X by Y using Z," and the GM calling for Stat + Skill + Mod roll if necessary. Skill lists are handy but I favor GM discretion over what applies rather than players building a mechanical combo, roleplaying vs board gaming. Too much "if it's not on the character sheet, it cannot be done" in the later case, instead of "if it makes sense go for it."

Quote from: Wisithir on May 12, 2022, 08:39:54 PM

Quote from: migo on May 12, 2022, 05:53:37 PM
You're right about your concerns about free-form description of skills. But there's another bit for how it works - you're limited to 100 words, so it's built in to keep a player from writing a 3-page back story. They have the freedom to design whatever character they like as long as it's in 100 words. So depending on the players you play with, it may well be worth working around the drawbacks of that system because of the benefits it provides.

In general though I would prefer a fixed and focused skill list, like for instance in Technoir.

My issue with skill list centric play is the game becoming a button pushing exercise of "what do I have on my character sheet" instead of roleplaying and declaring "I want to X by Y using Z," and the GM calling for Stat + Skill + Mod roll if necessary. Skill lists are handy but I favor GM discretion over what applies rather than players building a mechanical combo, roleplaying vs board gaming. Too much "if it's not on the character sheet, it cannot be done" in the later case, instead of "if it makes sense go for it."

In the Questworlds example as mentioned above is one of the generation methods is is the 100 word essay where keywords are pulled from it. Another is the list method. From the HeroQuest Book:

"The List Method
What the list method lacks in flavor, it gains in speed and ease of use. Having chosen a character concept and name (and any other elements required by the Narrator, such as a narrative hook) complete the following steps:
1. Note your main area of expertise, which, depending on the series, may be a keyword. You probably already picked this when you came up with your character concept.
2. If your series uses other keywords, such as those for culture or religion, you may have them for free.
3. Pick 10 additional abilities, describing them however you want. (Essentially you're skipping the writing step from
the prose method and going straight to a list. However, you most likely wind up with fewer abilities than the prose version.)
Only one of these abilities may be a Sidekick—assuming your series allows them in the first place.
4. If you want, describe up to 3 flaws.

Steve creates a character for the same globetrotting action series in which Bill's character, Dwayne-O, appears. His core concept is of a remorseful former counter-insurgent. Steve decides to make him a former member of the Russian military, haunted by atrocities he took part in during the Chechen conflict. After some quick research into Russian names, he calls his PC Nikolai Levshin. His narrative hook is that, if he gets wind of a chance at redemption, he'll sacrifice anything to get it.
Implicit in the concept are the two abilities Counterinsurgency and Remorseful. That leaves Steve with nine more abilities to pick. He imagines that Nikolai has been living in New York City, making a living as a cab driver: NYC Cabbie. He chooses some additional abilities to tie into his core concept of a
mentally scarred tough guy: Dead-eyed stare, Intimidating, High Pain Threshold, and Psychological Resistance. Steve's Narrator is not using cultural keywords, but elements
of Nikolai's backstory imply some language and cultural knowledge. So he chooses the following abilities: Born and raised in Russia and Infiltrated Chechen rebels. For his last two abilities, he selects contacts appropriate to his background: Russian intelligence and Russian mafia. Then he adds a Flaw:
Painkiller addiction. Steven concludes by transferring his rough notes to a  character sheet, grouping the abilities into categories evocative of his character:"

This system, like any other does offer opportunities or min/maxing, but IMO it encourages interesting characters. My point is, you dont have to have the traditional D&D attributes. Keyword descriptors can be anything that defines the character, from skills, organizations, career and so on.

Quote from: Wisithir on May 12, 2022, 08:39:54 PM

Quote from: migo on May 12, 2022, 05:53:37 PM
You're right about your concerns about free-form description of skills. But there's another bit for how it works - you're limited to 100 words, so it's built in to keep a player from writing a 3-page back story. They have the freedom to design whatever character they like as long as it's in 100 words. So depending on the players you play with, it may well be worth working around the drawbacks of that system because of the benefits it provides.

In general though I would prefer a fixed and focused skill list, like for instance in Technoir.

My issue with skill list centric play is the game becoming a button pushing exercise of "what do I have on my character sheet" instead of roleplaying and declaring "I want to X by Y using Z," and the GM calling for Stat + Skill + Mod roll if necessary. Skill lists are handy but I favor GM discretion over what applies rather than players building a mechanical combo, roleplaying vs board gaming. Too much "if it's not on the character sheet, it cannot be done" in the later case, instead of "if it makes sense go for it."

In my current project, I dealt with this by saying that since the PCs are heroes, they can attempt any task at a basic level of competence, well, except magic.  Skill points are for things characters are really good at.  Then I set the target numbers accordingly.

Quote from: Mishihari on May 12, 2022, 10:31:48 PM
In my current project, I dealt with this by saying that since the PCs are heroes, they can attempt any task at a basic level of competence, well, except magic.  Skill points are for things characters are really good at.  Then I set the target numbers accordingly.

This is pretty much any skill-based RPG out there.  Lacking a skill doesn't mean you can't attempt something you just RP'd out.  It means you don't get an additional modifier based on a skill.

Quote from: Palleon on May 13, 2022, 12:16:12 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on May 12, 2022, 10:31:48 PM
In my current project, I dealt with this by saying that since the PCs are heroes, they can attempt any task at a basic level of competence, well, except magic.  Skill points are for things characters are really good at.  Then I set the target numbers accordingly.

This is pretty much any skill-based RPG out there.  Lacking a skill doesn't mean you can't attempt something you just RP'd out.  It means you don't get an additional modifier based on a skill.

That's not what I meant.  Most skill based RPGs let you try most things, ut with no skill points your PC is really bad at them.  I changed the scale a bit so that PCs have a reasonable competence at just about any skill needed for adventuring even without a skill point.  (NPCs might have negative skill points if they're bad at stuff)

Quote from: Mishihari on May 13, 2022, 02:21:10 PM

Quote from: Palleon on May 13, 2022, 12:16:12 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on May 12, 2022, 10:31:48 PM
In my current project, I dealt with this by saying that since the PCs are heroes, they can attempt any task at a basic level of competence, well, except magic.  Skill points are for things characters are really good at.  Then I set the target numbers accordingly.

This is pretty much any skill-based RPG out there.  Lacking a skill doesn't mean you can't attempt something you just RP'd out.  It means you don't get an additional modifier based on a skill.

That's not what I meant.  Most skill based RPGs let you try most things, ut with no skill points your PC is really bad at them.  I changed the scale a bit so that PCs have a reasonable competence at just about any skill needed for adventuring even without a skill point.  (NPCs might have negative skill points if they're bad at stuff)

If the probability of success is really low, then you should only call for a check when failure is likely and expected. If it seems reasonable that the PC should succeed at the task described by their player, they just succeed. It's when you think it's a long shot and probably shouldn't work - then you have the player roll.

Functionally it's like a saving throw - you should die, but you get to roll to see if you live anyway. You should fail, but you get to roll to see if you succeed anyway. Like that the probabilities are fine, and it streamlines play. Some players really enjoy rolling dice though, and for them it's better to tweak the probabilities.

Quote from: Palleon on May 13, 2022, 12:16:12 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on May 12, 2022, 10:31:48 PM
In my current project, I dealt with this by saying that since the PCs are heroes, they can attempt any task at a basic level of competence, well, except magic.  Skill points are for things characters are really good at.  Then I set the target numbers accordingly.

This is pretty much any skill-based RPG out there.  Lacking a skill doesn't mean you can't attempt something you just RP'd out.  It means you don't get an additional modifier based on a skill.

That's not universally true. Some games do not allow certain skills to be rolled at all without specific training. Even D6 Star Wars had some advanced skills like this.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 13, 2022, 04:32:07 PM

Quote from: Palleon on May 13, 2022, 12:16:12 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on May 12, 2022, 10:31:48 PM
In my current project, I dealt with this by saying that since the PCs are heroes, they can attempt any task at a basic level of competence, well, except magic.  Skill points are for things characters are really good at.  Then I set the target numbers accordingly.

This is pretty much any skill-based RPG out there.  Lacking a skill doesn't mean you can't attempt something you just RP'd out.  It means you don't get an additional modifier based on a skill.

That's not universally true. Some games do not allow certain skills to be rolled at all without specific training. Even D6 Star Wars had some advanced skills like this.

For some skills that makes sense. Magic for example. Would you want an untrained friend digging into your innards to extract that .45 lodged in your belly? Skills like athletics, or even using a weapon can rely on some innate ability, some skills NEED training.

GURPS for instance has skills that can be used untrained, and skills that you have to purchase to use. That of course will usually only be found in systems with some level amount of crunch.

Quote from: Lurkndog on May 12, 2022, 09:37:52 AMSoldiers stationed in remote bases overseas come back ripped because they do a normal maintenance workout in the morning, pull their shift, then work out again at night just to pass the time.

Working out too frequently is counter productive. A workout, if it is to be effective, damages muscle. You only build muscle when you are resting between workouts and only if you have consumed enough calories and are getting enough sleep. If you arranged your rules system such that simply working out increased strength, then the munchkins would have their characters spending every conceivable non-adventuring hour working out until their strength maxed out. In reality, that doesn't work. A reasonable strength building schedule is a full body workout 2 to 3 times a week. Although some people prefer to focus on different muscle groups on different days so they end up doing more days but with 3 or 4 days interval between workouts on the same muscle group.

I only know all this as I am currently following a strength building programme. Now I've hit my 50s it's become a necessity. I only wish I'd started sooner.

In general D&D assumes you've already undergone training before starting your adventuring career. In basic D&D you do this with your stat point exchange during character creation. In 1st edition AD&D, training is rolled into levelling up. But this doesn't usually alter stats. The only way I'm aware of to improve stats is with magic items or wishes. But by 5th edition characters can bump up their stats every few levels. You can also (optionally) get trained by a master to gain additional feats (some of which include stat increases.) You can also (optionally) pay for training during downtime to gain a proficiency which is usually worth more than a stat increase but only for a specific skill.

Quote from: PSIandCO on May 09, 2022, 10:24:24 PM
What do I mean?
Statistics is a mathematics discipline that tries to make predictions through models. These models can reveal information in interesting ways.
Humans have capacities for various tasks that can be (to one degree or another) measured and quantified. Showing the range of human performance from the world record (human maximum) to Zero (no function).

We can call the measured capacities a set of related tasks an "attribute". moderately easy to point at muscles and the work muscles can do. looking at the whole person overall as a sort of "average"- allowing training and for various exceptions, can we have a "strength score"?

The same follows for movement, how do we quantify the human range for the speed of movement, the balance of the body, and the quickness of reactions/reflexes?  should hand-eye coordination and the precision of action be a separate attribute (throwing darts, drawing lines and shapes, etc)?

Can the attributes be accurately defined by a model and give us a Metric for comparison? can the metric be Consistent?
Yes, this topic will piss Woketards off likely triggering cries of "Abilist", "sexist", "Racist", and all the "phobes".... sorry. it is going to happen, they can't help themselves.

The rpg Ascendant is a supers rpg that's 100% designed to simulate comic book physics with a true logarithmic game system. At it's core it's a hybrid of DC Heroes 2e and TSR Marvel, but it takes the logarithmic structure of DC Heroes and expands it to it's full potential.

This game works. Throughout the book are examples of real world human achievements that this game pulls off. By achievements I mean people that hold athletic world's records. On page 293 the game shows how the system's math matches up with all the speed records of human movement, like the 100m Run, the 200m Run, the 100 Km Run, the Constant Weight Free diving record, the US Army 2 Mike Run, etc. Ascendant matches up with all of these.

On page 279 there are more examples regarding records for weightlifting, football throw, frisbee throw, the One mile car push, 24 hour car push, etc. And all the worlds records numbers for these match up with Ascendants logarithmic system in every case.

In all these the book takes the numbers, plugs them into Ascendant's system, and shows the math of the game matching the worlds records outcomes.

All of this makes Ascendant pretty unique.

It can be done, but any realistic metric will gravely offend players as they discover they are not in any way, shape or form adventurer material.

Thus they will demand it be made unrealistic. And then it becomes exactly like speaking to born-again Christians, the Woke and others - the pain of speaking to the deliberately self-deluded.

Quote from: Opaopajr on May 10, 2022, 07:54:57 PM
It cannot truly be done.  ;) Otherwise Hospitals would have been using RPG parameters at Emergency Room triage by now.

Essentially they do this, which is why a 23yo will be given CPR, but a 93yo will not. They are constantly assessing the relative worth of this or that treatment and the prognosis it gives versus doing nothing - indirectly, they are assessing the person's physical attributes. And to an extent their mental attributes, too, since a cogent 75yo will be given priority over a 60yo with severe dementia.

It's indirect, since more than a binary yes/no for each treatment isn't needed in the hospital.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 09, 2022, 10:36:04 PMIIRC STR has load to lift, carry, drag, chance of kicking down a door or bending some iron bars.

A common occurrence in games would be your party needing to escape a trap by bending iron bars. Your 18/00 strength barbarian has a 40% chance, rolls 50 on percentile, and fails. Your 10 strength halfling thief has a 2% chance and rolls 01. It doesn't happen that often, but when it does, you remember it, so it seems a more frequent than it should. You remember it, because it breaks your reasonable expectation. It also breaks immersion. It would probably be better to have the DM roll for the strength of the bars. If the DM rolls 2 or under, either of them can bend the bars (perhaps they have rusted away), 40 or under and only the barbarian can do it, more than 40 and they're going to need another plan.

Quote from: mightybrain on May 14, 2022, 01:54:27 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 09, 2022, 10:36:04 PMIIRC STR has load to lift, carry, drag, chance of kicking down a door or bending some iron bars.

A common occurrence in games would be your party needing to escape a trap by bending iron bars. Your 18/00 strength barbarian has a 40% chance, rolls 50 on percentile, and fails. Your 10 strength halfling thief has a 2% chance and rolls 01. It doesn't happen that often, but when it does, you remember it, so it seems a more frequent than it should. You remember it, because it breaks your reasonable expectation. It also breaks immersion. It would probably be better to have the DM roll for the strength of the bars. If the DM rolls 2 or under, either of them can bend the bars (perhaps they have rusted away), 40 or under and only the barbarian can do it, more than 40 and they're going to need another plan.

The problem here is allowing each member of the party a roll for success individually.  Ideally, the encounter is interpreted by them working as a team.  Either the mechanic supports the assistance offering a bonus or extra chance for the player character leading the effort.

Quote from: mightybrain on May 14, 2022, 01:54:27 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 09, 2022, 10:36:04 PMIIRC STR has load to lift, carry, drag, chance of kicking down a door or bending some iron bars.

A common occurrence in games would be your party needing to escape a trap by bending iron bars. Your 18/00 strength barbarian has a 40% chance, rolls 50 on percentile, and fails. Your 10 strength halfling thief has a 2% chance and rolls 01. It doesn't happen that often, but when it does, you remember it, so it seems a more frequent than it should. You remember it, because it breaks your reasonable expectation. It also breaks immersion. It would probably be better to have the DM roll for the strength of the bars. If the DM rolls 2 or under, either of them can bend the bars (perhaps they have rusted away), 40 or under and only the barbarian can do it, more than 40 and they're going to need another plan.

That's a good idea. It could also be extrapolated if the player rolls, the result is what it will always be. Same with the idea that you get to try only once.

A few years ago my group played The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. There were places in that adventure where it stated that something could be moved by one or more characters with a combined Strength of e.g. 20 or more. As a DM, I liked that approach above the more standard DC20 strength check as it didn't suffer the from the suddenly random strength immersion breaker.

Static objects should "respond" with static rolls, i.e., no randomness.

I'm not the first one to day that, but here is my 2c:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-inverted-skill-roll-and-static-dcs.html

The version of The Hidden Shrine Of Tamoachan we were playing was the 5e one in the Tales from the Yawning Portal collection. However I just checked and the text requiring a particular strength to proceed was in the 1980 version. I guess they just failed to "update" it to the new system. But as I say, it played better the way it was.

The problem is always going to be how Size and Mass affect Raw Strength, and how to separate endurance from damage absorption.

There's a reason powerlifters don't have 5% bodyfat, the actual dimensions of the body and pure mass give leverage and momentum.

I'm sure someone could pump out some formulas after a while, but who needs Phoenix Command 2022?

Quote from: migo on May 13, 2022, 04:27:21 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on May 13, 2022, 02:21:10 PM

Quote from: Palleon on May 13, 2022, 12:16:12 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on May 12, 2022, 10:31:48 PM
In my current project, I dealt with this by saying that since the PCs are heroes, they can attempt any task at a basic level of competence, well, except magic.  Skill points are for things characters are really good at.  Then I set the target numbers accordingly.

This is pretty much any skill-based RPG out there.  Lacking a skill doesn't mean you can't attempt something you just RP'd out.  It means you don't get an additional modifier based on a skill.

That's not what I meant.  Most skill based RPGs let you try most things, ut with no skill points your PC is really bad at them.  I changed the scale a bit so that PCs have a reasonable competence at just about any skill needed for adventuring even without a skill point.  (NPCs might have negative skill points if they're bad at stuff)

If the probability of success is really low, then you should only call for a check when failure is likely and expected. If it seems reasonable that the PC should succeed at the task described by their player, they just succeed. It's when you think it's a long shot and probably shouldn't work - then you have the player roll.

Functionally it's like a saving throw - you should die, but you get to roll to see if you live anyway. You should fail, but you get to roll to see if you succeed anyway. Like that the probabilities are fine, and it streamlines play. Some players really enjoy rolling dice though, and for them it's better to tweak the probabilities.

I would say that's system dependent.  If it's a simple pass/fail, then yes.  If the system uses margin of success/failure in a meaningful way, then you need to do the check.  Perhaps you have a great success or horrible failure.  Perhaps margin determines how much of a resource is used.  IMO D&D skills are kind of a sucky, shallow afterthought to the system.  I prefer systems with skills better integrated into the whole with meaningful, interesting results.  As an example, in my current project endurance gets used both in athletics checks like climbing, running, etc, and in special combat maneuvers.  If you have poor strategy or bad luck climbing a cliff, then your going to be low on endurance and have a much tougher time taking on the goblins at the top.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on May 14, 2022, 03:42:04 AM
It can be done, but any realistic metric will gravely offend players as they discover they are not in any way, shape or form adventurer material.

Thus they will demand it be made unrealistic. And then it becomes exactly like speaking to born-again Christians, the Woke and others - the pain of speaking to the deliberately self-deluded.

Quote from: Opaopajr on May 10, 2022, 07:54:57 PM
It cannot truly be done.  ;) Otherwise Hospitals would have been using RPG parameters at Emergency Room triage by now.

Essentially they do this, which is why a 23yo will be given CPR, but a 93yo will not. They are constantly assessing the relative worth of this or that treatment and the prognosis it gives versus doing nothing - indirectly, they are assessing the person's physical attributes. And to an extent their mental attributes, too, since a cogent 75yo will be given priority over a 60yo with severe dementia.

It's indirect, since more than a binary yes/no for each treatment isn't needed in the hospital.

  Given in the old rules, a 100 pound military press (and I am pretty sure Gary meant the strict press, not the event that the olympics had become before they got rid of the MP because dudes were turning into contortionists) is a 10 strength, and having taken a look at the average gamer, I have serious doubts many think they could actually be adventurers in the RPG sense.   

does this work?
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/904f386e-b91e-456a-a269-2f5df470b222/df5lnfw-6176ff97-0cf7-4b05-baa2-ea20f41505b0.jpg/v1/fill/w_786,h_1017,q_70,strp/page_substance053_by_psiandco_df5lnfw-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTY1NyIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzkwNGYzODZlLWI5MWUtNDU2YS1hMjY5LTJmNWRmNDcwYjIyMlwvZGY1bG5mdy02MTc2ZmY5Ny0wY2Y3LTRiMDUtYmFhMi1lYTIwZjQxNTA1YjAuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEyODAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.AzSbAopGGRYkP5CGG7iEJkEF3Xl4psb3_1kJYjKx_GA (https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/904f386e-b91e-456a-a269-2f5df470b222/df5lnfw-6176ff97-0cf7-4b05-baa2-ea20f41505b0.jpg/v1/fill/w_786,h_1017,q_70,strp/page_substance053_by_psiandco_df5lnfw-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTY1NyIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzkwNGYzODZlLWI5MWUtNDU2YS1hMjY5LTJmNWRmNDcwYjIyMlwvZGY1bG5mdy02MTc2ZmY5Ny0wY2Y3LTRiMDUtYmFhMi1lYTIwZjQxNTA1YjAuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEyODAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.AzSbAopGGRYkP5CGG7iEJkEF3Xl4psb3_1kJYjKx_GA)

Quote from: PSIandCO on May 17, 2022, 11:07:56 AM

does this work?
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/904f386e-b91e-456a-a269-2f5df470b222/df5lnfw-6176ff97-0cf7-4b05-baa2-ea20f41505b0.jpg/v1/fill/w_786,h_1017,q_70,strp/page_substance053_by_psiandco_df5lnfw-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTY1NyIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzkwNGYzODZlLWI5MWUtNDU2YS1hMjY5LTJmNWRmNDcwYjIyMlwvZGY1bG5mdy02MTc2ZmY5Ny0wY2Y3LTRiMDUtYmFhMi1lYTIwZjQxNTA1YjAuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEyODAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.AzSbAopGGRYkP5CGG7iEJkEF3Xl4psb3_1kJYjKx_GA (https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/904f386e-b91e-456a-a269-2f5df470b222/df5lnfw-6176ff97-0cf7-4b05-baa2-ea20f41505b0.jpg/v1/fill/w_786,h_1017,q_70,strp/page_substance053_by_psiandco_df5lnfw-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTY1NyIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzkwNGYzODZlLWI5MWUtNDU2YS1hMjY5LTJmNWRmNDcwYjIyMlwvZGY1bG5mdy02MTc2ZmY5Ny0wY2Y3LTRiMDUtYmFhMi1lYTIwZjQxNTA1YjAuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEyODAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.AzSbAopGGRYkP5CGG7iEJkEF3Xl4psb3_1kJYjKx_GA)

Uhhhh, if I've ever seen a link that screams "Internet herpes," it's that one.  Besides, the Pundit doesn't like blind links, so what exactly am I supposed to see once I click it (or at least what type of electronic VD will it give to my computer)...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on May 17, 2022, 05:26:16 PMwhat type of electronic VD will it give to my computer

Blipvert weaponry.
a stream of subliminal messages forced into the viewer's consciousness so fast that all neurons fire simultaneously:
The resulting heat and energy cause instantaneous explosive combustion.
gosh. you stopped me from murdering everyone...
damn meddling kids...

sigh...
Thank you for believing me to be Diabolical Genius enough to do such fun things...  8)

does anyone know how much is the "max headroom"?

Quote from: mightybrain on May 13, 2022, 05:42:20 PM

Quote from: Lurkndog on May 12, 2022, 09:37:52 AMSoldiers stationed in remote bases overseas come back ripped because they do a normal maintenance workout in the morning, pull their shift, then work out again at night just to pass the time.

Working out too frequently is counter productive. A workout, if it is to be effective, damages muscle. You only build muscle when you are resting between workouts and only if you have consumed enough calories and are getting enough sleep. If you arranged your rules system such that simply working out increased strength, then the munchkins would have their characters spending every conceivable non-adventuring hour working out until their strength maxed out. In reality, that doesn't work. A reasonable strength building schedule is a full body workout 2 to 3 times a week. Although some people prefer to focus on different muscle groups on different days so they end up doing more days but with 3 or 4 days interval between workouts on the same muscle group.

I only know all this as I am currently following a strength building programme. Now I've hit my 50s it's become a necessity. I only wish I'd started sooner.

What you're describing is a sound description of one school of thought on weightlifting and athletic training. There are others. Crossfit being a prominent example. There are trainers that emphasize being able to work out every day, and getting more reps in. Some athletes rehabbing injuries work out twice a day, if they're on the right drugs to be able to recover that quickly.

A lot of military guys are buff, but they generally emphasize endurance over peak strength and muscle mass. They may work out with weights a few times a week, but they go for a run every morning.

Many successful athletes alternate between different workouts to keep themselves from falling into a routine and plateauing.

My personal experience is that working to exhaustion sucked, I was tired and sore all the time, and my cardio went to shit. And this was when I was in college, in my physical prime.

Quote from: oggsmash on May 16, 2022, 04:07:30 PMHiven in the old rules, a 100 pound military press (and I am pretty sure Gary meant the strict press, not the event that the olympics had become before they got rid of the MP because dudes were turning into contortionists) is a 10 strength, and having taken a look at the average gamer, I have serious doubts many think they could actually be adventurers in the RPG sense.

Essentially every healthy male under 50 who trains can achieve that in their first 3-6 months. Essentially zero sedentary males can do so.

I would suggest that 2022 offers far more opportunities to be sedentary than did 1972, let alone 1222. Different assumptions.

Likewise why there were not rules for swimming, hunting, starting a campfire and so on. It was assumed everyone could do it, which was a fair assumption then, but is not now.

Quote from: Lurkndog on May 26, 2022, 10:21:47 AM

Quote from: mightybrain on May 13, 2022, 05:42:20 PM

Quote from: Lurkndog on May 12, 2022, 09:37:52 AMSoldiers stationed in remote bases overseas come back ripped because they do a normal maintenance workout in the morning, pull their shift, then work out again at night just to pass the time.

Working out too frequently is counter productive. A workout, if it is to be effective, damages muscle. You only build muscle when you are resting between workouts and only if you have consumed enough calories and are getting enough sleep. If you arranged your rules system such that simply working out increased strength, then the munchkins would have their characters spending every conceivable non-adventuring hour working out until their strength maxed out. In reality, that doesn't work. A reasonable strength building schedule is a full body workout 2 to 3 times a week. Although some people prefer to focus on different muscle groups on different days so they end up doing more days but with 3 or 4 days interval between workouts on the same muscle group.

I only know all this as I am currently following a strength building programme. Now I've hit my 50s it's become a necessity. I only wish I'd started sooner.

What you're describing is a sound description of one school of thought on weightlifting and athletic training. There are others. Crossfit being a prominent example. There are trainers that emphasize being able to work out every day, and getting more reps in. Some athletes rehabbing injuries work out twice a day, if they're on the right drugs to be able to recover that quickly.

A lot of military guys are buff, but they generally emphasize endurance over peak strength and muscle mass. They may work out with weights a few times a week, but they go for a run every morning.

Many successful athletes alternate between different workouts to keep themselves from falling into a routine and plateauing.

My personal experience is that working to exhaustion sucked, I was tired and sore all the time, and my cardio went to shit. And this was when I was in college, in my physical prime.

Crossfit is the reason rhabdomyolisis is a known word in the fitness community, if you train like that you can expect it, while conventional weight lifters don't run into that problem.

Here's a good summary of average lifting ability and the difference training can make over different timescales:
https://outlift.com/how-much-can-the-average-man-lift/

Interesting stats. I'd note that Rippetoe has subsequently said of those lifting numbers, "Lon and I pulled them out of our asses." It'd be reasonable for the original target market of his mentor Bill Starr's - high school American football players.

Anyway, my point is simply that the level of strength which a modern sedentary person gets after 3-6 months of proper training is about the level of strength I see in someone who comes into the gym who's previously been active in other ways, like gymnastics, swimming, BJJ and so on. That guy can press 100lbs on his first day, or at most after a week or two learning the technique.

Nowadays most people who are physically active have had to make a deliberate decision to do so. For most of human history, though, and for much of the world, today still, being physically active wasn't and isn't a choice.

So in a game portraying something like a mediaeval world, it's reasonable to present people as quite physically capable on average - able to lift fairly heavily, swim, make a camp and so on.

Literacy etc is of course going to be the opposite.

 Those numbers look pulled from the rear.  But I do not think he is very far off on several of them.  I would say Mark's Starting Strength Program is much better in action than I would have expected from seeing it on paper.  But that is from the perspective of a person who had not lifted weights for a bit over a decade (though I was active and still did BW exercises in that period) and simple as it was it actually put me ahead of where I had been in a few months before I stopped lifting (at least for DL and Squat, Strict press and Bench lagged, especially Bench since I had a partial pec tear that eventually ended the way you would expect years later).  The squatting 3 times a week and power cleans over age 40 were not very much fun, and the other athletes who did it alongside me did not really love the 3xweek squats so much either.   But it did work.

    I like the idea of comparing ability scores to a real world metric, but I also think it should be a very loose baseline.   Lots of the real world numbers we have come in due part to a good deal of training and preparation as well as "natural" attributes.  IQ tests are given to people who usually have years and years of academic study and training (even public school attendance counts towards that), strength tests are given to people with years and years of training to improve upon that metric (and in game terms strength is really more a measure of power, and that is really hard to come up with a real world comparison) and not an honest measure of real world application in all senses. 

   I still do think it is fun to try to calculate their AD&D strength score with that old formula Gary stuck in the DMG?  I say strength since it was the only one that had what was a pretty darn specific measure.

Quote from: migo on May 28, 2022, 03:12:05 AMCrossfit is the reason rhabdomyolisis is a known word in the fitness community, if you train like that you can expect it, while conventional weight lifters don't run into that problem.

A colleague had that a while ago. He stopped working out over the pandemic and then when he went back in his trainer had him carry on without working his way back up first. He said he knew something was wrong when his piss went brown. He was in hospital on a drip the next day. He sacked his trainer after that. I would too. Fuck that.

I think that guiding attribute values by real life metrics is a fool's errand because:

1) It's incredibly difficult to distinguish between raw natural ability and training when measuring real life abilities, or even to come with a solid official number of raw natural abilities that actually exist (you could break down "Wisdom" into Intuition, Willpower, Common Sense, etc.).

2) There's no universal guideline that can apply to all abilities across the board to come up with an adequate range of ability values.

3) Some abilities can't even be measured (how do you measure stuff like Wisdom, or even Charisma?). There's a reason weight lifting has dominanted this discussion and IQs have come up a couple of times, cuz those are the only two, and neither is a solid measure of everything that Strength or Intelligence can do.

And most importantly 4) ALL abilities in a RPG are inherently abstract figures intended to provide values usable for purposes of IT'S A GAME, and stuff that's workable in strictly mechanical game terms, making all real life measures fundamentally pointless beyond maybe giving you a ballpark estimate of what the lower or higher ends of ability can do in real life.

Quote from: oggsmash on May 28, 2022, 07:42:42 AMThe squatting 3 times a week and power cleans over age 40 were not very much fun, and the other athletes who did it alongside me did not really love the 3xweek squats so much either.   But it did work.

Past 50, people should really do only 2 tough workouts a week, plus their daily walk. This applies whether the workouts are strength, endurance, martial arts or whatever. I've had lots of 50+ guys tell me they regularly do more than that - then I ask them about their injury and surgery history, and things get interesting.

It might be earlier or later than 50 based on training and injury history, etc.

Likewise with athletes it's tricky. The point of physical training is to impose a stress on the system sufficient that the system adapts so that it's no longer a stress. But we have to consider all stresses - the other training the person's doing, their personal life and so on. For many people, when they feel they're struggling they decide the best thing to do is push harder. "Three hard runs a week and I'm not getting faster, obviously I need to do four! Also I'm going to start fasting on my rest days." And then they crash in a miserable heap.

There's a reason no game system goes into all this and just calls it "XP". Much simpler and less depressing.

Quote from: VisionStormIt's incredibly difficult to distinguish between raw natural ability and training when measuring real life abilities, or even to come with a solid official number of raw natural abilities that actually exist (you could break down "Wisdom" into Intuition, Willpower, Common Sense, etc.).

You've got two points in there.

It's not actually difficult to distinguish between talent and training. The talented person tends to be at least one standard deviation in performance above others. So for example the talented lifter walks into the gym and can on the first day lift what the untalented one lifts after 3 months of training.

More importantly, the talented person will demonstrate ability across a range of related areas which the untalented but trained person does. For example, the talented untrained lifter not only does the slow lifts (squat, bench, deadlift) as well as the untalented trained lifter, they do the quick lifts better, too.

We see the same with intellectual ability, with the child who does well in english generally doing well in mathematics, the one who does poorly doing poorly in all, and so on.

The second part of your comment is about how to measure these things. And that's a very important point, whether the RPG is trying to model some real-world thing, or just present some arbitrary abstract number. What I'd suggest is that this should depend on the game world in general. If your game world is fantasy, or such high scifi it's essentially fantasy (like Star Trek), then arbitrary abstractions are fine. If your game world is more-or-less realistic, then you may want to make the attributes more realistic and measurable.

In no event ought you to make yourself or game group members as characters, though. It just leads to tears of woe, self-pity, and "ACKSHUALLY"-type self-delusion.

   I will let you know how it goes when I am past 50.  I guess tough regarding workouts is relative. 

As I said, I am over 50. When I started, I did a full body workout every morning. I was also monitoring my muscle weight. And I was making no progress. I didn't think anything of it, because I assumed that any changes would be so gradual that it would take months to see a benefit. But then I had a day off. The next day, after no exercise, I found my muscle weight had shot up. I went back to training every day. No change again. Then I stopped. Once again, it shot up. So I tried different intervals and found doing the same workout every 3 days resulted in a fairly constant gain of about 0.5 lb of muscle weight / month compared to nothing working out every day. So I've stuck with that. It seems to work for me. YMMV.

Technically I am too, as even a day is over.  I have been at it more than 2 tough per week, but tough is relative (as i had a grade 3 pec tear for 1.5 years that sidelined a lot of exercises, i have just recovered and rehabbed from surgery and am cleared for all athletic activity) and progress is relative as much of it is returning to baseline.  Once I am back at baseline, I can judge better.  However, given my weekly activities, there is no way between resistance exercise and BJJ I will be 2 days a week.  That is why where I think a reference poiny as to what is tough would be relative though.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on May 28, 2022, 11:39:29 PM
In no event ought you to make yourself or game group members as characters, though. It just leads to tears of woe, self-pity, and "ACKSHUALLY"-type self-delusion.

In particular, never ever make yourselves as player characters if you're playing Call of Cthulhu.

People were either disturbed as we armed ourselves to fight cultists via a trip to the mall, or genuinely upset when they got killed by said cultists.

(I was not the GM, it's not my fault!)

No, because it's irrelevant in the context of the game. 1 is weak, X is strong, X + N is very strong. Trying to tie objective measurements is fruitless

Do Ability Scores determine whether or not the character can do some task?
Are some of those tasks things someone might do in the real world?

If yes to both, then it's unavoidable that Ability Scores WILL be comparable to some real world metric.

I think it's more a matter of which metric.

In all my years of playing RPGs, I don't know that I've ever played in or run a game where any character ever performed a military press. Or tried to take the SATs. So the metrics for which we have a lot of real world data may just be entirely irrelevant to the RPG.

That doesn't mean Ability Scores won't end up linked to some real world metric.

Consistency schmonsistency. It's not something I see any need in worrying about. Because there is also a skill and practice component to a given task, and so there's no reason why you can't have skill stack on top of ability. Once you bring in multiple variables, it's going to be nearly impossible to prove or disprove consistency anyway.


What I like is for first average capacity to be spelled out. For instance, for underwater swimming, the average capacity might be swimming 200 feet in 40 seconds, then resurface, with each second of major (violent) exertion reducing breath time by 1 second. And then have that modified by skill or attribute. For unimportant (0th level) NPCs, I can just assume average capacity without having to mess with stats.

Note that some tasks (such as the underwater swimming example) can have multiple dimensions to them. You could have one character who has high Speed (+20%), thus they are able to swim 240 feet in the same 40 seconds, then resurface. And you might have another with high Stamina (+20%), thus they are able to swim for 48 seconds without having to resurface. Each of them can swim the same 240 feet between breaths. The first guy just gets the job done faster. But the second guy has an advantage of any major exertion needs to occur. Yet a third character might be average in Speed and Stamina but be an exceptionally skilled swimmer, gaining +20% to both swimming speed and breath capacity, thus able to swim 288 feet in 48 seconds.

Quote from: SirFrog on June 08, 2022, 10:47:09 AM
No, because it's irrelevant in the context of the game. 1 is weak, X is strong, X + N is very strong. Trying to tie objective measurements is fruitless

Partially false.

You need a metric for players to get a handle on how the stats work. Otherwise they are little more than meaningless numbers.

In AD&D some of the stats map to within a more or less human range 3-18. A person with a STR of 3 can not even carry 35 lb unencumbered or 140lb vastly slowed down and hindered, meanwhile a STR 18/00 can carry 335lb unencumbered, 440lb vastly slowed down and hindered. INT scores map vaugly to IQ and CHA has a sort of metric in the DMG.

That is not always the case though of course as in BX STR has no impact on carrying capacity. But INT on the other hand impacts your ability to even speak, with a score of 3 for example reducing the character to cave-man level.

These all give a overall frame of reference for players to get a handle on. Meanwhile stats like Wisdom tend to never get really explained and even in 5e its mostly ambiguous what WIS's metric is past the inferrence that it maps on one side to perception and senses animals have for example as alot of animals in 5e have WIS scores of 10 or better. A person with a WIS of 10 is going to spot things better than someone with a WIS of 3.

But system and setting as ever can and oft will have an impact on this. Compare BX or AD&D stats that capped mostly at 18 to 5e's stats that cap at mostly 20, and then 3e stats which I am not even sure had a limit? 35? As the settings drift from low fantasy up to high fantasy the stats have shifted in what a 10 score even means. In 5e a STR 10 means you can carry unencumbered up to 50lb, whereas in AD&D its 35lb.