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Exhaustive Attribute List

Castanova

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I'm trying to come up with an exhaustive list of RPG-style character attributes that could be applied to something like a character simulator. I'm not talking something like The Sims.. the attributes would apply only to:

- Participating in combat
- Commanding combat participants
- Commanding a city/nation

What did I miss? I'll update the list if anyone suggests something. I don't care if two attributes overlap a bit... I'm willing to have correlation between attributes as long as they're different in some way or another.

** edited with suggestions **

===PHYSICAL===

STRENGTH
AGILITY (movement)
DEXTERITY (weapon aim.. hand/eye coordination)
CONSTITUTION (not hitpoints, exactly.. more like, ability to survive serious injury)
SPEED
ENDURANCE (literally.. like how long can you fight for)


===MENTAL===

INTELLIGENCE (how fast you learn, ability to figure stuff out)
EDUCATION (e.g., college degrees - not weapon skills... earns citizen respect)
WILLPOWER (resisting torture, forcing yourself to do homework, blah)

===MIXED===

NERVE (how you act under high pressure situations)
CHARISMA (split this into "attractiveness" and "speech" ?)
PERCEPTION (awareness of surroundings)
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Dexterity. Dexterity and Agility should be two different stats. Might be similar, but not the same. Agility is mostly how agile you are, and also affect your quickness, while dexterity is more a well and accurate use of your weapons.

That said, Accuracy can also be taken as a stat similar to perception.

Have to think about more distinctive attributes, though. I'm sure there's still some stuff left.
 

ixg

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Scary...
Probably would make more sense to get rid of Education since that would easily fall into skill allocations.
 

kingcomrade

Kingcomrade
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WILLPOWER (resisting torture, forcing yourself to do homework, blah)
lol

What stats you need should depend on the system of game mechanics you've made, not the other way around. u r doin it backwerds
 

Castanova

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What stats you need should depend on the system of game mechanics you've made, not the other way around. u r doin it backwerds

Well, I hinted at the game mechanics in the beginning of the post. Kind of an empire-scale, turn-based war game with heavy RPG-style stat influence. You have a set of heroes with distinct stats, etc, that you put into battle, in charge of battle, in charge of a city, and in charge of the nation (from a figurehead standpoint). The game would last potentially hundreds(thousands?) of years so characters age/die. You can save when you quit to continue later but there is no loading of saved games (like a RL). So on, and so forth. I'm building a prototype in Excel :P

Probably would make more sense to get rid of Education since that would easily fall into skill allocations.

Well, I would keep "Education" in the literal sense... like, college degrees, etc. It would figure into how much respect you would have as a leader of a city/nation, assuming the city/nation is sufficiently "advanced."

Dexterity. Dexterity and Agility should be two different stats. Might be similar, but not the same. Agility is mostly how agile you are, and also affect your quickness, while dexterity is more a well and accurate use of your weapons.

Interesting point. That would also figure into the fact that I haven't added a stat that would govern ranged combat, really.
 

kingcomrade

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I meant specific game mechanics. You won't know what types of stats you will need until you actually have a system that needs input in the form of stats (like checking if it is greater than a certain value to accomplish some task).
 

galsiah

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KC is right on the money. You're doing things backwards. You should start with the gameplay, character action set, game mechanics... first, and decide what inputs you need second.
In practice it's probably going to be a two-way process - with gameplay motivating attributes, and attributes inspiring new gameplay ideas. However, if you're starting with one or the other, start with gameplay (in more detail than "combat" / "dialogue"...).
 

Psilon

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Nah, that's more like Willpower. I see Education as a combination of bardic knowledge (a la D&D) and the dumb dialogue option from NWN. (Yes, NWN. Low education but high INT/WP would probably manifest as a hick dialect but a nearly full set of quest options.)
 

Castanova

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Education could probably be renamed to wisdom.

I would say wisdom is more like a naturally acquired knowledge via life experience. Not something you'd necessarily pick up with a college degree.

I meant specific game mechanics. You won't know what types of stats you will need until you actually have a system that needs input in the form of stats (like checking if it is greater than a certain value to accomplish some task).

Normally I would fully agree with you but for this prototype I only half agree with you. One of the aims was to have an exhaustive list of attributes and through testing/prototyping kind of mold a rewarding combat model around those attributes (and probably add/remove attributes in the process, as well). I guess I should also point out that, in the current concept in my head, the combat is non-interactive beyond picking when/where, who's in the battle, and in what command heirarchy.
 

galsiah

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Castanova said:
I guess I should also point out that, in the current concept in my head, the combat is non-interactive beyond picking when/where, who's in the battle, and in what command heirarchy.
In that case you'd want to think about the gameplay involved in selecting when/where/who/hierarchy first, and mold the attributes to fit the types of decisions and trade-offs you're after. The gameplay matters, while the names of attributes are largely immaterial. If you're going to constrain one to fit the other, constrain the names to the gameplay.
Aiming for an "exhaustive" list of attributes seems a dubious goal in the first place, and perhaps a recipe for a load of pointless complexity or useless fluff. A fairly extensive list might be a good source of inspiration, but I don't think it's wise to aim to end up with an exhaustive/comprehensive/extensive list - just as many as necessary to support the gameplay you want.

With particular regard to combat, if you involve too many stats, the play style you incentivize might be lengthy-poring-over-loads-of-numbers. If battles are rare and pivotal, that might not be too bad. If they're common it probably makes sense to keep the amount of factors involved relatively low - so that play can proceed on a fairly natural/intuitive level without constant reference to stat combinations.
 

Greatness

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A few attributes you could use...
Physical: Agility, Constitution, Dexterity, Endurance, Speed, Strength, Vitality
Mental: Education, Intelligence, Knowledge, Willpower, Wisdom
Mixed: Beauty, Charisma, Luck, Perception, Personality
 

Texas Red

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Castanova said:
CHARISMA (split this into "attractiveness" and "speech" ?)

Split it also in to dick size for men, boob size for women.
 

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