Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[imweasel]

so i wanted to bring something up that has been bothering me about this new "attributes system." the main issue i'm having is that if i understand josh sawyer's design mantras correctly, he's minimizing a lot of the role-playing flavor from these RPGs.

You don't say.

 

[Surf Solar]

The sperging is pretty strong ITT

 

[hoverdog]

The sperging is pretty strong on RPGCodex

fixed.

 

[tuluse]

I hope you realize you're asking for stats for larping purposes.

The Sawyerian solution is to of course get rid of those pesky things that try to simulate the base abilities of a character, and just have some stuff for your powers to scale from.


I'm even less fond of the direction he's taking the system, it's basically going to be something like ATTACKDMG CRITCHANCE HITPOINTS DEFENSE

I think it's more accurate to say the Sawyerian solution in the context of this specific project. It's a combat focused game, so the stats should be combat focused in his mind. If he was working a game focused on more generalized roleplaying, then he would want stats that supported more general character concepts.

 

[Grunker]

I'm even less fond of the direction he's taking the system, it's basically going to be something like ATTACKDMG CRITCHANCE HITPOINTS DEFENSE

This is completely non-sensical speculation. Nowhere has the values been stated. It might as well be something interesting, like potion value, ability duration, or something entirely different that I haven't thought of. What you're typing is pure speculation.

 

[coffeetable]

so i wanted to bring something up that has been bothering me about this new "attributes system." the main issue i'm having is that if i understand josh sawyer's design mantras correctly, he's minimizing a lot of the role-playing flavor from these RPGs. The best example of this being attributes. attributes for a lot of people helped describe their characters better. for example, when you change the values on attributes like intelligence, charisma, wisdom, strength, dex, etc what you're doing is not only creating a combat character for the action portions of the game, you're also defining a more specific character: you're giving him life, in some sense.

so this can play out as the highly intelligent fighter (like Roy from Order of the Stick) or the unwise highly intelligent "wizard" (like Walter White from Breaking Bad). the older D&D games were really good about helping your attributes desribe your character, at least to yourself. This more "stream-lined" and effective combat mechanics that Josh Sawyer is creating is great and all, but I wonder if he's considered the "soul" behind D&D in the first place: being able to "role-play" a character and to role-play mechanically meaningful characters in the game world. what i mean by this is that picking a different portrait and character model does nothnig much more than effective play out as a LARP. attributes are however ingrained in the mechanics and have meaningful role-playing consequences (dumb dialogue options).

what

in BG2, the only mechanical difference between a fighter with high intelligence and low intelligence is that a fighter with high intelligence was a worse fighter. it didn't help you use attributes to describe your character, it actively punished you for roleplaying any archetype they wasn't the stereotype.

unfortunately he probably is taking into account your whiny simulationist wank

The most compelling statement I've read against the subject is some flavor of, "I want to make a really dodgy character." I think supporting character types/concepts is important and feel is part of that. I think if we added an outer boundary beyond "graze" that was a "true" miss, but one that was a fixed mathematical distance away from chance to hit, that would probably be fine/good.

 

[Excidium]

I'm even less fond of the direction he's taking the system, it's basically going to be something like ATTACKDMG CRITCHANCE HITPOINTS DEFENSE

This is completely non-sensical speculation. Nowhere has the values been stated. It might as well be something interesting, like potion value, ability duration, or something entirely different that I haven't thought of. What you're typing is pure speculation.

It's an example. But it's going to be something like that as you pointed there.

 

[Grunker]

I'm even less fond of the direction he's taking the system, it's basically going to be something like ATTACKDMG CRITCHANCE HITPOINTS DEFENSE

This is completely non-sensical speculation. Nowhere has the values been stated. It might as well be something interesting, like potion value, ability duration, or something entirely different that I haven't thought of. What you're typing is pure speculation.

It's an example. But it's going to be something like that as you pointed there.

?

If there is genuinely interesting values in the stats, and they're even used a couple of times for checks during dialogue, then what the fuck more do you ask? It's more than the IE games ever had.

 

[tuluse]

Because what the codex actually wants is Fallout with IE graphics.

 

[Infinitron]

It's true that the advantage of stats like these is that the dialogue writers can "go wild" with adding diverse stat checks, because they know they can count on players having a wide variety of stat permutations.

 

[Excidium]

I'm even less fond of the direction he's taking the system, it's basically going to be something like ATTACKDMG CRITCHANCE HITPOINTS DEFENSE

This is completely non-sensical speculation. Nowhere has the values been stated. It might as well be something interesting, like potion value, ability duration, or something entirely different that I haven't thought of. What you're typing is pure speculation.

It's an example. But it's going to be something like that as you pointed there.

?

If there is genuinely interesting values in the stats, and they're even used a couple of times for checks during dialogue, then what the fuck more do you ask? It's more than the IE games ever had.

I want systems that represent the characteristics of things in broad terms instead of random videogame nonsense like that. I want them to put a little more effort in creating systems that simulate the fiction they are creating instead of this disjointed shit.

I hope you realize you're asking for stats for larping purposes.

The Sawyerian solution is to of course get rid of those pesky things that try to simulate the base abilities of a character, and just have some stuff for your powers to scale from.


I'm even less fond of the direction he's taking the system, it's basically going to be something like ATTACKDMG CRITCHANCE HITPOINTS DEFENSE

I think it's more accurate to say the Sawyerian solution in the context of this specific project. It's a combat focused game, so the stats should be combat focused in his mind. If he was working a game focused on more generalized roleplaying, then he would want stats that supported more general character concepts.

Sounds like a copout to me.

 

[coffeetable]

Frankly, I don't see why of STR/CON/INT/WIS/CHA are considered to be "real" as opposed to "gamey". How the hell can you hope to reduce a personality to three values between 3 and 18 marked "intelligence", "wisdom" and "charisma"? Since when has there been a tradeoff between any of those five things in real life?

It's a shitty fucking system and it's only tradition that's kept it around. How about instead we let a player define their character through dozens or hundreds of in-game decisions, rather than trying to hamstring them with a idiot-child's model of human variation?

 

[Excidium]

Didn't know I was talking about D&D

 

[Rod Rodderson]

in BG2, the only mechanical difference between a fighter with high intelligence and low intelligence is that a fighter with high intelligence was a worse fighter. it didn't help you use attributes to describe your character, it actively punished you for roleplaying any archetype they wasn't the stereotype.

Not entirely true. Mind Flayer intelligence drain took away five points of intelligence, so you wanted some multiple of that, plus one, if you wanted to handle that most optimally. If your roll was high enough, you could easily take 16 intelligence for that reason alone (or 14 + bonuses, I guess), though 11 is probably easier.

 

[Excidium]

It's a shitty fucking system and it's only tradition that's kept it around. How about instead we let a player define their character through dozens or hundreds of in-game decisions, rather than trying to hamstring them with a idiot-child's model of human variation?

Because that is pointless and stupid. When you describe someone you think in broad terms of physical and mental characteristics. Sawyer is smart, MCA is charismatic, Gaben is fat, etc. That's what the base abilities should simulate, if you use 4, 6, 9 characteristics it doesn't really matter.

 

[coffeetable]

It's a shitty fucking system and it's only tradition that's kept it around. How about instead we let a player define their character through dozens or hundreds of in-game decisions, rather than trying to hamstring them with a idiot-child's model of human variation?

Because that is pointless and stupid. When you describe someone you think in broad terms of physical and mental characteristics. Sawyer is smart, MCA is charismatic, Gaben is fat, etc. That's what the base abilities should simulate, if you use 4, 6, 9 characteristics it doesn't really matter.

No, you don't. Your internal model of any one person is an approximation of how you think that person would react to a given set of stimuli. That's how you think of them. You describe them in terms of physical and mental characteristics because it's the best option given the very limited time usually available.

In a game though, you're not bound by the need to communicate the character you're roleplaying to anyone else. You can describe your character exactly how you think of them: in terms of their reactions.

Didn't know I was talking about D&D

SPECIAL is just as bad.

 

[Excidium]

It's a shitty fucking system and it's only tradition that's kept it around. How about instead we let a player define their character through dozens or hundreds of in-game decisions, rather than trying to hamstring them with a idiot-child's model of human variation?

Because that is pointless and stupid. When you describe someone you think in broad terms of physical and mental characteristics. Sawyer is smart, MCA is charismatic, Gaben is fat, etc. That's what the base abilities should simulate, if you use 4, 6, 9 characteristics it doesn't really matter.

No, you don't. Your internal model of any one person is an approximation of how you think that person would react to a given set of stimuli. That's how you think of them. You describe them in terms of physical and mental characteristics because it's the best option available given the very limited time usually available.

In a game though, you're not bound by that. You can describe your character exactly how you think of them: in terms of their reactions.

That isn't interesting to me. In good systems, the base abilities should describe the characters in those general terms, in some games they are more descriptive than in others but what's important is that you have these central characteristics that the rest of the game systems which further detail things and their interactions flow from, instead of some disjointed shit.

Didn't know I was talking about D&D

SPECIAL is just as bad.

No shit.

 

[Roguey]

Not entirely true. Mind Flayer intelligence drain took away five points of intelligence, so you wanted some multiple of that, plus one, if you wanted to handle that most optimally. If your roll was high enough, you could easily take 16 intelligence for that reason alone (or 14 + bonuses, I guess), though 11 is probably easier.

It's a pretty metagamey thing to do to build a character to counter a particular threat.

 

[Rod Rodderson]

It's a pretty metagamey thing to do to build a character to counter a particular threat.

I don't necessarily disagree, I was just countering the point that Intelligence was entirely useless for a fighter. Just... mostly useless.

 

[Dreaad]

Frankly, I don't see why of STR/CON/INT/WIS/CHA are considered to be "real" as opposed to "gamey". How the hell can you hope to reduce a personality to three values between 3 and 18 marked "intelligence", "wisdom" and "charisma"? Since when has there been a tradeoff between any of those five things in real life?

It's a shitty fucking system and it's only tradition that's kept it around. How about instead we let a player define their character through dozens or hundreds of in-game decisions, rather than trying to hamstring them with a idiot-child's model of human variation?

Do you mean remove stats entirely? Thus ending up with something like Mass Effect where you define your char through a class? Or do you mean remove stats but leave skills like Skyrim? I can't really think of any game that benefited from having physical/mental stats removed.

 

[Sensuki]

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA (or something like STR DEX CON INT PSY SOUL) could have been done properly for this Project. Personally I don't think it would have been THAT hard to make a more balanced (but not necessarily completely balanced) attribute system with those stats, especially if the point distribution system was handled like Fallout's or whatever (starting from 0).

 

[Grunker]

Who said his stats won't be named STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA? As far I know they've said absolutely nothing about the names and variations of the stats.

 

[Sensuki]

I don't just mean in name. I mean the actual 3 x Physical stats / 3 x mental stats or whatever and differentiation between a physical and magical attack

 

[coffeetable]

Do you mean remove stats entirely? Thus ending up with something like Mass Effect where you define your char through a class? Or do you mean remove stats but leave skills like Skyrim? I can't really think of any game that benefited from having physical/mental stats removed.

No, I'm happy for - glad for - stats in the "mechanical" portions of the game (combat for PE). Just get them out of the roleplaying portion.

 

[Excidium]

Who said his stats won't be named STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA? As far I know they've said absolutely nothing about the names and variations of the stats.

Didn't you read the Q&A?

No, I'm happy for - glad for - stats in the "mechanical" portions of the game (combat for PE). Just get them out of the roleplaying portion.

That distinction is p. retarded.