Quote from: Anon Adderlan;962766I'm glad you asked

#Passion is nothing more than the force you can bring to bear on non-physical tasks, such as convincing your local bugbear not to kill you.

#Identity is how able you are to resist influence which forces you to act in ways contrary to who you are or what you want. I initially had this as #Willpower, but there was too much overlap with #Passion.

Basically, the three mental attributes are parallel to the physical ones.

I like it. I'd have to try it out in a game to see how it works out but it sounds pretty good. I've never much liked Wisdom in D&D or the idea that Intelligence has much to do with perception as it does in so many games.

Quote from: Psikerlord;962665willpower?

I split Wisdom into Perception and Willpower for Low Fantasy Gaming

Willpower is a very elegant word that would cover Save vs Magic. Why didn't I think of it!? I guess I was too close to it.
Thanks, Psikerlord!

Quote from: Skarg;962557I agree, but then, the weird thing about looking at D&D from a TFT perspective, is that the attributes in D&D don't directly do much unless the DM decides to invent ways they have direct effects.

I still relate to ST, DX and IQ as the core/pillar abilities. However there are useful flavors of each which are good to be able to set at different values for some people and other creatures. They govern things that are often related for humans, but not always in all aspects. A GM can use discretion to sort that out with rulings, or you can go some distance in the direction of detailing the differences.

Quote from: Dumarest;962615I'm not understanding what the each in the "there are useful flavors of each" refers to: the three TFT attributes or TFT vs. D&D attributes?

I mean the three TFT attributes. For examples:

ST represents muscle power, health, capacity for damage, fatigue, etc., but those could be very different for some creatures (e.g. a very healthy small gymnast, or a sickly giant, or something weak of muscle but hard to kill, or a wizard with piles of magic energy but no muscle).

DX could be speed, or natural grace, or athleticism, or practiced skill, or small-scale motor skills, and not everyone has (or lacks) all of those.

IQ can mean analytical brainpower, or experience, or cunning/cleverness, or wisdom, or perceptiveness, or attention, or the capacity to learn many things, and again not everyone with high or low values in some of those have them in all.

Will echo the comment of D&D getting stats right the first time:)  

The only other game that has stats I prefer is FASERIP.

Quote from: AsenRG;962822Except Dragon Warriors predates Pokemon by over a decade:).

I got into Pokemon because of Go last July. When I started playing Soul Silver and Black I started doing some research for that and Go on Reddit and Bulbapedia. Decades of RPGs was definitely a transferable skill when studying move sets and the like. I'm working on a 5e Pokemon game for coworkers and have even started a map for it.

Quote from: Skarg;962885I mean the three TFT attributes. For examples:

ST represents muscle power, health, capacity for damage, fatigue, etc., but those could be very different for some creatures (e.g. a very healthy small gymnast, or a sickly giant, or something weak of muscle but hard to kill, or a wizard with piles of magic energy but no muscle).

DX could be speed, or natural grace, or athleticism, or practiced skill, or small-scale motor skills, and not everyone has (or lacks) all of those.

IQ can mean analytical brainpower, or experience, or cunning/cleverness, or wisdom, or perceptiveness, or attention, or the capacity to learn many things, and again not everyone with high or low values in some of those have them in all.

Yes, I like that it leaves it open to interpretation. A wizard with high ST is not necessarily built like Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1979. A warrior with high IQ may not be educated but rather may just be perceptive.

Quote from: Dumarest;962832I like it. I'd have to try it out in a game to see how it works out but it sounds pretty good. I've never much liked Wisdom in D&D or the idea that Intelligence has much to do with perception as it does in so many games.

I find that too many RPGs treat acquiring data and interpreting data as a single discrete action. I treat sensory abilities as a matter of the former, and #Cognition the latter. It's the difference between 'you hear a noise' and 'you hear a #Werewolf'.

Quote from: Dumarest;962692I don't understand what you mean in the first sentence. The second sentence: I concur.

It would depend what system we're talking about, but...

If attributes affect what you can do, then the fewer the attributes, the more powerful those attributes are. Their in-game effect becomes like levels. For example, in AD&D1e the best possible to-hit bonus from Strength alone is +3. A fighter of 1st or 2nd level has +2 compared to a man-at-arms, one of 3rd or 4th has +4, and so on. Thus, level is more important than attributes.

A "class" in AD&D1e acts like a collection of skills in other games, but without rolling for them - a fighter is assumed to know how to plan an ambush, a magic-user can tell magical runes from normal writing, and so on. In other systems they roll for those things.

If you roll for everything, then every roll is affected by your attributes. As the number of attributes drop, the relative importance of each increases. Thus, the attribute becomes like a character class. With six attributes, you might be "a fighter who is not really strong but is smart and dexterous", with (for example) two attributes of Brains and Brawn, you can't be dexterous but not strong, or strong but wheezing a lot, you're either Brawny or you're not. It'll just add to your class level.

Absent character classes, few attributes adding to many skills will mean that instead of calling you a "fighter" we just call you "that brawny guy." Consider for example Classic Traveller: let's say we absorbed 3 each of the current attributes into Brains and Brawn, but kept the bonus/malus attributes of various types and levels give to the skills. We'd find, I should think, many more players trying to improve one or both of those attributes. Because individually they'd be much more important to play than would the various skills. Much as players try to improve their character's class level in AD&D1e.

Thus, with few enough attributes, you are basically turning attributes into class levels.

I understand you now and concur.

The only Ability Score addition I've seen that really works is the Luck stat in DCC.

Quote from: RPGPundit;963253The only Ability Score addition I've seen that really works is the Luck stat in DCC.

How is it used in DCC? Is it a save or roll to see who gets hit by random projectiles and the like, or is there more to it?

Quote from: RPGPundit;963253The only Ability Score addition I've seen that really works is the Luck stat in DCC.

We used a "Karma" skill in a homebrew some 20+ years ago. Karma was rolled like a stat, like anything else. You could burn KAR points to do various things, the more unlikely/difficult, the more it cost. You re/gained a small amount of KAR from finishing adventures. If you ever just plain ran out of KAR, then you were "out of luck."

My favorite so far is probably Dragon Age's:

Strength
Dexterity
Magic
Cunning
Willpower
Constitution

Mostly as it nicely distinguishes magical aptitude from the things we normally associate with intelligence and does away with the "Wisdom" weirdness in the process, with aspects of the also often-debated "Charisma" falling also between Cunning and Willpower.

Not much a fan of the rest of the system, but loved these stats since the first video game.

Eclipse Phase also stands out as something very elegant to me, but it's a bit setting-specific.

Personally, I like the attributes in Fantasy Age better;).

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;963332How is it used in DCC? Is it a save or roll to see who gets hit by random projectiles and the like, or is there more to it?

It's used in various ways. Usually through a roll-under of the score when used directly.  But the Luck Modifier affects a number of things: fumbles, criticals, something else randomly determined from a table at character creation, etc.
Also, when a character gets below 0hp, they make a luck roll to see if they survive or die.

Finally, characters can 'burn' luck points to get a bonus to a roll. For most characters, this burn is permanent, but Thieves recover luck when they use it this way, making it one of their special powers. Halflings too.