Quote from: Larsdangly;1013147That is what he is saying, and his point is that D&D (and most other games) treat them as the same thing. It doesn't particularly bother me as a game convention, but it is obviously wrong. Dragonquest is another game that separates gross-body agility from manual dexterity. I suppose if you are really trying to be hyper granular and realistic you might need 3-4 stats to represent all the non-overlaping abilities that are called on when you manipulate yourself or other objects through space.

Sure, as I said above somewhere ...or just accept that it's a game and won't ever manage to accurately describe how the human mind and body work and decide how arbitrary you want your stats to be, anywhere from The Fantasy Trip to Champions to Palladium and back again...

Quote from: Toadmaster;1012644This doesn't seem to account for the fact some people seem naturally better suited to certain tasks than others. There are people who "have an ear for music" and can pick up playing musical instruments very easily, and others with "a tin ear" who just have no aptitude for music and will struggle regardless of how much they practice. You find the same thing with sports, art, science etc.

Stats typically represent this natural ability, while skills (or class / level) represent actual practice / experience with a task.

Which is why I am convinced that there is no way to even approach "realistic" skill representation with a two axis approach:  There are no sets of "attributes" and "skills" that will work.  Plus, I think the "natural talent" part is seldom an "attribute".  Every now and then, you get the person who is smart in everything or graceful and dexterous in everything, but much more often you find people that are naturally "good at X".  In a game, we end up lumping "natural talent" and "broad physical and mental development" into "attributes" to keep the complexity to a reasonable level.  But as a model, it leaves a lot out.  Thus my conclusion that the only way to model such things with some degree of accuracy is to have at least three axes.

However, I've never come up with a good way to have the three axes in the game.  It gets complicated, fast.  For one thing, in any kind of realistic model, people would learn much as Beldar suggested.  You'd practice some skill, improve that--and along the way improve attributes and/or natural talents as part of that practice.  Crudely, the warrior isn't skilled at arms and armor because he is strong.  He's strong because he's spent all that time practicing with arms and armor.  Except, we all know that isn't entirely true, either, since he had to start with some natural strength in order to begin practice.  And then the better he gets at managing the arms and armor efficiently, the less important the strength becomes--not merely in the proportion of skill, but also in that being trained and efficient with his movements, he no longer needs as much raw strength (and endurance or conditioning or whatever).  

So I think the "answer" is the one that the successful game designers have used:  The game, whatever it is, will be ripe with compromises, to model the most important things to that particular game, and this will inevitably leave holes in the model that will seem strange to some possible players with a different slant on how the model should work.

Behind Enemy Lines just has a stat called something like 'Weapons Handling'. I think 1E and 2E Boot Hill do more or less the same thing. That is, your stats are just a measure of how good you are at whatever it is that influences the rolls you make in the game, rather than a fundamental Platonic ideal.

I've been more drawn towards games that simply use an ability for resolving things and skip the entire discussion of attribute-skill interaction.  Someone can have a Sword-n-Board 5 for a combat ability - they can be naturally agile and athletic, or naturally big and massively strong, or naturally for precise in attack, or just have years of training and experience under their belt. In the end the details and fluff don't really matter.  They simply 5 good when using sword and shield in combat.  Substitute any other thing we want to resolve in-game for that.

Having said that, almost every game I actually play has separate natural attributes and trained skills, and I'm happy enough with it.  I just live with inconsistencies and compromise......and I long ago learned to live with the confusion of agility and dexterity.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1013147That is what he is saying, and his point is that D&D (and most other games) treat them as the same thing. It doesn't particularly bother me as a game convention, but it is obviously wrong. Dragonquest is another game that separates gross-body agility from manual dexterity. I suppose if you are really trying to be hyper granular and realistic you might need 3-4 stats to represent all the non-overlaping abilities that are called on when you manipulate yourself or other objects through space.

and that is why I think something like the Traveller system handling other cultures/species could work well for abilities/attributes, having some common ground between characters but still some leeway to refine it with 1-2 other ones which isn't as common as Strength or Intelligence.

Quote from: Reckall;1012261A lot of role-playings use Dex as a measure of quickness, balance, coordination and weapon precision. Last week-end, after a session at the shooting range, I started to doubt about the latter.

I'm very clumsy in almost all my life activities. In D&D terms I probably have a Dex of 8 - or even 7. However, for example, since when I was in high-school I always has been a sharp-shooter.

When we played basketball, for example, I was literally unable to run with the ball. But every year I scored more 3 points than any other member of the team and I was always among the top scorer. When passing, it came natural to me to see a teammate and place the ball exactly where he was running - sometimes flatfooting the defence by bouncing the ball against the floor. It just came natural.

Last week it was the third time in all my life that I shoot a gun - and still, after a first round of "warming up", I scored more than people who shoot every other week or so (just don't ask me to reload the gun quickly - harm to bystanders could ensue). The range owner couldn't believe that it was only the third time that I shoot with a gun.

Next time I'll try with a bow.

So, it appears obvious to me that I do have another "characteristic" beside Dex. A character with an high Dex can pull out and nock an arrow faster than me - but this is not enough. As I said, I firmly believe to have Dex 7-8 - so there is no way, for me, to be correctly portrayed in, for example, D&D. IM(not so H)O, precision should be tied to Int: To me it always came natural to build a tridimensional "mind picture" (which can include people/objects in motion) and then act so to place something in a certain point - and I always felt that this kind of skill comes from the mind, not from the body.

Thoughts?

Reminds me of Dragon Warriors, a game with merely five stats, where high-end Intelligence might give you a bonus to attack and/or defence:).
Also, there are games where Dexterity and Agility aren't the same thing, but most systems just consider that needless differentiation and cut them down to 6 or so, reasoning that it's just a game;).

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012318I have encountered games that had both Agility and Dexterity. I can't recall which of the many games I have encountered they were.

You have probably never encountered Glory Road Roleplay but it has both. Dexterity is a basic attribute. You either assign points for it out your pool for the three basic stats or you roll dice and get what you get. Each group decides which for each campaign. Agility is a derived stat. You take the points you assign or roll and average them with your Dex. And you may get a bonus for having a Strength greater than your Size. If a player-character is like me, Size greater than Strength, the bonus is a minus.

Dex is hand-eye and Agility is the mainstay of athlelticism.

You could have 12 ability scores instead of 6, or you could have 18. But 6 is a very good number for just the right mix of complexity and playability.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1014088You could have 12 ability scores instead of 6, or you could have 18. But 6 is a very good number for just the right mix of complexity and playability.

Meaning that you are satisfied and that's fine. We've been playing with nine, ten if you count Size, for thirty-two years and no one who has played, or even looked at, the game rules have had a problem with it.