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.  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.