Last column I worked out a system with two sets of stats that represent acquired knowledge (or know-how, ability, etc.): Experience stats and skill stats. I’m ambivalent about this idea. What I dislike about it is the fact that it introduces an added layer of complexity. I mean, if there is already an exponential scope for interactions among abilities in a single set, working with two sets means a quantum leap in potential interactions – with all the problems of consistency this may bring.
There is more to it. The reasons why I introduced two columns ago a separate set of stats to represent experience was twofold: First, there are situations where the usage of a skill at its current ability level may not make sense; second, there are situations where we should look at combinations of skills more than at single, independent skills. Yet I can’t stop thinking, do we really nead to have stats for experience fields plus skill? In a skill-based game experience is the sum of the accumulated ability in the different skills, thus it does not require another set of stats.
In my interaction with Jane I also advanced an idea that may provide for a simpler answer to all of these issues without creating two sets of interrelated stats. I proposed that in a combat situation the ability to defend should be based on the lowest from among the defender's defence skill and his rate in the skill his adversary is using to attack.
Keep in mind that the frame of reference for my interaction with Jane was RuneQuest, a game where there are independent offensive and defensive skills. In RuneQuest if the attacker uses a sword to hit the defender, the latter can use any defensive skill he has (usually the highest he has equipement to use with) irrespective of his ability in the skill used by the offender. Say, the Troll hits the Elf with his mace, the Elf uses his shield to parry (shield parry skill of 70%). He never developed a mace skill (so he has mace skill at 30%). In RuneQuest the Elf would parry with his shield at the shield skill of 70%.
What's wrong with this? Defence is as much a function of our own skill with a particular defensive weapon (like a shield) as of our understanding of the offensive weapon used by the adversary. The Elf got his shield parry up to 70% protecting himself against a set of threads that might not include maces. The fact that he knows how to defend incoming sword or spear blows may not mean that he can protect himself as effectively against maces.
This way of reasoning presupposes a much bigger integration between offensive and defensive abilities. The separation between attack and defense skills found in RuneQuest for each weapon should not hold. Instead, it makes more sense to have a single weapon-based skill that covers both offense and defense (with the added bonus that it simplifies the skills’ set). In operational terms the proposal means that the character uses the lowest of his two abilities: his ability with the stuff he is using and his ability with the stuff the adversary is using. Going back to our example, the elf would use the lowest of either of his skills, shield 70% or mace 30%. Since his mace skill would be lower he would parry with the mace value of 30%.
I think that this approach handles better the balance between specialization and generic abilities, while allowing the players to decide on this issue. The specialist will have high values in a narrow set of skills. He will perform at high levels provided that the situations fall into the normal usage of those skills. The moment he faces situations he is not prepared to, he will be penalized by his lack of ability in skills he didn’t develop. On the other hand the generalist will develop a wider set of skills but these will be at lower ratings than those of the specialist. Let’s look at some examples (I’ll stick to combat):
The court duelist. In his fairly stable social millieu he can live with a highly specialized and narrow set of fighting skills that may include sword fencing, wrestling, dagger fencing and little more (say, between 80% and 100% in these skills). As long as he faces people that work in his social context he may take advantage of his high skill in those fighting techniques. The moment he moves out of that context he will face the limitations of too narrow a set of combat abilities (other combat skills like maces, spears, axes, etc. will be at low rattings, usually no more than 30%).
The warrior or soldier. He has developed a wide set of combat skills in many combats where he had to use whatever was available and where he had to face enemies with a no less varied set of fighting techniques and equipment. He will know how to use the sword, the spear, the axe, the mace, some missile weapon, etc., but he will not have mastered any of these. He will have all of them in the 50% to 75% range.
The wild beast. It has a narrow set of combat skills developed both for his hunting and for defense against other wild beasts, in this sense it is a specialist. Yet, the wild beast does not have an environment that allows it to focus so much on developing his skills as the intelligent specialist, so his skill range will be in the 50% to 75% range.
If the court duelist faces a warrior, sword in hand, in a street of the city he will be able to take advantage of his superior skill with that weapon. On the other hand, if he has to defend his house against a blood-thirsty soldier armed with shield and axe when the enemy’s army enters the city he will be as good at attacking as his own skill with the shield and at defending as his ability with the axe. Both the court duelist and the warrior/soldier will have a hard time figuring how to defeat an unknown wild beast that attacks them in a distant jungle. YET ... (some weeks pass with some more intermitent thinking about the issue)
... I’m still not happy with this. Perhaps it’s time to rethink it all. In this series of columns I’ve been toying with a set of concepts that somehow don’t match up: roles, attributes, experience fields, skills. To these I could also add society given the fact that the type of skills available to the characters and how advanced these are is influenced by their social background. So far so good. How to combine all of this? Here it goes the way I currently see it:
For a start there are the roles. These define the different fields of action open to the characters. We know by now which are the basic roles: Fight, craft (yes, I added it to the list presented before), interact, apply knowledge, use magic, move. Each one corresponds to a sub-set of rules with particular cases of performance. In game terms this means that the GM and the players define what type of game situation is at stake and the roles that can be important in that context. Most of the time there can be scope for different roles. For instance, in a combat the fighter will likely fight weapons in hand, the talker may try to appeal to the emotions of the enemy, the crafter may attempt to set up a trap, the scholar may use his knowledge of the weaknesses of the enemy to his disadvantage, the magic user, well, use magic and the mover may just attempt to keep out of reach. Notice that the different roles don’t provide a measure of success by themselves, they just define different fields of action or different approaches to action.
Next comes society. It is there mostly to provide a modifier to action when characters come from different social backgrounds. It provides modifiers to the different roles. Say, a society is geared towards conflict, while another is rather peaceful. The first will have a positive modifier to fighting while the latter will have a negative mod. If a society is rather primitive in technological terms it will have negative mods to scholarly and crafting activities.
Experience fields. Yes, I know, I said that I would drop it. Guess what, they came back. Experience fields are broad sets of ability. Experience fields also cut across roles but they will have a favoured role they fulfill. Other roles suffer a penalty or are not even developped by that experience field. Each experience field also defines a set of skills that are developed under it.
Finally skills. These tend to be role-specific and correspond to particular technical fields.
Action combines an attribute with an experience field and a skill, modified by the social background. I have a closed list of attributes but I don’t plan to have a set list of experience fields; instead these will be listed in an open way, somewhat like HeroQuest’s keywords. On the other hand, I lean towards the idea of a mostly closed list of skills.
All I can say is that this is still work in progress. It’s better to move to something else and come back to the handling of abilities when all the pieces are been selected.
