Re: Official Errata Suggestion/Discussion Thread (changes you'd like to see made)

[Lapis-Lazily]

Were the game to shift to not using attributes, min maxing would be a problem regardless of specialist and overachiever. The previous floors and ceilings may stay in place, but not all skills are created equal. There are some skills that rarely see use, endurance and streetwise, while others are practically required in any given campaign, arcana, athletics and persuasion. The attributes are set up to pair the most useful skills with much less useful skills. When one removes attributes, the less useful skills would be ignored for putting lots of points into the good ones.

[Z2]

If removing attributes means that you'd have to insert special measures to prevent minmaxing from getting out of hand, that will likely prevent minmaxing from happening altogether, isn't that more an argument for not removing attributes than it is for anything else?

Personally, I like attributes from every perspective.

From a logical perspective it makes some sense for characters with a lot of knowledge to accumulate them over a variety of things, or for people who are rather observant and pick up on minor changes in the environment to also have some skills at reading and steering people, as well as reading situations.

From a mechanical perspective, grouping the oft-applicable athletics and endurance stats together under a smaller banner than the others helps to balance the strength of attribute points. Likewise with placing some oft and less used skills together, forcing players to really consider what they want to trade off for what else. If investing in persuasion doesn't require investing in perception and streetsmarts, or investing in arcana doesn't require history or heal; I think we'll be seeing LESS variation, not more.

From a flavor/roleplaying perspective, having a beefy character who'd rather focus his efforts on pacifism just FEELS so much more right when you can represent that through 10 brawn but horse sense based training.

From a lazy perspective, we've got them now and we would be going to a lot of trouble just to take away something people like if we try to remove them.

From a simple perspective, it doesn't get significantly easier than 'spread 8 points about these 4, then tack +3 onto your choice of 2 from these 11' and adding the statement 'and if you were able to handle that, we have these clearly defined add-ons you can also try if you're into that kind of thing; but don't worry about it.'

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

Were the game to shift to not using attributes, min maxing would be a problem regardless of specialist and overachiever. The previous floors and ceilings may stay in place, but not all skills are created equal. There are some skills that rarely see use, endurance and streetwise, while others are practically required in any given campaign, arcana, athletics and persuasion. The attributes are set up to pair the most useful skills with much less useful skills. When one removes attributes, the less useful skills would be ignored for putting lots of points into the good ones.

Two factors currently work against attribute elimination.

1) Not all skills are created equal. We'd have to redo the skill system so that they're more balanced, or add more skill support for certain options.

2) If something ever doesn't fall into an existing skill, there's usually an attribute broad enough to handle the check. However, this is extremely rare.

[ZamuelNow]

As far as the concept of not being able to make the Mane Six I sorta disagree.  The system is actually really good at that barring the lack of a few Destiny concepts.  Animal Handling on Fluttershy's level is essentially a special power (and we do have access to it in the system).  I used Twilight and Rarity for my example since they're both unicorns and despite Twilight being "more powerful", that's a key skill that she lacks.  However, the fluctuation between spotting details and reading people is a very important thing among all of the Mane Six.  I could have just as easily used Applejack in the argument.  It means very little that the same senses pick up information for Perception considering that while someone can train for it in real life, people are wired differently and pick up different things.  I don't really get the concept of it being difficult to learn since "notice details" and "notice emotions/mannerisms" seems a lot more straightforward than Streetwise's current description.

However, Dan stated that the important part of the argument isn't just noting character design difficulties but pointing out balance issues.  With that said, there's a specific issue with Perception in that it is never unusable unless directly debilitated.  High combat, low combat, slice of life, fantasy, modern, futuristic, drama, comedy, or horror, Perception is always usable no matter what campaign you're in and has the fewest setbacks for failed use.  Not even Arcana can pull that off before Magecraft.  It doesn't instantly fix all problems a character or team is in but it does give you the information to use the rest of your skills.  It has a very high factor of "why NOT roll?" to it.  Splitting it lessens the degree to which that's applicable.

As far as "survival", it comes down to what is expected out of it.  For the broad "I just know"/common sense applications, that's just a flat Sense roll.  A conversation about intuition earlier in this thread already noted that.  The more specific stuff like knowing what plants to eat actually is something specific.

[Xel Unknown]

Really... Quit trying to dumb down the system... It's simple as it is... If anything I'd like to see a tad more complexity from this system. If min-maxing is felt to be a problem try to give more bonusi for "blanced" stat builds... Right now we only got just ONE utility that's built to be an pro-balanced thing that really is kinda meh with how you get just only a +1 to stats that you didn't give training... (Applejack of all Trades)

Also if anything the fact that Magecraft was expanded to be the "min-max" bate that is is... I'd argue that the devs seem to want more Min-Maxing for this system as a whole. Would explain things like the Magic Drain stuff...

And really, I don't like the idea of messing with racials to make some combos unable to be done just becuase of the "logic" that "it's min-maxy, therefore we must stop it" thing...

[ZamuelNow]

Really... Quit trying to dumb down the system...

Elaborate please. Don't get your thought process at all since a fused Perception is the simpler option.

[Ramsus]

I'm not sure how removing attributes would "dumb down" the system. It'd let people actually make character concepts that are currently basically impossible. Sometimes you're going to want a character that's good at Stealth, Endurance, History, and Streetwise. Right now, that's completely impossible. The closest you come is being "meh" at everything. Even if the concept involved means you'd be absolutely terrible at some of the other things.

Z2, you can't change things and not rebalance, that's just not an option. Lapis, you're pretty biased about which skill are "not good". I think you'd benefit a lot by playing a character who actually tried to use Endurance and Streetwise frequently and see if those skill were actually not good, or if it turns out they were only "not good" because you just don't try to use them much. Dan, we should have more skill support either way.

I must say, it is weird to have people be in favor of minmaxing and against people being able to make character fitting choices at the same time.

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

I've tried to explain this before Xel.

I, Kindulas and Nehiel Mori all love character optimization. We're huge fans of building fun, interesting and powerful-as-possible builds, combos and more.

We want there to be lots of options for character builds, strategies and combinations that allow lots of cool and powerful effects to blossom.

However, when one build is FAR more powerful than the other options - those other options become meaningless.

If you've ever played in any type of game where raw power really matters, such as the competitive levels of a TCG or RTS, you know that a healthy metagame means having a lot of different viable options to bring to a tournament. If there's one or two overwhelmingly oppressive strategies, meaning that bringing any other build means you're going to be a lot less effective than otherwise, all your creative ideas for playing other strategies become less relevant.

We want to make this system something that we can have fun building in - including all sorts of various, viable, creative strategies. And that means making sure that there aren't 1 or 2 options that are SO much more powerful that optimizers really don't have any options for an optimal build besides one of those 2.

TLDR; When 100 different options are all equally viable in terms of power, there's lots of room to get creative and vary things up. When 1 or 2 options are far more powerful than any of the other 98 - optimizers that love fiddling with the system have a lot less toys to fiddle with. Only a few of their tools are up to their standards. Keeping the options balanced is *good* for people that like building characters.

[Xel Unknown]

Really... Quit trying to dumb down the system...

Elaborate please.  Don't get your thought process at all since a fused Perception is the simpler option.

That was my strong opinion to the "dropping the Attributes" topic that was bounced around... I'd find such a change to be making the system a lesser then then how it is with it. I might be fine with adding new Attributes where you can pick like four different thingies or have different sets or the like... That might be a worthwhile thing to add to the system. *shrugs*

[Ramsus]

Hmmm, let's try an example. Would you rather a ninja looked like this:

Current style:

or something like this:

Attribute-less proposal:

[ZamuelNow]

I misunderstood. My apologies Xel.

[Xel Unknown]

Perosnally I'd love to see more builds like that first one... But that's just me. And I will admit that the second build's style... Doesn't look bad... Still not totally for the idea.

Cause I also enjoy having the stats of Brawn, Precision, Knowledge, and Horse-Sense... Those are neat stats to have on the sheet as well... Sure people don't really demade them to be used that much... But that just means that GMs should maybe find a use for them maybe? Or something... I do think we'd be losing a good deal for the system if we just axe the Attributes altogether.

[Fury of the Tempest]

Nyeh... there is.... convincing arguments on both sides.

However, I'll have to say I prefer the attributes as they are... keeps everything a bit more well defined imo

[Ramsus]

????

I don't really get it. You want to keep them because you like how they look on the sheet? You can say GMs should use them more but... they don't. And this is because it's really difficult to excuse doing so for any reason than "because I'm being a dick and don't want you to have your skill bonuses to what would otherwise be a skill check". So yeah, I have no idea what is is you think we'd be losing other than an enforced structure that keeps some concepts from being viable for no particular reason.

[Fury of the Tempest]

Well, not only does help them look better on the sheets, but helps better define the overlap's. How one's ability in one skill can also boost another.

Plus, there are times when skillless checks need to be made.

[ZamuelNow]

There's a lot of different ways of portraying a ninja so structure being supposedly restrictive really depends on your views.  Especially since a standard mook is going to be different than a specialized warrior, a diplomat with tricks up their sleeve, or a clan leader.

[Ramsus]

helps better define the overlap's. How one's ability in one skill can also boost another.

What? I actually don't know what you mean or what you could possibly be referring to here.

Plus, there are times when skillless checks need to be made.

That is so amazingly infrequent that you could solve the problem by just telling them to roll a d20 with no bonuses at all. (The GM could apply off-screen bonuses based on the character on their own.)

Edit: Zamuel, it was just an example of something that needs skills from all over the place but, not every single skill, that doesn't end up working out too well based on which skills are tied to which attributes.

[Fury of the Tempest]

Screw it. I'll be lazy and just quote Z2 for my argument.

Personally, I like attributes from every perspective.

From a logical perspective it makes some sense for characters with a lot of knowledge to accumulate them over a variety of things, or for people who are rather observant and pick up on minor changes in the environment to also have some skills at reading and steering people, as well as reading situations.

From a mechanical perspective, grouping the oft-applicable athletics and endurance stats together under a smaller banner than the others helps to balance the strength of attribute points. Likewise with placing some oft and less used skills together, forcing players to really consider what they want to trade off for what else. If investing in persuasion doesn't require investing in perception and streetsmarts, or investing in arcana doesn't require history or heal; I think we'll be seeing LESS variation, not more.

From a flavor/roleplaying perspective, having a beefy character who'd rather focus his efforts on pacifism just FEELS so much more right when you can represent that through 10 brawn but horse sense based training.

From a lazy perspective, we've got them now and we would be going to a lot of trouble just to take away something people like if we try to remove them.

From a simple perspective, it doesn't get significantly easier than 'spread 8 points about these 4, then tack +3 onto your choice of 2 from these 11' and adding the statement 'and if you were able to handle that, we have these clearly defined add-ons you can also try if you're into that kind of thing; but don't worry about it.'

[Ramsus]

So, we shouldn't change to something that works well for all concepts because we have something that works well for some concepts and people will bitch at change just because it's change? Wow, I guess we should never make any changes to the system then.

[Fury of the Tempest]

So, we shouldn't change to something that works well for all concepts because we have something that works well for some concepts and people will bitch at change just because it's change? Wow, I guess we should never make any changes to the system then.

Ramsus.

If it did work well for all concept.

THEN EVERYONE WOULD AGREE WITH GETTING RID OF THE ATTRIBUTES.

[Lapis-Lazily]

If anything, general consensus seems to be against removing attributes for a variety of good reasons. I'm not saying there aren't benefits to removing attributes. It could be really cool, I even tried to write up a version of the skills system without attributes once, but I realized that while both sides have pros and cons, removing attributes has more cons. This isn't a fear of change thing. It's about making sure the system stays fair and balanced.

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

I'd say it's too early to come to a decision either way. 

It seems eliminating attributes is pretty much going to be unamibuously better... If the problems can be addressed. There really seems to be only one Pro and one Con.

Pro: Extra options. For example, you could specialize in Persuasion without having to specialize in Perception.

Con: Being able to specialize in the most useful skills (Athletics, Persuasion etc.) Without getting a bundle of less useful skills (Endurance, Streetwise) will make some skills pretty much strictly worse options to take. Getting them bundled like this makes sure less useful skills still get some support in the group.


If we can implement the change without suffering the effects of the Con - then the change would probably be great. Focusing discussion on how to get around that problem seems to be a productive way for this conversation to evolve.

[Paper Shadow]

So, we shouldn't change to something that works well for all concepts because we have something that works well for some concepts and people will bitch at change just because it's change? Wow, I guess we should never make any changes to the system then.

Ramsus.

If it did work well for all concept.

THEN EVERYONE WOULD AGREE WITH GETTING RID OF THE ATTRIBUTES.

Different people value different things. It's unreasonable to expect everyone to agree with stuff...

Also, there has been things in the past where the general consensus was for or against something that did or didn't happen. It's kinda hard to know things when you have to consider the difference of interest between the vocal majority and those who remain silent because they have nothing to add or contest. I wouldn't mind some change to attributes. The fact that the Knowledge Meta (imo) is All-or-Nothing Magecraft characters does annoy me. Ramsus recently done something in his new game where the players made their own attributes (with the GM selecting the last skill of each one, to prevent absolute min-maxing madness), and while I don't think that will work at large, especially with new GMs who may not understand that not all skills are equal, but I think it shows that there can be a change in how attributes work...

Personally, I would like to see all the skills get reworked, but that would up heave the entire Out of Combat system, so I can understand why the devs don't wish to do such an undertaking...

[Stairc -Dan Felder]

I have no problem with reworking the skill system. There's a reason I proposed eliminating the attributes after all. =)

[Lapis-Lazily]

One way I could see taking some of the pressure off of having skills that are clearly better than others, if attributes were removed, is to, like DnD, split some of them up. For example, Persuasion is really good right now because it encompasses Bluff, Intimidate, and Diplomacy. Were those split back up, none of these skills would be nearly as powerful. Once magecraft is nerfed, arcana's major problems are pretty much fixed. Athletics, however, would still be a clearly powerful skill, and I'm not sure how it could be broken up, or if that's even a good idea. If we were to remove attributes, it may also be a good time to include some skills the system lacks, like nature. Even so, this fix is hardly comprehensive or even great, as it adds much more complexity to the skills system without actually making the options batter.

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