Should weight lifting affect stats?

[John]

I can't remember, it might have been in the archives from 96 for all I know (I've read most of the arhives). Or I could be mis-remembering something (very likely).

I think I remember the Imm saying they don't mind, but in the same sentence stressed how much GOOD REASONING AND NOT MAKING A HABIT OF IT[/b] was. I also think I remember them mentioning lowering skills and saying "but no-one asks for that".

I don't know, my memory can be extremely good at times, and suprisingly faulty at other times.

This could have also been back when there wasn't rerolls. So the policy could have/probably changed.

[picklehead]

One idea that just came to mind, in regards to wanting stats that more closely reflected the description of your character. For example, if you're playing an obese character, chances are he's not going to be very fleet of foot, so he'd likely have a lower agility. On the other hand, his massive girth might give him some added brute strength, thus resulting in a higher-than-average strength stat. One way of doing this without having to pester the imms would be to implement something during character creation that alows you to rank the stats from most important to least important, so that during the stat roll they're weighted according to your perception of the character. Granted, you could still have shitty stats, but of the stats, your most important would be the least shitty of the four and so on .

Anyhow, I don't actually mind the system the way it is, just throwing this idea out for the sake of debate.

I'm pretty sure the rolling system already takes into account weight.

[John]

I'm pretty sure the rolling system already takes into account weight.

But the weight is EXTREMELY restrictive and doesn't allow for truly obese people (on the assumption they're pretty rare), but I doubt anyone is going to want to special app JUST for an obese char And plus the highest amount of weight allowed to humans. 2 people would choose that. A fat person and a strong person. How does the code differentiate the two?

[Rindan]

Its not very cool to create a character with a certain background with stats that do not reflect it.

For example, the fatass merchant.  What kind of fatass merchant would have extremely good or absolutely incredible agility?  None, but it can happen.

I don't know how many times it has been said, just don't build characters around stats.  If you are going to build a character around stats, then get an e-mail ready to ask the imms to alter your stats or special app.  In the case of a fat ass merchant, who cares if his agility is high?  What are the chances that stat is ever going to mean a damned thing?  At best it will give him a slight bonus to agi.  Further, since you decided to use a case when the stats might be too high, I am fairly sure that the the imms will be happily to reduce stats if you just ask.

It has been said a thousand times.  Just don't build characters purely on stats.  

Make your assassin an aspiring assassin.  Don't put into his background that he can catch kank flies with his mad reflexes with his eyes closed.  If he turns out to be slow, then it is just an obstacle to overcome.

Make your burly warrior, but don't put into your background that he can lift a mek.  Just because he looks strong doesn't mean that he never broke his arm or is just bulky.  Make him want to be the biggest and most bad ass warrior.  If you get there, great.  If not, then oh well.  He is just another character who failed to reach his goals.

You want to have the cunning merchant, fine, go ahead and put into his background that he is quick upstairs.  If his wisdom stat rolls low, then it just means that while he might be quick, he has a harder time picking up things.  Bill Gates might be a smart guy, but that doesn't mean that he can learn to sword fight quickly.

Your stats could very well suck.  Base your character's background on stats at your own risk.[/b]  Or better yet, don't base your background on something as superficial as stats.

[creeper386]

Also, when you get bad stats... You don't have to make them so straight forward... Although strenght is alittle straight forward that doesn't mean things can't be different otherwise.

Like, some fat ass merchant with absolutely incredible agility... That doesn't mean he's an acrobat or a tumbler. You can still have GREAT hand eye cordination if your fat, and I've seen some big people move quickly and accurately when it comes down to things. And so what if he has low wisdom, code wise that may mean you learn skills slower, RP wise doesn't mean he's dumb. He could be highly intelligent but maybe he's also luny? Perhaps he's absolutely cunning bastard, a regular strategy genious, but he has bad habits of talking to people about things he shouldn't. Does this mean that all of the characters with high or low stats should have quirks to give a reason why it's like that? No... Not really, specially with a too high stat... IGNORE it, but when it comes to lower stats... I love adding in little quirks to off set things, and give a reason why this military genious has below average wisdom... He's just a plan fucking crazy when it comes to his own personally well being or something... Who knows.

maybe you shouldn't do this... But I think it's alot of fun, SURE stats may not match up incredibly well, but  thats only if you take things for face value. Heck I'm sure you could come up with ALL sorts of things for strength even but I'm going on about 24 hours of no food so I can't think.

Creeper

[John]

He's just a plan fucking crazy

hehe. I thought "hey, that's me!" except then I realised you didn't mean he makes lots of crazy plans

To emphasize on what everyone has said, skills and stats AREN'T always important. Even when you think they might be. I've made chars who I thought would use their skills a lot. Well it got to the stage where I'd type "skills" every once in a while JUST to remind myself what they were!

So even if you PLAN on making your character skills dependant, plans don't always work the way you think they will.

[Sephiroto]

Creeper wrote:

And so what if he has low wisdom, code wise that may mean you learn skills slower, RP wise doesn't mean he's dumb. He could be highly intelligent but maybe he's also luny? Perhaps he's absolutely cunning bastard, a regular strategy genious, but he has bad habits of talking to people about things he shouldn't.

I do agree that there are characters like that with no doubt what so ever, but in Arm, the wisdom roll is infact wheather you're extremely smart, or a complete retard just as strength lets you carry three baobab logs, or are a puny weak-looking nerd like me who can hardly lift his spoon to his mouth to whet his ravenous appetite.

Or atleast that's what I think...

[Delirium]

Wisdom and intelligence are two different things.

[Angela Christine]

I do agree that there are characters like that with no doubt what so ever, but in Arm, the wisdom roll is infact wheather you're extremely smart, or a complete retard

Wisdom mainly sets how quickly you learn, which isn't all there is to inteligence.  You can be a witty conversationalist but a slow learner.  You can have a photographic memory but be a slow learner when it comes to putting your memories into context and use.  You can be the best "Boggle" player in the country, and still be slow when learning new things.  You can be renowned concert musician and still be a slow learner.

AC

[Kronus]

Not that this example applies to Zalanthas in any way, but we used to say in D&D that:

Intelligence was the ability to look up at the sky and go, "Hey, it's raining."
Wisdom was the ability to feel the rain and go, "Hey, if I stand under that awning I'll stay dry."

[creeper386]

Code wise, wisdom effects as far as I know, rate of learning, as well as success of things of the brain... I don't consider the stat wisdom to be acctually wisdom or acctually intelligence(And yes I play D&D and even if I didn't they are STILL two seperate things) it is acctually both of them and probably more.

Example... Witty Professor, very smart guy, not too wise. He could have a high wisdom or a low wisdom and you can still RP him as the Nutty Professor because when you take into account wisdom isn't a painting on a wall but a two sided coin, BOTH work. Sure, if your playing a really smart guy, a high wisdom would be alot better, but if you get low wisdom doesn't mean you have to play someone stupid, or even that RP wise they learn slow, they can just have certain idiosyncrisies(SP?? BLAH) that level out things... Or you can just still RP him as a really smart guy(But personally, I like making my character concept, and them attach things do to the stats.

CODE wise, strength effects how much you can carry, how big of weapons you can use, and how much damage you have, perhaps your big buff guy gets a crap strength roll... Well, maybe he just doesn't like big weapons and likes to travel light, only carrying about useful things. Maybe even with all that muscle, it's more toned for quicker responses then slamming the torque meter all the way acrossed.

Agility... Now this one is about as two faces and wisdom, there can be so many different things I shouldn't probably mention anything... A fat guy with high agility... Well you don't want to get in the way when he's eatting, no try to snag that purse of 'sid of the table, because your wasting your time it's already gone. Now if you have a small scrawny pick pocket... He ends up being massively strong and has the dexterity of a drunken cow... Well that might be throwing things off abit, but you can still work with it. Maybe those scrawny little arms are acctually extremely well toned... And acctually I've seen small scrawny people that are ALOT stronger then a big buff looking guy, because that scrawny little guys muscles would working ALOT more together and didn't have to contend with fat or anything else. But most likely, if you have a small scrawny guy, his agilities going to be better off then his strength.

One of the reasons I really like going to the extremes when I'm making a class. A warrior might be shorter and heavier, a thief taller and and skinnier... And in all actuallity it works out decently for getting stats that fit your class... But, Tall and fat, short and skinny being on the same ends of both spectrums, most likely your stats are going to be more in the middle... Although I have NO clue how accurate this paragraph thing is(The jumble of words in the same block of this sentance).


Creeper who just confused himself he thinks.

[Sephiroto]

I didnt feel like reading Creeper's 30 page essay about my post, but yeah....I guess I was wrong.

[Rindan]

Personally, I see no reason to play out a high or low wisdom score.  As far as the code is concerned, wisdom just affects how fast you learn things and a few other traits.  You could have the lowest wisdom score a human can have and it is very doubtful anyone would notice.  I just play my characters at the intilligence I planed to play them at, and just assume that the wisdom stat effects how quickly he picks up on skills, not his intilligence, cunning, memory, or anything else that would effect my RP.

[creeper386]

It's really sad, but Rindan kind of somed up what I was saying here... But everyone has had a habit of making MASSIVE posts so I figured I'd wait untill the fad went away and start doing it myself.

The only difference is I tend to add little quirks that make my character fit his stats better, which I think is fun, and tends to add alittle more, Zalanthanity to my characters. Kind of flushes them out alittle more, and more often then not it's little personality problems that give me a solid base to make mistakes from. Because sometimes when you come up with a character idea, you don't put in enough problems they have.

Ooh, like maybe if you have a big burly character planning on being strong and your get a really slow strength score, maybe it's because he is strong, but he has really bad time tiring out REALLY quickly so as to degrade himself with smaller weapons and a lighter pack, otherwise he might be sitting out on a dune someplace trying to wease loudly to call along predators to hurry up and end his terrible existance... I don't know... But it might work... He has the strength, but if he came down to acctually using it to much it leads to overexcertion(SP? shrug). Could be a result of some krath damn 'rinther disease he suffered from as a kid.


Creeper

[Kalden]

This could all be so easily fixed if we had that one idea, rating what stats you want. Or even better, letting you see your stats before you make your long description or short desc.

Your stats are your character's innate abilities. To me, saying stats don't matter is stupid. You are playing a role, and that role is not only determined by you, but by your stats. That means, if you have terrible wisdom, you should in some way be slow and dumb. If you have a exceptional strength, you're likely to be cocky, maybe a bit of a bully.

Everyone in the world is defined by their abilities. IRL, I'm not a strong person myself, so I devote myself to books and learning. My good friend hates reading, and is strong as hell, does well in sports. It defines how we act and what we do with our lives.

Remember, you're playing a role here... can't just ignore your characters characteristics, right?

What I'm saying is that there needs to be a way for you to know your stats before you make your character. I'm not likely to become a warrior if my strength, agility, endurance are all low but my wisdom is high.

[crymerci]

Working out is not a new concept.  The ancient Greeks went to to gymnasium every day.  They did isometric and calisthenic excercises, weights may be a fairly new idea but working out definately is not.

The wind itself can blow hot winds from the Salt Flats across the earth, raising the temperatures in cities such as Allanak to well above one hundred forty degrees.
http://www.armageddon.org/general/misc.html

You go right on ahead and work out, "Guest". My ass will be sitting in a tavern swilling booze.

I would like there to be some way to control which stat is the highest or something because despite what many people have said low strength really can damage a character concept.

I agree with this. If we could choose the actual order from highest to lowest that would be even better, but just being able to choose which gets the highest roll would be nice.

[Angela Christine]

I agree that it would be nice to know your stats when you are writing your description.  Do you weigh 9 ten stones because you are very muscular, or  because you have a massive pot belly.  If your strength and agility are both low, it's more likely to be a pot belly than rippling muscles.  

I just can't think of a feasable way that you could know your stats ahead of time.  If someone sees they have gotten what they consider crappy stats, they might shelve that really cool character concept and write up a quick "throw-away" character with the intent of getting it killed quickly, so they can try again.  At the end of the character creation process you can make changes to the character, what happens if someone makes their character as tall and heavy as possible, and approaching middle age, in and effort to pump up strength, endurance and wisdom, and then once the stats are set  they revise the character so it is a scrawny kid with the stats of a beefy adult?  If the system rerolls the stats when you adjust stat-affecting characteristics, some people would keep tinkering with those characteristics all day until they got a stat combo they liked.   That's just human nature.  If you are going to allow that kind of tinkering, you might as well just allow infinite rerolls, it would be easier on everyone.

What I'm saying is that there needs to be a way for you to know your stats before you make your character. I'm not likely to become a warrior if my strength, agility, endurance are all low but my wisdom is high.

You might, if the only other job available to you was to be a Farmer.  I worked at a 7-11 for a year despite the fact that it wasn't a good fit for my personality and abilities, because that was the only job I could find at the time.  I didn't like it, in fact a loathed nearly every minute of it, but it was better than being on welfare.  

Today many people have a lot of choice in what kind of career they choose, but most of the time they don't.  You are usually stuck either doing what your parents did, or taking one of a few (usually unattractive) open career paths.  If your parents were farmers, your choice is to be a Farmer or go to the city join the military, become a prostitute, a crap-sweeper, or a criminal.  If your parents had some money and influence int he community they might be able to buy you an apprenticeship with a local craftsman, assuming that he didn't have enough children of his own to carry on the buisness.   There aren't many _good_ jobs that will take just anyone off the street.  Sure, in the game anybody can get almost any job, including a cushy position with a merchant house or as a noble's lacky, but realistically most characters don't have those opportunities.  Most merchant and noble house positions will naturally be filled by the children of current employees.  When your kid is old enough he becomes an apprentice or a page for your organization, almost automatically.  

It usually takes a special app or at least prior approval of the clan imm to claim that your parents work for a particular Clan, so most people don't bother.  The PCs in leadership positions are forced to hire some bozo off the street with no references and no experience, because that is usually the only kind of PC labor available, the OOC situation warps the IC situation.

When your stats are unsuited to your class, either the character had some reason to choose that career despite the fact that he is not naturally suited for it, he was forced onto that path by his childhood circumstances, or he finds another job that doesn't rely on codded skills.  There are plenty of jobs where skills aren't that important.  I've had characters make a good living as scavengers, hauling in findables and foragables, and selling them to city folk, the only skills I needed were "forage" and "ride" and everyone can get pretty good at those two.  As a lacky, servant or Advisor there are plenty of skills that are helpful but none that are essential.  Even jobs as a warrior usually depend more on your RP than on your coded abilities.  If you get hired by the Tor Scorpions, they will OOCly expect your skills to suck because all new character's skills suck.  After a few RL weeks they will figure out that you weak, sickly, and lead-footed, but if you are a good RPer they will probably keep you on anyway.  (I'm just guessing, I've never actually played in Tor, but most employers are more concerned with good roleplay than coded skills).  

Don't give up on that low strength, low endurance, low agility, high wisdom warrior too quickly.  As a new warrior he is going to suck more than most new warriors but pretty soon, probably within a few playtime days, his high wisdom will allow his skills to advance significantly faster than the low wisdom warriors' skills.   He may develop the skill of an average 10 day warrior in just 7 days, and once your skills get good they become more important than your stats.  There is always a playable angle.  The fact that he will never be able to use heavy armor and weapons is a permanent pain in the ass, but finding good quality feather-wieght equipment can provide a continuing goal for him.

But I still agree that it sucks when the stats screw up a cool character concept you spent hours working on.  If you want to play a certain kind of character a certain way, the fact that the character is still playable another way is cold comfort.  I once wanted to play a specific kind of hunter/crafter that could work in an area that involved a lot of climbing, so I chose the Assassin/armorcrafter combo.  At the time the description of the Armorcrafter subclass lead me to believe it included the skinning ability.  It didn't, and assassins don't get skinning either.  So I had a character that could move around my chosen terrain and kill my chosen prey, but couldn't skin to save her life.  Since she had no skins she wasn't able to do any leatherworking, and was stuck collecting plants and foraging for rocks to make a living.  So I know the pain of having a cool concept and getting let down by the code.     I just can't think of a way to make stats more controlible that would be in the spirit of the game.

AC

[Lazloth]

Personally, I think a character's stats should disappear from the 'score' page.

[Kalden]

That would make little sense, as you should be inclined to know at least a little of how strong you are, how quick you are, ect, in comparison to other people.