A discussion of stats.

[brytta.leofa]

But sparring isn't competing. It's practice. It's training. It's attempting to improve your own personal best, not to prove yourself better than your opponent.

You're an awesome person, Lizzie, but you're not a guy.   

[LittleLostThief]

I never said it was unrealistic.  Everyone wants to "win" sometimes, and everyone wants their best to be better than anyone elses.

The problem is that "winning" all of the time, as it relates to this game in sparring, doesn't do very much in the way of continuing your progression.

When I train IRL, I look for the baddest mutha in the valley and I fight him until he's disgusted with beating me.  I know that I have the potential to learn more from a better opponent.  I know that getting "beaten" will improve my personal game.  The lines of "win" and "lose" aren't so clearly defined in this situation.  My opponent might "win" by beating me with the rules, but I am "winning" because I am increasing my repertoire of relating skills.

Then when I turn around and play in a tournament, I do better against each enemy that I face off against.  They might still be better than me, but my own level has risen.  Sometimes it's not even about winning and beating out every single opponent, but about doing better than I've ever done before, and feeling good about my performance.

All of this might be a little biased since it doesn't approach a life or death situation...
I think the big misconception here continues to be that people feel fairly frozen at their "out of the box" ability.  They don't feel like they'll ever hit much more, swing much harder, or do much better than they are able to do from 0 days and 0 hours.

I might argue until I'm blue in the face that skill is greater than stats and be right, but I don't feel like this addresses the major issue presented here.  Skill might trump stats hands down, but "skill" is a long road and "stats" have the potential to provide instant gratification.  Not everyone could be patient with a "poor strength" fighter for the ungodly amount of time that it takes to be a true badass, nor have fun along the way developing such a character.  It boils down to the fun.

Something that I think would help everyone... might be to to look at the soldier NPC's in whatever point of civilization you live in.  It's typically accepted that soldier NPCs are awesomely badass and will kill you quickly, even one on one.  It is my opinion that more of these NPC's have a skill level that is "average".  The thing that leads people astray is believing that a 0 day 0 hour anything is "average", where a higher developed character is "awesome".  Your higher developed character is probably close to average, where as your n00b PC is only poor.  Your hundred day warrior is totally awesome, kills NPC soldiers by the score, and deserves his position after putting in so many real life YEARS into the game.

Most of this was kind of masturbatory and my use of quotations was excessive.  I still argue that when you enter into a sparring situation, your focus should be on personal development rather than asserting dominance.  I'm not even suggesting that you shouldn't be proud of running your home field, just that you should understand the implications of consistent winning.  Any higher end fighter type will tell you what a pain it is to advance after a certain point, when you cease to get the snot kicked out of you.

[Gimfalisette]

But sparring isn't competing. It's practice. It's training. It's attempting to improve your own personal best, not to prove yourself better than your opponent.

You're an awesome person, Lizzie, but you're not a guy.   

Remember that one warrior woman of mine? She loved to win in the sparring ring. She was just usually too gracious to gloat over y'all when she did.

Competition has nothing to do with gender. It has to do with the individual's desire for dominance. Wanting to dominate in the sparring ring is A-OK. (Or anywhere else )

[jhunter]

Littlelostthief-
Oh I agree with you that skills trump stats. I was just making a point about that one particular statement you made. It sounded as if you were saying that people were going OOC with their pc wanting to be dominant in sparring matches.

[LittleLostThief]

I should probably be arguing that you can still have -fun- with poor stats, and that you aren't totally gimped by them.  You can still develop relationships and enjoy the crux of the game.  You can still be useful to your friends or business associates, and you still have something amazing to offer.  You can still have your character progress to a point where you are a formidable opponent, and it is possible to take something with poor strength and eventually dominate that absolutely incredibly strengthened guy that popped out of the box and thrashed you around.  It's just a lot harder, and it's especially a lot harder now with a few changes to the combat code.

Oldschool, someone would have made a d00d with AI out of the box and never even been able to tag someone with a passable defense.  All that phenomenal strength wouldn't have held a candle to staying power, persistence, and skill.  I've struggled with the new system some and I have to say that I like the fact it's so much easier to hit your opponent all the way around.  I think it's a little more realistic, and achieving a phenomenally untouchable character is still possible, though it takes an even longer investment of time.

As a leader or someone responsible for other characters in any way, I can promise you that I'd much rather have a character around with poor strength that was patient and had the ability to show some staying power, than some absolutely incredibly strengthened gimp that I know is going to go out and die while hunting because they feel like they're invincible when they are most absolutely not.  *takes a breath*.  Even someone with AI strength WITH persistent staying power might not top my list of "favorite" employee, because it's easy to see how they are also deficient in many ways.  It's much harder for them to build a well rounded character as it relates directly to their skill set.

Johnny the Homocidal Maniac might consistently throw out brutal shots because his arms are so beefy, but it makes it harder for him to spar with his friends.  Then when we're all out in the desert and we're attacked by droves of something nasty, Johnny shows everyone that he's a glass howitzer.  He's still valuable, but winds up being a much weaker link than he thinks he is.

[brytta.leofa]

Competition has nothing to do with gender. It has to do with the individual's desire for dominance.

Touché.  But, in real life (not 'geddon), testosterone tends to be a major influence; plus, that sort of thing has been rather more encouraged for males.

[Gimfalisette]

But, in real life (not 'geddon), testosterone tends to be a major influence; plus, that sort of thing has been rather more encouraged for males.

Women have testosterone too, albeit (averagely) somewhere in range of 5 to 10% of what a man has. But it's just not possible to directly correlate testosterone with dominance; the numbers being what they are, it would be an exceedingly rare woman who has more testosterone than any given man. And yet there are plenty of women who are more dominant than many men.

What I'm saying is, there's lots more factors.

[Malken]

Hey, LittleLostThief, no one will remember your character in a month, but everyone will always remember my +50 days human warrior with AI strength and exceptional agility who could take on
bahamets by himself like they were mere gimpka rats.

Try to do that with a warrior with poor agility, even in 50 days of playtime, I can guarantee you that you'll still get beaten badly by a lot of critters and PCs who were
lucky enough to get great stats.

You know, not -every- characters with great stats die within a few days of playtime.

[Lizzie]

I think it's a fine character concept, to want to win even in sparring. I think it is more of a player's need to "win" when the -player- thinks that you're supposed to want to win in sparring.

As long as it is an individual character's perspective, and not the player's need to dominate, then that's just fun roleplay.

What burns me, is when I the sparring -becomes- the competition, no matter who I'm sparring with. It's like, uh, hay gaiz, we iz playing, this r not srly now.

And I might be a man or I might not...but most serious athletes will strive for their personal best, over beating the crap out of some rookie just cause they want to win. Most serious athletes train because they want to get better, so when it comes time for the -actual- competition, they can win. Winning during training is a bonus. It isn't the purpose, and it certainly isn't the focus. When we practice golf, we play to see if we can get our total shots down from our lowest. Our OWN lowest, not our opponent's lowest. Cause he's not our opponent when we're practicing. He's our partner.

When we go bowling, we practice to lower our own average, or to learn how to maneuver around the House's oil conditions. Not to beat the guy we're bowling with, or to beat the team of girl-scouts in the next pair of lanes.

When we have batting practice on the baseball field, we hit balls to improve our aim, to help us learn more about the different pitches, and how not to rip the knees on our pants when we slide.

When we practice ice hockey in the rink, we practice how to make the the fights the most entertaining, brutal, and bloody for the crowds in the stands..I mean uhm..we practice our shooting, our mastery over the ice, our ability to get away from people chasing us with 4-foot-long wooden sticks...

Basically practice is to improve. Winning is only winning if you are actually -competing against- someone. If you are sparring WITH someone, then they are your partner, not your opponent. And if you are sparring WITH that person, you want THEM to get better too. Because in a -real- fight, he will be along side of you, fighting WITH you against the opponent.

[Qzzrbl]

The T'zai Byn, I'll use it as an example, is full of brutish, crude mercenaries who like bloodying things up and getting paid to do so. Egos tend to flare, and testosterone flows like a river in the compounds, and most of them are trying to make themselves look as good as possible so they get promotions, so they can get paid more to bloody things up.

At least that's my take on it.

Occasionally you'll find a nice guy in there who'll sit you down and teach you stuff, but most everyone else just wants to beat the crap out of you during sparring. The usual thought is, "If they don't wanna get beat up so bad, they'll jes' hafta get better."

[LittleLostThief]

Nobody will remember your character in six years, but that's really not the point here.

There is an undeniable gap between what similarly skilled characters with radically different stats can do fo sho.

Each character has their own hardships to face and their own obstacles to overcome.  My argument is that it's still possible for a "poorly" statted character to succeed and be enjoyable.  Eventually, a poor agility character will still be able to kick a bahamets ass solo.  That might not need to be your primary goal, but the possibility and potential is there.

You shouldn't feel like it's impossible to succeed just because some of your stats are stinky.  Then again, I've never played someone with poor stats all the way around, and that might change my perspective a little.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

The only time stats matter is when they do not fit your character concept. Again, concept. In such situations, negotiations with the staff or storing are in order. At any other time, deal with it and move on.

[flurry]

On the issue of suiciding for stats, I think it would be good to try to fix the root causes.  I like the suggestions of some kind of automated, or at least faster, way to store characters.  I doubt I'll ever dump a character over stats (I like a challenge), but I empathize with the people who don't want to wait RL days for what may just be a formality (in some cases).

I also think if people used that kind of automated approach, the staff could at least track why people are storing their 1-hour old characters.  Then at least they'd be in a better position to try to prevent the "unplayable" rolls from happening in the first place.

On a side note, I'm really curious how often people are doing this.  Because I think it actually makes the problem worse, by making great stats more common, causing lower stats to feel more unplayable, resulting in more silt sea swims, etc.  I don't buy the "no harm done" argument at all.

[Clearsighted]

The root cause is putting alot of time and effort into the chargen, and beyond that, building them up in your head in an idealized fashion.

In some ways, I think it is best to make a character as vague as you can, and then fill in the blanks later. Otherwise, you'll almost certainly be disappointed.

[Yam]

I don't have a problem with bad stats. In most areas of the game they add flavor and they're fine.

I just think that they have far too much of an influence on combat.

[a strange shadow]

I don't have a problem with bad stats. In most areas of the game they add flavor and they're fine.

I just think that they have far too much of an influence on combat.

QFT

[solera]

Hey, LittleLostThief, no one will remember your character in a month, but everyone will always remember my +50 days human warrior with AI strength and exceptional agility who could take on
bahamets by himself like they were mere gimpka rats.

I've had only a handful of characters so I can't speak with any authority.
But....
My most rewarding character so far was a fighter with Bad stats. She was also handicapped by half of her sparring partners being vpc's.   
Stories are based around conflict, and every day was a challenge for her. Would another new recruit turn up to treat her with comtempt after a few rounds.  Would it be today she was accidentally killed by one of her friends? 
I don't know which beasts she could kill ..she didn't do much solo fighting, she was part of a team.
But I think she probably would've been remembered for more than a month,  because she stuck around for a while, and because she had issues stemming from her various handicaps. And she was counterpoint to some of her awesome associates,  who will be remembered.

Of course, I am still looking forward to one day making a winner, whether she gets her prize by natural talent or the right attitude.

[Delstro]

You know what I hated more than any bad stat?

EG Wisdom. I never failed at anything and never felt like I would get better at anything. That is the worst.

[LittleLostThief]

While stats might be overcome with patience and time, that doesn't address the problem of players not being able to have fun along the long road.

The social aspect of the game does some to alleviate this problem, but not all of us are hardcore socializers.

Maybe if there were more coded things to do that didn't necessarily rely on stats or even specific skills it could work to making d00ds that can't solo a bahamet fun to play during the "inept" times.

Characters might start at the low end of the totem pole as far as skill is concerned, far below a Zalanthan average, but they shouldn't ever feel like it would be hopeless to become "average".

[Sephiroto]

Has anyone ever heard of the Bell Curve?  Why is "average" the closest level to poor?  "Average" stats are normally below the average of what is normally rolled.  When I have an average stat I get pissed because I almost always get above average or better on all my stats.  Can we change the names of the stats because "average" really isn't average in Zalanthas.  In most cases "average" means beaten and "good+" means winning.

[staggerlee]

Has anyone ever heard of the Bell Curve?  Why is "average" the closest level to poor?  "Average" stats are normally below the average of what is normally rolled.  When I have an average stat I get pissed because I almost always get above average or better on all my stats.  Can we change the names of the stats because "average" really isn't average in Zalanthas.  In most cases "average" means beaten and "good+" means winning.

I'm pretty sure the names of the stats are meant to be taken at face value. Average means average, poor means poor, exceptional means exceptional.   People are competing because they feel their stats need to be high relative to everyone around them, not because of what the stats are called or what the actual value is.

I'm all for hiding stats and removing the issue entirely, it's the only way I can see to get people to stop getting so worked up over the numbers.  It's that or just drop the stat system entirely, but I think the variety is good for the game.

[Is Friday]

I'm all for hiding stats, if there are coded ways to test them without fighting some random creature.

But that doesn't exactly make much sense, to remove a player's ability to be able to tell how strong your person is. The character would know.

[staggerlee]

I'm all for hiding stats, if there are coded ways to test them without fighting some random creature.

But that doesn't exactly make much sense, to remove a player's ability to be able to tell how strong your person is. The character would know.

My feeling is that it's like real life. It's all kind of relative and insubstantial.  There aren't really definitive tests to measure total intelligence, strength etc in real life.  Well not really reliable ones, and it somewhat depends on how you define the categories.  The extreme examples are easily apparent, but most people fall into the fuzzy midrange. 
I'm not sure people currently rp their characters exactly the way their stats are listed anyway, I suspect that "exceptional" strength has been played as everywhere from waifish to hulking, and wisdom is probably even more random.

[Malken]

Armageddon is a game, not real life.

[spicemustflow]

I just got the crappiest stats imaginable for what I think is a cool char concept. So you people stop complaining and enjoy your virtual life.