Stat Ranges - Too Broad?

[solera]

I've made a poll to see what most people are like. 

[Majikal]

For those of you that like the stats the way they are, I want to see a pros list as to what it adds to the game world and roleplay.

This is a roleplay game, give me a valid explanation on why I should alter my roleplay based on RNG. When my spindly tressy-tressed aide RNG's AI stats and is for all purposes a superhuman. Or my thickly-muscled, powerfully-built man RNG's below average strength, it breaks the idea of a character. Give me a reason why the current system is better and tell me what it adds to the game that is beneficial to ROLEPLAY.

Is it even possible to RNG a ba strength roll on a on a prioritised stat in 1st, 2nd or 3rd? Like wtf are people making big musclemans then putting str last or whatever and whining about. Being thickly muscled and all that shit doesn't make you necessarily strong either. Not sure why a spindly tressy-tressed can't be AI in stats.

I think you're confusing roleplay with 'roleplay I wanna do because fuck yeah I'm awesome', which I mean is fine for tabletop or whatever, but I mean come on, people really exaggerate this stuff for MUDs. If we go point buy, most people will play the exact same builds, either to min/max, bullshit OOC made up shit max, or stereotype their PC. At least when it's random, doing any of those things isn't reliable in making you automatically Teh Best. If you don't roll it, you work harder or rely on luck more. Or kill the better people. Jealousy rocks in this environment. MCB and all that

Didn't really give any reason why RNG is better.....

As to you talking about stat prio eliminating stat shittiness, it definitely helped... but..

On a stat prio of strength agility endurance wisdom with an adult pc. Not old. Not kid. A COMBAT class that gets bonuses to their dice throws on TWO of these four stats btw.
I got ba, ba, aa, ba
I rerolled into
aa, a, ba, p

Shit happens. That's the thing about RNG. Another drop in the bucket is this pc started with boosted skills. This pc also got their ass whooped by a fresh out of the box MERCHANT agressor, literally noob geared MERCHANT straight out of char gen.

Could I have an accident with a Mekillot or crim-code and reroll a pc with better stats? Yes. Would it save me hours of 'work harder or rely on luck more'. Yes. The silt sea and sinkhole are plagued with bodies of people that hate the fuck out of RNG. I assure you.

With a pt buy system people wouldn't always go with the same builds, they wouldn't suicide NEARLY as much, I assure you. And players would have a pc that's at least built to the image they wanted. It might make spice more appealing to. Builds and tastes of players very greatly, not every warrior would prio strength and not every ranger and assasin would prio agility. Do you want to dump all your rangers stat pts into agi for that godly archery? Maybe. But it's going to cost you melee potential and that low wis might make progression a bitch and your scan fuckall worthless. Maybe I want a tough cavalryman that I want to see be a kickass soldier. Strength and Endurace is going to be my goto, not agility so much. It gives you the leniancy to design a pc in a way that you invision it.

[wizturbo]

For those of you that like the stats the way they are, I want to see a pros list as to what it adds to the game world and roleplay.

Two points:

1)  Being at the mercy of RNG forces mediocrity and failure into a character concept.  Having some downward pressure to keep players from all playing bad asses is a positive force for the game.  If you get terrible stats, you can throw up your hands and call the character unplayable if you must, or run with it and play a character with some actual weaknesses or flaws.  At the same time, it elevates some characters unexpectedly.  That's cool too.   Consider Gregor Cleagane (The Mountain) from game of thrones.  What kind of character would he have been if he rolled a 12 strength, instead of an 18?  What kind of character would Sandor Cleagane have become if HE rolled the 18 instead of his brother?  Randomness can creates some cool stories too.  

2)  It creates a realistic amount of scarcity around physical superiority.  While you could argue that doesn't necessarily enhance an individual role, it does enhance the game environment by creating potentially conflict generating inequalities.  I personally want having exceptional strength to be...exceptional.  Or having AI agility be something that's actually rare and noteworthy...just as much as having poor agility is rare and noteworthy in a negative sense.

If there's a character concept you have that for some reason requires certain stats to be playable, you could always special app it.

As for your skill boosted, shitty rolls example...  Personally, I'd have taken it in stride.  I'd have played the veteran with plenty of experience, but injuries or bad-luck in the genetic lottery that has damned them to a life of mediocrity as a warrior despite their experience.  Doesn't mean they have to be mediocre in everything else...  Maybe they're a great leader.  Or they're an expert tactician...  Or maybe they're really bitter about it, and decide they're going to try and find magickal means to improve their lot in life, because they're sick of being beaten up by snot-nosed farmers all the time.  But then again, maybe I'm just reaching for a way to take a mundane warrior to magick-is-awesome-Land as that's my faction.

[Marauder Moe]

Or maybe this belongs here instead:

I like that some characters are just better.  They won the genetic lottery.  They have greater potential.  All the other chumps have to work harder, kill them, or accept living in their shadow.  It's exciting when you play such a character and thematic when you don't.  Equality has never been a theme of this game, after all.

[Nergal]

Not a defense of the RNG system and stat descriptors, but just to slightly elaborate on how it works: the game actually throws out what it calls "below average" rolls, or in other words, a roll that would give you base stats all at "below average" or lower before race and guild modifiers are applied. The game is designed to function for people with some average stats. Yes, it's cool to get a great stat roll. But it's not horrible to not get one, either.

The difference between each stat gradation is generally one point. Thus it's not really possible to make stat ranges narrower than they already are without tightening the stat ranges for each race and throwing off the system that already exists to cater people with relatively average stats. Stat-suicides are (apparently) typically done because the prioritized stat wasn't high enough. Although the fact of the matter is that the difference between "good" and "exceptional" is usually a mere three points. Not game-breaking, not role-ruining.

Barring the idea that staff wasted time reviewing an app that the player wasted time writing, just to suicide, stat-suicides are inefficient in a bigger way: your next role is as likely to be as undesirable to you as the last one. The game has an acceptable natural baseline for stats - average - and considers the average stat to be functional. Most equipment is usable by a human with average strength. You can still get a good amount of derived stats with average endurance. Learning isn't particularly hindered with average wisdom. You aren't that slow with average agility. The code and item building standards account for this.

[Lizzie]

Polls are fucking weird. It's pretty much a guarantee on the GDB that many people will disagree with your suggested change if it alters something already there, instead of just adds something new. People also like to play devils advocate irregardless of their personal opinions.  

It may also be more of a "silent majority" at play. In a game of 100+ people, 4-5 advocating for something on the GDB may seem like there is a lot of player desire for the change. Then you make a pole and the other 95+ vote  

Total unashamed unrelated to OP comment here, but this jumped a thought in my head: Arm sort of has different parties.

Conservatives.  Things are fine as they are.  Do not change things.

Progressives.  More changes!

MUSHers.  No new code, less code!  Do things via emote and the virtual world and imagination.

MUDers.  More code.  It's a game, dammit.

Wizturbo's Faction. Magick is awesome.  (I'm with you Wizturbo.)

And just like with regular politics, it's all some mash in the middle

You may resume your thread.  I had more to say about elections and a senate and a union of players and a union of staff,  but then I got bored.

There's also moderates
In favor of code changes to improve existing systems or provide MUSHers with more tools to roleplay the virtual world. Adverse to change just for the sake of change or to "placate" any one group listed above at the potential expense of any other one group listed above. Also thinks magick is awesome but continues to encourage its mysteriousness and spookiness. Includes Jobbers who enjoy the grind and don't want to leave them out.

[Desertman]

Played a human ranger in the Byn once. At over 45 days played I still got my ass beat in sparring by a half-elf ranger with 5 days played. No special extended backgrounds. No other factors on the table. The only factor....

I had average human agility.

They had exceptional half-elf agility.

This apparently made them better in melee than me.....and not by a small margin. I don't mean they edged me out a little now and then. I got rofl-stomped frequently by them. It wasn't even a contest.

The stat difference basically gave them 45+ days of playtime and training behind the keyboard they never had to actually do.

I hate to be the person who says "stats don't matter", but in reality, this isn't a post about how stats matter. It's a post about how they don't matter.

Despite this huge shit-stat I had that made me get my ass beat by five day characters of the same guild...I still went on to be extremely successful with that PC.

There is no denying it made melee combat with that PC a bitch and nothing I could ever depend on in any way....but it didn't ruin the PC for me. I just sort of stopped training melee all together. I realized in terms of combat I wasn't going to get anywhere at 100 days played I hadn't gotten at 45 days played. What was I going to do? Finally be able to beat that breed with 10% of the same playtime? What a huge waste of effort.

I found it better to not focus on stats or on combat at all because my roll was shit. I focused on other things, and it ended up working out great.

It was playing an average agility human ranger that made me realize you can do great things with a PC even if they are a stat-cripple, and he was.

[RogueGunslinger]

Are people seriously still talking about low stats being unplayable? And other are talking about how their low stat character was awesome? Like seriously?

I'm totally butthurt guys. You've hurt my butt.

[Drayab]

For those of you that like the stats the way they are, I want to see a pros list as to what it adds to the game world and roleplay.

As far as adding to the game world and roleplay, I think RNG and points-buy are pretty close to equal. I've played games with both, but I think Arm gets the best of both worlds with the guided RNG method using stat prioritization. Why do I like the RNG aspect of character creation?

• Greater variety among characters, no min-maxed builds, and built-in (statistical) character flaws
• Every character isn't equal sum (the world has genetic freaks)

For me, the above two points mean that the world feels more organic and less planned. I like that.

In the current system, you might get the main stat you were planning for, but maybe your dump stat ends up unusually bad. Well, enjoy your unexpected character flaw! I got a pretty bad wisdom like that one time, and it wasn't the end of the world. People commented on how slowly she was learning compared to others in her cohort. Another time I got an exceptional and an extremely good and then proceeded to kick ass across the Known, raising eyebrows as I went. I got lucky and had an experience that just doesn't happen in a points-buy system. If you're willing to roll (ha) with what the RNG gives you, you might have some unexpected fun.

Also in the current system, you have to always consider that there is a genetic freak out there that is stronger and faster than you. In a points-buy system, you can make some pretty good guesses at what the competition is like. I like having that uncertainty.

This is a roleplay game, give me a valid explanation on why I should alter my roleplay based on RNG. When my spindly tressy-tressed aide RNG's AI stats and is for all purposes a superhuman. Or my thickly-muscled, powerfully-built man RNG's below average strength, it breaks the idea of a character. Give me a reason why the current system is better and tell me what it adds to the game that is beneficial to ROLEPLAY.

I've already addressed the roleplay issue, and now I'm going to call you out on this hyperbole. 

I have never rolled an AI stat that wasn't prioritized first (I have barely ever gotten them at all!), so if I had an AI on my tressy-tress it would be wisdom or agility, which would be okay.

I have also never rolled a below average strength on a strength prioritized character. I think it's reasonable to expect to get very or extremely good. So all I can say is that if you're making a strength-centric character, make sure to prioritize strength first and pick an age in their race's prime.

[hopeandsorrow]

Are people seriously still talking about low stats being unplayable? And other are talking about how their low stat character was awesome? Like seriously?

I'm totally butthurt guys. You've hurt my butt.

You can't mention stats with out this discussion.

If you're looking on the bright side.   Nergal provided some wonderful insights.

I don't think you can get away from the 'sucky stats are a bummer' conversation.  The meta game and the desire for character achievement skews the averages.  Average strength -should- be the norm.  But stat suicide/storage on top of how people try to build, tends to skew that.  I think most people settle on good or at lest in shoot for Very Good. Which strangely enough, perhaps makes it the 'average' for most combat characters.

Perhaps a moderator could split off the conversation but I'm not entirely sure anyone is up for the 'stat talk' holy wars.

I think I've only experience Rogue's mention phenomenon once or twice and I chalk it up to skill and RNG then I Thought about how a human strength range might exceed a dwarf's or half-giants.    I mostly experienced it in agility when comparing Human/half-elf peers.  An example would be a human ranger I had who seem to out class a half-elf ranger in the sparring the circle.  But that ranger had awesome stats on the STR/AGI side so I wonder if my Agility exceeded the half-elf. Just by virtue I happen to have comparable attacks per round (I think agility effects) on top of greater strength.  But I guess that isn't too far of a stretch between half-elf/human.  With out hard numbers, to see where a human's range could exceed a racial average is guess work, but it be interesting to see where each one overlays for once or not.  Depends stats/skills can really both be a role play killer (being concerned with coded power) or enabler (code allows PCs to interact with the environment in a consistent manner).

[RogueGunslinger]

Are people seriously still talking about low stats being unplayable? And other are talking about how their low stat character was awesome? Like seriously?

I'm totally butthurt guys. You've hurt my butt.

You can't mention stats with out this discussion.

If you're looking on the bright side.   Nergal provided some wonderful insights.

I don't think you can get away from the 'sucky stats are a bummer' conversation.  The meta game and the desire for character achievement skews the averages.  Average strength -should- be the norm.  But stat suicide/storage on top of how people try to build, tends to skew that.  I think most people settle on good or at lest in shoot for Very Good. Which strangely enough, perhaps makes it the 'average' for most combat characters.

Perhaps a moderator could split off the conversation but I'm not entirely sure anyone is up for the 'stat talk' holy wars.

Someone made a new thread that's more general about the stat system and making it better. The discussion would fit perfectly there. http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,50236.0.html

[555]

Are people seriously still talking about low stats being unplayable? And other are talking about how their low stat character was awesome? Like seriously?

I'm totally butthurt guys. You've hurt my butt.

As far as I know, stats don't factor much into mudsex, so I fail to see the relevance.

[Jave]

Played a human ranger in the Byn once. At over 45 days played I still got my ass beat in sparring by a half-elf ranger with 5 days played. No special extended backgrounds. No other factors on the table. The only factor....

I had average human agility.

They had exceptional half-elf agility.

This apparently made them better in melee than me.....and not by a small margin. I don't mean they edged me out a little now and then. I got rofl-stomped frequently by them. It wasn't even a contest.

The stat difference basically gave them 45+ days of playtime and training behind the keyboard they never had to actually do.

Given that I've run tests with NPCs to compare the stat vs skill dynamic and found it to be negligible within the parameters of "normal" stat ranges ... and given that half-elf and human stats are no more different in range in Armageddon that you'd find in D&D (that is to say within a point or two of one another) ... I'm pretty skeptical of the claim that agility was the only factor behind your character getting whomped on in a sparring match(es).

Hard to say since I have no idea what the skill levels were between you and them, or the stat values for that matter, at the time this sparring was going on, and no way to go back and look. -- But for what it's worth, in the tests I ran where a newbie human with AI agility (which is higher than half-elf exceptional agility ... and this human also had AI everything else) went up against a journeyman level human with average agility (and average everything else for that matter) ... ... the average but more skilled guy beat the snot out of the AI newbie repeatedly, and consistently.

[Desertman]

Played a human ranger in the Byn once. At over 45 days played I still got my ass beat in sparring by a half-elf ranger with 5 days played. No special extended backgrounds. No other factors on the table. The only factor....

I had average human agility.

They had exceptional half-elf agility.

This apparently made them better in melee than me.....and not by a small margin. I don't mean they edged me out a little now and then. I got rofl-stomped frequently by them. It wasn't even a contest.

The stat difference basically gave them 45+ days of playtime and training behind the keyboard they never had to actually do.

Given that I've run tests with NPCs to compare the stat vs skill dynamic and found it to be negligible within the parameters of "normal" stat ranges ... and given that half-elf and human stats are no more different in range in Armageddon that you'd find in D&D (that is to say within a point or two of one another) ... I'm pretty skeptical of the claim that agility was the only factor behind your character getting whomped on in a sparring match(es).

Hard to say since I have no idea what the skill levels were between you and them, or the stat values for that matter, at the time this sparring was going on, and no way to go back and look. -- But for what it's worth, in the tests I ran where a newbie human with AI agility (which is higher than half-elf exceptional agility ... and this human also had AI everything else) went up against a journeyman level human with average agility (and average everything else for that matter) ... ... the average but more skilled guy beat the snot out of the AI newbie repeatedly, and consistently.

Guess I just got dicked then. *shrug* My wife was the one stomping my ass and I still get to hear about it to this day.

(Granted, she can put more into a five day PC than MOST players can put into a 20 day PC. So I will give sway in that regard.)

It still struck me as....disappointing. I hadn't exactly led a passive life.

[Jave]

Yeah, I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just saying I think that there were other variables in the mix beyond the difference in agility. -- Because I've tested that hypothesis in a controlled setting where stats vs skills was the sole difference between two otherwise carbon copies of the same NPC and in that controlled setting, stats were not a strong enough variable to save the npc from an ass whooping at the hands of the more skilled, but average stat one, and did not become so until I raised the stats way above what it's possible for the RGN to roll during chargen.

I'm sure the agility helped her win, but I bet it was a melting pot of additional variables that went into that as well.

[Desertman]

Yar I hear you.

The code actually reflected I was more "skilled". I just didn't attack nearly as often.

I probably landed 80% - 90% of my attacks.

They probably landed 20% of their attacks.

The difference I saw was that they were pushing out six or seven attacks for every one of mine. I was having to try and dodge six or seven attacks for every one attack I got to throw.

In the end it resulted in me being much more skilled, which made sense, but me only presenting that "skilled shot" after dodging five hits and taking two hits every round, more or less.

It was death of a thousand nicks basically.

(It could have been any number of things in hindsight I suppose. I just assumed it was agility based since the number of attacks going out compared to mine seemed to be the great equalizer. If we had thrown one for one, I would have won every time easily.)

[Riev]

.... ah, wrist razors. The great equalizer.

[Jave]

On the bright side ... hey you were a 45 day old PC getting skill gains off a newb.  

That's always been my guilty pleasure whenever my characters get their ass kicked in a sparring ring.

Them: Hahah I beat your ass!!
Me: Hahah I skilled up and you didn't!

[CodeMaster]

Jave, I think I remember you did this on NPCs -- but I wonder, do NPCs get affected by encumbrance the same way PCs do?

[Jave]

I'm pretty sure they do with the possible exception of shop keeper NPCs that end up having massive amounts of stuff in their inventory that is supposed to be on the walls.

Be we have a different bit of code that handles shop keepers so I'm not sure how it may or may not fiddle with their actual encumbrance from carrying 17 wardrobes.

[RogueGunslinger]

Would you mind doing a similar test? Only have both PC's Journeyman at everything, and only change the stats of the characters? That seems like a much better indicator of how much stats effect things.

Then compare "Above average" vs "Very Good".

If the difference between 2 stat levels is something like 49/51 or even 45/55 that wouldn't be a big deal. But if it's more like 60/40 it would show just how big a difference there is between the stats.

[Jave]

It seems pretty straight forward to me that all else being 100% equal, better stats will give an advantage. -- You want me to test that to try and tease out exactly how much of an advantage?

I could I suppose. At the time though that wasn't what I was trying to learn. I already knew that all else being equal slightly higher stats = slight advantage. Seemed self evident. -- I was exploring the claim that stats  matter so much that they trump skills. They do not within the parameters of racial norms.

A half giant fighting a human however has strength so astronomically higher than a human is capable of having that ... well ... there is a reason they aren't allowed to spar you in military clans  

[nauta]

Would you mind doing a similar test? Only have both PC's Journeyman at everything, and only change the stats of the characters? That seems like a much better indicator of how much stats effect things.

Then compare "Above average" vs "Very Good".

If the difference between 2 stat levels is something like 49/51 or even 45/55 that wouldn't be a big deal. But if it's more like 60/40 it would show just how big a difference there is between the stats.

Oooo, I smell scheduled arena events!

[RogueGunslinger]

It seems pretty straight forward to me that all else being 100% equal, better stats will give an advantage. -- You want me to test that to try and tease out exactly how much of an advantage?

I could I suppose. At the time though that wasn't what I was trying to learn. I already knew that all else being equal slightly higher stats = slight advantage. Seemed self evident. -- I was exploring the claim that stats  matter so much that they trump skills. They do not within the parameters of racial norms.

I know I'm just greedy and love info. I know your previous test was for something else but I'm sorta trying to bring it back around to the OP. I'm wondering if slight bumps to stats give BIG advantages. Which would support my assertion that the range of stats are too broad.

You really don't have to do anything though. Likely everyone's position on the matter would be the same. I just want to know how right or wrong I am about this, as I don't have the tools to properly check.

[Hauwke]

Just so you know this will be a long post. Tl;dr are at the bottom.
When I see a person complain of shit stats I instantly think "Well what the fuck did you do wrong"
Lets use an example. Lets say that human stats simply go from 1 - 10 with 5 as the average.
Now lets say you roll above average across the board. Lets say you got 7 in everything.
Now how about if you rolled a 13 year old. Bam you lose like 3 points in each except agi. (Not the exact numbers probably but idk its an example)
Now you have 4 str 4 emd 4 wis and 10 agi when you should hve 11 agi but stat caps.
Not saying it does since I dont know for sure but what if your main guild gives even further change. Lets say you roll a merch. Would make sense for them to be lo str and high wis. So you now have like 3 str 4 end 5 wis and 10 agi.


Tl;dr stats suck, love em when you get good rolls hate em when you get low rolls. But perhaps you are partiallu responsible for your elf not being able to hold a sword even in both hands.