Drawing the short straw

[perfecto]

Lately I've gone through a slew of new characters that seem to all be cursed. lol

Been getting pretty brutal stat rolls as well, just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience?

Even stats that don't seem -that- bad haven't been translating to coded play.  Just as an example I rolled up a Scout that had Good strength and a sword that was average, and my blows were bouncing off of a Scrab.
That result doesn't seem right to me looking at that combination of factors? 

I know a lot has been changed with combat recently and weapons and bonuses ext.  Just thought I'd ask and see if anyone else feels like things aren't working quite as intended for their characters.

[mansa]

One of the changes to strength was this - Your strength bonus to damage is now random.

Previously, you may have received a +2 to damage due to your strength...  Or +6 to damage.
The damage bonus is split in half - and you're guaranteed half of it.  The other half is a dice roll, from 0 up to your half max.


eg:
If you previously had a +6 to damage bonus, it is now:
+3 to damage, and +1d3

So when you hit someone, you may do +3 or you may do +6 damage.  Perhaps that is one of the reasons you are thinking you are hitting less.

https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,59208.0.html


The other thing is that any negative damage bonuses to combat have been completely removed... So you no longer have a weapon attack that is 1d6 and then -3 to damage.

[Yelinak]

Stats matter way too much to be as random as they are. While the relative balance between one stat and another may have improved with recent changes (strength is no longer 800% better than everything else), the fact of the matter is that your character can be terrible or godlike depending entirely on raw luck. It's still not a good system.

It has been one of the biggest failings of this game, and although it was acceptable back in the dawn of time when all anyone knew was the D&D style of stat-rolling, gaming as a hobby and artform moved past those primitive ideas long ago. Armageddon just didn't follow suit.

I can make two characters of the exact same race, class, subclass and age, and one might come out with
   "Your strength is very good, your agility is above average, your wisdom is poor, your endurance is average"
And the other gets
   "Your strength is exceptional, your agility is extremely good, your wisdom is above average, your endurance is extremely good."

That's a gigantic gulf in raw character power. The latter PC will perform significantly better in every possible way. None of those advantages were earned, none of them came with tradeoffs, I never had to give up anything for it or anything like that. It's just an objectively superior character, based entirely on dicerolls that nobody had any control over.

This creates three problems:
- A statistically improbable number of Zalanthan nobodies wade directly into the Silt Sea or nearest gortok den for no readily apparent reason, wasting staff's time
- Some characters are created with extremely barebones descriptions and backgrounds because the player anticipated the likelihood of the above tragedy
- Some characters have a natural advantage in coded endeavors, be it PvP fights, performance in the eyes of their clan, sheer long-term survival, or any other type of success

All of this could be avoided with a more sensible stat system. There have been plenty of suggestions in the past, including such things as:
- A plain points-buying system (I'm not a big fan, but it would fix the fundamental problem)
- Complete removal of numerical stats, replaced by racial bonuses and the opportunity for each character to pick a single perk like 'strong,' 'agile,' etc. which conveys a static bonus (elegant solution, but kind of MUSHy)
- Keeping a uniform pool of total stat points for each race that then roll with random distribution but a fixed final sum, affected afterwards by class/age/whatever. If you rolled high in A and B, C and D will then be correspondingly low. If you didn't roll very high in A and B, C and D will be pretty good, compensating for your lack of any really high stats
- Allowing for more than one reroll (this doesn't really fix the problem, IMO)

In any case, stats make far too big a difference in coded success to let them be as random as they are. The difference between great and poor stats are easily as significant as the difference between advanced and master in a skill. The degree of variance in stats is comparable to having your character's ultimate skillcaps roll with a 20-point degree of variance. How would you like it if your scout caps its archery at 60 while Steve's scout can get to 80, based on nothing but a mindless diceroll upon first entering the game? And it can never be changed? Did Steve deserve that? Did you?

It just doesn't make anything better. The traditional arguments like "people are not created equally" and "my favorite character had crap stats" don't really hold any water. The fact of the matter is that this is a game whose rules carefully govern every coded measure of our characters except for one of the most impactful. Your skill potential is set in stone based on your class and subclass, your authority within a clan is tightly governed by your rank, you pick your exact age and height and weight and everything. Imagine creating a character and it just asked you to pick an age bracket like 'adult' that randomly set your PC's age anywhere from 22 to 38. That's how daft the statrolling system is.

It simply isn't good. It doesn't produce good results. It frequently produces bad results. Never any good ones. In no conceivable way is the game made better by the fact that some characters come out awesome or shitty, especially because any experienced player can tell this from the very start. It's not as if you play the character for a year and then you gradually come to realize that "ah, you know, maybe I won't actually become the best pickpocket in Tuluk after all. What an enriching journey and satisfying character development it was to arrive at that conclusion!" You just point at the Map of Kings or whatever the hell it's called, see that you rolled 'very good' in your first stat priority, with the rest coming out even lower, and immediately know that the PC is junk.

Change this. It's overdue by about fifteen years.

[Wday]

Almost wish we could get the stats of our next character before we write them.  So you make a buff warrior or write a average person.

[Kavrick]

Armageddon is the only rpi/mud i've played where players can start with vaaastly different stats and it's also defended. The difference between playing a well-statted character and a badly statted character is pretty massive and you have no real control of it and are expected to play out the stats despite not being able to rectify them.

[Windstorm]

I have a few thoughts! Apologies for the longer post.

First, yes, the differences can be pretty extreme. Even after recent adjustments, this is particularly glaring when it comes to strength. Even when I'm not making a combat PC, I feel obligated to prioritize strength. It's THE stat. If I had it in mind when I made a PC to make them a great warrior, I'd be pretty sad if I came out with middling strength. I've never played a low-wisdom PC either because I'm not sure I could play that well, but I imagine that would be difficult also, in some situations.

That said... I don't write PCs that way. My PCs always have basic, unimpressive regular-people backgrounds and they only become impressive or spectacular (or not) through play. I'm never disappointed in this way because I don't start them out saying, "This is going to be a great warrior!" They might, or they might not. They might just laze around, charm people or make chairs; these don't actually require great stats. They might have great stats and use them on making chairs. Not everyone with great potential develops it. Plenty of my PCs have not.

Accordingly, I don't come in with those expectations or goals and it would probably be better if everyone also came in like that. But some people just don't and that's not how they write them or dream up their PC.

They write PCs thinking of their potential and when they've mastered DA SWORD or DA MAGIX and they're not really happy with their PC until they get there or at least knowing it's a possibility. They'll then go about developing their skills and lamenting, sometimes, that it takes so long. The fantasy is not complete until it's powerful! When this type of player rolls into the game and they've got good strength on their warrior they're not thinking of the PC they wrote or where they could go, but where they can't. And they can't help it, that's just their thought process and it feels like a waste of time. I assume this is why some PCs stumble into the game and suicide. They will never be the strongest, mightiest warrior so they give up on the concept from day one even though they would have never reached this potential anyway, likely.

Coming in with a PC that statistically speaking does not have supreme greatness potential is deflating to a lot of people and it can't really be helped. It's certainly a waste of time and creativity. My favorite PC desc I'd ever written I was immensely sad to realize may die very quickly. It didn't work out that way, but to me, that was more valuable than the set of stats she rolled.

We all have priorities and visions for where our PCs can go. Randomness has its pitfalls. Sometimes, it's exciting. Sometimes, it's deflating. Sometimes it doesn't matter like you think it does, but to my knowledge this has been something that's always been debated since I got here. I doubt it will change much.

For my own play, I have mixed feelings myself. A poor stat roll doesn't deter me from enjoying a PC, at all. But a great one does, I admit, excite me at the possibilities. On the other hand, for some it's devastating and ruinous for a PC concept.

All I might suggest is a possibility to reroll or adjust somehow later in life, for PCs that have lived long enough to earn it, or spent a lot of time trying to develop themselves in some particular way.

[Kavrick]

One idea that was floated around the discord was the idea of having an array. Especially if it was an option so even after your stat reroll, if you felt like your stats still weren't really up to scratch, you could take an array that still gives you strengths and weaknesses. Something like 1 exceptional, 1 very good, 1 good and 1 average/below average, this way everyone who enjoys rng or a little bit of consistency can be happy, and I don't really think it would have a downside to anyone.

[Master Color]

Another gamey system that incentivizes poor play.

[Tailong]

I have never played an RPI of any manner that didn't have randomized stats. From MUDs to tabletop, your stats are always random, or based of the role of dice. You get to pick what you want to be the highest, then next, and next and so on.

In the manner of fairness, it should always be random. Period. No scales, no averages, no arrays. Random.

[Yelinak]

I have never played an RPI of any manner that didn't have randomized stats. From MUDs to tabletop, your stats are always random, or based of the role of dice. You get to pick what you want to be the highest, then next, and next and so on.

In the manner of fairness, it should always be random. Period. No scales, no averages, no arrays. Random.

I obviously don't know which RPIs you've played, but having myself experienced Armageddon, Harshlands, Shadows of Isildur (all three versions), AtonementRPI, ParallelRPI, and quite a few more that now escape my memory, Armageddon stands out as unique amongst them in enabling the possibility that one's character is created either unusually gifted or unusually crap based on statrolls. None of those other games had that. If you've played other RPIs that followed this philosophy, they must have been ones I've never heard of.

Now, some of those had a degree of randomness in stats. For instance, I recall that the ones based on the RPI Engine (SoI, Atonement, etc.) had a static pool of something like 100 points, with a +/- of... 3? 5? Something along those lines? To put it into perspective, Armageddon's statrolling system would be more like 100 with a +/- of 50. That's how absolutely insane the degree of variance is. Completely absurd, gamebreaking, and stupid.

Nobody can say that this game's statrolling system is the norm unless they're comparing it exclusively to things like AD&D 2nd Edition and other such games from the nineties. Anything else is wildly dishonest. In saying that this degree of randomness in stats is the norm within this genre of games, you are either knowingly lying (for what purpose, who knows) or have not acquainted yourself with any game that came out after the turn of the millennium.

More importantly, this sort of wildly randomized stat system came from a time when people sat around a table with close friends and a Dungeon Master who had a hand in everything that goes on. If Joe rolled absolutely nutty stats while Jill got utterly shafted, it was expected that the DM would account for this in his/her decisions. The DM might decide that those goblins see Joe's musclebound barbarian as a bigger threat and gang up on him while Jill's puny character with stats far below average is given leeway to come up with a clever solution.

No such service is rendered to any player of this game. If you got godlike stats, it's just pure win with no disadvantages. If you got shit stats, you're just screwed forever, and it directly impacts your character's options, chances of long-term survival, and general success in life. Your stats directly determine how good your character is at the things that they (presumably, supposing you actually do anything that invokes coded checks) are all about.

With posts like yours, given the total lack of any understanding and the fierce opposition to any measure of fairness, I always wonder if the player is of the kind who walks two or three PCs into the Silt Sea before getting a godlike roll, and then defends this system just because they want to protect the advantages they get out of that. Nothing else makes sense, to be honest. If someone says they just don't care at all about stats, I'm a lot more understanding--but when someone actively defends the gamebreaking imbalances that this level of statrolling randomness brings to the game, I cannot think of any reasoning behind it except disingenuous, self-serving motives.

[Tailong]

Says a lot without saying anything, just goes straight to attacks.

RPIs are not about winning. I do not care what my stats are. I have never suicided over stats, or at all,  nor stored a character. Since I came back, I have had two. I have played every RPI since 1994, and I stand by what I said. I didn't say it was perfect, and I didn't go into details about how each RPI decides its stats, or randomness, because there is no need. Random, however it is obtained is the way to go.

If people put more effort in actual roleplay as they do in complaining about the game or mechanics, this would be an amazing place. Efforts would be better suited and more constructive without the constant stream of bellyaching, and actually provide real solutions rather than say "its sucks, change it". I didn't dislike some of your suggestions, Yelinak, as they maintain my quota of 'randomness'. But, who am I but someone with 'disingenuous, self-serving motives'.

[Dune Bunny]

I'm one of those sillies that's fine with the assigning of stats as they current are, and try to play each character as rolled. If anything is ever egregiously wacky with my stats, I've found that staff are very willing to hear me out, and sometimes remedy the problem.

That said, if a change is truly needed; why not keep things as they are, and allow the birthday bonus to become a choice?

--------------------------------
<sup>Congratulations, it's your birthday, you turned 31 today!

You've become older, and a bit more experienced in life!

Please choose the statistic you wish to have improved over your last year of experience!

(Type "Enhance" with your choice of stat behind it. Strength, Agility, Wisdom, Endurance.)</sup>
--------------------------------

Heck, allow it to mesh with the usual birthday chance even, I'll never decry more stats. =P

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

I think the 'birthday chance' is actually a set graph of 'this race has this percentage of this stat at this age'
Like, if you're 18, your agility is 120% of your base agility, but at 30 it's 80%, etc etc. That sort of thing. Which is how Absolutely Incredibles exist - they're Exceptionals plus an age bonus.

[Trevalyan]

I obviously don't know which RPIs you've played, but having myself experienced Armageddon, Harshlands, Shadows of Isildur (all three versions), AtonementRPI, ParallelRPI, and quite a few more that now escape my memory, Armageddon stands out as unique amongst them in enabling the possibility that one's character is created either unusually gifted or unusually crap based on statrolls. None of those other games had that. If you've played other RPIs that followed this philosophy, they must have been ones I've never heard of.

With posts like yours, given the total lack of any understanding and the fierce opposition to any measure of fairness, I always wonder if the player is of the kind who walks two or three PCs into the Silt Sea before getting a godlike roll, and then defends this system just because they want to protect the advantages they get out of that. Nothing else makes sense, to be honest. If someone says they just don't care at all about stats, I'm a lot more understanding--but when someone actively defends the gamebreaking imbalances that this level of statrolling randomness brings to the game, I cannot think of any reasoning behind it except disingenuous, self-serving motives.

First of all, I've played Shadows of Isildur and Harshlands. Stats afford powers and abilities that would be firmly locked behind rolecalls in Armageddon, and the stats affect a lot of things that they wouldn't here. In fact, this is the first I've seen anyone claiming that stats in Armageddon are more pronounced than the gulf between humans and Olog-Hai. Not to mention that at least Armageddon offers psionics, magick, and advanced military roles to humans that were by no means exclusive in SoI.

And despite having only one character in a position to talk about it, skill (character and player) means a LOT more in Armageddon than it does in competitors. In fact, humans with otherwise exceptional stats might find themselves losing regularly against survivors with extraordinarily long lives IG (5-10 years in character).

[Kavrick]

Just a question I have for people who are against changing the system. If someone has the choice to pick between something like point-buy, an array or having random stats, why are you against someone else having the choice, how does it negatively effect you in such a way that you would prefer it stays the same? I'd like to think there's a reason why TTRPGs over the years have pretty much completely phased out rolling for stats in favor of point-buy and array systems, or at the very least had them as options. I just personally don't understand the attitude of "people must play the same way as me, even if it doesn't actually effect me." Not saying that anyone in particular is saying that word-for-word, but that's what it feels like sometimes.

[perfecto]

Looks like we've gotten a little off topic from my OP, which was simply asking if any other players had been experiencing similar issues when creating their new characters with the recent game changes?

If anybody actually wants to chime in about that question that would be nice.. otherwise this thread can be finished with by staff as they see fit.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

I will admit that poor statted PC's I've rolled in the past have been used for exploration. Taking risks  with them I might not have taken if the PC had good stats. It took a long time before I stopped doing that. It's been rare, though, to have poor stats, especially since the reroll option and the ability to revert has been implemented.
Since then, more than one of my long lived PC's had only middling stats. I like random. Point buys and similar systems end up with everyone being the same, and that's boring.
If it bothers you when you roll a crappy pc, just let yourself be a victim of the PC bandits. No one is ever gonna call it bad RP (not even staff I bet) if you die in an interesting way for someone elses entertainment.

[flurry]

No, I have not seen the issues asked about in the original post.  But I'm not sure anecdotes are going to be all that informative.  If you're seeing it, you're seeing it.

Also...

hauls out soap box

The only age-based modifier a character should have is current age not starting age.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

I like the idea of an array, but I think the choice should be between a reroll OR an array, or you're just having your cake and eating it. So you get your initial rng stats and you can either go with an array or roll the dice. Being able to reroll and THEN take an array sounds too... Comfortable? I dunno. That probably sounds mean, but I think it spoils some of the intent of the system. Or at least the vibe. But choosing an array or a reroll is still a great deal of freedom.

[Trevalyan]

Lately I've gone through a slew of new characters that seem to all be cursed. lol

The last time I played Armageddon was more than a decade ago. Personally, I think the system has changed dramatically and for the better by comparison. I'm pretty sure skill levels affect critical strike chance and the ability to bypass major armor. Definitely train up your skills, and you'll be slaughtering scrabs easy. It's never been easier to make a character good without twinking, to my mind.

[Master Color]

Lately I've gone through a slew of new characters that seem to all be cursed. lol

The last time I played Armageddon was more than a decade ago. Personally, I think the system has changed dramatically and for the better by comparison. I'm pretty sure skill levels affect critical strike chance and the ability to bypass major armor. Definitely train up your skills, and you'll be slaughtering scrabs easy. It's never been easier to make a character good without twinking, to my mind.

That sounds like a vast improvement.

I once played a character that could fight tarantulas no problem but needed to use poison to actually do damage to them.

[Kaathe]

I have never played an RPI of any manner that didn't have randomized stats. From MUDs to tabletop, your stats are always random, or based of the role of dice. You get to pick what you want to be the highest, then next, and next and so on.

I assume you are basing this on pre-2008 tabletops and RPIs. Times have changed. Dragonrealms went to fixed stats in 2008. Discworld has point buy. On tabletop, D&D went to stat arrays and point buy in 2008 with 4th Edition. I have played D&D 4E and 5E, 13th Age, FATE, and a few Powered by the Apocalypse games. They all have equal stats or point buy.

RPIs are not about winning. I do not care what my stats are. I have never suicided over stats, or at all, nor stored a character.

I agree with you here, but I don't know if random stats are good or bad for a perma-death RPI which features fast-paced PvP and PvE. But I certainly see role-playing focused games heading away from random stats for the past 15 years.

[najdorf]

There is still the mystery element of randomness that attract a lot of players too. I would recommend give random stats with a slightly narrower range, then drop 1 point from each (str, agility, wisdom, endurance), and let players allocate 4 points on top of the random.

[Tuannon]

I think an array is fine, but ground work will need to be done as to what the points values for each step of a stat is..
So I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Riev]

Ideally, the system would be that a random array would provide a better than average chance of having stats higher than a point buy would allow, but a point buy would let you get the stats that make your role what you envision.

On Perfectos ACTUAL posting, though? I have noticed the last 3-4 characters I've rolled have absolutely trash fucking stats. Fighter with bonus to strength, prioritize strength to be the highest? Good strength. Miscreant with an AGI bonus, and prioritize AGI only? Low EG agility and all my other stats are BA.

[Kavrick]

There is still the mystery element of randomness that attract a lot of players too. I would recommend give random stats with a slightly narrower range, then drop 1 point from each (str, agility, wisdom, endurance), and let players allocate 4 points on top of the random.

That's why I think there's no harm in giving you an option to either do an array or roll as normal, there's no real downsides to it being optional as far as I can tell.

[Inks]

I like the random stats.

I have had to throw out a couple of spec apps over the years due to them being all average/below average but that is a small price to pay for variation amongst PCs.

My elf crimeboss Krak who founded the East Side Kings along with Sixx was a burglar with "good" agi as his best physical stat (str below average elf). He died because I logged in drunk with a keepalive on my client. But still when he was around he was mega successful and ESK existed in one form or another (Family,Association etc) for 50 IC years

[Yelinak]

There is still the mystery element of randomness that attract a lot of players too.

I must say I really doubt that Armageddon gains any new players by merit of the fact that its statrolling system features the opportunity for your stats to be awesome or horrible based on sheer luck. Surely almost no new players even know that this is the case when they arrive, and if they did, it seems unlikely that it was what attracted them. I've certainly never heard anybody say so. On the contrary, it's a frequent complaint. It comes up once or twice a year.

Meanwhile, I think it deters a non-zero number of players and drives them away once they discover that it's the way the game works. That seems much more likely. Couldn't begin to predict what percentage of players may have quit because of this unbalanced stat system, and it may be low, but I'll bet some have, whereas I strongly doubt that this system ever earned the game any players who chose to play because of it. The notion itself seems comical, to be honest.

At best, most players learn to tolerate this system in spite of itself. In my book, that's a sign of a bad system that ought to be changed. Who would accept something like this in a game that costs money? While Armageddon doesn't cost money to play, games that cost money tailor their mechanics to what the majority wants, and it would take quite a lot of ignorance to deny that gaming has largely done away with the concept of 90s-style fully random stats. That's because people don't like it, and are less likely to play a game that has it.

Hell, even D&D-inspired games like World of Xeen (1992) and Baldur's Gate (1998) offered infinite rerolls in order to reduce the nonsensical imbalance of stat randomness in games that lacked a Dungeon Master who could throw the unlucky players a bone while making life harder for the lucky ones. The "screw you" style of stat randomness was going out of fashion even in the era that corresponds to Armageddon's infancy. Everyone knew it was a bad system. It was only ever fine in a tabletop setting where the DM could adjust everything according to each individual player's capabilities, and where everyone was friends who would almost certainly never need to compete against each other.

Those whose livelihoods depend on the quality of the games they make have long ago realized this and changed their games accordingly, and that says all that needs said, if you ask me. If Arm was pay2play, this stat system would cost the game money. The fact that it isn't pay2play doesn't somehow turn it into a good system. It's still bad for all the same reasons.

Many of the same arguments against changing the current system were also voiced back when people (spearheaded by yours truly, not to toot my own horn) campaigned for the ability to prioritize stats in 2005 or thereabouts. Thanks, Morgenes. Before then, stats were entirely random and you couldn't even choose how to order them. Same exact talking points from the naysayers: Oh, the randomness adds character variety! Oh, roleplay takes a hit if people have any control over their stats!

It didn't, and for the same reason, it won't hurt if Armageddon's absurdly archaic stat system is brought up to date again. It's woefully overdue and has no place in 2023. I'm entirely certain that some players have quit this game over its stat system while not one has become a persistent, integrated member of the community because of it. I've heard players say the former, but never the latter.

[Synthesis]

I have never played an RPI of any manner that didn't have randomized stats. From MUDs to tabletop, your stats are always random, or based of the role of dice. You get to pick what you want to be the highest, then next, and next and so on.

In the manner of fairness, it should always be random. Period. No scales, no averages, no arrays. Random.

D&D has a standard array, and a point-buy system.

[Yelinak]

D&D has a standard array, and a point-buy system.

Indeed, and introduced the concept as early as 3rd edition, even if that edition held it as an optional choice left to the DM's discretion. 3rd Ed came out in year of our Lord 2000. Not exactly a modern concept. That's around the time every competent game designer realized that it did nobody any good have stats rolled wholly at random. It really became outdated in the 90s. Baffling, frankly, for Armageddon to have clung to the concept for so long when it does the game no good.

[Diesel]

Attributes should be like GTA. You start at a base and then your ig actions determine how high they get. You know, running to build stamina, climbing to build agility, lifting weights to build strength, haggling and learning different languages to build wisdom, with other ways as well, of course.
ETA: Class/subclass/race, etc... bonuses would be applied to your base attributes at the start of your character.

[titansfan]

Just let us see stats before we make the desc and stuff. I'd love that.

I've had so so stat rolls prior to my current pc in regards to OP topic.

[Kavrick]

Attributes should be like GTA. You start at a base and then your ig actions determine how high they get. You know, running to build stamina, climbing to build agility, lifting weights to build strength, haggling and learning different languages to build wisdom, with other ways as well, of course.
ETA: Class/subclass/race, etc... bonuses would be applied to your base attributes at the start of your character.

Honestly would be cool if certain skills had stats associated with them and the higher you skilled up said skill, the better your stat would get. Like increasing your agility by practicing your sneak, lumberjacking increasing your strength, scan increasing your wisdom, etc.

[roughneck]

I like the idea of stats being a little bit random, but the system we have is too random. Some caps on either end would make sense, I think.

Like it or not, people are less likely to play a PC with bad stats. It's just less fun and harder to get started. If the goal is more players, make stats more predictable and balanced.

[Riev]

If we make it so nobody can roll under Below Average, then Below Average becomes the new Poor.

[Kavrick]

If we make it so nobody can roll under Below Average, then Below Average becomes the new Poor.

I don't think the issue is with the lowest rolls, but the range of rolls. The difference between below average and exceptional is pretty massive for something you cant change past the initial rolling.

[roughneck]

If we make it so nobody can roll under Below Average, then Below Average becomes the new Poor.

Not really. If instead of a 1 - 10 stat range, you only have stats in the 3 - 8 range, the difference between high and low stats is reduced.

[Kavrick]

I think rather than changing the minimum or maximum, the best thing to do would be make it so it constantly rerolls behind the scenes until you get within a certain 'total' range of stats. That way you can still roll a highly specialized character, or a more jack of all trades. More to just load the dice a little so you can't roll something like four averages but also can't roll some godlike stats and get all exceptional. I think it's important for character's to have strengths and weaknesses, even if being even across the board counts as that, it's both more enjoyable and more interesting than both the potential of being a superhuman or being a complete invalid, because let's be honest, average is not average.

[Master Color]

If we make it so nobody can roll under Below Average, then Below Average becomes the new Poor.

I don't think the issue is with the lowest rolls, but the range of rolls. The difference between below average and exceptional is pretty massive for something you cant change past the initial rolling.

This. I know there have been some changes to strength damage calculation but the difference between Average and Exceptional human strength has always been bugshit.

Not even for pvp. For literally any outdoors character it's the difference between wasting five minutes killing that unavoidable agro creature and spending 30 seconds. If you had AI strength the longest it took to kill a scrab was probably less than the combat delay.

[Kavrick]

If we make it so nobody can roll under Below Average, then Below Average becomes the new Poor.

I don't think the issue is with the lowest rolls, but the range of rolls. The difference between below average and exceptional is pretty massive for something you cant change past the initial rolling.

This. I know there have been some changes to strength damage calculation but the difference between Average and Exceptional human strength has always been bugshit.

Not even for pvp. For literally any outdoors character it's the difference between wasting five minutes killing that unavoidable agro creature and spending 30 seconds.

Yeah, this is pretty much why I feel so strongly about stats. Stats have a pretty massive effect on your gameplay and you have no control over them. I've had characters with 80hp and characters with 120hp, I shouldn't have to point out how a 50% increase in max HP is kinda a huge deal. And this is on top of stuff like carry weight, damage, dodging, ability to hide, ability to find hiding things, etc etc

Stats have a pretty huge weight on literally everything you do and the fact that they're completely RNG with no way to change them past character creation is absolutely archaic when compared to modern standards for game design. There's a reason why in the majority of modern-day TTRPGs, randomized stats are considered a gimmick and not the default. Array and point buy has been the default for at least ten years now.

[mansa]

In the conversations about stats.

I wish there was a way that characters can increase their stats to "good", after doing a certain number of things in game.  I consider "good" to be something that most characters should strive, and have goals that their characters can reach to increase it.

Perhaps not Wisdom - but ...
If there was some way to increase your endurance, agility, and strength over time - until you are about the equivalent of "27" in human years... so that your stats can increase to "good".

Or, perhaps, each year that goes by, it automatically increases your lowest stat by 1 until it is "good" - up until the age of 27.


So - you can automatically make it grow.
You can force the characters to do a certain task and make it grow.  Ideally it would be something that is coded - like typing 'exercise' and having the game randomly roll a dice, and if you pass the result you can get it up 1 level... and then it prevents you from gaining again for 90 days.

Again, to a cap of "good".

[whengravityfails]

Just a question I have for people who are against changing the system. If someone has the choice to pick between something like point-buy, an array or having random stats, why are you against someone else having the choice, how does it negatively effect you in such a way that you would prefer it stays the same? I'd like to think there's a reason why TTRPGs over the years have pretty much completely phased out rolling for stats in favor of point-buy and array systems, or at the very least had them as options. I just personally don't understand the attitude of "people must play the same way as me, even if it doesn't actually effect me." Not saying that anyone in particular is saying that word-for-word, but that's what it feels like sometimes.

Why? Because I think the current system is fine and I'd rather have the coders focus on other, more important things as opposed to making something new for a few people to choose because they don't like the current system. As someone else pointed out, skills matter a whole lot more than stats in the medium to long term.

Also, I loathe the idea of "builds" taking over the game where every class is built to a specific way - and you know it will happen. We will have more bland  sameness which is boring and contemptible. Part of the reason why I like Armageddon is its hewing to the old ways before everything had to be balanced out.

[Jimpka_Moss]

If you, Staff, want to increase roleplaying efforts and quality from players, especially high karma players, then I believe the change in the rules to requests for stat improvements with logs included should be repealed. That's a positive interaction, or it could be, if instead of an instant denial for things that didn't meet Arm standards, an explanation of Arm standards and why the log fell short, and how to reapply and submit again, that could be pretty positive interaction for staff to have with players, and keep crap stats from ruining a character.

Two a year
Can't go over 'good' without real, actual equipment and some serious time commitments
abnormal stuff applies to wisdom, like roleplay sessions with people from different areas of life, or actual tutoring

and for standards, it's literally emoting, and reinforcing that emoting has real world results, not just 'flavor' for the hack and slash.

[Master Color]

Just a question I have for people who are against changing the system. If someone has the choice to pick between something like point-buy, an array or having random stats, why are you against someone else having the choice, how does it negatively effect you in such a way that you would prefer it stays the same? I'd like to think there's a reason why TTRPGs over the years have pretty much completely phased out rolling for stats in favor of point-buy and array systems, or at the very least had them as options. I just personally don't understand the attitude of "people must play the same way as me, even if it doesn't actually effect me." Not saying that anyone in particular is saying that word-for-word, but that's what it feels like sometimes.

Why? Because I think the current system is fine and I'd rather have the coders focus on other, more important things as opposed to making something new for a few people to choose because they don't like the current system. As someone else pointed out, skills matter a whole lot more than stats in the medium to long term.

Also, I loathe the idea of "builds" taking over the game where every class is built to a specific way - and you know it will happen. We will have more bland  sameness which is boring and contemptible. Part of the reason why I like Armageddon is its hewing to the old ways before everything had to be balanced out.

The current system is a bad one whether you think "builds" will take over or not. Expecting anyone to persist on a mediocre stat roll in a hyper pvp hack and slash game is a bad joke.

[whengravityfails]

I've persisted fine on some mediocre rolls and it's only a hack and slash PvP game if you choose it to be. I've been able to avoid PvP combat almost entirely when I wasn't seeking it and I seek it rarely.  People put too much emphasis on stats for this reason.

[Yelinak]

I've persisted fine on some mediocre rolls and it's only a hack and slash PvP game if you choose it to be. I've been able to avoid PvP combat almost entirely when I wasn't seeking it and I seek it rarely.  People put too much emphasis on stats for this reason.

None of this is a valid argument for wildly random statrolls. Is there some believable reason why you're against improving the system? Do you want it to remain such that a character can be massively under- or overpowered for all of its life based purely on blind luck? If so, why? If not, why be against changes?

[Kavrick]

This is going to sound passive aggressive, but still waiting on people to decide whether stats are so impactful that making them more balanced would 'ruin' the game, or that stats matter so little that they shouldn't be changed. Although for the latter, if stats really don't have such a big impact, making it so players have more control over them wouldn't be a big deal.

[Coda]

This is going to sound passive aggressive, but still waiting on people to decide whether stats are so impactful that making them more balanced would 'ruin' the game, or that stats matter so little that they shouldn't be changed. Although for the latter, if stats really don't have such a big impact, making it so players have more control over them wouldn't be a big deal.

Because stats don't matter near as much as you've been led to believe it's likely not worth the effort of making the change.

[Kavrick]

This is going to sound passive aggressive, but still waiting on people to decide whether stats are so impactful that making them more balanced would 'ruin' the game, or that stats matter so little that they shouldn't be changed. Although for the latter, if stats really don't have such a big impact, making it so players have more control over them wouldn't be a big deal.

Because stats don't matter near as much as you've been led to believe it's likely not worth the effort of making the change.

I haven't been led to believe anything, it's from my own experience. Even without looking at the code, you can get up to 50% more HP from having high endurance. And people always talk about how much your attacks bounce unless you have good strength and how having good agility makes you the perfect sparring partner. At this point I feel like it's just disingenuous to spread the idea that stats don't matter, because they really do.

Can you play a character with bad stats and survive? Absolutely.
Is it tedious, dangerous and generally less fun for a lot of folk compared to playing a good statted character? Also yes.

Even stuff like having good agility helping with being able to hold a shield/dual wield/two hand while riding is a pretty big factor. Skinning returns means having a good agility gives you more from skinning on average. High wisdom helps with making forage far better. I've experienced all of this, I don't get why people act like stats don't matter.

[Coda]

I was answering your question, the one above my post where you tried to accuse people telling you to calm down and roleplay of talking out of both sides of their mouths. Your statements tend to focus solely on coded power across threads (this thread, the magicker/mundane thread as recent examples) and it gives the sense of missing the forest for the trees when it comes to Armageddon as a game.  Additionally, your claims about the potential variance based on stats aren't realistic or representative of the game in a meaningful way.  If we're talking poor elf endurance to maximum hg endurance, then sure.  But on a same-race basis, you're saying things that are simply untrue.

I'm sorry you find low stat characters tedious - you don't have to play them, according to you they'll die quickly anyway and, even if they don't, a storage request is taking on average a day and a half.  If you see a 'below average' on your character, you can just request to store them.  It's pretty atypical to receive truly 'bad' stats, especially with a reroll, unless you go to an age extreme for some reason.

Looks like we've gotten a little off topic from my OP, which was simply asking if any other players had been experiencing similar issues when creating their new characters with the recent game changes?

If anybody actually wants to chime in about that question that would be nice.. otherwise this thread can be finished with by staff as they see fit.

I just saw this - No, it's just a string of luck on your part, or you're choosing ages that will lead to stat ranges you dislike.  I've seen pretty typical stat rolls across recent characters.

[Kavrick]

I tend to talk about coded power because it's one of the few things you can talk about on the forums. I can't really talk about ic roleplay stuff because that would be breaking the rules. Generally I dislike suiciding low-statted characters and I do play them out. I know sometimes I can come across in a certain way and I do apologize that I have a bit of a 'resting bitch tone' in the way I type. I do enjoy Armageddon a whole bunch, it's why I'm more passionate about seeking out improvements in a way that's good for the game.

Clearly stats have people split down the middle, some people like the way the game is, and some people think it could be a little less random. I'll admit, I get a bit of a high when I roll a character with super good stats, and I can feel it. But I think if you added some optional systems, it would make both sides happy. I'm not really a fan of trying to force people to play the game the way I think it should be played so I try to pursue recommendations that appeal to both sides.

[Coda]

We're not actually supposed to discuss code much.  We're supposed to be using this forum to chat about the roleplay aspects, or discuss the game broadly.  Not specific things, but generalized roleplaying topics.  One of the issues of talking about code things, like stats, is that humans are absolutely dogshit at probability and we're prone to bias.  You see it, at times, in roleplay chat (someone will see a Krathi cast a fireball his second time on thar character at 20 days played and suddenly complain that gicks are too common, not remembering the other 19 days and 23.5 hours he spent not seeing magick), but bias becomes insane when it's you trying to interpret obfuscated code via the actions of a character in a world with as many variables as there are in the game.

What you're asking for is a salve to soothe a hurt that you are only imagining exists.  I'm not saying stats don't matter (nobody has said that, not once) I'm just saying that they don't matter anywhere near as much as the way that they're talked about suggests except at the very extreme ends of the spectrum.

And even then, it's ok to not be the strongest, fastest, smartest, or toughest.  The game is not code vs. code, it's a roleplaying game.  If you're not having fun until  you're skillmaxxed on a high stat character then you're denying yourself some really fun underdog/training montage/etc. roleplay, and that's a shame because having had an AI strength, exceptional agi, exceptional endurance combat character, the meat of the game is in the things you do with others.  If you want equalized stats for mob bashing, Aardwolf is easy to find - I sometimes hop on there to bash mobs because that's fun, it's just not why I log into Armageddon.

I hope none of that felt like an attack, it isn't meant to be, it's just me trying to help you see that the focus on it is creating negative feelings based on misunderstandings.  You'd have more fun if you just rolled with it, it's just a game in the end.

[Kavrick]

I don't mean literally about code, but the mechanics of the game. I don't feel like it's an attack, but you did make something personal when it didn't really need to be. I never mentioned anything about being the strongest or whatever, in fact I've never partaken in pvp even once in my time playing. I also think saying that it's an issue that I'm only 'imagining' is rather dismissive, especially when it factually does exist and I'm not the only one who thinks stats are too random. I also think the assumption that because I care about the mechanics in a game with mechanics, that I don't care about roleplay is a little negative in an unnecessary way. All of my characters have been extremely roleplay intensive and I'm far from a power gamer.

[Coda]

I'm glad you focus on the roleplay - I guess, what I'm trying to say is that there is a specific subculture of Armageddon player who cares far, far too deeply about the words next to their skills and in their score.  And the way that they're discussed grants them an outsized importance and leads to people worrying about them.  It, especially, leads newer players to worrying about them because they don't understand that the people making those claims are being hyperbolic when they said you should suicide a fighter with average human agility or whatever else.

This thread is a perfect example - perfecto asked if anyone else had seen stat rolls be lower than usual because they had a run of bad luck, and the thread has morphed into people complaining about randomized stats because they've been led to believe that having a low stat or two means that your character is dogshit.  You, by your own admission, haven't even engaged in pvp - the time when differences in stats can (not do, can) matter the most - and yet the way you talk about them seems to suggest a deep and certain knowledge of the way that stats affect a character.

Take a step back.  They don't matter as much as you think.  Don't stress so much, it's just a game.

[Kavrick]

So I wrote out a big thing that I realized probably wouldn't have been particularly productive but I just want to drop this in. The things I love about Armageddon; The roleplay, the characters, the events and the culture, are generally things that I can't really talk about, which makes me come across as more negatively-focused than I actually am. I'd love to talk about all of the things I love about Armageddon, I'm just not allowed because of the ic/ooc rules, and I would like to say for the record that I've been having a lot of fun on Armageddon recently, both on characters with bad stats and good stats.

I just came to a thread about stats to talk about stats, I don't think It's that huge of a deal and I do think you're reading into it a tad bit too much. My conversation about Gicks in the other thread is more about the roleplay side of gicks and stuff like hemotes and hiding being a gick, rather than the mechanical focus of magic. Mechanics enable roleplay, I don't think you can really only look at roleplay or mechanics in a vacuum with Armageddon, both matter. I mostly care about stats/skills because the stats/skills of my character do decide what I can and can't do. You know what one of my favorite things to do in Armageddon is? Exploration. How do you explore? Well you need to be good at stuff like climbing, riding, fighting, all so you can explore without dying. I don't think it's fair to say these things don't matter when they do.

[Coda]

You can talk about those things! Talk about them generally, talk about them positively, talk about having had fun - especially as you play longer, you'll be able to reminisce and chat even more freely.  Mechanics and roleplay are certainly entwined - but your exploration character would do better joining a group that explores, and roleplaying through training, etc. and going out with buddies.  You'll also survive better, while having more fun.

Also, again, nobody has ever said they don't matter.  You're attacking a strawman when you do that.  All they've said is that the outsized focus on them is at odds with how much they actually end up affecting the things you want to do.  I've explored almost corner of the Known with a character people would consider a throw-away based on stats alone.  You can too, if you get over the hump of believing them to be as important as the way you frame the conversation makes them out to be.

[Kavrick]

I agree, I don't really have much to argue here. I think it's easy to fall into that sort of passionate drivel when you feel strongly about something. I would like to say as a european player (I'm up far too late right now) It's a little harder to find groups to do stuff with, but I understand the sentiment. Honestly more 'exploration' based groups in game would be a lot of fun, especially with hunter slots being limited but lots of people playing hunter-types, a sort of 'wayfinder' house or something that gathers information and maps places out could be an interesting concept. (Super off-topic I know, it just sounded like a cool idea).

Thanks for being level headed about it, I appreciate being able to just talk about something without things getting too heated.

[Jimpka_Moss]

These replies seem really close together.

I've paid so little attention to stats that I can't quite remember if I've had good rolls or bad rolls. I don't prioritize, because based on the code I've seen, that gives the best range of results, so maybe it's my way of doing things.

Maybe a change could be put in, for all those talking about it, but any changes I see, I'd like to see tempered with keeping the system we have now, and any sort of point buy system be balanced alongside it, something comparative and not always objectively better. If that's clear, idk.

Lastly, I am extremely in favor of knowing my stats beforehand. I would rather play a char with poor strength, and have his description match that, then play one and have people go 'wtf, you're the muscular guy, why can't you pick up that stick', and me have to go 'my back, dude'.

[Kavrick]

These replies seem really close together.

I've paid so little attention to stats that I can't quite remember if I've had good rolls or bad rolls. I don't prioritize, because based on the code I've seen, that gives the best range of results, so maybe it's my way of doing things.

Maybe a change could be put in, for all those talking about it, but any changes I see, I'd like to see tempered with keeping the system we have now, and any sort of point buy system be balanced alongside it, something comparative and not always objectively better. If that's clear, idk.

Lastly, I am extremely in favor of knowing my stats beforehand. I would rather play a char with poor strength, and have his description match that, then play one and have people go 'wtf, you're the muscular guy, why can't you pick up that stick', and me have to go 'my back, dude'.

Honestly on the same note of seeing your stats, would be cool for seeing your stats while doing all-random rather than prioritised, would help me decide what I want my character to be if I know what his strengths/weaknesses are.

[Master Color]

It's a system that rewards players who game it. You want better roleplay? Start reworking systems that create bad incentives like this.

That's enough reason to change it.

[Tuannon]

If we are going to move away from bad stat roles and start critiquing roleplay I think this thread no longer serves its intended purpose.

[Coda]

I agree, I don't really have much to argue here. I think it's easy to fall into that sort of passionate drivel when you feel strongly about something. I would like to say as a european player (I'm up far too late right now) It's a little harder to find groups to do stuff with, but I understand the sentiment. Honestly more 'exploration' based groups in game would be a lot of fun, especially with hunter slots being limited but lots of people playing hunter-types, a sort of 'wayfinder' house or something that gathers information and maps places out could be an interesting concept. (Super off-topic I know, it just sounded like a cool idea).

Thanks for being level headed about it, I appreciate being able to just talk about something without things getting too heated.

That's fair - I'm glad I was able to convey what I was trying to say without coming across as a jerk, it's painfully easy to come across like an asshole in text.  I just like this dumb game and want other people to like it for the same reasons I do. 

[Yelinak]

This is going to sound passive aggressive, but still waiting on people to decide whether stats are so impactful that making them more balanced would 'ruin' the game, or that stats matter so little that they shouldn't be changed. Although for the latter, if stats really don't have such a big impact, making it so players have more control over them wouldn't be a big deal.

Because stats don't matter near as much as you've been led to believe it's likely not worth the effort of making the change.

This simply isn't true. Stats have a huge impact on almost all combat and skill rolls. Having great stats will absolutely make your character more successful and longer-lived, assuming you play in a way that includes coded abilities and a chance of dying. Having crap stats will make you noticeably worse at what you do and you'll almost certainly die sooner. In some edge cases, the difference can be particularly insane.

(I believe) the difference between average and exceptional human endurance is about 30 health and stun. That's a very significant amount. Having high endurance will almost certainly make your character survive things, probably multiple times throughout their life, that would have killed a character without high endurance.

(I believe) agility skills happen to be particularly reliant on high levels in order to be reliable. It can be the difference between being easily detectable by anyone with master scan, and being literally impossible to detect by anybody at all. It can be the difference between having, say, a 10% chance per room for sneak to fail, or that your sneak literally cannot fail. It can make your subclass stealth skills reach no-fail levels in the right environment. Agility also affects all kinds of combat things, most notably attack speed, success chance of many combat abilities, and ranged weapon accuracy.

For strength, the gulf in damage is somewhat less now that the stat's impact on damage has been nerfed, but what was taken away from strength was simply pushed onto agility's plate instead, so it changes nothing in terms of the impact stats have. Even after this change, the damage output of the high-strength character is easily about 50% higher. Fifty percent more damage per swing. After the nerf. Before that, it was more like double damage.

With exceptional wisdom, you can raise your skills much faster than someone with middling wisdom. I mean easily three times faster, possibly four. Its effects on scan basically work the same way as agility's effects on hide,  so it determines whether or not you can detect people. For a magicker, it represents approximately as big a difference in mana as endurance does for health/stun.

And that's just for human characters whose stat ranges are more modest compared to other races, although it bears saying that it's kind of unlikely that anyone will play an elf character with middling agility that cares about their stealth skills, or a dwarf with middling strength in a combat role.

While you can usually trust that you'll get a pretty high roll in the stat that you prioritized first, the thing that really determines your character's future is what they get in their second and third priorities. If you make an infiltrator and prioritize agility, you're very likely to get exceptional or even absolutely incredible; but if you then get good strength and average endurance, that's okay but not particularly great. Meanwhile, you could also have landed extremely good in both of those stats. Suddenly you've got an insanely powerful character that is infinitely superior to the good+average guy. Or you could get screwed over with such low rolls that you saddle yourself with a damage penalty and 88 health. And that's for life. You can't go to the gym and bulk up.

Do you really think that doesn't have a big influence on how effective your character is? Trust me, it has an enormous impact, and it doesn't diminish with higher skills. On the contrary, contests between characters of high skill are often determined by stats because they're the main point of variance between characters whose skills are likely capped at the same general levels.

A character's total stat aggregate can vary by a factor of two. One character can have double the total stat points of another. While that degree of variance is highly improbable, it's not that unusual to see differences of 50%. How often do you enter the game with 'very good, above average, above average, poor' and then reroll into 'exceptional, extremely good, very good, above average'? Pretty regularly. And the difference in raw power between those two statrolls is absolutely going to define your character.

[Dracul]

The only thing I like about stats is that they change and eventually decay with age.

[Jarvis]

Almost wish we could get the stats of our next character before we write them.  So you make a buff warrior or write a average person.

Yes please to this. That or/and a point-buy system that works like in D&D. Aka you get control over your stats but you can't go over 18 and you must have one of the stats that's a dump. I always get eeeeeeeeh when writing a character because I never know if the core thing I'm going for is going to get buggered by the roll.

That or still have them be entirely random but let us assign the rolls.

Edit: That and what's up with age code? I FEEL like if I make a young character they will never age to the potential that I could have had if I made a 24-26 year old char. Admittedly I've never played that long from 16 years old up, but whenever I do try I get the stats of a geriatric man. Its very odd that the world tells you that a 16 year old is a fully matured man and then also have them spawn with the constitution of the old golden grahams cereal bar left in your moms car

[Coda]

A character's total stat aggregate can vary by a factor of two. One character can have double the total stat points of another. While that degree of variance is highly improbable, it's not that unusual to see differences of 50%. How often do you enter the game with 'very good, above average, above average, poor' and then reroll into 'exceptional, extremely good, very good, above average'? Pretty regularly. And the difference in raw power between those two statrolls is absolutely going to define your character.

Your likely somewhat incorrect statements about actual code values for skill boosts aside, I'd love it if we could focus on the last bit of this paragraph.

You can, based on stats alone be quite a bit stronger with excep/eg/vg/aa than you would be with vg/aa/aa/poor.  That said.. that's definitely not 'double the total stat points', it's 'a bit of a bump' - and the world exists with a wide variety of things that could change the outcome of a fight.  You are correct, if we rolled in two characters of the same race, age, class/subclass, and stat placement, then did nothing with them except put them in a room aggro with each other, the higher statted character would win.  No one has ever disputed that.

It seems that, you consider vg/aa/aa/poor to be an unplayable.  I've had characters with a similar spread, and they were fun.  I played the role.  I had a good time.  I moved on to a new character when they died. 

And, as you yourself pointed out, you reroll into a higher set of stats quite regularly.


:edited by Moderator:

[Yelinak]

It doesn't really make sense to place the description stage after the statroll, or else you'd need two stages of approval. First you'd have to apply for a character, get it approved, look at your stats; and then put in a description, get that approved, and finally commence into the game. That won't work.

I'm frankly surprised that this is suggested every time this discussion comes up. You cannot show statrolls before the character application is submitted, else you can just reroll over and over; and you cannot expect a two-stage approval process where you first put in for the right to play a character, get accepted, then look at your stats, and then write a description that requires another layer of staff review. I have to say that this is such a level of common sense that it shouldn't be suggested every time this subject re-emerges. It doesn't make sense at all.

Just fix the statrolling system already, would you? It's 2023, not 1996.

:edited by moderator:

[Yelinak]

A character's total stat aggregate can vary by a factor of two. One character can have double the total stat points of another. While that degree of variance is highly improbable, it's not that unusual to see differences of 50%. How often do you enter the game with 'very good, above average, above average, poor' and then reroll into 'exceptional, extremely good, very good, above average'? Pretty regularly. And the difference in raw power between those two statrolls is absolutely going to define your character.

You can, based on stats alone be quite a bit stronger with excep/eg/vg/aa than you would be with vg/aa/aa/poor.  That said.. that's definitely not 'double the total stat points', it's 'a bit of a bump' - and the world exists with a wide variety of things that could change the outcome of a fight.  You are correct, if we rolled in two characters of the same race, age, class/subclass, and stat placement, then did nothing with them except put them in a room aggro with each other, the higher statted character would win.  No one has ever disputed that.

It seems that, you consider vg/aa/aa/poor to be an unplayabled.  I've had characters with a similar spread, and they were fun.  I played the role.  I had a good time.  I moved on to a new character when they died. 

And, as you yourself pointed out, you reroll into a higher set of stats quite regularly.

:edited by Moderator:

Let's begin where I carefully pointed out that a full 100% difference of character stats is so statistically improbable that it rarely happens. It's just the full potential of the system's variance. You could roll EX/EX/EX/EX or P/P/P/P. It is mechanically possible. What's more likely is a swing of about 50% from one roll to the next. That's not unusual at all. The EX/EG/VG/AA vs. VG/AA/AA/P comparison represents the 50% spread that is relatively common.

But where do we arrive at the "if we placed them in some omegatwink grindroom simulation" fallacy? That has never been part of the argument. That is brought forth in bad faith.

No, the highest-statted character will not always win. A mekillot can bite you on the head and roll 20 on its 1d20+15 damage dice, or whatever it has, and subsequently deal enough damage to kill even the EG END PC. Or One-Eye Amos can backstab you for 110 damage when you have 109 hit points and it gets the job done. Captain Fuckface of the AoD might not spot you with his 'very good wisdom' scan even though your 'above average agility' infiltrator hide leaves him with a 5% chance to do so, and then you evaded detection.



:edited by Moderator:

[Armaddict]

Stats are important.  But they are not important enough to ruin characters over.  They are typically more powerful in the early game than the 'end game' of a character.  Skills > stats in terms of impact on efficacy in -most- situations (not all).

I think the majority of people who take an adversarial position against things of this nature do it mostly as a kneejerk against the slide towards controllable metagaming or maximization.  Not that they necessarily attribute it TO the person making the proposition or people who promote it, but just that the emphasis in design towards enabling such methods becomes like a 'siren call' to very capable roleplayers to move in that general direction.  We -have- seen that behavior in the change to make skill levels visible.  There was a definite drift of behaviors over time in light of that information becoming accessible and readily available.  This is not a statement to demonize that.

All that being said, I do -not- have issues with stats being known prior to description writing so that you can match up backgrounds and descriptions.  I do -not- have issue with some sort of control over stats, insofar as embracing randomness remains truly random (i.e. I believe you -should- be able to choose some stats, but that the total 'stat points' will be lower than some decent percentage of random rolls, albeit assigned in your optimal way).

I believe the demon here is not controllable stats, nor knowledge of those stats, but movement towards the overall upward trend OF stats to make lower stats more and more punishing.  Lower rolls are necessary to keep exceptionalism exceptional, and it's hard to get people to -choose- lower rolls, and it's a feel good to see characters adapt and embrace their strengths and weaknesses that are present in ways they themselves would not have chosen.

I think the concerns in this thread are valid as far as knowledge of rolls and character creation.  But I don't think it's very productive OR accurate to try and assign some uber-negative quality to everyone who embraces different facets of different stat systems than you do.

:edited by Moderator:

[Master Color]

If we are going to move away from bad stat roles and start critiquing roleplay I think this thread no longer serves its intended purpose.

This is not a roleplay critique. I'm talking about incentive structures not individual players.

[Coda]

My point, and it has been my point this entire time, is that your character is more than their statblock.  Your character's gear, skills, friendships, hopes, and dreams all contribute to who they are and what they can do.  (To me,) this hyperfocus on stats is ridiculous, gamey, and boring.  If we had arrays, or point-buy, we'd devolve into a game with 'builds' that would get passed around the same way the code leak did.  And then we'd see a meta develop, like this was League of Legends.  And that sounds awful to me.

No, the highest-statted character will not always win. A mekillot can bite you on the head and roll EDITEDor whatever it has, and subsequently deal enough damage to kill even the EG END PC. Or One-Eye Amos can backstab you for 110 damage when you have 109 hit points and it gets the job done. Captain Fuckface of the AoD might not spot you with his 'very good wisdom' scan even though your 'above average agility' infiltrator hide leaves him with a EDITED to do so, and then you evaded detection. But how can you possibly deny that stats could have totally changed these outcomes?

Perhaps, in this role playing game, where you're playing a human who stands between 5 and 7 feet tall, you should be afraid of the building sized superpredator.  Perhaps, it's ok that you don't have perfectly minmaxxed stat blocks that allow you to edge out a solo victory against megafauna.  Perhaps you should've poisoned it with arrows, and been part of a hunting crew that includes giants, who are much tougher than humans, to take the hits for you, as they do in the lore. 

Perhaps people die, regularly, from a single well placed knife attack.  Perhaps the key here is to play a character and deal with the fact that, yes, One Eyed Amos is a very skilled assassin who could end your character.  Perhaps, it's ok if he does, because one of the true constants in Armageddon is that your character will die.  The game is not won by beating everything or killing the most mobs or whatever else, it's an active process where you build and tell stories together with other people – staff and players – in order to have fun within that.  Sometimes your role is Badass.  Sometimes your role is Murdered Person.  Sometimes your role is to get your ass kicked, and go on a Rocky-style sparring montage over the next bit of time, interacting with people as an embarrassed underdog before your eventual victory.  Sometimes you just hide and outlive the fucker who beat you down, then fuck their girlfriend after they die. 

Stats can change the outcome.  Again, nobody has said otherwise.  Stat variance allows for changed outcomes and that's why they're important to me.  If a Meta develops, and Builds come together, then the game is more 'solved' – you always take the agi-focus array on your thieves because you know it beats anything but a wis-focus array at better than advanced stealth.  You always take the strength-end array on your dwarf Fighters because of the racial bonuses/penalties giving you a 7.34% chance of having 10 more hp or whatever it would end up being.  It homogenizes everything and makes the game boring. 

In the end, there are some different views on the game.  One group wants to have The Perfect Stats and Mastered Skills. That group wants to know they have perfect stealth, and wants to know what breakpoints allow them to solo which megafauna, and wants to always Be The Best.  The other group wants to tell stories.  They don't mind getting caught sometimes on their thieves, because thieves sometimes get caught. They don't mind having to type 'flee' when a creature the size of a three story building chunks them for 60% of their hitpoints, because sometimes hunters are at risk from the things that they're hunting. 

I'm in the second camp.  I'm not claiming you're in the first, but the framing you use and the way you post suggests it, so it would be an easy assumption to make.  I post because I like this dumb nerd game.  I like it for its randomness and its violence and its risk.  People who declare that death ruins the 20 days of playtime they put into a character are missing the point.  You got  480 hours of entertainment off that character, for free.  You probably have a fun story or two, and remember other characters you interacted with fondly.  Armageddon is a TT-simulating Roguelike with roleplay.  And I'd like to preserve that, not create Metas and Builds.


All that aside, I'd 100% love it if we had our two blocks of stats (regular and reroll) for our next character rolled, especially as someone who always does full random.  I do dislike descing in the buff, muscular guy and ending up with above average strength.  Feels silly.

:edited by Moderator:

[Riev]

Stop making assumptions about other people based on text on a general internet forum.
Stop positing that your opinions are the only ones that matter.
Stop demonizing other players who prefer to have a different experience than yours and/or that your play experience is the only one that matters.
Stop posting "what ifs" and "This probably happens" scenarios. You are attacking fellow players when you do this, purposefully or not.

Do continue posting about your own experiences, without using them to color other peoples.
Do try to argue the point, and not belabor it.

[mansa]

If we are going to move away from bad stat roles and start critiquing roleplay I think this thread no longer serves its intended purpose.

I've locked the thread and started editing out the personal attacks.
I've unlocked the thread.  It's never productive when argument structure meta commentary is used in an anonymous text-based online forum.

[Fredd]

My opinion on the matter:

I like randomizing.

But I hate rolling shit rolls when I get a Rolecall or an App.

If I app a Byn sergeant and I roll crap stats, that hurts you know? I'de be up for letting RC's and App's get 3 rerolls and choose the best one, or something.

This would likely help staff have to set up less Byn Sarges, Templars, Militia/Legion Sergeants, and other combaty roles that get called on. While not changing the game to much.

My common sense argument for this is: The Characters being tapped for their role are supposed to come from a wide net cast into the org the app is for. They should be pulling the best they have available. So it would stand to reason these folks would likely be at the higher end of the stat spectrum.

This would likely kick up the number of apps for said roles too.

[Riev]

If I point buy, its because I know I want this character to get to low Exceptional [stat] and I'm willing to sacrifice having shit wisdom or poor agility/etc to do it. A fighter using agility more than strength comes to mind, and wanting to ensure you don't get 'screwed' with an "above average" strength roll.

If I random, I don't care about the exact physical attributes and/or I am hoping to get something really stellar. A regular Bynner, a Raider, something that kind of needs all the stats or at least just a prioritized list. A high chance of having better overall stats but not distributed how I'd prefer.



In short: Stats matter in the first 5days played on a character, and the last 10 seconds. Its important to have them set at what you're expecting for the role. Also as a note: If you let me see stats BEFORE I create a character you can be SURE I'm save scumming.

[Master Color]

Surely there are ways to change the stat systems so that the bizarre differentials are reduced?

Why can't we just have a stat array with 2d6 bonus stats that are randomly applied? It's simple, choose your array. Very good strength, average wisdom etc. And then roll the bones to see what gets bumped.

That way we stop getting characters that cartoonishly over and under powered and we still preserve that fun popcorn randomness some people seem to like.

Hell give higher karma players 3d6 to roll as a starter option.

[mansa]

The stats in ArmageddonMUD are generated on a few things:
* Class
* Subclass
* Race
* Age
and
* Randomness

In my opinion, the affect of choosing a lower Age has too much impact. The penalties applied to endurance and strength should be reduced by 50% for those choosing lower aged characters.

I think changing the lower end of the aging brackets would be an easier change that would apply the desired impact than recoding how to present character stats to players.

[Kavrick]

Yeah, I think it's been said by a good few people. The random nature of stats really isn't the worst part, it's the massive range that you can get that's the bad part. I think it's kinda exaggerated by the fact we only have four stats, even in DnD you have six stats, which gives you a higher chance of rolling good stats for stats you need. On top of that, DnD has 'dump stats', where certain stats are fine to be low in, like a wizard really doesn't do anything with charisma and a fighter does nothing with wisdom. Compare this to arm, where unless you're playing a full crafter, every single stat is important to your character.

The stats in ArmageddonMUD are generated on a few things:
* Class
* Subclass
* Race
* Age
and
* Randomness

In my opinion, the affect of choosing a lower Age has too much impact. The penalties applied to endurance and strength should be reduced by 50% for those choosing lower aged characters.

I think changing the lower end of the aging brackets would be an easier change that would apply the desired impact than recoding how to present character stats to players.

I also agree with the whole age thing, it also feels unnatural to play an older character who's also only just starting off skill-wise. It's a little hard to be immersed in my 32 year old hunter who can't hunt worth a damn.

[Jihelu]

A little late to the party but one of the things Apoc mud later did was have stat minimums and it made things a lot less shitty to not roll BA's and Poors. It never felt like 'Oh I rolled average time to suicide' either, or at least it didn't to me.

Did it fix the issue entirely? Not really. But you wouldn't be worthless.

[Tuannon]

I think there should be a bit of padding so you can actually do your 'job'.

Maybe do away with stat prioritizing for minimum competence insurance. I dunno.

I get the impression most people will just suicide if they have irredeemably dogshit stats anyway.

[ShaiHulud]

As long as I've been playing this game..let's see. Yeah, getting shitty stats sucked, but unless completely horrible, I dealt with it. Even had some great roles evolve from low statted characters. Its much better now in regards to the all low crap stats. And, I love the randomness of it. I wouldnt want that to change. The chance to get something awesome at chargen, or something average. It is the way it should be.