Saturday, May 15, 2021

What's the Point of Ability Scores? (A Brief Interlude)

Before returning to my examination of ability scores in D&D and AD&D, I thought it would be instructive to take a look briefly at how the second edition of Chaosium's RuneQuest handles abilities (or "characteristics," as it terms them). Bear in mind that this edition was released in 1979, five years after the release of OD&D, but roughly contemporaneously with the completion of Advanced Dungeon & Dragons

Unlike D&D, RQ has seven characteristics: Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, and Dexterity, and Charisma, whose scores are determined by the player rolling 3d6 in order. Each of the characteristics provides bonuses or penalties to tasks or skills in which a character engages. For example, defense rolls are influenced by a character's scores in Size, Intelligence, Power, and Dexterity. 

If you take a look at the chart above, you'll notice something very interesting. Take a look at the line for the Size characteristic. What you'll see is that having a low score is actually a benefit to defense, while having a high rating is a drawback. Here's another, this one dealing with stealth.
In this chart, there are two characteristic where having a low score is advantageous, Size and Power. Forgive me for finding these two charts remarkable, but this is a topic that's very dear to me. I've long felt that there ought to be benefits as well as drawbacks for scores at both ends of the curve. The fact that RuneQuest – at least in its second edition – takes this into account is commendable and an unusual counterpoint to the way Dungeons & Dragons (and other RPGs) handles ability scores.

13 comments:

  1. Runequest still does that in its current version, and I use that method (or at least the method in BRP 4e which is slightly more granular) to modify skill scores in Call of Cthulhu 7e, because I feel there is too little attribute influence in determining skill success or failure in that game’s rule set. I also tend towards method IV of rolling characteristics from AD&D in all the games I GM (but I’d forgotten it was 12 characters worth of die rolls, I only allow 6).

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  2. Runequest and pendragon definitely overtaken my love of d&d. Mostly I think in terms of lore I love Glorantha. I have to play d&d again to cement because haven't played in 4 years.

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  3. I understand being harder to hit because you're small and it being easier to hide because you're small and/or unimpressive. It's harder to see a benefit from being weak, stupid, foolish, clumsy, unhealthy, or unappealing. Still, there are a few.
    Weaker creatures have a better chance of escaping the grip of a strangle vine (a monster from the Creature Catalogue).
    Intelligence ≤ 7 means that you're too dumb for the hypnosis psionic discipline to work on you.
    If the total of your Intelligence & Wisdom is average your chance to save vs. a psionic blast is lower than the chance of a brilliant & wise person, but the consequences are much less severe.
    Lower Dexterity characters gain more stat points from magical Gauntlets of Dexterity

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    1. Yes, it's difficult coming up with benefits to low ability scores, but I can't help but feel there ought to be some.

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    2. The reasons why are described in the RQ rules (really made an impression on me when I read for the first time more than 40 years ago):

      DEFENSE
      SIZ: A smaller target is harder to hit, a large one is easier.

      STEALTH
      SIZ: The more area you have to hide, the harder it is.
      POW: Uniquely amongst the abilities, POW is a handicap for this ability. Too much POW builds an aura about a character that is hard to ignore, even if he tries to be inconspicuous.

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    3. It's not hard to envision D&D doing something similar to the RQ POW mods with Charisma (or Comeliness, if you're using a variant that has that as a stat). Very high Charisma would make you stand out in a crowd, making it harder to avoid unwanted attention, conceal one's identity, etc. Very low Charisma would make you that guy at the office that always gets overlooked for promotions, and you'd find it easier to lose yourself among the masses or adopt and maintain a false identity.

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    4. Really low Intelligence, Wisdom, and maybe Charisma make you less appetizing to mind flayers. Presumably you wouldn't be very nutritious for other psionic critters that feed off mental attributes.

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    5. Low intelligence and/or wisdom might improve your likelihood of maintaining morale ("Ignorance is bliss.")

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    6. Maybe you have to really change things and have different ability scores altogether. Patrick Stuart is working on a RPG called “Goose-Gold and Goblins” where there are binary stats like Old/Young and Patient/Impulsive and each side has different advantages. Really different from D&D, obviously, but....

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  4. There is a yt video on halfing strength that is great backed by some physics. Yes they are weak in attacks but immensely strong in acrobatics, climbing. The way strength had 2 sides impacted by size with drawbacks and benefits was appealing.

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  5. Yep, RQ was an eye opener back then, and became my Fantasy Game Of Choice once I found a copy, and D&D became a blip on the radar. Despite being so steeped in myth, the actual game mechanics were the first to totally "make sense" and really still are the best at it to this day. I find myself having to/wanting to house rule D&D into oblivion most of the time, but when I run a BRP game I use the total of the HP calculation, instead of the average- this allows for a more heroic/less deadly game (as that's the type of thing I prefer to run) and ridiculously simple.

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  6. Very tangentially related but today's installment of the webcomic El Goonish Shive is explaining some technical details of the strip's magic system. Turns out that magic that changes your attributes (in particular, they're talking about an equivalent to RQ's Size stat today) can be made easier to use if you "balance' the changes between caster and target. Want someone to be bigger? You can save effort by shrinking yourself. Similarly, magic that lets you change forms (one of the characters has a spell to become a literal superhero, as well as a variety of "secret identity" forms) can opt to trade off Size and Strength maximums for increased Charm, better flight capability, and probably a slew of cosmetic options.

    Interesting concept for tweaking polymorph spells, if nothing else.

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    1. Discussion continues today, and I defy anyone to read that strip without getting ideas for tweaking your magic system regardless of games - as well as the way you look at attributes.

      https://www.egscomics.com/comic/balance-021

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