System of progression that makes sense.

[Under the moon]

This system of progression is based on Aptitude, Competence, and Confidence. Each of these measures has a number or percent attached to it that gauges how fast one may learn in each skill, how much further they have to reach the next level of training, and how high they can train that skill. It is a complex system framework, but very intuitive to play. In the following, I will set out the three measures, and how they affect the others, plus an example of how it would work in practice. As you will see, it is a workable system that would be quite unique in its function.

Aptitude, or ability, sets the base rate that you can learn each skill. This is natural born talent, so would be set at Character Creation. That is what will add a little bit of much needed variety in characters.  A system would have to be set in place to support the selections of these aptitudes or attributes. The ‘scale’ of aptitude would be 1 to 100. Let’s take swordplay for example. 100 would mean a character  was basically born with a sword in his hands, and would progress with god-like speed. 1 would mean the skill is almost impossible to learn, and the character should not be trusted with a butter knife. Aptitude also sets a limit on how high you can train in said skill. A 50 would set the character’s natural talent at average (a pre set number in the game), so the closer to average he becomes, the harder it is to gain competence in the next level of skill.

Let’s give our character an aptitude of 50 in swordplay, meaning he is average in his ability to learn this trade. So, on to competence.

Competence is the equivalent of experience, and may be called by either. It is how good you are in a ‘level’ of skill. Competence is the ‘hard’ number everyone will be looking at, as it tell you when you can gain more training. It would be shown by percent, rather than points.  You must achieve 100% Competence (in the basic system) in your level of skill before a trainer will judge you worthy of more training. As stated above, some characters will become proficient in certain skills at a quick pace, based on Aptitude. Unlike experience, a character will learn from both successes and failures, success giving a higher payout, of course. Mistakes will cost you, though, as seen in the next measure.

Let’s say our character has been playing for a week, so he just achieved level 3 in swordplay, and is at 0% Competence in the new moves he has been taught.

Confidence is the wild card. It is sort of like PP, but not quite. Confidence can be gained, lost, or carried on into the next level of skill. It is the major modifier in how fast you can learn, and if a trainer will advance you to the next level. Confidence could be a hidden number, giving rather a descriptive term instead. Five to ten terms for 100 levels (one term per 10 levels) in total would be more than needed. Your learning ability in a skill will be raised a great deal by having high confidence in that area. To some characters, this confidence will come naturally, as it is based on other attributes such as Will and Charisma, plus the Aptitude in that skill. A tricky system of numbers would control Confidence and how it affects your learning curve. In a fight, a clear victory over an equal foe will raise the level greatly, while hacking up n00bs you significantly overpower might not raise it at all. Facing a new creature would be a modifier that dropped your confidence at first, but defeating it would bring it back up to the starting level, plus some. Fighting in a group would also greatly increase confidence, thus encouraging player interaction. Not practicing in a skill for a long time would lower your Confidence. It would also ‘bleed’ over into other skills. This would be the “If I can do this, I can do anything!” aspect. The same applies to failure and defeat. With a very low confidence, it becomes hard to try new things and learn new skills. Being killed and sent to the Deathrealm would drop confidence significantly, thus giving ‘death’ some semblance of meaning. I am against losing items or skills because of death, but find this to be a suitable penalty. A trainer may refuse to train a character further until he achieves a certain level of confidence.

Now we will give our character a relatively high confidence of 75, since he did not die in his training, and fought many foes that were close to his equal. His Confidence would have been closer to 90 before, but attempting new skills has dropped it some. Since his base Aptitude is 50 and he is yet at a low level, there will not be any lowering of learning yet. His high Confidence is a modifier that adds a certain percent to the base of 50, but what percent would be fair is uncertain until tested. He joins a group of fighters, thus further increasing his Confidence to 85. Combining Confidence with Aptitude would give you his Learning Ability Percent. Let’s say it is 70% with all the modifiers. This number would reflect the amount of experience could be gained from a task. In my opinion, experience should be gained as you are doing this task, not at the end. In this system, every swing of our character’s sword, and even every hit he took would give him experience. Having the wining blow would be rewarded with higher Confidence, which would make him learn faster in his next battle. Let’s give the total experience of a battle (the sum of all hits and misses given and taken by him) 1000, for easy figuring. Our character has the current Learning of 70%, so receives 700 points in experience. His Confidence will also go up if he did well in the fight, or landed the killing blow. If he did bad in the fight, his Confidence will go down, but he still gets the 700 exp to add to his Competence. Even if killed, he will still get the experience, including points for the hit that killed him. Why? “I’ll never do that again.”  Lesson learned. Once he started reaching the extent of his ability, modifiers would be added to reduce the percent of experience he could get, thus becoming ‘maxed out’.

Now for the more advanced Competence/Competence/training/talking/skill system. Some trainers -may- train a character even if their competence is not at 100%. This would be based on several factors. One would be the judgment of the trainer. In some cases, the trainer may think you are ready based on his evaluation of your Aptitude (how fast you learned your current %) and Confidence. Another would be the NPC’s…let’s call it greed for now. An NPC may attempt to train you to a higher level than you are ready for just for the money. Sometimes this may turn out good, and you can learn faster. Other times, the skills would just be too much for you to handle, and the training would fail, requiring retraining. This would have to be based on your existing stats, but still be somewhat of a gamble. In this system, Confidence would not only affect the rate you can learn, but how well you are doing in that skill. High Confidence would make you fight better and craft faster. Some NPC’s would react differently to your character based on this level, making it easier or harder to talk to them, depending on what kind of NPC you are talking to. Some may like cocky people (+80 confidence), while others would cater to those seeming more pathetic (-20).

Note: Some skills should not have to have more than one level of training, such as some crafts, and perhaps mining. Your character would simply start out at 0%, then slowly train to his/her maximum ability based on Aptitude and Confidence.

[Parallo]

... Brilliant. I can't see a flaw... Brilliant.

[Gharan]

... Brilliant. I can't see a flaw... Brilliant.

Agreed, very well thought through 

[John80sk]

Indeed, very well thought out, perhaps the best system I've heard for leveling in a long time.  Only flaw I see is that it'll probably be a pain to rewrite code that so much is probably already based off of.

[iceddragons]

Astounding. I was all for the PP system simply because of the fact that continually doing the task won't level you up, you have to learn about it. This system keeps that while removing several of the PP system's flaws. I feel that a whipe would be needed while kicking this off, some players already being above where this system would allow, but I for one do not mind.

[bilbous]

At the risk of reducing confidence I have a few thoughts on this proposal.

First and foremost aptitude: There is no way in the world I am going to keep a character with a low aptitude. I am going to scrap the character and start over and over until I am in the top 10 percent of what is possible. To combat this I would suggest at character creation every character gets the same amount of aptitude points, hereafter refered to as AP, that they must decide how to allocate to the various skills. Thus you could choose to be an excellent talent at longsword at the cost of being a clutz with an axe. In thinking about this further I would suggest that there be specific sections that have APs to allocate so that you could put x number of your total APs into weapons, y APs into smithing skills, z points into magic skills and so on. This way everyone would have the same potential but how that potential is utilized will depend on the character.

Competence seems to be practice points in disguise as you must accumulate 100% of the bar to get more training. New in this suggestion is the possibility of early advancement. Here I would suggest that you could buy training anywhere from 50% competence up. From 50-59% you would have a 20% chance of success and pay double the cost. If you fail you get no refund. 60-69% would be 40% chance of success, cost 1.8 times the base price and so on at 70%, 80% and 90% of needed competence. The confidence factor should not add too much as a bonus, perhaps 10% with full confidence.

Group fights should be factored as an average of all participants.

This is off the top of my head and hopefully will be received in the constructive manner intended

[zanzibar]

Flaws that I see:


i. If I have level 10 in swords skill, then that "level 10" already represents my aptitude, competence, and confidence in swords skill.

ii. Characters should be allowed to evolve and people should be allowed to experiment with their characters.  By locking in a character's potential from the start, you are making a change that would hurt the game.  Also, I think that the aptitude system you propose would make it only more easy for power levellers to create super powerful characters.

iii.  There are people who become virtuosos without many lessons, if any lessons at all.  Right now, you absolutely have to have training in order to advance in skill.  Instead, training should greatly speed the process, but it should not be a requirement.  Your progression system does not accomplish this.

iv.  I like the effects that you propose for competance, but it's already in game.  A high level teacher will not teach a low level student.  A low level teacher will not be able to help your character once your character has reached a certain rank.  Now, if it was less black and white, that would be interested, but I imagine it would also be difficult to program.

[Seytra]

While the idea of competence, as well as that of confidence (though it certainly needs testing) is something that seems worthwhile, aptitude certainly isn't. It's essentially what a class-based system is, just worse. In a class-based system, the aptitudes are preselected to make sense and work together. By having the player set them, they'll be making mistakes that they are never able to correct, unlike when starting with lower skills. Yes, you can use the quick paths to do that, but I certainly see no benefit in this system. Realistic? Sure. Enjoyable? No. Seriously, you even accept the current game mechanics into your RP, as unrealistic as they are, why would you want to force one of the most unpleasant aspects of reality onto players?
I din't see you suggesting randomness, but just in case: if you randomly assign aptitude points, things become even worse and will be like bilbous stated. I very much oppose even tiny randomisations, and I certianly oppose major ones like these. It's like randomising CP. I'm not ever going to accept any of that, and will definitely recreate until I'm at least at 97% of the max.

Additionally, I really don't see how this is going to add variety to characters. I already see variety, and especially since there really are few skills that are actually usable ingame, this is certainly something. With the aptitude system, I don't see this changing. In fact, I see the number of fighters and conventional skill combinations increase, because people will certainly think thrice before lowering aptitude in fighting skills unless they are 100% sure they aren't going to become fighters. However, those will simply not level fighting skills, even without such a system.
Additionally, what happens when halfway during your progression, you find that cooking, for which you set minimum aptitude, is much more enjoyable than the mining you envisioned and set aptitude to max? Now you're stuck with a char that will never, ever, be able to become an even somewhat decent cook. So it's either start over or stick with mining even though you don't enjoy it. Seriously, do you really think that forcing limits on players will make them RP a cook who is barely able to slice bread "because it's in his genes"? No. You cannot force people to RP something that they don't want to RP, therefore I certainly don't see the variety boost you're talking about. Instead, I see loads of (rightfully) frustrated players, and much less variety. Noone will want to try out unusual things at all since they know they'll lose everything if it wasn't the right choice and thus need to start over.

Edit: in theory, it indeed is realistic to have some people advance without mucht formal training, but they do train in another way (self-study, etc.). You can't do this well ingame, not to the extent that would be realistic, anyway. Sure, you could replace trainers by books, but that wouldn't necessarily help. Players training other players had been suggested some ages ago, and this is more like what I would want to see.
The reason why it's not going to work is it lacks balance. Every character must be treated exactly equally by the system. Therefore, you can't make some chars self-studying and others not.

Edit 2: It's one of the points where realism has to take the back seat in favor of fairness. You can always claim that you're self-teaching, and merely going to the trainers to verify your latest findings, get new books or even just do some informed chatting. After all, it's not exactly discernible what training at NPCs is, anyway. Your char could be taking lessons for weeks, or the trainer could be magically increasing your skill, or anything inbetween. The game mechanics don't even require having a pickaxe to train mining, nor writing tools.

[LARAGORN]

I agree with Seytra here, Individuals are individuals. We have all seen people leave the family business, because it wasnt their calling. Even though they were taught since birth to follow the family foot steps. Choice is a wonderful thing and when it is taken away, so is the joy of life.

[neko kyouran]

My little comment: I likes it, but I don't likes it.  I never like anything to be ever set in stone.  Thus, at the begining of character creation, that shouldn't limit what a character can do through out the rest of their "life".  People change professions all the time.  That's life after all, constant change.

I recently got a 10 day WoW trial account, just becuase I thought it was time I see what all the fuss is about.  The one ideal about that game I like is that a player can change thier profession (miner, herbalist, etc) at any time, but this also comes with appropriate consequences.  It doesn't limit the character to one set in stone path.  They do, however, use the class based system (e.g mage, rogue, warroir, etc), which the player must choose at creation, and are then unable to change later on.  If a warrior, down the line, thought to themself, "hey, I'm tired of using a big old sword, maybe I want to learn to be a priest and heal", they can't do that, when in the real world, someone who decides they are done being in the military, then resigns from that duty to become a doctor, is quite possible.  Sure, it'd take them awhile to transition, and maybe they wouldn't ever be as good as the person who studied to be a doctor from childhood on, but they still at least have this option available to them.

Ultimately, I'd like to see a system that ties every skill to a type of profession, only limiting the character to a few profession areas at any one time (but with the ability to drop one in favor of another at any time, with appropriate consequenses of doing so), and have the degree of difficulty of learning skills be based off of if they fall into those profession areas.  Harder degree of learning if they are not, a bit easier degree of learning if they are.  But I belive proposals of a system like that have already been discussed in the past, so I'd rather go reread those threads than hijack yours. 

[bilbous]

Seytra I believe you are right and I misread the bit about selecting aptitudes, it was left rather nebulous and I assumed incorrectly that randomeness was intended. That is why I outlined my system for selection. I don't entirely agree with you that this system would result in further homogenization of the character pool. I do think that someone who wanted to be a crafter would slight combat skills in favor of crafting skills. For example they might take above average aptitude for a single weapon or weapon type in order to defend themself while concentrating more on the skills neccessary for their chosen trade. This aspect resembles some of the variant character creation methods for AD&D and they worked quite well in that system. It is true that one fighter is much like another and d&d has a far more rigid class system but if you allow enough variety in choices and restrict the overall number of selections people people can make they will customize.

As far as someone winding up with a trade they don't enjoy, if you make it easy for them to advance enough to get a feel for it, they will discover quickly if it is for them or not. It will be easier to abandon a character that you just don't like and start fresh. You do get four on an account. Also there could be difficult quests designed to allow a player who refuses to abandon their character the chance to have their points adjusted. I am thinking this would be along the lines of a GM quest where the player would be expected to work towards some difficult tasks of their preferred occupation and produce a unique item (one which all components must be done personally evidenced by their name being attached to is like crafted items) to be sacrificed to the gods and the gods will bless them with the aptitude for the given skill. At the same time the old skill will be atrophied in the process.

[Under the moon]

*raises an eyebrow*

You really want me to go into the very in-depth system which addresses all of those concerns? Again, I am seeing people speak form their mouth with why it should not be done without first thinking on how it could be done. It took about five seconds for me to think of good fixes for the questions you had that I did not already have the answer to.

I will now address each quandary in order of appearance.

bilbous, post 1:

No one would have low Aptitude in a skill unless they chose to have it low, nor is it randomized. I do not know where you read that in my post. Aptitude is not a all encompassing stat, but set for each individual skill by what type of player you are.

As to the second part of that, the skills you can chose would be linked to those related to it, somewhat like the skill polygons used in other games. Raising one skill will bring those up on both sides of it. This may limit other skills not related… but that is another system for another thread.

Competence is experience, not PP. You are not ‘buying’ anything with it. It is just a representation of your mastery of a certain level of skill. I like to equate this to the belt colors used in martial arts. Training would not cost any more or less based on your experience. That would not make sense. The failing in training, however, is exactly what I had in mind. Now, I had not mentioned this in my first post due to it getting too long, but once at 50%, you -could- go back to a trainer and get refresher courses in the level you are in, thus raising your Learning level at an extra cost. Now, I know someone is going to cry about that letting some people ‘get ahead’. Get over it. This is an RPG, not a race, and there is no end.

Zanzabar:

I know you are trying, but please make more sense. ‘Level ten’ does not tell you how fast you are learning. ‘10’ does not tell you how high you can train that skill to ‘maxed’. ‘10’ does not tell you anything but how good you are right at that moment.

Your second point I agree with, and there is a great deal of room built into my system for that. You are thinking in simple terms again, and just seeing things how they are now. Any fool who puts all his eggs in one basket in Creation, so to say, deserves what he gets. And in my system, that would not be a good thing, as all stats and skills are linked in a way that supports each other. The system of Confidence allows a character to switch paths and start over. Look at how it works now, and tell me it is better. A player levels up in one skill, gathering money and strength, then suddenly switches to a completely different skill and uses those stats and money to launch themselves into godhood. That right there is a system tailor fit to create power levelers, and does.

Third point. Actually, it does, but again was left out to keep the reading down somewhat. It would be possible for a character to max without ever training, if they wished. But even with your phenom, it would not be as fast as with training, and might be considered a ‘rough’ skill, rather than refined.

Forth point. Maybe in a very sad and simple way, you are right. Perhaps from your point of view there is no room for improvement?

Seytra:

Sorry to say, but from my talks with Talad, there is going to be somewhat of a system that does not allow you to max out in all skills. That is a class system. In my system, those ‘classes’ are very flexible, and not set. You are thinking of a system that you start out and have to chose to be a fighter, mage, or whatever. That is not the case. The diversity comes from the dynamics of an improved Creation process that I have outlined before, which would allow your characters to have a diverse base of  natural skills, while preventing the good-at-everything characters. The link is here http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=26058.msg291733#msg291733, though I called Aptitude Talent in it, but it is basically the same. *ponders how that post fit in that thread, then shrugs*  And no, I do not except current game mechanics into my RP, as I find them all to be horrid in the extreme.

Strip away the personalities of the characters in the game, and you will understand what the current system is producing. Look just at the stats and training. I see a game full of either high powered clones, or Roleplayers who do not bother to level at all. If you start out with the ability to be good at everything, well don’t you think that a great many people are going to be good at everything? This is bad. It becomes more about getting the golden apple of the highest level than playing the role of the character you created.

You seem to be implying things I never said. If someone wants to be a cook, then they can learn to cook. After a time spent cooking, their skill and confidence in that area will go up, and they will learn faster, as at the same time, the skill they stop practicing will lose some confidence, and become harder to learn if started again. Can everyone in the game become the best cook in the world? In a lame world, yes. I do not understand this concept of having to be the best at something, or it is not RP. Roleplaying is fighting to overcome your weaknesses, not being the best at whatever you want to do.

On training (I will keep this short, though I have a great deal to say on it), yes, there should be -many- ways to learn. From self-taught, to book-learned, to NPC -OR- player trained, to god given ‘stat’ raises through quests. I read this “Every character must be treated exactly equally by the system.” and it makes me cringe. You know what is really missing from this game? Heroes. Those who are greater than others. To hell with balance. It is what is killing RP. This freakish ideal that everyone is the same, and should be able to do the exact same skills, learned at the exact same rate. No one can achieve greatness. There is not a single person to look up to, based on this equality. If everyone can be a hero based on game mechanics, then there are no heroes. You are all just average, without the possibility to stand out. You want a world of clones. That is a horrible vision of a world, and one I want no part in.

Your edit 2 is based on the inconsequential reality of how things work now, in a ‘pre’ alpha. Fairness. Fairness in what?

Laragorn: You say individuals, yet support a system that treats everyone the same, no, -makes- everyone the same in the way that you are all the same. I don’t understand were this idea of being limited to one single path and trade is being inferred from my words. You can try to do anything you want, but being good at EVERYTHING you try is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. Just because you turn away from the family bakery to pursue your dream of being an astronaut, it does not mean NASA is going to fling its doors wide and start prepping the shuttle. The same goes if you suddenly want to be a pro fisherman, or any other ‘pro’ you can name. You -might- be able to become the best, but the guaranty robs something from everyone else. That is how I feel about the game. Choice is not limited by my system, it is challenged. Right now, you know exactly where you will end up. With my system, that becomes fuzzy and uncertain. The unknown is the spice of life, not the guaranties. That is what makes one an individual.

Neco: That is what my system is based on. There is nothing saying “You WILL be good at this, and only this.” There would be broad ‘stats’ that would encompass some, or even all of the professions. Then there would be more refined ones that you would choose to narrow what your character might be really good at, or even the best.

bilbous, post 2: Agreed, and system modified. To allow for some experimenting, the greater part of Aptitude points would be set in CC, but part would be left blank to assign after entering the game. Let’s call them hidden talents that your character can ‘discover’ at your choosing. You suddenly find out cooking is great fun, and want to be a cook now, despite low-ish Aptitude in that skill? Assign those hidden talent points to cooking, and your characters has a sudden, life-changing epiphany that gives him the ability to learn. GMs could possibly give out more hidden talent points to those that are deemed worthy. Note that this would not modify your level, just your ability to learn in that skill, and raise the max level.

[LARAGORN]

I would not go as far as to say I 'support' the system as it is. I do however accept it as the way things are now. You have layed out a very plausable new system UTM, so congrats for that. You have also, IMO, addressed the concerns raised very well. It is good to see that you can also be understanding in the areas the system can be changed for the better.

All in all, Good work UTM
Let the fine tunning continue 

[bilbous]

No one would have low Aptitude in a skill unless they chose to have it low, nor is it randomized. I do not know where you read that in my post. Aptitude is not a all encompassing stat, but set for each individual skill by what type of player you are.

How do you envision limiting choices, something along what I suggested with a number of points smaller than needed to max everythimg? If you allow people to max everything some, at least will.

Competence is experience, not PP. You are not ‘buying’ anything with it. It is just a representation of your mastery of a certain level of skill.

you misread me, PPs are progression points, I said practice points those unnumbered thing you get that fill up your green bar until you complete the levels practice and can train the skill again. In a sense you are buying the ability to acquire training. Not a very important distinction.

I like to equate this to the belt colors used in martial arts. Training would not cost any more or less based on your experience. That would not make sense. The failing in training, however, is exactly what I had in mind. Now, I had not mentioned this in my first post due to it getting too long, but once at 50%, you -could- go back to a trainer and get refresher courses in the level you are in, thus raising your Learning level at an extra cost.

I suggested added cost because there is a risk that you are just wasting the trainers time so he would want to build in some system to focus your attention. Also there is his reputation to think about, if he lets everybody test early and the majority of them pass his reputation could suffer as jealous colleagues think he is selling qualifications and not the skills to match.

On training (I will keep this short, though I have a great deal to say on it), yes, there should be -many- ways to learn. From self-taught, to book-learned, to NPC -OR- player trained, to god given ‘stat’ raises through quests.

So you envision, for example "magic" books that upon reading give you a skill increase as a one time benefit or am I putting words in your mouth?

I read this “Every character must be treated exactly equally by the system.” and it makes me cringe. You know what is really missing from this game? Heroes. Those who are greater than others. To hell with balance. It is what is killing RP. This freakish ideal that everyone is the same, and should be able to do the exact same skills, learned at the exact same rate. No one can achieve greatness. There is not a single person to look up to, based on this equality. If everyone can be a hero based on game mechanics, then there are no heroes. You are all just average, without the possibility to stand out. You want a world of clones. That is a horrible vision of a world, and one I want no part in.

I think you what is really needed is a system that treats players consistently throughout but still allows for players to treat the system individually. This is a system with maximum options and limited allotment. you should always have fewer points to spend on your skills than canpossibly be spent on skills. This way peopls characters will develop in unique paths. Ultimately optimum development paths will be identified. There will always be people with too much time who will create multiple characters to tinker with the system possibilities, it is inevitible. There will be others who will find them and pick their brains, also unavoidable. 
There will be others who stolidly refuse to ever create more than one character and will ultimately wind up rounding out their character because they can't find suitable people to RP to do and there is nothing else to do.

Also on the subject of heros my conception of a hero is not neccessarily the muscle bound knight who saves the damsel from the dragon. A hero is the person who faced byexceptional challenges rises to meet them. Certainly the formen is a hero but he is a perfectly ordinary hero. He is only doing what is expected. The real hero would be the farmboy or town drunk whothrust into that position does not just flee but somehow overcomes the odds and saves the day.

[Under the moon]

How do you envision limiting choices, something along what I suggested with a number of points smaller than needed to max everythimg? If you allow people to max everything some, at least will.

http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=26058.msg291733#msg291733

That is what I would like to see. You would not freely asign most of the points, as the system would do that for you in a hidden way by the past experiance you create. There would be no way to max everything. Once ingame, you could add a set amount of extra Aptitude to skills you find you like.

I suggested added cost because there is a risk that you are just wasting the trainers time so he would want to build in some system to focus your attention.

That makes sense, and would have to depend on each NPC.

So you envision, for example "magic" books that upon reading give you a skill increase as a one time benefit or am I putting words in your mouth?

Sort of. I guess there could be some very rare and hard to find books, potions, or whatever that would increase your skill or stat 'magicaly' with no training at all on your part. But I was thinking more on the line of being able to 'replace' training with books if you wish. In life, some people are better at learning form books then from people, and the other way around. Just as others can't learn very well from either, and learn best by doing. These could be options set in Creation for how your character could be best taught. Each would have it's own strengths and failings, such as leanring from a book would be cheaper, but a little slower, and not raise confidence as much as talking to an NPC or player trainer.

I see nothing wrong with creating more than one character to tinker with, as you say. I suggest making the exact numbers harder to see, or completely invisible to players, so that this does not result in road maps to supermen. It is sad to see players running around saying their strength is 150, and Agi is 85, when there is really no way their character could guage that. And of course it is a given that you don't have enough points to buy out the candy store, so to say.

Also on the subject of heros my conception of a hero is not neccessarily the muscle bound knight who saves the damsel from the dragon. A hero is the person who faced byexceptional challenges rises to meet them. Certainly the formen is a hero but he is a perfectly ordinary hero. He is only doing what is expected. The real hero would be the farmboy or town drunk whothrust into that position does not just flee but somehow overcomes the odds and saves the day.

Then we understand one another. I agree completely. By hero, I meant someone who achieves greatness in their area, not the silver bound knight.