Eliminate all 'mental' stats from the game.

[bilbous]

You know you could replace all the stats with just one: luck. That way there would only ever be one thing to check against and implementation would be easy.

If you are lucky you can pick up the boulder blocking your path and roll it down the hill bowling over the advancing ulbernauts. If you do not like to call it luck you could call it your Wyrd. If it is your fate to do it you will do it. If not say goodnight. Why bother trying to model anything further than that? Do you need strength to hammer that sword? If you are meant to do it you will have the strength. Want to add a shiny pebble to your pack? If it is meant to be yours it will fit. If not then your pack might spill all your goodies on the ground. Why should the player know exactly what he can do? Why should he always be able to do the same thing again? Life is a crapshoot!

[Under the moon]

To me, roleplaying is mimicking life. To say "This is your persona, so this is what you -will- do..." is not mimicking life. Life is filled with choices, 'what if', 'what now', and 'or'. In Romeo's case, he chose death. But, he could have just as easily chose life and revenge. That would not have been stepping out of the personally options. If you play the persona of someone who likes turning right, and generally does so, that does not mean that something may just click at the right time, and you take a left.

I agree that GMing is an art. It is the art of predicting and flowing with the choices players make. It -can- be done by controlling the character's personalities, but I find that too easy and predictable. I find it much more enjoyable to predict what the player will do, not -knowing- how the character will react.

In the Un-common Cold RP I set up, I predicted and controlled the actions of players for weeks in advance. Not by prescripting, as nothing was set, but I predicted what would happen because I understood how folks would react in general, if not the specifics. I treated characters not as individuals, but as a mass, trusting that those with the right player endowed traits would come to the front and find one of the right paths. I then use the old 'if, then' setup to counter react with my own characters, but not in a "this is exactly what I will do" way.

Let's say you GM a game with a very curious elf in your player characters. You as the GM put a shiny box on the ground in the path of the heroes. If the player controlling the elf does not pick the box up, as you predict, or -know- they should, do you take control of their character and make them pick it up? Let me put it another way. Since you, as the GM, knew the elf would pick up the box, so you specifically put it there for him to pick up, who, then, is actually roleplaying the elf? Is it the player, who is reacting exactly as he is -supposed- to... or is it you, the GM, who is forcing the story to go the way you wish, based on the fact you know exactly what -your- characters are going to do? The only thing left to players in that case is to toss out a random roll of dice once in a while.

There is another thing you can do in a PnP that can never be done in a computer game. In both, you can assign stats and personality. You can change that personality by reacting to events. If your character sees a death, PnP and comp can both give your character trauma or fear status. However, how does a computer game handle a grumpy old dwarf with a seeming hate for all things who slowly becomes friends with a high spirited elf, who shows him there is yet things to smile about? In a PnP, that is easy. The GM see the interactions, and can just change the allowed personality of the dwarf. How does a computer handle it? In fact, how does a computer handle -any- player to player interactions? Your dwarf has low intelligence, but the elf you made friends with has very high. In a PnP, you can raise the dwarf's INT if the elf talks to him a lot, telling him about things. In a computer game, you get nothing.

A computer game simply can not handle things like player to player changes in personality, including intelligence and charisma. A computer can not make art with feeling. Not yet, anyways.

[Draklar]

Reread my posts, then reply with arguments that have anything to do with what I said. You're doing too much assuming.

Until then, o/

[Under the moon]

I read and fully understood them the first time. What you are saying, basically, is, "I have my opinions on what roleplaying actually is, and anything else is sub-par."

What I am saying, is that I also have my opinions on roleplaying, and many of them match up very well with yours, but I also accept that they are not the only 'right' opinions, and not even the right ones for an online RPG.

In PnP, you have strict rules. You have a set story to follow, and a goal to proceed to. You have specific characters to follow that story, and be the heroes. The story is dedicated to entertaining a select few skilled players, and so is tailored that way. And often, you have a resolution at the end.

An online multiplayer game does not, and can not follow those same rules. No one is the hero. No one is the center of the story. There is no 'winning' or ending. No one is hovering over every player to try to keep them entertained. The goal of RP in this type of realm is not to proceed, but to exist and react to both game elements and other people. In this case, I very much doubt that many people will wish for a computer to tell them how they are supposed to react, based on stats 'rolled' at creation.

The simple and base reason behind this request is this: As a PnP GM, you can gauge the mental skills of a player, and decide if that player can act out the role of the character he is given, such as very high intelligence. If not, you adjust the role. An arbitrary computer can not.

Just for your information, I toss out the mental stats in PnP games as well, and merge the player's own abilities with the character's. I do not accept random rolls based on intelligence to see if something can be read or solved. So, what is wrong with creating a character with your exact intelligence and charisma, but a completely different body type and personality? Nothing. I would never tell a player that their character is not smart enough to solve something, but will grin from ear to ear if the player himself is not. I am devious that way. I will, however, tell a person that they could not pick a lock based on a roll with an unskilled character ( a skilled character can just roll it). I am strict that way. In a way, I am more flexible as well, as I will often design the lock out, and players have to say how they are trying to open it, and how the pick is being moved. In this way, they can use their own intelligence. This is much more enjoyable to both myself and the players.

Now, sir Draklar, tell me I am wrong.

[bilbous]

As someone who played for years but never ran a game here is my perspective. The idea is to have fun and the GM can design wildly complex tricks and traps but it is not fun for the players to get stumped time and again and get no help from the GM. The intelligence role is a last recourse  not a routine measure and the quality of the role indicates the quality of the help that should be received. If the stipulated difficulty of the role is 1/4 the stat and the three mages with their 18 int all role twenties they will all get wildly conflicting misleading hints but if the fighter with his 8 int roles a 1, he will have seen this kind of thing before and get quite a good tip. If you really do not want the players to know if their hint is good or not the you as the GM can role it. The reason for stat roles is because the scenario designer cannot always separate from his own assumptions. There have been times when faced with such a situation the after the trick was left unsolved and there was no going back to it, it was revealed that it depended on some specific knowledge the designer had the none of the players were party to. This is unfair in the extreme and a sign of poor design. If you take away the exceptional role you do not give the players a chance.

As to your example I haven't the first clue as to how to pick a lock and I do not really care to, but I do sometimes like to play a thief character who would have some understanding and after a while even expertise. Perhaps your players are mensa members but the people I played with just wanted to drink some beer and have fun. Are you suggesting that the characters should have suffered the effects of the players pickling their brains? A lot of beer was consumed on many occasions (even by the GM).

[Under the moon]

Gah, once again you skipped parts of my post in your haste to disprove me.

I said a high lockpicking skill can be rolled. If one has no lockpicking skill, the player can try to figure it out.

As to the drinking problem, I am sure your intelligence in playing an online game is going to be impared, unless you want to have an /I_am_drunk command to suddenly make the game take a lot less intelligence to play, or maybe put your character on autopilot.

Nothing can account for a bad GM making impossible situations that need inside info. That is a bad example.

I also dislike the idea of rolling a random number in a situation to see if your character would know something. They either would have known it, or would not. "Do I know Harken Elvish?" *rolls a two*  "I guess not."

[Draklar]

I read and fully understood them the first time.
[...]
Now, sir Draklar, tell me I am wrong.

You are wrong.

[Under the moon]

Well, that is your opinion, and you have your right to it. In the realm of ideas and likes, no one person's opinion is right. I did not specifically address some of your points, as I see them as invalid.

Statistics support me, in this case. Would the game be be better if it had strict rules for mental and personality stats? In my opinion, -for me- yes, to a certain extent. It would also be a lot emptier, and nearly impossible to code. If strict rules were enforced, I would be staggeringly surprised to see more than five to twenty people online at a time. You may think that would be a good thing, but I do not. I enjoy the personalities created by other players, including their self assigned mental stats.

And that, Draklar, is how this Massively-MultiplayerORPG would fail. It would become a tabletop mimic MORPG, built around just those few that can play specific roles, and enjoy doing so in a virtual, computer-generated world. It would fade for the minds of most of the people who play it now, and become a small cult game.

Since we are on the subject of a better system, what do you propose to do, and how could the code be made to support it? I give you two example characters to base your system of enforced mental and personality stats on, three potential player types, and some potential situations. I left out my player type, as I could play either of these roles easily without any extra code.

One: This will be a young Dwarf of surpassing intelligence (high INT) He is a renaissance type, skilled and learned in many areas. He is an inventor and philosopher. People group around him when he starts to give a talk on one of the many subjects he is very proficiant in (high CHA). He even has some training in the art of battle and fighting, as his father was a trained soldier, and saw fit to pass his knowledge onto his son. The dwarf is not without flaws, though, as his pride often gets him into trouble with his fellows and foes alike (high WILL/Pride). He is also afraid of deep water and most animals, though for unknown reasons (low bravery). He has no problem at all switching to the highest bidder for his works, despite what may have been promised (low Loyalty, high Greed). He will never however, take something that does not belong to him.

Two: This is an elvish fisherman's daughter. She takes after her father's side of the family in the intelligence department, to her mother's great disappointment (low INT) She is often coarse in language, and prefers using her fists instead of her brain to get out of most situations. She is barely literate, and often has a hard time getting her point across to others (low CHA). She is fast to anger and gives up quickly when faced with a problem she can not easily solve (low WILL). She also tends to have sticky fingers, and does not respect other's possessions (low Honor), but even being a thief, she never sees fit to take more than she needs (low Greed). The one thing she shines in is sticking to her friends and defending them at any cost (high Loyalty/bravery),

The player types:

A: The friendly player who likes to help people. Let’s say he is not very smart.
B: Drey or Seperot, who I find enjoyable to play the game with, but find to be limited in roles they can play (from experience, anyways).
C: The very smart player who is not a very good RPer, and loves to finish everything.

The basic situations:

1: A very valuable purse or item is seen being dropped unnoticed by a fellow player or NPC.

2: There is a debate on advanced construction, which the Dwarf has the stats to know about, but the Elf does not. The same can not be said about the players.

3: The only way to get to the next quest is to cross deep water on a boat.

4: There is a very hard maze that needs to be solved.

5: You need to talk some folks (NPCs or players) into helping you do something (group quest, maybe?). More specifically, the elf has to talk the dwarf into doing something.

6: Other.

Now, in a PnP, every one of those situations are easy to control using nothing but the reasoning of the GM. Now, come up with a code solution strict enough to force all players to act out those situations correctly (as you see it), yet flexible enough to account for the infinite other situations that could arise. That is your test. Remember, the clock is ticking, and I grade hard.

[bilbous]

See the problem I have here, UTM, is that you seem to expect the players to slavishly follow your dictates. Who is to say that my character will never do something unusual. You seem to want to pigeon-hole characters in such a way that if they do something you do not expect you firmly set them back on the straight and narrow and real people are not that invariable for the most part. I doubt very much that you would have allowed me to play most of my D&D characters as I typically chose Chaotic Neutral. A lot of the time I acted in the best interests of the party which is what most players want from other players but other times I would take wild chances that would endanger the party. For instance I had a thief character that checked 50 feet of a 60 foot sloping corridor for traps and ran down the last 10 setting off the inevitable boulder trap just because he got bored. I do not see it as the GM's job to tell the players how to play their character, it is his job to keep the action moving and provide the consequences of the parties action. If the paladin with the 18 charisma decides he doesn't like his hosts and acts like an obnoxious twit are you going to tell him it is not possible for his character to be so rude or are you going to have the court react with shock and great affront with all that might entail? Player stats are a guide to the character but should not be a straight jacket.

Forgive me if I am interpreting your words poorly but you sound more like a cruise director than a game master to me. I do agree that NPC AI is not something that can be modeled in such a way that it will replace human direction and I approve of your desire to try and enhance it but I think you will inevitably have to accept that what you would like to see and what is possible are two different things. The soft stats are there so that the NPC's have the means to judge appropriate responses and since they exist they pull double duty as the basis for some skill sets. That said I do not think the NPC's actually do use the stats to make decisions as this game is currently implemented. This is my understanding of the RPG genre at any rate.

BTW I am not trying to disprove you, I am merely trying to express some of my disagreements with what you have posted. I do not see it as a matter of right or wrong but one of preference.

[Under the moon]

Bilbous, you are very much missunderstanding me. I -want- players and characters to do things that are unpredictable. I never dictate to people how thier characters should react. That is not to say I do not dictate how the world would react to them.

My examples in the above post were to prove that strict control of personalities (including INT and CHA) simply can not be done easily or at all in a MMORPG.

I do not see it as the GM's job to tell the players how to play their character, it is his job to keep the action moving and provide the consequences of the parties action.

Exactly!!! That is why I don't think INT and CHA should be included in the hardcoded sats, as those limit the personalities of the player created character. A computer makes a poor GM in this case.

If the paladin with the 18 charisma decides he doesn't like his hosts and acts like an obnoxious twit are you going to tell him it is not possible for his character to be so rude or are you going to have the court react with shock and great affront with all that might entail?

If you read my post above, you would see that I would not give out a charisma stat at all. But no, if a player was playing a high CHA character and decded to go off the wall, I would not step in his way. The outraged folks around him, however, are another story all together.

If you tried to play a strong character, and your stats said you were a small weakling, then I would put my foot down. The game code does a fine job of this already. You just can't do things if you are not strong enough. If you want to play a split personality, one side smart, nice, and helpfull, and the other side dumb, course, and rude, all lights are green from my side of the table. The game code, however, could not comprehend such a thing, and would not allow such a character to exist.

I think Draklar is the one you want to talk to for nazi style enforcing of intelligence, charisma, and other mental/personality stats. From what I gather, he would not let you go Waterboy in a crowed inn if you had a high charisma character. But, perhaps I am wrong as well.

[Doombell]

I actually like this idea. At least changing them to get rid of such vague things as charisma and intelligence. Could probably be replaced by stuff like concentration (Might be too vague too), or, for charisma, some kind of "Sense", the ability to read into things in a different way, say a third eye kind of thing.

Biggest problem I see is the fact that charisma and intelligence are situational, and kind of hard to "boost".
I'll simply use Unnamed as an example here (No offense unnamed, you just happened to be right here): Even if he played a character that had a high charisma stat, I wouldn't want to do what he says, simply because I consider him rude and unwilling to listen to other people's opinions. But I bet you there is some people out there who would prefer someone who believes so strongly in themselves to take charge, who won't take "no" for an answer.

And intelligence is pretty similar, some are good at seeing how mechanical things work, others may be better at planning out troop movements. In some cases it's even hard to separate intelligence and charisma.

I would likely fail at playing a high charisma character, as I'm bad at figuring other people out, and tend to stay quiet until I have something to say. And it doesn't really matter if the game tells me I have low or high charisma, I'm simply not sure if I am charismatic or not. Most people would probably say I'm not, but some people I could probably deal with better than a charismatic person.

In opposition, physical traits are much more rigid, where strength would usually be something along muscle mass, a more muscular person can lift more, with some difference in technique, which might actually fit well under agility, whith things like balance, flexibility, precision and speed. Endurance depends on what you use it for, in some games they toss some muscular properties here instead, like how much you can lift (heaving a boulder 10 meters versus carrying a bag of potatoes to the next town), but generally it governs aerobic ability (How well you can keep your muscles oxygenated while running for example), and often how much damage you can take.

Therefore, I think it's better to just toss intelligence and charisma out and replace them with something else. There will be complications, but I think the end result will be better. And, no, it should not mean that someone gets some incredible bonus to magic just because they are smarter, like someone seemed to interpret it.