Gaming is one of the Leading Causes of Statistics

2009-08-14

Gaming is one of the Leading Causes of Statistics

This article is part 4 of 4 in the series Role-playing Game Rules

Role-Playing Game Basics
Of Dice and Men
Dice, Damn Dice and Statistics
Gaming is one of the Leading Causes of Statistics

When I first drafted up the rules for computing all of these derived stats, I went through a phase of more carefully balancing individual stats against each other. You can see a remnant of this in the melee and range stats: both are based on the same fundamental stats, but one assigns greater value to strength over control.

There is something to be said for balancing all derived stats more precisely in a similar fashion, as clearly some tasks require most of one stat, and less of the others. For example, it could be argued that the defence stat should mostly depend on speed, and that the other stats included are not as important.

And on some level I agree with that line of argumentation. At the same time, though, I’m in strong favour of keeping rules as simple as possible. In this particular case, I think the value of simplicity is larger than the value of accuracy.

If you disagree — feel free to rearrange how you compute derived stats. The rest of the rules do not depend on the exact composition of these stats, but rather on the fact that they exist, occupy a range of one to one hundred, and are different enough in different characters. Take the compositons above as a guideline only, if you prefer.

There’s another derived stat that’s hard to put in either of the above groups, and that’s a characters ageing rate.

Most RPGs do not consider age at all. Some equal age with experience, which effectively turns all high-level characters into frail elderly people — and I suspect that’s where Pratchett’s Cohen character is derived from.

As this system does not track experience in it’s own right, and therefore cannot base age on experience, a different approach is needed. Instead, it is assumed that a character’s ageing rate is based primarily on their vitality, and to a degree on their will.

The latter is a reflection of the way mental health and physical health are linked, and how elderly people may neglect their physical health — to a degree — because they’ve lost interest in it.

Note that this ageing rate does not directly reflect the maximum age the character can reach. Rather it describes how fast he deteriorates, if no counter-measures are taken.

Ageing is still not a major component of RPGs, as many players lose interest in a character after a certain amount of time. There’ll be rules governing ageing in a later instalment of this series. I would consider those rules, and consequently the following stat, to be optional.

Ageing Rate [dAR]: Take three times the character’s vitality and add their will. Then divide by four. Racial modifiers may be extraordinarily large compared to this base value of the stat, e.g. for elves who according to some sources live almost forever.

Miscellaneous Stats

There are some stats that do not fit well into the scale of one to one hundred. I’ve tried to keep them to a minimum, but I can think of two: a character’s height and weight.

We’re so used to measuring height and weight in specific units that it’d be cumbersome to express them along different scales. It wouldn’t be impossible — but why make life harder on gamers?

Height: This system measures a character’s height in centimeters. If you’re used to feet… I’m sorry, but I’m not. But Google is pretty good at converting for you, so you shouldn’t have too much of a problem with this.
Note that some species may well be better measured in length, or height, length and width. If that makes sense for a species, then it makes sense to adjust the rules for said species.
Weight: Similar to height, weight is measured in metric units — kilograms in this case. Again, Google can translate.
Body Mass Index: The BMI is derived from the height and weight of a character, and applies to humanoid species only — though for vastly different species, a similar factor may be invented.
It’s essentially a ratio of height to weight, and certain values are considered to be ideal, too heavy or too thin for the character’s health.
In additon to health, the BMI is used as a rough approximation of clothing sizes. Anyone shopping for clothes will realize that of two garments of the same size, one may fit and the other may not. But considering that most RPGs do not even consider that a fairy may not be able to wear an ogre’s helmet¹, it seems reasonable to include a simple “size” system for completeness sake. We’ll use the BMI for that.
In humans, and by extension humanoid races, the BMI is calculated by dividing the weight in kg by the height squared in meters.

And now, finally, we’ve come to the end of the stats this system uses. There are a daunting number of them.

But as you may have read between the lines when reading about derived stats, the rules try to simplify the large variety of stats before applying them, where appropriate. The large number of stats shouldn’t scare you off.

And in the next post, you’ll finally learn about how these stats are applied.