OT: Making a Game System (part 2)

[Tyrant]

Very interesting, I'll look forward to your progress.

One question i have right off the bat...are you attempting "realism" or is this meant to be cinematic/video game style with heroic action heroes?

With regard to your question about grenades etc., if the basic system is clean, rough edges can be smoothed out by having damage types and limiting the percentage of damage that can be absorbed by vitality. For instance lethal explosive damage could only be 50% absorbed by vitality unless the target can dive for cover, or whatever.

[JimMorrison]

Just wanted to post some encouragement! 8 )

I've been studying game systems for a long time (since that wee age when I discovered that AD&D wasn't the only way), and I have to agree with the basic concepts of where you're going with this. For example, my own system (that I haven't worked on lately, for shame), actually has 12 statistics, with the intent that there are very subtle and complex interactions among them.

I think there are a few very good points to developing a system like this:

- The extreme complexity which would kill the game in PnP, becomes a great tool, when you decide to commit the system to only be used with a computer doing all the complex calculus.

- Decreasing the number of available stats causes two problems, first it waters down the personality of your characters, I have seen numerous systems that go the STR/DEX/INT route, and the degree of variance among successful characters drops precipitously. Likewise, there is an inverse relationship between number of stats, and ease of min-maxing at the expense of character building. Using 9 statistics, even if they can be said to overlap in certain ways, adds a lot of nuance to a character, allowing you to give much more depth and personality as they develop - as well as making more progression paths viable.

- Cause and effect can gain a much greater depth as well. Avoiding falling into a pit, for example, should not simply rely on your "Dexterity". Having a statistic that represents sensual "Perception" allows an interaction where you assume there is a point of observation of the pit, as well as a point of physical reaction - and someone who is either perceptive but clumsy, or nimble but dull may fall straight into a pit that a person who was more average in both respects may have avoided. This goes beyond mere realism, directly to immersion.


All that said, I would have to agree, the "Memory" stat is going to be the hardest to work with, without it becoming either a terrible annoyance, or a gaping hole in the system that either requires boosting at every opportunity to keep from being screwed, or to drop as much as possible to gain points. Of course, insuring that it has very deep interactions with other stats insures that it can't be ignored totally (make it the primary stat modifying learning rate?), but it will work better in the context of the game if it has an overt function, rather than being totally passive.


I'll probably discuss this more with you later, I'd like to help you as much as I can, without corrupting you with specific design points from my own system.

[Lokean]

Omnirizon, since you seem to be only vaguely familiar with the Pythagorean means, I'll give examples with the data set you gave earlier.

The Pythagorean means of the data set [1, 1, 1, 2, 10] are as follows:

The arithmetic mean is the sum of the members of the set divided by the population of the set.
μ = (1 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 10)/5 = 3

The Geometric mean is the product of the members of the set raised to the power of the reciprocal of the population of the set.
G = (1 * 1 * 1 * 2 * 10)^(1/5) = 1.82

The Harmonic mean is the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of the reciprocals of the members of the set.

H = 1/((1/1 + 1/1 + 1/1 + 1/2 + 1/10)/5) = 1.39

It is vitally important to note that these functions only exist for positive, real numbers.

I think it essential that you realise how strongly the harmonic mean skews the results towards the low values and, quite importantly, the limit of the harmonic mean.
Consider a situation where a character's vitality cost for acting is the harmonic mean of 100 values, 99 of which are 10, one of which is 1. The harmonic mean is 9.17.
Consider the same thing, but now 99 of those values are one googolplex. The harmonic mean is 100.

This illustrates an important relationship with regards to the the population of a set, its smallest member and its harmonic mean. The maximum value of the harmonic mean of a data set is that of the smallest member multiplied by the population.

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by Lokean

I think it essential that you realise how strongly the harmonic mean skews the results towards the low values and, quite importantly, the limit of the harmonic mean.
Consider a situation where a character's vitality cost for acting is the harmonic mean of 100 values, 99 of which are 10, one of which is 1. The harmonic mean is 9.17.
Consider the same thing, but now 99 of those values are one googolplex. The harmonic mean is 100.

This illustrates an important relationship with regards to the the population of a set, its smallest member and its harmonic mean. The maximum value of the harmonic mean of a data set is that of the smallest member multiplied by the population.

thanks!

I do realize the degree to which the harmonic mean skews towards the smallest members of the set, and that is exactly my reason for using it; it creates a strong reverse salience. Reverse salience is where a single component of a system is impeding the performance of the entire system; the term originates from technology studies, where within a system some components are being developed very quickly, while others are allowed to lag behind, and despite all the advances in one technology, the overall system performance does not improved because of the reverse salience of other components in the system.

I liked the principle of harmonic means, and thought they fit a fighting system best. To my understanding, the idea of the harmean in a combat system like mine would be to say that "the percentage of 'attack' contributed by each variable is due to the degree of that variable's operation in the generation of 'attack'." This also means that variables can be weighted to change their degree of operation in attacking. I simply have to decide how much each variable contributes to it, and weight accordingly. Thus in melee, perception might be weighted less than strength and dexterity, for example.