Membership How do you feel about Stats?

[Sparky Muse 16]

I thought about using stats for an rp game system once. I figured, make 6 different models, one for Fire, Water, Earth, Wind/Air, and two others I can't remember. Whole numbers only, mostly addition and subtraction, nothing to do with weight or height or distance, etc. Just, start out with 15 or so stats, have 5 or 6 free you can put however you want with a max of 2 or 3 in any category. Each time your char levels, you get a +2 max amount of stats in each and +5 you can allocate however.

Then, after that I started to get complicated. I figured, have a list of attacks, they do X, you need X stats in X places to get those techniques. You're allowed X number of dodges and/or attacks based on speed stat, a few things like that. I can't remember the whole system right off the back of my mind, but the way I did it I thought it was pretty simple, though it was a lot of reading, and it was sort of like magical people learning pokemon techniques, if that makes any sense.

The way I see it, you need to put a little bit more effort and time into a stat site, but if it's done right it takes away a lot of the issues and can be fun. I wouldn't mind trying something basic again, something I called "stats for beginners", but I suppose with stats there's no such thing as "basic".

I think, seeing how many stats boards are out there, I might try again just for the kicks of it, now that I've seen it brought up. Though, the way I'd run stats, I suppose I'd do it in such a way that everybody HAS stats, but they don't have to use them if they don't want to, meaning everybody HAS stats, but they only apply to a specific area of the forum. *shrugs*


EDIT: XD So i decided to incorporate stats into my closed site I'm building, but only as a way of calculating damage and only for one site. I mentioned it's also alright to go statless if they want, that the stats are just there for people who want them, and that it will cost as much to lift and toss an 18-wheeler as it will to assault a daisy. I figure, it'll make some really stupid/ridiculous fights, but I figure that's the point, too, for the lolz.

Edited January 29, 2016 by Sparky Muse

[John 0]

The only times I have ever seen stats used have been exclusively Dragonball and Naruto sites. Well, actually, I've seen them on pokemon as well. These always made sense to me because the essence of those shoes is, when you get down to it, all about fighting. Fighting is inherently a competition, and when there is a competition it can be quite hard or even counterproductive to go entirely freeform in those settings, depending on what the site is ultimately focusing on. It can be great for deciding whether someone can avoid an attack, or if they can't how much it will do. It can also help people feel like each of their characters are unique.

 

That being said, it can be a turn off. On older, well established sites it can be especially problematic because new players may be disinclined to join because they are unable to catch up to the veterans, and might feel irrelevant or invalid because of it. I've seen it a lot on non-forum venues, at the very least. 

 

I think personally I prefer light-stat or no-stat approaches, because heavy stats can be intimidating to people you're trying to attract and your site might never get off the ground if you don't have a good core to begin with. Light-stats would be things like... I don't know, you get 30 pts to assign at character creation, and you have 4 categories with 1-10 to assign them to. You can see who is faster, who is stronger, who might be a better magician or elemental bender, etc, if there is ever a dispute as their might be if your setting even requires stats. I'm with Honorem; now that i'm getting older, ease of use is the most important thing. There was a time when I relished the idea of finding a site where if I posted a lot I could become the unstoppable equivalent of one punch man.

 

Now I just look for good writers, interesting settings that grab me, and sites with bigger font and no word count.

 

Hunger Games might be a game that could benefit from stats and dice rolling a lot, over what seems to have become the standard, pure dice rolling.

[Elena 546]

2 hours ago, John said:

Fighting is inherently a competition, and when there is a competition it can be quite hard or even counterproductive to go entirely freeform in those settings, depending on what the site is ultimately focusing on. It can be great for deciding whether someone can avoid an attack, or if they can't how much it will do. It can also help people feel like each of their characters are unique.

 

Actually, fighting is a competition between characters, not between writers, whose preoccupation is to write an awesome story together. So if someone can avoid an attack, or who loses, who wins and what main damages happen can be discussed in an OOC thread (or on messenger, depending on the site customs) and negotiated logically between writers. 

 

In five years and a half, we never got wrong with this way of agreeing jointly the outcomes of duels and battles...

[John 0]

11 minutes ago, Elena said:

 

Actually, fighting is a competition between characters, not between writers, whose preoccupation is to write an awesome story together. So if someone can avoid an attack, or who loses, who wins and what main damages happen can be discussed in an OOC thread (or on messenger, depending on the site customs) and negotiated logically between writers. 

 

In five years and a half, we never got wrong with this way of agreeing jointly the outcomes of duels and battles...

It can, and that's great when it can. This is why sites like, for instance, game of thrones fandom boards can survive going through a war, or a ship can be boarded by pirates. But when battles become insane things like "What's faster, his feet or my laser beam?" or "Can my lightning sword cut through his rock armor?" it can be a little harder. It ultimately all lies upon the writers you have on your site. If they're mature enough, for any reason, to be able to work out conflict resolution where everyone is happy that's great! 

 

But some sites have players that can't or won't work it out, be that because their character is a self-insertion, is a purported badass, or whatever reason that there might be. That's when stats can be useful, especially just simple guideline stats. Some people just get plain old comfort from being able to look at a number and say, definitively, "Okay, this is exactly where I stand, and where other people stand, in these aspects."

[VirusZero 176]

Even if a fight is between characters it can still be incredibly useful to know how they stack up. This means that one player won't write that they used their superior strength to overpower their enemy... when in fact they're much weaker. It may not be as cut and dry as a regular human roleplay where most people aren't able to lift more than their own body weight but for superhumans? Again there could be a wide gulf in strength so this could be

 important to know.

 

Now despite the fact I do like stats, I don't care for dice. I don't want to have dice rolls involved in anything. I find that they muddle things more than they help. (Roll a 7? What does that even mean here? Is that good? Sure if it's like 7 out of 10. But if it's 7 out of 100... Probably not. ) Unless you spend a lot of time clarifying exactly what they mean. But that just leads to bloating documentation and more things people need to read (and refer to later). 

Sure I can understand that for some sites they can be useful, like pokemon, to determine if an attack hits so that players can just write their post out what happens without having to check and let their thread partner decide that bit. But I kind of think that takes a bit away at times. I mean when writing my own characters I've used them as meatshields for others. And denying that opportunity to happen is kind of a shame. Or in other cases having my character dodge a smaller, quick attack to set them up for a bigger more powerful one.

 

3 hours ago, John said:

On older, well established sites it can be especially problematic because new players may be disinclined to join because they are unable to catch up to the veterans, and might feel irrelevant or invalid because of it.

This right here is why I also like having a maximum potential level for characters. This way yes there is some progression, but ultimately after a while they reach their highest level and don't keep getting stronger. Newbies can catch up if they put the effort in, like those players before, but if they just expect to be on equal footing... they're in for an awakening.

 

I should point out that this also has to make sense... I mean if a site veteran is 5 year old Timmy and a 31 year old Navy Seal named Plisskin joins. Timmy really shouldn't be laying waste to Plisskin. (Unless by luck that Timmy's power is like psychic attacks and Plisskin has as a weakness that he's horribly susceptible to psychic injections.) I would see no problem having Timmy capped quite low so that he still had room to grow as he got older. So yes he reached max potential for his 5 year old self. But his 5 year old self is weaker than an older, more experienced, character.

[Morrigan 1,826]

Shhhhhh...... Don't tell anyone... I sometimes roll dice for certain things that I'm waffling over. "Should she stay or go? Evens Go, odds stay *rolls* 6 She's going!!" it adds an element of fun for me personally and makes it to where I could see my character doing both make a decision.

 

I won't tell you about my secret "this is what I hit" dice that has body parts on it. >_>

[Cloud 0]

7 hours ago, John said:

That being said, it can be a turn off. On older, well established sites it can be especially problematic because new players may be disinclined to join because they are unable to catch up to the veterans, and might feel irrelevant or invalid because of it. I've seen it a lot on non-forum venues, at the very least.

 

3 hours ago, VirusZero said:

This right here is why I also like having a maximum potential level for characters. This way yes there is some progression, but ultimately after a while they reach their highest level and don't keep getting stronger. Newbies can catch up if they put the effort in, like those players before, but if they just expect to be on equal footing... they're in for an awakening.

 

I should point out that this also has to make sense... I mean if a site veteran is 5 year old Timmy and a 31 year old Navy Seal named Plisskin joins. Timmy really shouldn't be laying waste to Plisskin. (Unless by luck that Timmy's power is like psychic attacks and Plisskin has as a weakness that he's horribly susceptible to psychic injections.) I would see no problem having Timmy capped quite low so that he still had room to grow as he got older. So yes he reached max potential for his 5 year old self. But his 5 year old self is weaker than an older, more experienced, character.

 

The only solution to this I've found is to increase the Starting Pool that a new character gets to keep the gap from a new player and a veteran from being overwhelming. Usually after any major event, I would check to see where a starting character would stand to the top 5 characters and increase the starting pool of Stats, Exp, w/e. so that they aren't super super far behind. There will still be a gap, as I don't want to undermine the effort of the veterans, but it wont be so massive. 

3 hours ago, VirusZero said:

This right here is why I also like having a maximum potential level for characters. This way yes there is some progression, but ultimately after a while they reach their highest level and don't keep getting stronger. Newbies can catch up if they put the effort in, like those players before, but if they just expect to be on equal footing... they're in for an awakening.

 

I should point out that this also has to make sense... I mean if a site veteran is 5 year old Timmy and a 31 year old Navy Seal named Plisskin joins. Timmy really shouldn't be laying waste to Plisskin. (Unless by luck that Timmy's power is like psychic attacks and Plisskin has as a weakness that he's horribly susceptible to psychic injections.) I would see no problem having Timmy capped quite low so that he still had room to grow as he got older. So yes he reached max potential for his 5 year old self. But his 5 year old self is weaker than an older, more experienced, character.

 

7 hours ago, John said:

 

That being said, it can be a turn off. On older, well established sites it can be especially problematic because new players may be disinclined to join because they are unable to catch up to the veterans, and might feel irrelevant or invalid because of it. I've seen it a lot on non-forum venues, at the very least.

 

 

This is why I increase the starting pool of stats/Exp/w.e. to reflect the growth of the overall character strength of the site. I have to balance that out to not undermine the veterans, but not have the new characters simply have no chance of catching up. Usually I do this after a large event that is story relevant to the entire board/characters. 

 

[CandleJack 0]

I haven't read the entire thread here, buuuutttt.... I happen to like stats as a way to compare and contrast. So basically, I like having a visual aid and a way to make my character feel more "custom." I don't mind "leveling," as long as the system to do so is relative to role playing and not something that makes you bend backwards. So basically, I like them casually as long as I don't need to worry about them beyond making them seem custom.

[Gossamer 4]

Haha, my opinion isn't one of the poll choices.  But pretty much, I don't mind stats in my roleplay.  I want them to matter when they exist, but I don't need them to exist on a roleplay.  This topic is of interest to me since I just posted up an RP request for a game with rpg-like systems.  

 

But yeah, I agree with what has been mentioned before that just because stats are numbers it doesn't mean they automatically limit creativity in roleplay.  A 10 in strength might mean a character can lift a cruise ship, but it still has to be written out.  

 

I'm not big into super stat heavy sites myself.  I prefer more abstract ones, such as ranking levels and stats being used as a representation for a character's ability.  But I like seeing them as a way to compare and contrast power levels and also as a goal for players and characters to work towards, if they're interested in "leveling up", so to speak.  

[Eevee 0]

I usually like roleplays that have light stats, or stats that are easy to learn if they do have stats. Mostly because in my years of roleplaying, stat heavy sites not only confuse the living shit out of me, but often makes me feel embarrassed/lesser than the veterans who know that stat system like the back of their hand, while I'm back here trying and struggling with no show of improvement or results. I am usually a 'figure it out myself' kind of person and the fact I have to ask the chat box or someone the same question over 10+ times in a day/week with showing no improvement makes me want to call it quits and look for another RP. I hate being embarrassed when it comes to a roleplay, because due to the past it has caused drama and I don't want drama.

 

when I have stats in my roleplay, I usually make it simple such as a HP system or a stat system which needs an update unless staff has requested it due to you 'leveling up'. For attacks it's usually randomized by dice. I like dice. The results are truly random with dice. <,3

[Varos 0]

It really depends on the type of roleplay you are running. If it's just some real-life small town, stats probably will never matter.

For my site, adding stats was a blessing. Things became so much clearer. When action broke out, which it does so on a regular basis, the fight didn't need the moderators to hover over every single detail to make sure it's fair. We still review fights to determine fairness, but there's a lot less problems, as characters have an idea of how strong they are. It also means that the guy who joined yesterday won't go around being a jerk and trying to kill everyone else. I really enjoy the idea of earning stats, and developing your character. 

[Lady Isadorabelle 8]

I can see how they'd be beneficial for competitive players, but that's working under the assumption that most people are competitive. Maybe they are, I can't speak for everybody, but I could care less about stats or points, especially if the end result was just to say that I had X number of points. I won't not play on a board that has stats, but it's not a selling point for me. The only time it matters to me is if not having enough points interferes with me doing something I want to do, in which case the game needs to be compelling enough to keep me because....I'm lazy.

[Cardea 0]

I think they can be useful, but I would never hand points out for IC threads completed.  That just makes no sense considering you could have a new member join with a battle scarred veteran and have less "ability" than a youth, just because that youth is played by an older member.  Makes no sense.

 

I think I like the idea of using stats within individual threads, but not letting characters hold onto them afterwards.

[Leeann 0]

I feel stats kind of define a character in combat and provide more diversity in everything. ITs not just all about who has the better speed or who's muscles could steal the show. It's also about what they like. Do they like to run fast and get things done? Then they are sonic. Do they like to throw things around and everytime they win a battle do they flex their muscles? Then they are muscles. Sorry for the sonic references.

 

But I feel stats should be a good element to have on any site and provide a easier time to define who's the winner in combat than just by the flip of the coin. Though, there are some RP genres like pokemon for example that stats do get annoying. Its  fun, but for me personally stats get annoying and my favorite pokemon always sucks in competitive RP or gaming.