In the trait whoring thread, I mean.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Dunno about previous threads, but yeah, traits give lots of flavour, but trait whoring is a potential problem. One might say that trait whoring is natural and enforces that people have their characters act in consistent ways, and this is often valid. But a well worded trait in the hands of a munchkin just gets appended to everything. Also the same with a poorly worded trait in the hands of someone who wasn't paying attention during character gen.

Also, negative traits tend to be applied very loosely, and people don't usually say things like 'gee, I guess my character wouldn't do that, he's got a negative trait'. Instead they pick up their dice and say, 'Oh, I guess this negative trait applies. Oh well' and roll.

Shevaun

One of the big problems for, particularly in certain incarnations of HeroQuest, is that traits, regardless of how cool they sound, equate to a +2 on the dice. I don't seem to have this problem in Cold City, perhaps it's something to do with characters having a lot less traits.

I think my personal beef with trait systems come down to two elements:

1. Poorly desinged, poorly implemented traits which arent properly tied into the mechanics leaving you waffling about trying to decide what they actually do.

2. Not so much trait whoring (although some systems struggle with this) but the idea of the generic trait. We recently generated characters for Cold City and as part of the prep I as very clear that I wanted specific defined traits.

No "Lucky", "Athletic", " or "perfect soldier" type stuff which are little more than an excuse to always be able to use them. Make the trait tell you something about who the character is, what they think or who the important people around them are.

Yeah, this is an issue which I found really quite annoying in the Furnace HQ games I played in. Dont get me wrong, I enjoyed both games, they were well constructed, very well presented and good fun. However the game got bogged down as you hunted through the character sheet looking for possible helping traits and then did the maths to work out the benefit. It also wasnt helped by the sheer number you get in HQ.

Who knows, maybe the new rules version might resolve it as an issue.

I'm specifically uninterested in the trait-whoring argument, which has been covered elsewhere.

Personally, I like "trait" game systems and I think they make players involve things in play that they simply don't do when rolling on a named skill or ability from a fixed list (for example, firearms or melee or whatever -- that is the be all and end all of the roll).

You are not just adding colour with traits, and you shouldn't just be adding +1s without further defining the situation at hand and the events unfolding in the fiction.

The problems they face are traits that do not sit comfortably with the whole group and that is a social contract issue, surely.

The problem I have with a fixed skill system, is that it defines the situation at hand to just one skill or another. I think this is why people felt "liberated" when White Wolf cleaved Skills, Talents and Knowledges away from their Characteristics. So, in Cyberpunk you always rolled Ref + Melee, while in V:TM you could roll combinations of Melee with Str, Dex, Sta, Wit, Int, Per, etc.

I feel that traits are a beneficial stage beyond even that.

So, why all the heat towards them? Hmm.

Well, I've known a few groups shy away from the (terrific) flexibility of the Storyteller system - they felt that all shooting rolls should be Dex+Firearms. Nuts.

I've seen some trait systems work well. Some, less well. Graham mentioned in a review of a Covenant game at Conpulsion 2006 that he sometimes felt like he was scouring the sheet for that one last bennie. I felt like that in Dogs once.

But then Polaris uses freeform traits but adds a limitation - both the GM and player can use them, but they need a refresh. Fate's similar. And escalation is a great solution to incorporating new traits. Contrariwise, my own Slip makes traits casually easy to employ, as part of the game economy.

Joe.

I'm taking it that by 'Traits' Gregor is referring to systems where the players devise and name their own PC traits (like Dogs in the Vineyard)as opposed to 'Stat/skill' systems where players choose from a pre-determined list. Like D&D, Rolemaster or Vampire.

So Trait systems could be seen as lazy games design where the stats that operate in each arena have not been propelry defined.

Traits tend to be the same mechanically which can be a problem.
E.g. Banjo xD10 or Eagle Claw Kung-Fu xD10, feel like they should have different game effects, but don't!

"Make up what you want. But don't use it too much."

I reckon 'Trait whoring' or the selection of vague and broad Traits will always be a factor in Trait systems - if the mechanics reward it. That's why 'lucky' is so awesome. Now you can get all grumpy and go to the social contract or you can change the mechanics to balance this out.

Like Polaris or PTA does and indeed like I have implemented in The Dragon vs The Gun.

Deja vu, but I don't think you can consider Trait systems without the whoring argument, since that's their most obvious weakness.

So Trait systems are not bollocks, if they have a good mechanical backup. If they are just substitues for properly deliniated conflict arenas and the necessary stat/skill branches then yes, Trait systems are bollox!

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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

I think I would have to disagree. For example the HQ system has no defined stat or skill system and characters are defined by their traits and yet it works very well.

Yeah. That title pretty much sums up why I'm not a huge fan of trait systems. I know several gamers, one in particular springing to mind, who like to try and munchkin traits to suit practically any situation. Players can be quite clever in how they produce these little do-anything traits and manipulate them to serve their purposes. As a result the process places a lot more strain on the GM to adjudicate bad trait calls and troublesome players.

A lot of these problems can be alleviated by the game's system. For example if you're got a statistic / trait split, if most of the work is done by the statistics with the traits providing small +1 or +2 bonuses, then it probably won't be too much of a problem. Traits become less central to the mechanic, but also less troublesome.

Another mechanic you could introduce is the 'three things it can't do' rule. Basically, when the trait is chosen, three specific situations that trait will not help in must be defined. I favour this being in the form of one situation chosen by the player, one chosen by the GM, and one chosen by consensus amongst the other players. These restrictions need not all be chosen at character creation time either. The GM could introduce them when the character tries to do something really stupid.

Now, it's not a perfect system. It's bound to cause ructions at some point. But if players are going to whine about not being allowed to do unsuitable action X with trait Y, then I don't think any trait-based system is going to suit them.

Here's an interesting question that might warrant a new thread if peope have ideas on it they want to discuss: how could you create a structures and rigid method of designing a trait that leaves the reader in no doubt as to what situations that trait may be utilised in, without removing the inherent benefits of trait-based systems?

Ash

At that point surely your problem is not the system but the players. No system is ever going to perfect, choosing to abuse elements of it is a group issue. You can choose to play any game outside of the spirit it was intended to be played in but then laying the blame with the game isnt really fair.

I've used a fair few "trait" systems (as Joe P defines them, where players more or less make up their own traits) and for the most part I'll admit that I don't like them much. Joe's pretty much nailed my opinions with his "lazy game design" comment and there's not much I can add to what he's said.

Because I should be doing something else though, I will point out my experiences and what I've liked vs what has seemed not to work.

HeroQuest/Wars is probably the one I've played most and probably the one I found best embodies what I don't like about these types of systems. The mechanics permit unlimited augments from a list of 30+ traits, which is frankly asking for trouble. It's got it's fans and apologists though, just like D&D has it's fans and apologists. It's not a bad system, but there's a higher degree of "it works if you play it right" than I want in a system I'm running.

Games where you have single traits called into each conflict seem to work best for me. But they still suffer from the whole "god trait" problem: If a player has a very broard, loosely defined trait, then they can use that all the time. "Lucky" is the classic example. I really like the way that Mortal Coil deals with this, because every conflict is one character vs another and whoever has the most specific Trait gets a bonus. So someone can have "I'm in great physical shape" and someone else can have "I'm good at running". In a race, the guy who uses "I'm good at running" gets a bonus.

At the end of the day, the problem with this sort of system is that it's very subjective what traits are useful in which circumstances. Someone has to arbitrate that.

There are mentions of Storyteller and V:tM. that was an ace system when I first started using it: Pick the most appropriate Skill a,d the most appropriate stat and that's the number of dice rolled. Who determines what the most appropriate skill and stat are though? In V:tM it's easy: it's the GM. you can plead with the GM if you want to roll Manipulation + Bureaucracy to fire a sniper rifle at some blokes head, but chances are he's going to tell you you're talking shit and ask for a Dex + Firearms roll.

Shadowrun 4th uses a similar Stat + Skill system, but it's far more regimented: For almost every action (especially in combat, magic, hacking etc) the rules mandate which skill and which stat are added. That makes the GMs role somewhat less of an arbitrator, but makes the system seem significantly more complex and less flexible. That's fine: Shadowrun's goals as a game are very different to those Vampire supposedly had.

OK, so that clarifies nicely. I just didn't want to go over old ground.

From a systematic point of view, it's well worth remembering that traits do not work in isolation. They're part of a wider scheme. People who get frustrated with them often seem to be looking at purely the trait use itself, and not the wider eco-system in which that use belongs.

So you used all your traits in a conflict and shoehorned some in? So what? What does "winning" or "losing" that conflict mean in the wider game? What are its consequences? What is the game about that it matters if you used trait X or Y?

In Dogs it's judging your character, in Covenant its making choices about shifts in belief. For both those purposes winning an individual conflict is interesting, but not essential, you might actually prefer to lose.

Trait systems are often there to generate unexpected, or evocative, fiction by their very openness to interpretation. To react negatively to that generation, "that was unfair!", is missing the point, you want everybody playing to embrace that unexpected-ness.

Now maybe that means the rules text don't do a good job of explaining that purpose, or maybe it means that game isn't your thing, but they certainly aren't bollocks.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

I completely disagree with this. A perfectly designed system does not permit anyone to play outside the spirit of the game.

On the other hand we all acknowledge that no system is perfect. Some games are nearer perfect than others. I've played and run HeroQuest/Wars several times and never not had fun. I still think it's a problematic system with an awful lot wrong with it. I wouldn't not play in a mates game if he was running HQ, but I'd rather he used something else.

In one way yes, and then again in another way no. By this point it is simply clear that the system doesn't suit these specific players' gaming style. It's easy to say 'this is the players' fault' when faced with problems like this, but in truth it is neither. Some people like to build their characters around a personality and concept without caring for rules systems that might restrain that. These people will thrive on a trait system since they are more interested with who the character is than what he can do. Then again there are other players who find what the character can do that much more interesting, and spend many happy hours devising ways that they can make their characters more effective. The traits system is awfully loose, relies overmuch on the GM vetoing stuff, and can lead to resentment from players who are used to doing things by the rules. In the end such a player will have much more fun with a system that actively supports character optimisation in a way that challenges the player and drives the theme. I can't think of any exemplars in the Indie scene as such games have a tendency to be large and complicated, but a good mainstream example is 'Exalted'.

I think it important to point out here that neither style of play is wrong, but both call for different systems. The only problem is in that the game and the players are an unsatisfactory fit. The same players may be brilliant in a different system that supports them, and the same game may be brilliant with a different set of players, but neither are really at fault.

Ash

Has anyone looked at Over The Edge?

A nice thing is does with Traits is to grade them. If you pick something really broad like Lucky it might only be worth 1d. If you pick something specific like Always Wins a Coin Toss it might be worth 5d.

The number of dice could be completely wrong there, but you get the idea. Traits probably need moderating in some way, and probably discussion between GM and player as to what you can do and where your character's limits are, but if you do all this at character generation, rather than arguing the point every time the character tried to use the trait, dissenters would probably get on with them better?

There is still some woolliness in play, but at least at the outset if your player has been told he can use "Ninja" for stealth, fighting and climbing sort of things, but not to help him palm objects or speak Japanese then it'll help you have a more fluid game.

Players will still try it on, but that's half the fun. As long as your game isn't a constant discussion about what you can and can't use. Some flexibility allows a GM to include traits in not wholly appropriate circumstances to aid plot or reward a player who's made some particularly convincing argument or stunning roleplay.

Something to think about.

Hello

Joe's better half here (Marie) he is currently busy reading X Men, so i am (VERY) briefly (you shall be pleased to here) delving into the world of gaming forums, yes i have popped my forum cherry, mmm delicious

i would like to offer a summary of what you all appear to be saying: HeroQuest is poop, was that supposed to be a theme of the thread or is this just a given?

i like the social contract ideas around gaming, but as someone who spends their life studying individual's perceptions of social contract, gaming would seem like the ideal time to forget about it and throw away the rule book, so art is imitating life, which does not really seem that much fun

surely if the boundaries (or as gamers would maybe say, mechanics??) are clear people can do what they want within them, and it isnt their fault if they think of a trait that gives them more powers than you have, it really is just like real life

anyway my foray into forums has come to an end and Joe might kill me if i say anything that upsets anyone or threatens the social contract of blogging, it was most enjoyable, TaRa from MaRiE

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JoE
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Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

Get your own damn account!

(no, seriously, you've oodles to contribute)

Marie makes a good point: the rules have to help you play the game.

In Joe's The Dragon vs The Gun your primary Trait is deliberately wide and applicable to almost anything (with a modicum of effort). Secondary and Tertiary traits are narrower and have a refresh rate.

I think a key strength of Traits is that they make players assess what they can bring into the fiction, over and above the obvious choice. The wide latitude a trait gives you means you probably have to incorporate it in different ways to meet different situations.

A limited set of skills is, well, limited, surely and often don't illicit anything other than "I'm using Firearms [ sound of dice rolling ] ..."

Tie traits to things and you start to make them just poorly defined skills though.

To be fair, sometime this is all that's required from a system. Design goals and all that. On the other hand, that's the opposite of the way Agon works, and that has exactly 16 abilities which are the same for everyone. Hell, Best Friends has exactly 5 abilities and again, they're the same for every character yet people don't say "I'll use my Tough; I win", they'll generally explain what their character is doing and why they can use Tough for it.

I think you're maybe confusing the way that heavily Simulationist or Gamist systems* tend to define exactly what a skill covers. Nothing wrong with that, GURPS or Hero have an underlying philosophy of simulating the game reality in a way which provides everyone at the table with a common platform to base their character's actions on. Those systems work very well for some people because the game's objectives line up well with the player's wants.

* by which I obviously mean systems designed to support Simulationist or Gamist play well yadda yadda yadda.

Good point Rich.

Here's my rambling thesis.

If you have a trait system then generally you are allowing characters to have any skill or attribute under the sun. "Drunken Bum" as a skill (gives a bonus to Streetwise and Information Gathering) sure, Inconspicuous Interrogation (Gathering Information without the other side knowing) fine, Iron Chef Eight Cuts of the Butterfly Knife, Sleep of the Dead, the list is endless. If you're giving this kind of power in a game then there also needs to be an exercise in judgement, probably two kinds of judgement.

Is the skill or trait suitable for the game we are playing (no super gadget building in the bronze age) and is the skill suitable in application (no game breaking skills such as detect truth in a whodunnit).

Some games have closed lists because there is really nothing much outside that list that is likely to have much bearing on the game, or because a short list is allowed to encompass everything. As long as the players know that every situation can be covered by a short list and that clever application is the norm, then that's fine too.

HQ has the problem that it tries to work both ends. You can have any skill you like and you can try to apply it anyway you want. This works fine if there's a group understanding of what this means. And sometimes it goes off the rails, especially when there's no common understanding at the start and there's a discussion each time you use a trait as to its applicability.

The same thing can happen in other games. In Cold City, if everyone has traits such as spy, streetwise and one player has Nazi Sorcerer, then there's a mismatch in the scale of the traits that, if not handled carefully, can go off the rails too (That it didn't in this case was a testimony to the skill of the GM and the group spirit).

I like traits because they allow the players to bring more into the game than 2 ranks in Climbing. I'd much rather see a trait called Careful Mountaineer or Daredevil Scrambler. It says so much more about the character and allows for difference in applicability that add much colour to the game.

Thanks Rich!

Your first post here has helped clarify something in my mind about what one of the roles of the GM in Solipsist should be, which is to arbitrate whether it is reasonable for a trait (in Solipsist a Limitation or Obsession) to be involved in the current task or not.

I'm used to the GM in a skill based system having the say of whether it is reasonable to use a given skill to try and resolve a given problem, but I hadn't made the mental extension to how traits are applied to resolution.

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually

I think we can call this one closed.

My conclusion is that they're not bollocks, but not for everyone.