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CRMcNeill
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 Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:06 am Post subject: New Attribute? |
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I'm already using a rule that converts Force Sensitive into a seventh attribute, or its equivalent, and now I find myself wondering if there might be room for an eighth. In my experience, a person's willpower is not always directly related to their Knowledge or their Perception (some of the most stubborn, strong-willed people I have ever met have been the ignorant, myopic ones).
That being said, what would you all think of an additional attribute called "Psyche", which specifically deals with a character's willpower and self control. Essentially, this would be the mental equivalent of the Strength attribute. I'd move Willpower out of Knowledge and put it here, and add in a skill called Concentration (based on the D&D skill of the same name). My preliminary idea on Concentration is that it would give Force adepts the ability to keep powers "up" in the event of distractions that would normally break the character's hold on the power, like getting wounded and such. Non-FS characters would be able to use Concentration to perform similar actions if wounded or otherwise distracted.
I also considered skills for Temperament and Bravery, which the characters would use to counteract psychological effects (which I am also working on), but I'm not sure if those would be better off on their own, or as specializations of Willpower. That being said, Willpower and Concentration look awfully lonely by themselves under one Attribute. Do you have any suggestions for other mental skills that don't entirely fit under the aegis of Knowledge or Perception?
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Bren
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:37 am Post subject: Re: New Attribute? |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | I'm already using a rule that converts Force Sensitive into a seventh attribute, or its equivalent, and now I find myself wondering if there might be room for an eighth. |
If once you start down the adding attribute path, forever will it dominate your destiny.  |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:44 am Post subject: Re: New Attribute? |
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| Bren wrote: | | If once you start down the adding attribute path, forever will it dominate your destiny. |
LOL. I've heard the same thing about fast food and strippers, but it didn't stop me. 
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Ankhanu
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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Psyche would be a pretty limited use Attribute. I agree with Bren, ya gotta be careful about adding in these things. The beauty of D6 is its simplicity. the tradeoff for simplicity is that not everthing is perfect in its implementation, it's close enough. Once you start adding attributes like this you add complexity, and, in this case, I think needlessly so. High Willpower and the like is achieved through it being a skill, rather than having it immediately tied to basic attributes. Bravery and such quite neatly fall under the Willpower skill, as could uses like "concentration". Basically you're looking to dilute both the Attribute pool and the uses of the Willpower skill by adding this extra Attribute. You could even use Willpower quite handily as it currently exists to maintain Force Powers and the like when distracted.
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 2:04 pm Post subject: Re: New Attribute? |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | Bren wrote: | | If once you start down the adding attribute path, forever will it dominate your destiny. |
LOL. I've heard the same thing about fast food and strippers, but it didn't stop me. |
Don't remeind me. $1 bills taste terrible, and blondes look terrible with lettuce in their garter belts. So much or a happy meal. 
Back on topic, yeah Will has nothing to do with KNO ow PER, but it is a case of where to sraw the line on attributes.
One place where I think D6 fails to emulate the films very well is with PER to resist Force powers. One screen we are told (and shown) several times that certain powers only work on the weak minded and that certain beings are immune to Jedi mind tricks. In D6 Anakin could easily maniuplate Padme like a dool, Qui-Gon could influence Watto, and Luke could overcome Jabba the Hutt.
I don't thing a new attribute is the answer through. Not unless you want to shift a bunch o skills around so that Will/Pyche does something other than work as a defense, and then that makes PER less valuable.
Since most o the "Willpower" based skills (Command, Persuade, Bargain) are under PER, I7d suggest just shifting Willpower over to PER and allowing characters to resist the force with Willpower instead of just PER (and adding PER to the Will code for Hutts, and other force resistant races). That way Padme isn't vulnerable to be "mind tricked" into doing a striptease at the local fast food chain.
If you really got your heart set on new attributes, I suggest you look at one of the other D6 systems like D6 Space, or DC Universe, to get the alternate skill trees.
Just keep in mo\ind that more attributes means more places to spend dice, so all th PCs will either have to spread thier attribute dice out more thinly (ala Jedi), or else get more dice to break up (i.e. 24D for 8 attributes). The latter results in the characters being better at what they do because they will have more dice, and more places to swipe pips from. This could lead to a big problem with Jedi PCs. If they can use CONTROL for defense, then they don't need a good PSYCHE, so players will probably rob PSYCHE for extra CONTROL dice.
What you could do is make FORCE/PSYCHE the same attribute. T |
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Ankhanu
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 3:56 pm Post subject: Re: New Attribute? |
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| atgxtg wrote: | ...
What you could do is make FORCE/PSYCHE the same attribute. T |
That's interesting, but has some implications for species like Todarians, Hutts and Yuuzhan Vong who are notoriously weak or absent in the Force, but have strong psyches. It can make some sense mechanically, but offers some big difficulties with rationalization (fluff text is important too).
I do like Willpower moving to Perception, based on how it tends to be used... but it does alter the balancing of the Attributes somewhat, shifting more power to Perception as a generally good Attribute to max out for the dreaded min/maxer, and leaving Knowledge as a dump stat. After all, Knowledge is already kinda a weak Attribute mechanically, moving Willpower will only exacerbate the current problem. Adding a new Psyche Attribute will have similar effect.
Willpower is a little bit of an odd bird to properly classify, kind of like climbing/jumping and acrobatics both having strong elements of Dexterity and Strength... sometimes deciding where a skill goes takes an arbitrary decision.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:24 pm Post subject: Re: New Attribute? |
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| Ankhanu wrote: | | I do like Willpower moving to Perception, based on how it tends to be used... but it does alter the balancing of the Attributes somewhat, shifting more power to Perception as a generally good Attribute to max out for the dreaded min/maxer, and leaving Knowledge as a dump stat. After all, Knowledge is already kinda a weak Attribute mechanically, moving Willpower will only exacerbate the current problem. Adding a new Psyche Attribute will have similar effect. |
Alternately, I could keep Willpower where it is and just write up the Concentration skill that I mentioned as a Knowledge skill, which would make Knowledge a more interesting attribute.
I have a hard time seeing Perception as the catch-all attribute to resist Force powers, though. Sure, it works fine for something like Affect Mind, where a person with a higher Perception would be more likely to notice things being off, but something like Receptive Telepathy, if the character knows someone is trying to read their thoughts, sounds more like a Willpower issue to me. Perception becomes even more ridiculous when resisting physical attacks like TK Kill; it's a physical attack, so why not roll Strength to resist instead of Perception?
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ZzaphodD
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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We have always had Willpower under Perception... Putting it under Kno seems like one of the dumbest ideas with the RAW.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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| ZzaphodD wrote: | | We have always had Willpower under Perception... Putting it under Kno seems like one of the dumbest ideas with the RAW. |
To me, it seems like its one of those "gray area" issues, where WEG had a skill that didn't really fit and they had to put it somewhere. In retrospect, I can see a Knowledge link, because Willpower goes hand in hand with a well-disciplined and capable mind (as indicated by a high Knowledge skill), while Perception is more about observing your surroundings than it is about mental discipline.
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ZzaphodD
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | ZzaphodD wrote: | | We have always had Willpower under Perception... Putting it under Kno seems like one of the dumbest ideas with the RAW. |
To me, it seems like its one of those "gray area" issues, where WEG had a skill that didn't really fit and they had to put it somewhere. In retrospect, I can see a Knowledge link, because Willpower goes hand in hand with a well-disciplined and capable mind (as indicated by a high Knowledge skill), while Perception is more about observing your surroundings than it is about mental discipline. |
Its called Role Playing Games!
Even D20, which seems to have a rule for everything, is not even close in a 'realistic' system. With SW D6 WEG have deliberately chosen a simplistic game system, hence some things are rather strange. Willpower is not alone when it comes to strange skills. Perceptions is also clearly more than observing the surrounding, given that you resist mind affecting force skills with Perception. Given that this was the case even in 1st ed, Im surprised that they placed Willpower under Know.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:45 pm Post subject: |
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| ZzaphodD wrote: | | Perceptions is also clearly more than observing the surrounding, given that you resist mind affecting force skills with Perception. Given that this was the case even in 1st ed, Im surprised that they placed Willpower under Know. |
That's one of my (many) issues with the Force Powers RAW in the 2E. Perception just isn't the right fit for resisting some Force powers. TK Kill is an obvious example; why are you resisting physical damage with a mental skill? I always figured, if it was a physical attack, resist with Strength. If it's a mental effect that the character is aware of and trying to resist, roll Knowledge or Willpower. If it's a mental effect that the character may not be aware of, such as Affect Mind or Receptive Telepathy, that's when you roll Perception.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Ankhanu wrote: | Psyche would be a pretty limited use Attribute. I agree with Bren, ya gotta be careful about adding in these things. The beauty of D6 is its simplicity. the tradeoff for simplicity is that not everthing is perfect in its implementation, it's close enough. Once you start adding attributes like this you add complexity, and, in this case, I think needlessly so. High Willpower and the like is achieved through it being a skill, rather than having it immediately tied to basic attributes. Bravery and such quite neatly fall under the Willpower skill, as could uses like "concentration". Basically you're looking to dilute both the Attribute pool and the uses of the Willpower skill by adding this extra Attribute. You could even use Willpower quite handily as it currently exists to maintain Force Powers and the like when distracted.
K.I.S.S. |
True, but i do like the concept of making willpower under a different attribute. Though i don;t like the concept of concentration for keeping up force powers against those things that would otherwise drop them (Being wounded)...
| Quote: | I do like Willpower moving to Perception, based on how it tends to be used... but it does alter the balancing of the Attributes somewhat, shifting more power to Perception as a generally good Attribute to max out for the dreaded min/maxer, and leaving Knowledge as a dump stat. After all, Knowledge is already kinda a weak Attribute mechanically, moving Willpower will only exacerbate the current problem. Adding a new Psyche Attribute will have similar effect.
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Very true. As it is, there are only 3 main skills i see in the Know area get used a lot.
Bureaucracy (to avoid those fines or help push through those permits)
Streetwise (to get that black market stuff) and
planetary systems.
Many pcs seem to ignore languages, since it is easier (in their eyes) to just buy a datapad with a dozen or so languages to use as a mini 3P0 unit, or get a 3p0 itself. Tactics is undervalued (hence why we have the thread here talking about it). Rarely if ever seen cultures, business or value.
Survival is overlooked by us gms. Personally i love using it.
Alien species really needs a little more to it to make it usable imo.
Other than cops and bounty hunters never seen anyone even worry about law enforcement.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | True, but i do like the concept of making willpower under a different attribute. Though i don;t like the concept of concentration for keeping up force powers against those things that would otherwise drop them (Being wounded)... |
<shrug> Sometimes the only way to spot a bad idea is to tell someone else about it. It could be argued that Willpower already does something similar, like how in the RAW it can be used to override a failed Stamina roll. It could be something similar to Control Pain, only at a higher difficulty.
| Quote: | | Very true. As it is, there are only 3 main skills i see in the Know area get used a lot. |
I would like to see a lot of these get used more. Too often, these are things that get ignored in favor of letting the players dictate their character's mental abilities, rather than putting it on a roll of the dice. If there were set rules in place that made these skills more of a necessity for the character's lives, then they might see more use. The problem is how to do that.
One idea I had for an incentive for the Business skill would be for characters like Lando, who are running their own operations, but have time on the side to go out on missions. A high business skill could be used for extra cash or providing special equipment only available to corporations, and such an approach might be more legal (or at least less illegal) than approaching the black market, as well as less dangerous.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:05 am Post subject: |
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That might work..
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Bren
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| Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2011 7:13 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | After all, Knowledge is already kinda a weak Attribute mechanically, moving Willpower will only exacerbate the current problem. |
This is a major reason I prefer keeping willpower under knowledge.
I also like the idea that a character who has low STR and low PER can still be strong willed. So you can have a scholar character who can do something with willpower (resist intimidation, resist a failed stamina roll) they could not otherwise do. I assume WEG had two reasons for putting willpower under KNO.
1) People that have high knowledgy skills have to concentrate to absorb all that book learnin', concentrating despite all the distractions of SW life takes some real willpower, therefore willpower comes under KNO.
2) It helps keep KNO from being just a dump stat for action oriented or tech characters.
Personally I don't see that willpower in the real world is any more related to PER than it is to KNO, or any less related for that matter. I've certainly met people who are perceptive or knowledgeable but lacking in willpower. And I've met some strong willed people who aren't that bright or observant. So at the end, I come back to leaving under knowledge if nothing else just to balance the various stats. |
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