Excuse the formatting, since I wrote it in Notrepad

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That is detailed and complex

I like it!

Thanks! I tried to make it as realistic as possible, without making it impractical or making anything broken. The system should encourage specialization, since even historically people tended to specialize for fighting in a certain way (depending on a lot of factors). One of major issues I have with basically all modern games is that attributes are independent from each other when they really should not be. It is ridiculously easy to create a jack-of-all-stats, when normally it should not happen. On the other hand, many games have gone in the opposite direction, where previously character creation was unrealistically free, nowadays it is oftentimes too restrictive. Tied into that is the problem of character appearance being only cosmetic, when in reality someone's appearance does provide an indication of person's possible strengths and weaknesses in a fight, if you know where and how to look. I tried to account for all of that, and few other things I found either important or interesting.

Age and size is nothing but bullcrap tbh. You can be 60 and still be as physically fit and strong as a healthy 20 year old, age also has no part in how well someone can learn something or their physical development as there are young people way more intelligent then someone that is old and vice versa and being small or big wouldn't matter when it comes to strength or agility. There are more problems but the biggest being it's complexity, it's like from an era where people thought that trying to be overly realisitc and overly complex in game mechanics was a good idea except it does nothing but cause massive amounts of stress to the player and force players to micro-manage everything.

Being complex =/= good and often times just ends up being a big annoyance or does little for the game. Good examples would be Daggerfall and Morrowind where there were skills extremely useless like language or skills you were forced to invest in so you don't move at a snail's pace.

Yes and no. There are always exceptions, but all things being equal, someone in twenties will be fitter (and no, that does not necessarily mean stronger) than someone in sixties. Organism simply gets spent with time, and older the person gets, lesser the ability of body to repair itself. And size very much does matter when it comes to strength, muscular strength is directly proportional to muscle's cross section. Of course, there are also factors such as place of muscle inserts which complicate things, but as a general rule, bigger = stronger. Being big is also problematic for agility, again there are always exceptions due to training etc., but it is simple physics - a body in motion tries to stay in motion. So greater the mass, harder it is to change direction of movement - especially since muscular strength is squared (depends on muscle's cross-section) whereas weight is cubed (depends on volume). As for learning, it is true that younger people can learn quickly - when everything is presented "on paper". But when drawing conclusions from events, things quite abstract compared to rather clear (and dry) books - which is what "experience" in the game is all about - then past experience does help.

It is true that too much complexity is not good, but if you take a look, most of this whole list depends on just a few things. There is no micromanagement of 50 different skills as can happen in some games. In fact, I wouldn't say that this system is any more complex than what is present in current Oblivion games, and it is definetly less complex than Fallout 3's system in at least some aspects (never played 4). What might be a problem is that those few things have very wide effects, so learning how they interact might be a bit of an issue. EDIT: Besides, complexity is one of reasons why people play games such as Elder Scrolls. They are (relatively) realistic, they provide significant freedoms which allow for new experience every time a game is played. Person who does not like complexity will not play Elder Scrolls games, period, they will go for straightforward point-and-shoot games such as Call of Duty series. That complexity is price of freedom, and freedom is one of most important things in Elder Scrolls. They are not games for casual players, they never were.

Actually, most research indicates that your ability to learn peaks between 10 and 15, and then starts dropping... Greater context can help offset the decline, but it never matches the raw learning potential of a young brain. This is particularly evident in Language Skills, as learning a new language, even within the same family, becomes far more difficult past age 20. And once you hit 35-40 your brain starts forgetting things as it learns.


Anyway... I'm generally with Cider in regards to much of this... Not necessarily for the same reasons, but more because it's stifling options. When you start applying rules to things like Body Type and Age, you make it harder to work against those rules. It becomes more of an endeavour in overpowering them, instead of not conforming to them. You can't really have a more fit older person, because, all things being equal, they HAVE to invest more into those attributes just to break even. It's the same reason why I am not fond of Racial bonuses.


It's something that can be a great source of inspiration, but not something I like as mechanical law.


Equipment stats and variables are a different discussion, mind you, and I do like a lot of what you're saying there...

True, but generally older person in real life will have to work harder to maintain the same level of fitness compared to younger person. That is what I'm trying to simulate here, and while I do agree about what you are saying about learning, experience does help with drawing conclusions from new events. It is not so much about learning, per se, as it is about seeing patterns, context, and drawing conclusions - as opposed to, for example, formal scholing. It is far harder to draw a correct conclusion from an event if you have nothing to compare it to. But main reason was to simulate greater starting experience of older person and offset the physical bonus given to the younger character. And as you point out, older character would have to invest more into physical attributes just to break even - just as younger character would need to invest more into experience attributes. That is actually the idea between different age groups and other options I put into character design, as it encourages different playing styles.

It does limit options for any given character - but one of things I find particularly fun in such games is working around limitations. For example, I generally prefer playing a swordsman, and I optimize everything for that. So facing a bunch of archers is a challenge - which also makes it fun. I could pull out a bow and start shooting (and sometimes I do) - except I put no points in that skill (in games which have an option). Which means that I have to use whatever cover is available, sneak up to them or wait till they come close, and then kill them. Just like in real life, one would train to be a swordsman, or be a bowman - not both. So instead of overpowering limitations, one would work around them.

I understand what you are saying, but different people have different viewpoints I guess. Having more things decided by character design process would indeed limit options later on, but it would also force people to be more attentive to the design process itself - every choice (well, not every, but close) would have a consequence later on - and would also force them to adapt, work around shortcomings and force advantages of the character they designed. Personally, I find that fun, as I hate memorizing all the options of a jack-of-all-trades character (poor memory, lol), but I love strategizing, exploring options and possibilities within limitations of a character as designed. And if one really does not like thinking about all the decisions character design process I envisioned forces, there could always be presets (either just a generalized jack-of-all-trades preset, or maybe presets for a generalist, a swordsman, a bowman, a heavy weapons guy, a mage etc.) where options listed would be decided as optimal for a given class. Being able to have a character proficient in a wide array of skills would provide more variety in terms of available solutions, but since some solutions would be much better than other solutions, it would actually require less thinking, less creativity in dealing with problems.

Just to give an example, I lug around a lot of hardware. To wit: light armour, heavy armour, longsword, claymore, steel longbow... it does provide a lot of options, but it is also annoying to manage. And I still use steel longsword + leather cuirass-boots-greaves-shield + iron helmet combination about 80% of the time (and replace longsword with claymore about 10% of the time). But since character does not have bonuses/penalties for certain playstyles, focusing on just e.g. "light infantry" playstile (my favourite btw) is in certain circumstances unfeasible. So I have to lug around heavy items "just in case", which then leaves me less space/weight available for some items I would find useful in my primary playstyle. Which makes said playstyle even less feasible in said circumstances, which... you get the point.