"How many stats are too many?" Topic

My board game group recently started playing Imperial Assault. IMO, the only good thing about it is, it's Star Wars.

It allows, maybe even encourages actions that most miniatures games try to prevent. Things that seem ultra unrealistic.

This is the first sign of interest in miniatures that they have given, but it really seems to have hooked them. They're finally excited about planning, painting, the works.

So I've decided to get back to work on the combination RPG/miniatures game I've been working on.

I'm a bit worried that the 8 stats in my game might be too many for a group with almost no miniatures experience.

My stats are:
Ranged Combat
Melee Combat
Strength
Defense
HP
Intellect
Willpower
Speed

Any thoughts?

Why do you need anything more than ranged, melee, defense, and hp?

My factors are;

Command and Control
Movement
Ranged combat
Melee
Morale
Armour/animal/vehicle

Depends on what you're trying to do and what the stats are used for, and also how its structured. FFG's X-Wing ostensibly has only 4 stats… unless you factor in its firing arc, then its 5… and its available actions in which case it becomes 6-10 or so, and then the maneuver dial, in which case…

Then theres Armada, which has significantly more obvious stats, but you don't realize it because of what I'd term intelligent Industrial Design, a lot of the 'stats' are integrated into the model itself (similar to X-Wing, but I'd say they took it a step further), specifically on the base which tells you not only firing arcs, but the attack values and shields, etc.

And then theres a game like 40k, how many stats does a model in 40k have? Well, you have the models basic stats… its weapons stats, plus special rules/usr's, etc. etc.

It depends. How many figures does one player handle at a time? If it's just one, then more is OK. For multiple figures per player, you may want to trim it down a bit.

Song of Blades and Heroes has 2 (Quality and Combat Value) plus any character-specific special rules.

I know it sounds silly, but up to five, and no more than five, makes sense to me. Something I can count on one hand, and memorize within two turns.

By itself how many stats you have is meaningless.

Have they played RPGs before?

A good rule of thumb is 7 +/- 2 depending on how large the numbers are. Usability studies show that people can retain that much information readily without needing to look it up every time.

-Will

That seems a lot

I am of the five or less school of thought

Just my preference, I prefer fewer stats. How much of the time and how crucial are these stats to your game? You also have to consider how much skills or abilities will come into play. If you have a list of some dozen skills that modify the stats, then the effectiveness and application has to be judged of having value or not.

Melee, firepower and morale.

I game for the enjoyment, and simpler is more enjoyable.

Rick

Five was my first thought.
Eight seems a little high.
Four and below I often feel the game is too streamlined.

It does depend some though on how easy they are.
For instance if Army A has a STR of 4 for almost all its units, and army B has a STR of 5 for almost all of its units, then perhaps I would label that as a half stat.

On the other hand if every unit has a different value, for every state, then fewer is better.

Depends on how many options you want. Fewer stats tend to restrict what can be represented and kills variety.

Fewer stats also encourage more special rules which can also cause alot of dead weight in the rules.

Really depends on how many individual figures/units you have. The more figures, the less stats.

In a roleplaying game,e ach player only has one character, but with lots of stats detail.
I have played games with many figures per player, each figure had only one stat.

A good question to ask is whether the different stats really influence decisions made by players. If the stats are only there for injecting some random differences between figures, and if the result is that players have to look them up all the time, you have too many stats.

My go :) 3 to 4 sounds right, melee/shoot/hit, morale, quality, perhaps and the kicker is add in traits to finish off.
Cheers good luck and happy designing

You might want to limit stats to combat and allow other actions to be driven by narrative description and discussion. It is easier for a player to remember the narrative than a block of stats and the rules that affect them for a skill roll.

Compare:

My character has an Intelligence of 47 and an Area Knowledge (New England) modifier of +23, so I need to roll less than a 70 on d% to make the feat to find the route to the location of the Death Cult compound.

vs.

My character grew up on the outskirts of Boston and frequently accompanied his father on travel throughout New England as grunt labor in his dog breeding business. I ought to know how to get to any reasonable sized city in the area and with directions from a local (with which I am comfortable talking) won't get lost on backroads from there to the Old Grayson Place.

I prefer the latter. YMMV.

I frequently hijack non gaming family members to play with me, and I have had the best results with 5core skirmish, which basically has no stats, but I print little cards with special skills and weapon stats. It works really well, any rules you use will need some thought out player aids.

You can see different examples here for scifi
link

Or pulp:
link

Initially, it will be used to play 1-3 models per player in a Star Wars setting. I think after a short while, I could get it to evolve into a Star Wars RPG. Maybe over time, to other settings, like Firefly, Post Apoc., or Cyberpunk with each player using 5-8 models. Very limited skills or abilities will be available.

I like the idea of being able to differentiate between characters who are good at shooting, but not melee and vice versa. Or even creatures that can't perform ranged attackes. IF it's likely to be too much for new players, that can be combined into a single Dex stat, but then you have to have special rules to identify creatures that can't make Ranged Combat attacks.

They will likely be facing creatures that are vastly stronger than they are, but maybe Strength needs to be bundled in with Melee combat, unless Melee gets bundled in with Ranged Combat.

Defense is a catch all that could equally reflect a dense hide, nimbleness, or battle field awareness.

Intellect and willpower could be combined, but there will be Force based psionics and possibly magic later. Some creatures may not be bright, but have strong will. Or a person may be smart, but not have that strong a morale.

I feel HP and Speed are important because you need to know how much damage a character can take and how fast it is. HP could just be half your Defense rounded down, but it's still it's own stat, just derived in a different way.

I used to play a lot of GURPS and initially, it seems like you only have 4 stats, but then you add in Speed, Fatigue, and HP which are derived from the 4 base stats and you realize there aren't just 4.

At a minimum, you'll need two: a combat strength and a movement rate…everything else is a detail. :)

Boardgame units often have three: attack, defense, and movement.

Miniatures often have four 'Ms' -- musket, melee, movement, and morale.

You might also add a fifth 'M' -- modifiers, because most miniatures games have lots and lots of them.

Then you have RPGs, which evolved from six D&D categories to more or less categories and then dozens and dozens of modifications (skills). Some of these are not a game, but a full-time accounting and data input/retrieval job.

My 2 cents: If you have a non-gamer crowd, I suggest keeping it real simple, maybe only attack, defense (saving roll), and movement. Everything is binary -- alive or dead -- except for the players, which can get some sort of descriptive damage status -- grazed, wounded, incapacitated, and deceased. For all those Jedi running around, maybe give them a Force token for a free action when they spend it.

If that passes the test, you can add complexity in later sessions as they go up a level (however you as umpire/GM determine).