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An alternative to Fixed Racial Ability Scores Modifiers for Non-humans?
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<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6762524" data-attributes="member: 22424"><p>Sadly, I think my days of amateur game design are behind me - I don't have the time, and I found that getting from "a handful of cool concepts" to "something I can actually play" is really hard.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>To steal a factoid I saw <a href="http://blackdiamondgames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/shoplifters-and-thieves.html" target="_blank">somewhere else</a> (which, ironically, was about shoplifting): 10% of players will always try to power-game, no matter the system. 10% of players will never power-game, because they have no interest in it.</p><p></p><p>But the other 80% of players will power-game if the perceived rewards are big enough for the effort required. <em>They're</em> the ones it's worth thinking about and tailoring your game for - if you make the reward for playing to type (or, conversely, the penalty for going against type) too great, you'll basically never see the oddball combination (the Halfling Barbarian, or whatever). Conversely, if the rewards are only very small you'll see a tendency towards 'standard' characters but also a reasonable number of 'oddballs'.</p><p></p><p>(In case it's not clear, the numbers aren't in any way accurate. But the concept is sound - some few will always power-game, some few will never power-game, but the majority will do so conditionally. Design towards the third group.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="delericho, post: 6762524, member: 22424"] Sadly, I think my days of amateur game design are behind me - I don't have the time, and I found that getting from "a handful of cool concepts" to "something I can actually play" is really hard. To steal a factoid I saw [URL="http://blackdiamondgames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/shoplifters-and-thieves.html"]somewhere else[/URL] (which, ironically, was about shoplifting): 10% of players will always try to power-game, no matter the system. 10% of players will never power-game, because they have no interest in it. But the other 80% of players will power-game if the perceived rewards are big enough for the effort required. [i]They're[/i] the ones it's worth thinking about and tailoring your game for - if you make the reward for playing to type (or, conversely, the penalty for going against type) too great, you'll basically never see the oddball combination (the Halfling Barbarian, or whatever). Conversely, if the rewards are only very small you'll see a tendency towards 'standard' characters but also a reasonable number of 'oddballs'. (In case it's not clear, the numbers aren't in any way accurate. But the concept is sound - some few will always power-game, some few will never power-game, but the majority will do so conditionally. Design towards the third group.) [/QUOTE]
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An alternative to Fixed Racial Ability Scores Modifiers for Non-humans?
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