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<blockquote data-quote="TreChriron" data-source="post: 6480906" data-attributes="member: 5046">What other game systems are you familiar with?I ask because there are several hundreds of games out there. Several of them have &quot;mechanisms&quot; for supporting play styles that appeal to various people's tastes. They range from the traditional ultra-detailed to the &quot;new school&quot; &quot;narrative&quot; simplistic. Some ditch stats or attributes to focus on Skills, while others just use a profession as a skill. Some deal in abstract &quot;actions&quot; so the focus is on the narrative vs. the system-bits. Engineer's study design patterns and other Engineer's design. Scholar's study a multitude of other's works before crafting their own theories. You need to become a student of game design!Check out The GumShoe System or Cortex Plus (Hacker's Guide) or Fate or Amber Diceless.&nbsp; Get a feel for mechanics outside the &quot;main stream&quot; (ala D&amp;D).Reading your posts thus far, I get the impression you have a limited exposure to the myriad games available. What you have described has been done before and more importantly the results of player's min-maxing systems has been in this hobby for decades (from the beginning...). Some games are harder to min-max because they literally take the focus off of &quot;increasing numbers increase capability&quot; and instead place that focus on &quot;screen time&quot; or &quot;niche protection&quot; (or both).A quick idea. You want &quot;emotional&quot; and &quot;mental&quot; traits to be important? Make all your talents require 3 pertinent traits, with a minimum of one of the mental/emotional traits you find important. Or limit the talents&nbsp; score by a calculation using these important traits. Say no combat skill can exceed 5 x your resolve (if you don't have the will to cut people down, you hesitate or balk...). You can find skill caps and limits in systems like BRP/Legend/RuneQuest or GURPS.Another quick idea: give a bonus on various talents based on these mental/emotional scores. Those with a high resolve, or courage, or empathy get a bonus on related tasks.You have two options when it comes to player choices and behavior. The carrot or the stick. You can encourage play with rewards and bonuses, or discourage choices with restrictions and penalties. Some games use both methods in one degree or another. If having well rounded characters is important to you, and you want the players to come up with them, you will need to devise a way to either inspire or discourage them from that behavior.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TreChriron, post: 6480906, member: 5046"] What other game systems are you familiar with? I ask because there are several hundreds of games out there. Several of them have "mechanisms" for supporting play styles that appeal to various people's tastes. They range from the traditional ultra-detailed to the "new school" "narrative" simplistic. Some ditch stats or attributes to focus on Skills, while others just use a profession as a skill. Some deal in abstract "actions" so the focus is on the narrative vs. the system-bits. Engineer's study design patterns and other Engineer's design. Scholar's study a multitude of other's works before crafting their own theories. You need to become a student of game design! Check out The GumShoe System or Cortex Plus (Hacker's Guide) or Fate or Amber Diceless. Get a feel for mechanics outside the "main stream" (ala D&D). Reading your posts thus far, I get the impression you have a limited exposure to the myriad games available. What you have described has been done before and more importantly the results of player's min-maxing systems has been in this hobby for decades (from the beginning...). Some games are harder to min-max because they literally take the focus off of "increasing numbers increase capability" and instead place that focus on "screen time" or "niche protection" (or both). A quick idea. You want "emotional" and "mental" traits to be important? Make all your talents require 3 pertinent traits, with a minimum of one of the mental/emotional traits you find important. Or limit the talents score by a calculation using these important traits. Say no combat skill can exceed 5 x your resolve (if you don't have the will to cut people down, you hesitate or balk...). You can find skill caps and limits in systems like BRP/Legend/RuneQuest or GURPS. Another quick idea: give a bonus on various talents based on these mental/emotional scores. Those with a high resolve, or courage, or empathy get a bonus on related tasks. You have two options when it comes to player choices and behavior. The carrot or the stick. You can encourage play with rewards and bonuses, or discourage choices with restrictions and penalties. Some games use both methods in one degree or another. If having well rounded characters is important to you, and you want the players to come up with them, you will need to devise a way to either inspire or discourage them from that behavior. [/QUOTE]

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