Monthly Archives: December 2014

Starting a 3D Modeling Journey

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

I think it is safe to say that we can blame this upcoming series of posts on Delta from the Delta’s D&D Hotspot blog.  In 2013 he did a series of posts every Saturday that was usually about my favorite game, Star Frontiers, which got me following his blog.  Specifically, the impetus for this particular series of blog posts all started with his Forging Fighters series of posts (part 1, part 2, part 3) where he detailed the design and crafting of a fighter miniature for Star Frontiers, something that doesn’t exist in the miniature sets released by TSR all those years ago.  I like those articles so much that with Delta’s permission, we reprinted his blog posts as an article in issue 7 of the Frontier Explorer.

Sathar Destroyer Technical Manual cover

At the same time, I had just discovered that the library at the university where my wife is an astronomy professor had acquired a 3D printer that was available for the public to use at minimal cost.  And so I thought to myself, “I wonder if I could make 3D starship models that I could print?”  At that time I was also working on my write-up of the Sathar Destroyer that would later be published in the Sathar Destroyer Technical Manual.  So this naturally became the first miniature that I would attempt.

Fast forward about a year and now I work at the university library as the Physical and Mathematical Sciences Librarian (covering physics, astronomy, math, and computer science) in the very department that has the 3D printer.  It’s literally around the corner from my office.  That has made it very easy for me to use and test models on the printer.  I’ve been having a blast.  I’ve learned a lot along the way and thought that I should share my experiences in this series of blog posts.

The answer to the question of whether or not I could make models to print is a definite “Yes!” and I’ll be taking you through that journey.  I’m up to 10 different models and will cover one or two of them in each post showing pictures of the model, the printed miniature, and is some cases, the final painted versions (I’m in the process of painting many of them right now).

Samples of the first 8 models printed and ready for painting

The picture at the right shows some of the first models printed and ready for painting.  The one painted model is a prototype version of the Sathar Destroyer model that I printed and then painted as a test.  Also pictured on the left are a lager version of the final destroyer model, the Sathar Heavy and Light Cruisers, more destroyers and some Sathar fighters.  On the right we have a freighter, four UPF frigates, four Assault Scouts, and four pirate corvettes.  Also pictured is a not to scale version of an exploration ship from a 3D model made by Jay Thruman.  I’ll talk about all of these in future posts.

Software and Printer

As I was starting this process, I looked around for modeling software when I started this process, I was looking for something that was relatively simple to use and quick to learn.  A lot of people use Blender but I’ve tried using it in the past and while quite powerful and versatile, the learning curve was just too steep for my tastes.  In the end I settled on a program called OpenSCAD.  It works much like a programming language in that instead of drawing and placing objects on the screen, you simply write a line or two of code telling the program what shape, how big, where, and how to rotate it.  Then your code “compiles” into the 3D object.  Being a programmer by profession and not any sort of an artist, this appealed to me immensely.  There have definitely been some limitations and I think I’ll eventually have to change programs if I ever want to do anything besides the spaceships but it has served me well to date.

In addition to OpenSCAD for actually creating the models, I also use Autodesk’s Meshmixer to check the models and NetFabb’s cloud repair service (no defunct – link is to page on the Wayback Machine) to clean the models up.  I’ve also used Inkscape to create a few shapes that I’ve then imported to use as parts of models.  More about those in future articles as well.

The printer that I’ve been printing on is a Makerbot Replicator 2, printing at 200 micron (0.2mm) vertical resolution.  I tried a few prints at the smaller 100 micron resolution but the printer just kept jamming.  I’ll be talking about the joys and woes of using this printer as well.  At the library we’re in the process of getting another printer or two of different brands and so when they arrive, I’ll also be talking about the differences and my experiences with the new printers.

Stay Tuned

That’s it for this introduction.  I’ll be interspersing these modeling articles with my Designing Out Loud series in the coming weeks and months.  It might be a little light on content over the next couple of weeks as we move through the holiday season but I’ll try to get something up each week.  See you next time.

Comments

Delta – December 24, 2014 at 11:56 am

That’s awesome! Can’t wait to see what’s next!

Designing Out Loud – Ability Scores – part 4

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

In part 3 of this series I worked through selecting a unified set of ability scores that I felt could be used in both of my visions for the skill system of my game.  What I forgot to think about, until the very end of that essay, was the scale and range of the ability scores.  That’s today’s topic.

In the first part of this series (Designing Out Loud – Ability Scores – part 1) I briefly discussed the different ranges that the ability scores could take.  In part 2, before I worked out a unified set of ability scores, I discussed my thoughts and ideas on the values of the ability scores in the two different systems I was contemplating.  After part 3, I need to revisit this and see if I can come up with a unified solution.

Ability Scores Are Tied To The Mechanics

and especially to the skill system.  I’ve talked about this in the previous parts so I’m not going to rehash it in any great detail but just give a quick overview.

In what I’m now thinking of as my “basic” game, the ability scores are much more intimately tied to the skills than in the “advanced” game.  And since the skill list is going to be smaller and more general, there will be many more checks against the ability scores in that system.  As such, and since in both cases, I’m looking at a d100 percentile based system, it makes sense for the ability scores to be on a 1-100 scale directly.  Ability scores in a smaller (say 2-20) range would need to be multiplied by some factor in order to be on the necessary scale.

The other system, however, doesn’t have the tight coupling of ability scores to skills and the ability scores only affect the skills as small modifiers.  Thus in this case, we would prefer ability scores that are relatively small so that we can give +/- 1 skill modifiers based on the value of the ability scores above or below a certain threshold.  Ability scores in the 1-100 range would require division by something (probably 5) to give the desired skill modifiers.

Is The Math Really That Bad?

The real question is how cumbersome is doing that bit of math?  Personally, I don’t think twice about basic multiplication or division, but then again, I’m a Ph.D. astronomer who’s worked as a software developer for over a decade – math just comes naturally to me.

Let’s look at the four scenarios and see when we’d be doing the math.  From here on out we’ll call the Star Frontiers style skills XP Skills, and the RuneQuest style skills, NoXP Skills.  The ability scores on the 1-100 scale will be called d100 ability scores and the smaller range ones will be called 2d10 ability scores (even though I don’t know the exact range I’ll be using, if at all).

Case 1 – XP Skills, d100 Ability Scores

This is the “native” case for this system.  The skills are based on 1/2 the ability scores which run in the same percentile range as we want for the skills.  The only math involved here is the division by 2 and then addition of 10 times the skill level and other positive or negative modifiers when a skill is used.  But those modifiers will exist regardless so they really don’t count. And when you make ability score checks, which are more important in this system, you just roll d100 against your ability score.  So this option has effectively no math happening based on the coupling of the ability scores to the skills.

Plus with the ability scores on the larger scale, you can have finer variations between characters.  Is that really necessary or even noticeable? Probably not, but it is there.

Case 2 – XP Skills, 2d10 Ability Scores

In this case, the ability scores are not on the same scale as the skill rolls (Of course we could change the skill resolution mechanic off of a d100 system but that’s not really what is wanted).  So whenever you use a skill you’d have to be multiplying the relevant ability score by some factor (probably 2 or 3) to get it on the right scale.  Is that harder than diving by 2?  Probably not.  But it’s probably not any easier either.

Plus when making ability score checks, you’d either have to not use d100 (not desired) or multiply the ability score by some factor (in this case probably 4 or 5) to get it into the d100 scale.  This would have to be done more often since these ability checks are more common with this skill system.

So this one is slight more math intensive during play as you have a few more multiplications going on.

Case 3 – NoXP Skills, 2d10 Ability Scores

This is the “native” case for this skill system.  The ability scores don’t figure directly into the skills but only with modifiers based on the skill category and ability score’s value above or below a certain threshold.  In this case the modifiers are simple +/- 1 for each point the ability score is above or below the threshold.  However, those modifiers are static and so can be computed once when the character is generated and only have to ever be recomputed if an ability score changes.

This still has the problem that ability score checks have to be multiplied by a factor to make a d100 check against them.  But cases for this are much rarer in this system since many of the situations where these would be used are often covered by skills.

Case 4 – NoXP Skills, d100 Ability Scores

In this case, you don’t want the skill modifiers to be a simple +/-1 for points of ability scores above or below threshold as you would get some really large modifiers.  You have to make it +/-1 skill point modifier for every N ability score points (where N is probably 5).  This seems like a lot of work but remember, this only has to be done once at character creation and at the odd times a character increases one of his ability scores (how often that happens is debatable but in my experience not very common with this skill system).  Plus it’s easy to provide a quick look-up table to give the appropriate modifier based on the ability score so the math is reduced to simple addition and subtraction.

And in this system, the rare ability score checks can be made directly against the scores themselves with not multiplication needed.

Modifiers

One thing I didn’t mention above is modifiers on ability score checks.  In the the 2d10 ability score systems, difficulty modifiers can be applied simply by changing the score multiplier.  So an easy check might be rolling d100 against the ability score x5 or x6 while a more difficult check could be x3 or x4 and a really hard check could be x2 or even x1.  In the d100 ability score system, the difficulty modifiers will typically be subtracted from the ability score, i.e -0 to -10 for relatively easy checks, up to -50 to -60 for really tough ones.  So the math exists regardless, it just varies in flavor.

Balancing the Scales

In the above analysis, I’ve been blithely throwing around multiplying or dividing by 5 to convert between the 2d10 and d100 ability scores but is that really the right value?  Based on the maximum value it is, but what about based on the real ranges?

In the 2d10 system, your maximum value is 20 and it is possible for you to have a character starting out at that value.  In the d100 system, however, you can’t start at the maximum ability score of 100.  In fact, the best you can do is 75.  Of course the flip side is true as well.  The 2d10 system lets you have ability scores as low as 2 but the d100 system only lets you start as low as 30.

Converting the 2d10 system to d100 by multiplying by 5 means that on the 1-100 scale you can have ability scores in the range of 10-100 while the native d100 ability score range from 30-75.  Going the other way means that the native 2d10 ability scores range from 2-20 but the converted d100 scores only range from 6-15.  Both are basically centered on an average of 11 (in the 2d10 system) but the d100 ability scores come from a much narrower distribution.  You don’t have large heroic outliers in the d100 system.

And using different multipliers don’t really help unless you start introducing more complicated formulas.  Division by 4 instead of five takes the d100 ability scores down into the range of 8-19, now centered on 13.5 and skewed high.  One solution is to allow a larger range in the d100 ability scores either via the ability score creation table or simply going crazy with the dice and rolling the full 10d10 to generate your ability score.  That latter option would actually give you the same converted 2-20 range and basically the same distribution but that’s a lot of dice to roll (80d10 total), even if you do it only once at character creation.

So which is worse, having a wider range of ability scores that could potentially give you >90% success chances at things (that require an ability score check) even as a starting character, or having a narrower ability score range that provides less benefit to your skills and increased failure probabilities?

Reaching a Decision

So there are really two things to decide.  First, what’s the scale of the ability scores, 2d10 or d100, and second do we allow the full range or a limited sub-range for starting characters?

After working through the above discussion and the previous three blog posts, I think that I’m going to move forward developing a d100 ability score system with the narrower range that I laid out back in part 2.  It’s the “native” ability score system for the “basic” game skill system and I think that it really doesn’t have many negatives if applied to the other skill system.  The main downside is the more complicated calculations that are needed to determine the skill category modifiers in that system but that can really be overcome with a small table of values.

The smaller ability score range simply means smaller skill modifiers in the NoXP skill system.  However, these are small to begin with and this means you’d only be getting +0 to +7 bonus instead of +5 to +15 typically so you’re really only out about 5-8 percentage points on your skills.  It’s a noticeable but fairly small difference that I’m completely comfortable with.

So that’s where I’ll start.  We’ve finally reached the end of this set of posts and we’ll have to see how it goes.

As always, feel free to leave comments, suggestions, or questions below.

Designing Out Loud – Ability Scores – part 3

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

I thought I was done with this set of ruminations with part 2 but after finishing that post I had a thought:  Would it be possible to combine the two different set of ability scores into something that I like that could work with both skill systems?

Why?  Well my reasoning was this.  I know in the end I want both games.  And I’d like them to be somewhat compatible with each other.  Thus if a character was created in one system it could be ported over to the other.  And that would be easier if the ability scores were the same.  Much like going from Basic D&D to Advanced D&D.  The ability scores were the same and the basic ideas were the same, just some of the details were different. (I don’t know if you could actually port characters between the systems but the foundations were the same.)  The Star Frontiers style version could be my “basic” game and the RuneQuest style could be the “advanced” form.

So let’s see what we can do:

Similarities

This is the easy part.  Many of the ability scores are the same between the two sets, although they might have different names.

  • Strength – This is exactly the same in both sets
  • Constitution and Stamina – These are essentially the same characteristic with different names.  The names have slightly different connotations but mechanically they function the same in both systems as a basis for hit points, resistance to disease and poison, etc.
  • Dexterity – Again basically the same characteristic, although in the one system there is a separate score for gross motor skills and dexterity only applies to fine motor skills.
  • Appearance and Charisma – While charisma is slightly broader than appearance in its application, these two are essentially the same.
  • Intelligence – This is the same in both sets
  • Wisdom – This one exists in both sets but with slightly different application.  In the Star Frontiers style set, it rolls up both the Wisdom and Willpower characteristics of the RuneQuest set.  And it’s one that I added to the RuneQuest set over the RuneQuest model.

Differences

This is where the work is.  These characteristics don’t exist in one or the other set and I’ve got to figure out if they are needed or can be adjusted.

  • Stature – This one is from the RuneQuest set (called Size in RuneQuest) and describes the physical size of the character.  In that game system it has an impact on melee combat as the bigger you are the longer your reach and the earlier you hit in combat.  Plus it is averaged with your Constitution to determine your hit points.  It also has a negative impact on agility and stealth skills as the bigger you are the harder those skills become.  The only other place I remember it being used is as a limit on certain spells, i.e. larger Size required more magic to affect.
  • Willpower – This one is also from RuneQuest where it is just called Power.  In my Star Frontiers set it is subsumed into the Wisdom characteristic.  It forms the basis for magic/psi powers and has influences on a variety of skill categories (communication, magic, perception, and stealth), both positive and negative.
  • Quickness – This comes from the Star Frontiers set (called Reaction Speed in Star Frontiers) and is a measure of gross motor skills and how fast the character responds to sudden changes.  It’s fairly heavily used in that system for ability checks.  In RuneQuest it is basically combined into the Dexterity ability score or covered by skills
  • Leadership – Another ability score from the Star Frontiers set that has no analog at all in the RuneQuest system as everything that this ability score covers is handled by skills in that system.

Is Reconciliation Possible?

One of the great things about thinking out loud and writing things out to explain to others is that it really helps to clarify your thinking and organize your thoughts and ideas in ways that you would never do if you were just bouncing them around in your head.  After writing up the above comparisons of the similarities and differences, I believe the answer is yes.  It would be possible to come up with a single set of ability scores that could be used for both systems.  The question is how many do we end up with.  Let’s dive in and find out.

The Easy Ones

Two of the ability scores, Strength and Intelligence, don’t need any work as they are the same in both systems.

There are two more that are essentially the same but with different names.  First there is Constitution and Stamina.  I think I’d use Stamina as it has a slightly broader definition to me.  The second is Appearance and Charisma.  Again I think Charisma would be the better choice for its broader meaning.  I think these choices are better as they allow the ability score to have it’s full meaning in the Star Frontiers style game and then in the RuneQuest style system, where some of the impact of these ability scores are taken over by skills, they simply have a reduced meaning.  Going the other way is a little harder in my opinion.

That’s four down, moving on.

Dexterity and Quickness

So in once of the sets, this is all lumped under Dexterity while in the other set, they are split out.  Taking a quick survey of other games on my shelf behind me shows about an even split of the two methods.  Some do and some don’t split them apart.  Although the second ability score is usually called agility, which I like and will probably adopt if I use both.

So convention isn’t going to help here.  I like the idea of splitting them into separate ability scores as they really are different things.  I personally have fairly good dexterity but I’m not very agile.  And I see their benefit is the Star Frontiers styled skill system.  In the RuneQuest style skills, most of the actions that would be covered by an ability score check are handled by skills, the main purpose of this ability score would be to affect the skill modifiers in that system.  Which is okay.

I think in this case, I want them separate and so would keep both of them, calling them Dexterity and Agility.

Stature

Other than adding flavor to the system, I don’t know that his one really has any impact in the Star Frontiers style skill system game.  Unless I model the combat mechanic of the game after the RuneQuest style mechanic, something I’m very inclined to do.  Otherwise, it would only affect things like the size of armor you needed and whether or not you’d fit in that escape pod or other such things.

The reverse question is could you live without it in the RuneQuest style skill system?  It’s only a negative skill modifier unless you’re really small so for most characters, removing it would improve their skills, a positive from the player’s perspective.  The implications on spell casting could be ignored or based on a rolled height/weight that is not an ability score.  And the melee modifier isn’t really needed either, it just adds a bit more differentiation in the combat system.

Mostly I see this one, while highly realistic, being more for adding flavor to the system than fundamental to it’s operation.  I can’t see any of the Star Frontiers style skills being based on this ability score.  For now I think we leave it out.  I can always add it back in later if I change my mind.

Leadership

This one I think is unique, at least in my experience, to Star Frontiers.  In RuneQuest, the events covered by this characteristic are handled by various skills.  The only other system I know of that had something similar were the chutzpah and moxie scores in Paranoia.  Although Powers & Perils had Eloquence which was used in combination with other ability scores to compute probabilities for things a Leadership ability score would be used for.

While it’s definitely possible for someone to be very charismatic but completely incapable as a leader, or vice versa, I think this one could be dropped and the areas covered by this ability score lumped in under the Charisma score.  We’ll leave this one off as well.

Willpower and Wisdom

This one is probably the hardest for me to come to a decision on.  Willpower is derived from RuneQuest’s  Power ability score and Wisdom is derived from Star Frontiers Intuition ability score.  Neither one has an analog in the other system although I added Wisdom to my RuneQuest style set and included the nature of Willpower into Wisdom in the Star Frontiers style set.  So I’ve obviously considered them both as a combined ability score and as unique entities.

The real question is which do I prefer and how would they apply in game.  As a general rule I like more detail over less and think that they should be separate for maximum realism.  I can definitely think of people/characters where one would be high and the other low as well as ones where they run together.  Having them separate provides more potential variations.  But how do they apply in-game.

The first to consider is Willpower in the Star Frontiers style skill system.  If separate from Wisdom, it would form the basis for any psi power I included, just like it would in the RuneQuest style system.  Also, since I’ve decided to drop Leadership, some of the checks that might normally fall to that ability score would probably fall to this one instead.  At least anything related to the force of character instead of their charm and likability (which would go to Charisma).  It would also possibly be the go to ability score for things like morale.  So this has a valid use in the Star Frontiers style skill system.

The second is Wisdom in the RuneQuest style system.  I added this one originally simply because I liked having it distinct from Willpower and felt it should be in there, not because I had a strongly perceived need for it.  Although once added, I had it sprinkled throughout the skill system being a positive modifier to a greater or lesser degree for Communication, Knowledge, Perception, and Stealth related skills.  I think it also would be good to have as an ability check as a defense against skills like Bargain, Charm, Fast Talk and the like when someone is trying to pull one over on a character (whether they be a PC or NPC).  However, you could also consider using countering skill rolls and have the Wisdom ability score only play a part via its skill modifier.  So I guess I see it as useful, although to a smaller extent in this system.

Since both characteristics have a use in the system they weren’t originally designed for, I think they are both worth keeping.

Conclusions

If you’ve been keeping track, of the ten original unique ability scores, eight made the cut and were deemed useful in both systems and the other two were maybes whose utility could be subsumed into one of the original eight and so were dropped with the caveat that we might call them back up later on.  This gives us as our final ability score list:

  • Strength – Raw physical power
  • Stamina – Vigor and vitality – will be used for hit points as well as endurance and resistance to disease and poisons
  • Dexterity – Fine motor skills and hand-to-eye coordination
  • Agility – Gross motor skills and ability to react to sudden changes and events
  • Intelligence – Brain power, ability to reason and to learn
  • Wisdom – Intuition, street smarts, and perceptiveness of surroundings
  • Charisma – Appearance and personality/likability
  • Willpower – Force of character and presence.  Will also be the basis for psionic power if included.

It wasn’t intentional but a happy coincidence of this is that there are four physical characteristics and four mental characteristics, giving us a nice even balance.  Plus the two extras are one of each so if they get added back in it will still be balanced.

I’m quite happy with the way this turned out and so I think I’ll use this list going forward.  It’s almost identical to the original Star Frontiers style set but with Quickness renamed agility and Willpower substituted for Leadership and a few of the definitions shifted around.

But Wait, There’s More!

And it looks like there is going to be a part 4 to this series.  As I was writing this I realized that one other thing had to be determined and that is the range for the ability scores, do we go something in the 2-20, 3-30, or 1-100 range?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?  However, this article is long enough already so we’ll save that discussion for part 4.  Stay tuned.

Designing Out Loud – Ability Scores – part 2

This post originally appeared on the now-defunct Arcane Game Lore blog.

In my last article, I mused a bit about the different ability score options and thoughts that have been floating around in my head.  In part two I’m going to discuss my ideas for the two different sets of ability scores and talk a bit about each one.  Maybe by the end of this I’ll have come to a decision.

What Have I Done?

So I have done a little bit of design on characteristics based on both of the two different skill systems that I’m considering.  These were done at completely separate times with out comparing one to the other.  Here’s what I have so far and my thoughts on them.

BRP/RuneQuest Style

The ability scores from RuneQuest 3rd edition

I jotted down the notes for this one at my twins’ Boy Scout summer camp this year.  I was up for a couple of days teaching the Astronomy merit badge and was working on gaming stuff during the day while they were off doing activities.

For this system I settled on eight ability scores, one more than RuneQuest uses:

  • Strength – physical power
  • Constitution – health and vigor
  • Stature – physical size (equivalent to RuneQuest’s Size ability score)
  • Dexterity – fine and gross motor skill
  • Appearance – physical attractiveness
  • Intelligence – brain power
  • Willpower – strength and force of character (equivalent to RuneQuest Power)
  • Wisdom – intuition, street smarts, awareness of surroundings (this is the extra ability score)

My original thoughts were to base these on 3d10 for the ability scores with 16-17 as median and a range from 3-30.  And then use scores above and below 15 to modify skills.  Why?  At some level it was completely arbitrary but based on a few considerations:

  • I’m considering basing the system completely off d10s like Star Frontiers.  So it had to be a multiple of d10′s
  • To couple with the skill system, the ability scores need to be relatively low so that there isn’t a lot of math involved in computing the skill modifiers.  i.e. I wanted simple +/- 1 instead of something like +/- 1 for every 5 points.
  • 3d10 gives a slightly more bell curvy shape than 2d10 which is just a pyramid.  So 3d10 will cluster toward the middle values of 16-17 more than 2d10 will cluster toward 11.
  • 2d10 gives a 2-20 range similar to RuneQuest’s 3-18 range and I wanted to be a little different.  This one is a pretty lame reason.

The more I’ve thought about this, I think that despite 2d10 be less bell curvy, a range up to 20 is really the way to go as it makes other mechanics that use the ability scores directly a little better (i.e. ability score x5 gives you something on the d100 scale).  Although an alternate, if I don’t want to limit to d10s, is to use 3d8 and get ranges from 3-24 and then ability scores x4 puts you on a percentile scale.  Something to consider.

Star Frontiers Style

Ability Scores from Star Frontiers

The notes for this one are contained in a preliminary player’s book I started working up just a month or so before I started this series of blog posts.  In this case I basically used the exact same scores but I renamed a couple of them and I also decoupled their creation so that instead of being generated in pairs, they are each rolled individually.  The ability scores I ended up with are:

  • Strength – raw physical power
  • Stamina – endurance and constitution – this is the basis for the characters hit points
  • Dexterity – fine motor skills (shooting, manipulating objects, etc)
  • Quickness – gross motor skills (responding to sudden events i.e. while driving/flying, dodging blows, etc.)
  • Intelligence – brain power and ability to learn
  • Wisdom – awareness of surroundings, insight into interactions, etc.  It would also form the basis for power in psi abilities if I include them. (This is Star Frontiers Intuition ability score renamed.)
  • Charisma – appearance and likableness. (Star Frontiers’ Personality characteristic renamed.)
  • Leadership – bravado, moxie, chutzpah, and command presence all rolled into one.  This is how well you inspire others to do your will and follow your instructions.

Like in Star Frontiers you would generate the value for these ability scores by rolling d100 and consulting a table to determine the exact starting value.  Since a d100 gives an equal chance of any score, and we want things grouped a little more toward the median, just making the roll the score doesn’t work.  Instead, I generated a probability curve using the awesome Any Dice website that allows you to generate distributions for any combination of dice and modifiers.

I based the distribution off of 10d10-5 (so that the average was 50 and we got a nice bell curve).  I then looked at the probability ranges and generated a table that gives realistic probabilities of generating the range of ability scores I was interested in (namely 30 to 75).  I actually had to stretch out the tails just a little to make the table simpler but the distribution is close.  Here is what it looks like:

Die Roll1-56-1011-2021-4041-6061-8081-9091-9596-99100
Ability Score30354045505560657075

Of course with the resultant values being in 5 point increments, one might ask why I don’t just divide by 5 and go back to a 20 point scale since they are mathematically equivalent?  And who knows, I might.  But with the ability scores on the same range as a d100 it makes ability checks simpler:  just roll against the ability score and you’re done, no math.

Do we have a decision yet?

Not quite.  I’m still exploring ideas.  But I think I’m starting to lean more in one direction than the other.  And the more I look at it, the more I’m convinced that the choice for ability scores is very much coupled with the skill and experience system.  These form the core mechanics of the game and have to be developed in tandem.

As time goes on, I’m starting to feel more like I want to try my hand at the simpler Star Frontiers style skill system and therefore related ability scores.  Maybe that’s just because I’m lazy.  I know that system will be simpler, both to create from a game design stand point as well as simpler for character creation.  Or maybe it’s because I want something compatible with all the Star Frontiers stuff I’ve done over the past 30 years.

On the other hand, I love the crunch of RuneQuest’s skill system and the infinite variations its vocations can give to characters. But I’m a astronomer and computer programmer by training and experience.  I like numbers and math is a no-brainer for me so I don’t see the extra complexity as a negative.

So in the end I’ll probably create both systems.  The real question is which one first?

Thoughts, comments, or suggestions?  Leave a note in the comment section below.