In a gaming system that relies upon random elements controlled by dice to determine these things, there is nearly always a chance that some of the people in the above mentioned circumstances would fail, and that is unacceptably arbitrary.
In addition to this, playing without dice gives both game-master and players more control over the plot. The person running the game decides what random elements will be present - if it isn't in their mind to have the dropped lamp set the barn afire, it won't. Likewise, the characters get to choose the outcomes of most things that happen to them - within reasonable limits - and this leaves more room for character development.
Both attributes and skills are denoted using small numbers. For humans, 3 is average for attributes, while a score of 3 in a skill indicates competency for any race. A person could stay afloat with a swim of 1 or 2, could swim fairly well with a score of 3, and an olympic swimmer versed in several different strokes might have a swim of 5 or higher. These scores need not be static - players can spend points left over from the amount distributed at character generation or earned through good role-play to increase skills and certain attributes, but only if a plot-driven, plausible reason can be found for doing so.
During game-play, at times when one would normally expect to roll dice, (such as during combat, trying to lift something very heavy, or exercising a specialized skill), checks are instead made on skills or attributes. Any given task is assigned a "difficulty" by the game-master, and as long as the necessary attribute or skill is equal to or greater than the difficulty, the character succeeds in the task.
Here is an example:
A nosy thief finds a diary which is locked. The game-master says that the
difficulty of the lock is 3. The thief's skill is 4, so he automatically
succeeds.
If the diary had belonged to a paranoid mage, however, the thief may have
run into some difficulties.
Let's say the mage put an extra strength lock with a difficulty of 7 on
the book. The only way the thief could succeed in such a task whose
difficulty exceeds his skill by three points is by spending three points
from his "store" of points.
If the player wants to succeed at a given task badly enough, and has enough points to spend, then through an insight or extension of their abilities, they will succeed. There is a limit, however, to how many points one can spend on things. The maximum amount which may be spent on any given task is five points - and this isn't as arbitrary as it sounds. As mentioned previously, players can spend points after character generation to improve skills or attributes. The amount to improve any skill or attribute in this way by one level is five points. Since skills and attributes increase exponentially (a 4 is better by many degrees than a 3), it doesn't make sense to allow a player to spend more on a single task than it takes to improve their character permanently.
Attributes set up an outline of a character, and often have modifying effects on "categories" of skills. The following chart indicates the appopriate skill modifiers per degrees of attribute.
| Degree of Excellence | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | |
| Modifiers | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | +1 | +2 | +2 | +3 | +3 |
Here are some simple definitions of the attributes, and brief descriptions of in-game things which may be impacted by them.
Strength is a measure of a character's physical prowess. Strength effects the amount a character can lift, carry, or move, and has some impact on staying power as well.
Constitution is a measure of a character's level of health. Resistances to toxins, illness, fatigue, and pain are shown by constitution. Because constitution is so directly linked to a character's well-being, a character's level of constitution can be equated with how much physical damage they can withstand before death. Losing a point of constitution in combat or through some other calamity would be equivalent to a very severe physical trauma. The exact interpretation of a character's CON score may depend on race and gender.
Intelligence reflects a character's clarity and speed of thought, memory, and how quickly they pick up on new concepts or ideas. Intelligence is more of a measure of mental faculties than the ability to use them. All "communication" skills are modified by extremes in intelligence.
Personality refers to "strength of character" and how strongly other people are likely to react to a given character. A low personality score does not necessarily guarantee a negative reaction, nor does a high personality score ensure a good reaction - Hitler had a high PER. Joe Shmoe down the street... you know... that guy... the one nobody remembers... well, he's got a low personality.
Dexterity is a measure of a character's speed and ability at physical manipulation. Extremes in dexterity effect all skills in the "agility" category.
Luck is a way of quantifying that nebulous quality which effects us all so much - how often good or bad things happen to a given character, and, more importantly, whether something good may often come out of something bad. The luck attribute gives players a chance to indirectly control the way the world around them works, and gives them something to point at when they feel the game-master is laying on crises too heavily, or lightly, as may be the case. Luck can be changed by things which happen in-game (a curse or blessing by the gods, for instance) but may not be changed by expenditure of points after character generation. This is one aspect of a character which must be decided on at the start, as there is no plausible way in-game for a character to change their own luck.
Perception is a measure of sensual and intuitive acuity, and extremes in this attribute effect all skills in the "perception" category.
Because attributes can be arbitrarily large, players have a great deal of flexibility. Legendarily heroic or god-like characters can be drawn up if a player has enough points to spend, or their base attributes are high enough. A good rule of thumb when considering attributes for a character is that more than 4 beyond the base is just too high. The rules designating how points are spent to effect attributes attempt to mitigate reckless expenditure of points in creating characters which would imbalance a game. The following chart shows how points may be spent during character generation to modify attributes.
| Degree of Excellence | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base -3 | Base -2 | Base -1 | Base | Base +1 | Base +2 | Base +3 | Base +4 | Base +5 | |
| Points * | +4 | +2 | +1 | 0 | -1 | -2 | -4 | -8 | -16 |
Skill values have an absolute interpretation. A score of 3 in any skill indicates a modest level of competency. A score of 0 in any skill indicates no ability whatsoever. Attribute modifiers are not considered for such skills, nor can points be spent during game-play to modify these skills. For example, if a character has a swim skill of 0 and falls into a river, no amount of points will help him to swim. However, if sometime during the course of the game the character has an opportunity to train at swimming, or another plausible way to gain the skill arises, 5 points can be spent to raise the skill to a 1.
The following chart shows how points may be spent at the time a character is drawn up to establish skills.
| . | Skill degree | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | |
| Points * | -1 | -1 | -1 | -2 | -2 | -3 | -3 | -4 | -4 | -5 |
If a player chooses to lower a skill during character generation, they receive the number of points it would have taken to raise that skill. For example, If someone has a skill base of 1 in "hide", they can choose to lower it to 0 (and thus be totally incapable of hiding) and get 1 free point for it. Skills cannot be lowered past 0.
The different skill categories are:
Agility
Combat
Communication
Knowledge
Other
Perception
Although there are some standard skills in each category, the categories are really representative of different kinds of skills, and there is a great deal of room to create skills in any grouping. A typical character sheet should include at least three slots of "other" or "miscellaneous" in each category (including the "other" category itself).
Following are brief descriptions of each category and some suggested and
usual skills with their human bases for each. Some skills, such as "lores"
"crafts" or "music" should have several slots which the player can fill
in as needed. Skills such as these, which really represent other
groupings of skills, will be indicated with a "+" followed by the total
number of slots recommended. If any of these slots should typically have
a base skill for humans, it will be indicated in parentheses, followed by
the number of recommended slots with the base. For example:
Lore +7 (1,5)
indicates that the "Lore" skill is a group of 7 slots, 5 of which should
have a base skill of 1.
If all slots in the "grouped skill" have a base of zero, only this
will be indicated in parentheses.
Agility skills are those which would be modified by the dexterity (DEX)
attribute, and have to do with physical manipulation. Some typical Agility
skills are:
Climb (1)
Crafts +5 (1,1)
Dance (1)
Ride (1)
Sneak (1)
Swim (1)
Combat skills deal with fighting techniques and weapons. Because skill
in battle is dependant on so many things, there is no modifier for these
skills. Some typical Combat skills are:
Brawl (1)
Grapple (1)
Martial Arts +2 (0)
Weapons +5 (0)
Communication skills are self-explanatorily those which deal with
communicating things. These skills are modified by extremes in
Intelligence (INT). Some typical Communication skills are:
Acting (1)
Debate (1)
Deceive (1)
Diplomacy (1)
Languages, Spoken +4 (3,1)
Languages, Written +4 (0)
Knowledge skills represent an area of great flexibility for the player, as
they allow characters to be fleshed out with the kinds of informational
skills, such as appraisals or "lores", that establish characters as
functional entities in the world. There is no modifier for knowledge
skills. Some typical Knowledge skills are:
Appraisal +5 (0)
Cook (1)
Lore +7 (1,5)
First Aid (1)
Other represents a grab-bag category of skills which don't neatly fit
into any other grouping. There is no modifier for "Other" skills.
Some typical Other skills are:
Disguise (1)
Fishing (1)
Music +4 (0)
Art +3 (0)
Hide (1)
Hunt (1)
Sports +3 (0)
Perception skills are those which fall directly under the influence
of the Perception (PRC) attribute. Extremes in Perception may modify this
category of skills. Some typical Perception skills are:
Listen (1)
Scan (2)
Tracking (1)
Senses such as "weather sense", "direction sense" and "danger sense"
are some typical candidates to write in for this skill category.