Is Attribute Bloat real?

[Skarg]

My take & responses:

I think attribute bloat can be defined a few ways and goes along with a few other issues that deserve attention, but Rick's definition is pretty close to what I think of by attribute bloat:

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Attribute Bloat is when a character in TFT has such high attributes that they normally always make their to hit rolls, and most saving throws. Further, as the attributes rise, many characters tend to have 13+ in all attributes which makes them feel similar to many other experienced characters.

This first becomes noticeable around 42 attributes and is serious by the high 40's.

A re-stating of it is that as characters approach 40 points and beyond, they start to make almost all of their 3-die rolls, and they start to feel less like individuals and to overshadow lesser characters.

Another aspect of that is making powerful NPCs starts to feel gamey and weird. There are only so many ways to combine three attributes, so you can try to get creative with Talents, spells and equipment, but it just starts to feel kind of fake and weird.

Huge DX to wear armor. (Really?) Huge IQ to know spells, that means you make all other IQ rolls. (Really?) Huge ST for feats of great ST, including one-handed two-handed swords... (really?) or some mix... all seeming off and over-capable and dwarfing most normal people in the game. Add some magic and get some strong people like that in a group using decent tactics, and strength no longer really lies in numbers, and not even in a very interesting or credible way. Engage some normal warriors, line up and have higher DX, hit and kill them. If any manage to survive and hit you, they probably bounce off your armor. (Add healing spells, and the situation will arrive even sooner.)

And it's not just an issue at the point the PCs get powerful. Some strong NPCs in a self-consistent logical world will be at high levels from campaign start. And magic items and fine weapons can also boost stats.

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

Of course it's real because it's an inherent feature of the game system. Whether it has become a problem in your particular games will be down to your own GM style so you may not have noticed it or it may not even bother you, but it's obviously there.

Since progression is by attribute increase and rolls aren't comparative but absolute, a system that works nicely at lower levels starts to unravel a bit later on. Once characters get to an adjusted DX of 14 they're succeeding around 90% of the time. We found that things weren't so interesting after 42 pts. This was why I introduced comparative rolls and later did away with attribute increase all together. ...

Yes.

Originally Posted by Kirk

Since everyone has already chimed in about fixing the GM, i.e. make sure that adventuring is dangerous enough, we can look at two things.

Assuming this "bloat" makes for a boring character that achieves all (see fixing the GM) one can either let the character age out, which it will almost always do, and retire him to the hall of fame, or "fix" TFT to somehow manage this "bloat".

No, that doesn't make any sense to me. It's not bad GM'ing if someone survives long enough to get to 40 points. And at 40 points, it makes little sense for someone to want to retire, because suddenly they're the cream of the crop. The problem is we wanted the game to continue to be fun and exciting, and instead it got predictable and bland. And we DID try starting new 32-point games, which was sort of interesting, but we still wished we could play the 42+ point characters and not be disappointed.

(Upgrading to GURPS worked fine for us, actually...)

Originally Posted by Kirk

... So most would acknowledge that TFT works for characters to 50 points, and then begins to breakdown because of the 3 die roll and attribute system.

No, more like it starts to get weird at around 40 points, including NPCs you meet that are more powerful than the PCs, and you should also add points for fine weapons and magic items.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

And many of the suggestions which we have suggested are hardly extreme. I've suggested that a flat 50 experience points are given for making a job roll, and I've suggested that talents that give DX bonuses give some other sort of bonus.

Yes, the job table thing is a necessary easily-fixed thing but it doesn't remove the bloat issue.

Your DX-bonus talent idea is good. I like my idea of adding talents that give interesting abilities and use experience without raising attributes.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Another good suggestion was dumping the attribute adder magic items.

(For $24,000 you can get a +3 attribute adder for all of ST, DX and IQ. Even if we pretend that attribute bloat is a non issue until 50 attributes, then people hit your limit at 41 attributes, with those items. For $48,000 we hit your 50 attribute limit at 38 attributes.)

Yeah, we didn't even use these at all because they seemed bland and cheezy and too good and whatever words we would've used to say they contribute to bloat and it also just didn't seem fun to have "I'm better" items. We also did not have Charms or industrial abuse of Wishes. We did have some fine and magical weapons. Characters started getting weird as they approached 40 points.

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

And my campaign was fairly deadly. I explored the statistics in detail in another thread, but I think I estimated that it would take a year of weekly adventures to get in the attribute bloat range, if you strictly adhere to the TFT experience point system.

And we wanted to keep running the same characters after 5-6 years of TFT, and longer in GURPS (which is still the only unmodded RPG I really want to play), so 1 year seems like a pretty short interest-span-expectancy for an RPG to me.

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

And if a campaign has a 5% attrition rate per session - in a 5 character party, an average of about 1 death every 4 sessions - a figure will survive for 50 weeks only about 7% of the time.

That seems like a very strange statistic to count on.

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

That said, I think attribute bloat must be a real problem, since a fair number of people complain about it. These folks are credible for the most part, so I believe them.

However I personally think that most RPGs break down at high levels. This is a function of the typical RPG combat resolution mechanic - roll to hit, roll for damage. Also, if figures with average skill ratings succeed success rolls ~50% of the time (I.e., a 3 die roll requiring a 10- to succeed), any reasonable skill advancement system will get the skill to virtually 100% pretty quickly. In TFT, a mere +3 to an average attribute (10 being average) yields an 84% chance of success. That means 5 out of six times, the roll will succeed. (This is my complaint with the 3d6 (or 2d6) resolution mechanic - it’s way too sensitive to modifiers).

These problems can be addressed, or course, but the result would be a game that is manifestly NOT TFT. (The easiest fix is to use a d20 instead of 3d6. That would require an attribute of 17 to get the same success chance as an attribute of 13 with the 3d6 mechanic. But most TFT folks find this blasphemous.)

Anyhow, since I think that this problem is endemic to most RPGs, I don’t sweat it too much. I submit that it is the responsibility of the GM to properly calibrate his campaign so that it’s very, very hard to get to the attribute bloat point (whatever that is).

Well, yes... there are ways to address it (e.g. GURPS), and they won't be exactly TFT, but I think there are ways to address it where it's still closer to original TFT than not. Many people who've continued playing TFT have developed various house rules. One of the more common ones involves defenses, which also plugs the weird part of TFT where there's almost no avoiding getting hit, and almost no defensive effect of skill. Sure, it makes sense that experienced people will get good at making effective attacks - but TFT is missing effective defenses or effect of relative skill between attacker and defender.