Extended Secondary Attributes

[VIVIT]

One of the things I thought was really clever and elegant about GURPS when I first started to really closely examine its rules was the idea of secondary attributes: Per is by default equal to IQ, but you can buy down Per to build an intelligent but absent-minded professor! Will is by default equal to IQ, but you can buy up Will to build a dimwitted but stouthearted warrior! FP is by default equal to HT, but you can buy up FP to give your feebly-constituted wizard more energy to work with! The concept was simple, yet added a lot of depth to character creation. I was confused as to why the option to adjust secondary attributes was omitted from GURPS Lite!

Once I got to reading advantages and disadvantages, and I noticed some pairs of advantages and disadvantages that were symmetrically opposite to one another. The first that comes to mind is Easy/Hard to Kill/Subdue. I wondered why these weren't secondary attributes, since they work more or less the same way, and they're both pretty useful if you're building a fighty character and want to not die. Then I realized that Easy to Subdue doesn't even exist! Many similar traits existed, having no effect except for a bonus or penalty applying only to specific uses of a basic attribute: Acute Senses, High Manual Dexterity even Magery and the various talents. I got to wondering how some of these might be turned into Secondary Attributes. Here's a list I came up with:

• Cha [10*] - "Charisma", based on IQ, derived from Charisma. This should be comfortably familiar to newcomers from a background of D&D.
• Mag [10] - "Magic", based on IQ, derived from Magery. Magery 0 becomes its own advantage, simply called Magery without any number after it. Without this advantage, you have no Mag attribute at all!
• Man DX [2**] "Manual Dexterity", based DX, derived from High Manual Dexterity and Ham-Fisted.
• Vig [2] - "Vigor", based on HT, derived from Hard to Subdue.
• Vit [2] - "Vitality", based on HT, derived from Hard to kill and Easy to Kill.
• Heal [1] - "Healing", based on HT, derived from Rapid Healing.

*The point cost is [10] rather than [5] firstly because buying down Cha would be mechanically equivalent to buying an Odious Personal Habit, but with the penalty that isn't dependent on culture and also applies to influence rolls, and secondly because buying up Cha would be bit like buying a medium-sized talent that applies its reaction bonus to literally everyone you talk to.

**This one was tricky. As an advantage, it's simple enough: it applies a bonus to DX for the purposes of any task involving fine motor skills with your hands, but as a disadvantage it comes in two levels and imposes a penalty of -3 per level rather than a -1 penalty. First we granularize Ham-Fisted by dividing the penalty and the point cost per level by 3 and round nearest for a disadvantage worth [-2] per level. We then lower the cost of High Manual Dexterity to [2] to match. (High Manual Dexterity is already overcosted; it's a lot like small Talent that only applies to DX-based rolls where more than one of its affected skills isn't based on DX, and also provides neither a reaction bonus nor a decrease in the time it takes to learn any of those skills, yet it costs as much as a regular small talent.)


For realistic campaigns, Will and Per both have a recommended buydown limit of 4 levels. It seems best to apply this rule differently to differently for different attributes. To match the limit of Ham-Fisted to two levels of -3 each, Man DX should have a buydown limit of 6 levels. And, of course, for the vast majority of campaigns, Mag should not be bought down at all!

Historical note:

Spoiler:  

Until 4e, Will didn't exist as secondary characteristics, and Per didn't exist at all. The core traits of a character were the four primary attributes, plus Mvmt (Basic Speed and Move) and Swing/Thrust damage rolls. Basic Lift did not exist. Everything else was expressed through advantages, disadvantages, and skills. The Will attribute was split into the advantage Strong Will and the disadvantage Weak Will. Even the rules for buying up HP were listed among the advantages.

This greatly simplifies the central rules of character generation. New players building only need concern themselves with spending their points on basic attributes, looking up some die rolls in a table, and performing, in sequence, the mathematical operations of addition, division, and truncation. GURPS Lite 4e had the right idea when it omitted the rules for buying Will and Per, but it didn't omit the Will and Per attributes themselves -- they just say that Will and Per are equal to IQ. This seems liable to cause confusion for the very sort of player for which GURPS Lite is intended: if Will and Per are equal to IQ, why not just use IQ? Well, 3e does just that, and modifies the roll by your levels in Strong/Weak Will. This unfortunately means that there are lots of rules in 3e say "roll IQ (Strong/Weak Will counts!)" where 4e would just say "roll Will". My idea is to solve both problems by making more attributes out of applicable advantages and disadvantages.

I don't have nearly as much experience with the system as I would like (scheduling is a bitch) so I'd appreciate it if some more experienced people could give their thoughts on this. Most of this is all theorycrafting on my part. What does experience say? What do you think players would be inclined to do when faced with these rules, and how do you think it would turn out?

[Pursuivant]

IMO, the rationale for not having more secondary attributes is mostly due to the original game design, which only had HP, FP, Basic Speed, and Move as secondary traits.

In the transition from GURPS 3E to GURPS 4E the designers were fairly conservative, fixing only what was obviously broken about GURPS 3E, in part to keep the simplicity of basic character design. That meant that the number of new secondary traits (Per & Will) was kept to a minimum.

That said, advantages like Charisma beg the question of why there aren't official and equivalent disadvantages, there doesn't seem to be a logical reason why certain leveled traits don't come in +1/-1 versions (e.g., Ham-Fisted vs. High Manual Dexterity), different levels of the same trait don't always have the same name (e.g., Extra Flexibility & Double-Jointed, Fit & Very Fit), and in the rules-as-written there aren't always explicit statements that say "Advantage A is the opposite of Disadvantage A, you can't have both."

If you're cool with having half a dozen additional secondary traits, and if variations in those traits are something which might occur in any ordinary creature in the campaign, then your proposed secondary attributes make a lot of sense and are a reasonably elegant house rule.

[VIVIT]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

In the transition from GURPS 3E to GURPS 4E the designers were fairly conservative, fixing only what was obviously broken about GURPS 3E, in part to keep the simplicity of basic character design. That meant that the number of new secondary traits (Per & Will) was kept to a minimum.

. . .

If you're cool with having half a dozen additional secondary traits, and if variations in those traits are something which might occur in any ordinary creature in the campaign, then your proposed secondary attributes make a lot of sense and are a reasonably elegant house rule.

For players who are new to RPGs altogether, it might be best to stick to the main four plus Speed and Move, but for reluctant converts from other systems, I think structural elegance takes priority over simplicity. Remember, the "industry standard" puts on the character sheet no less than six independently determined ability scores, not counting the several derived statistics. GURPS' sister/mother/cousin/aunt system HERO has eight.

What's more, I think the simple addition of Cha to the list would make the whole thing suddenly seem invitingly familiar to d20-background believers. Five of the six ability scores would now have a direct counterpart in GURPS, and the sixth (WIS) would be split into two, solving a problem people already have with that ability score.

The Vit, Vig, and Heal attributes are probably unnecessary, on second thought, since each of them only applies to one specific roll. So I probably would end up adding only a quarter-dozen, not a half-dozen.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by VIVIT

For players who are new to RPGs altogether, it might be best to stick to the main four plus Speed and Move, but for reluctant converts from other systems, I think structural elegance takes priority over simplicity. Remember, the "industry standard" puts on the character sheet no less than six independently determined ability scores, not counting the several derived statistics. GURPS' sister/mother/cousin/aunt system HERO has eight.

The number of "primary" stats doesn't really tell you anything.

Remember you can fine tune the various stats in GURPS. So yes GURPS has four primary stats it has and four secondary stats for a total of eight not counting Speed and Move which can also be adjusted.

[VIVIT]

It's part of the surface-level complexity of the system. You can fine-tune the other attributes in GURPS, but that's a comparatively advanced rule; it's left out of GURPS Lite for a reason. I'm talking about the superficialities here. The superficialities become less important once you understand the system at an advanced level, but the basic features of the system need to be exoterically digestible enough for players to easily grasp before they're introduced to the more complex features of the game.

[dataweaver]

Yeah. One design philosophy I try to follow is to make any degree of customization possible; but outside of the core attributes and skills, never make it mandatory. Add as many Secondary Attributes as you wish; just don't force the players to go through the whole list and set values for each. As much as possible, players should be allowed to just go with what they get from the four basic Attributes and not regret it.

That said: nobody seems to have pointed out that the final issue of Pyramid had an article in it called “the Fifth Attribute”, which replaces Magery with a fifth Attribute called Quintessence.

[Bruno]

Some things are deliberately not symmetrical. I can play a Ham-Fisted barbarian and if it weren't for the reaction penalty for being sloppy, I might never notice, simply because my character is a big barbarian-type who doesn't mess around with fiddly little things. The thief and tinkerer with High Manual Dexterity, on the other claw, has a lot of skills that benefit from it, and they make that bonus stretch as far as possible.

On the gripping hand, a Ham-Fisted thief and tinkerer is in a special kind of spot-and-bother; she'll feel every inch of that penalty, but only gets the same amount of points back as the barbarian. I'm ok with this. GURPS doesn't reward people who make deliberately perverse character designs, and I don't think it should. I have a high level of tolerance for quirky character designs, but after a certain point even I have to question if we've gathered for the same purpose.

[kdtipa]

Originally Posted by VIVIT

I don't have nearly as much experience with the system as I would like (scheduling is a bitch) so I'd appreciate it if some more experienced people could give their thoughts on this. Most of this is all theorycrafting on my part. What does experience say? What do you think players would be inclined to do when faced with these rules, and how do you think it would turn out?

Originally Posted by dataweaver

... just don't Force the players to go through the whole list and set values for each...

I agree with Dataweaver that if you define a long list of secondary attributes and put them on the character sheet alongside the RAW secondary attributes, it'll be a very busy character sheet and players will have to pick things that will show up on the sheet when they might not have bothered with the concept at all. Manual Dexterity is a good example of that. It's never come in any of my games, and having it on the sheet wouldn't bring any value.

But then, I really do like your idea to include things like vigor and vitality. It's something that affects specific HT rolls that are common in a campaign with combat. So, the overall idea really appeals to me.

I'm a little confused about how Charisma becomes an attribute though. In GURPS, Charisma provides a bonus to some skills and it affects the reaction rolls. So, you might have a +2 to reaction rolls with the Charisma advantage, but if you have a Charisma stat of 12... what does that mean for reactions?

[VIVIT]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

I agree with Dataweaver that if you define a long list of secondary attributes and put them on the character sheet alongside the RAW secondary attributes, it'll be a very busy character sheet and players will have to pick things that will show up on the sheet when they might not have bothered with the concept at all. Manual Dexterity is a good example of that. It's never come in any of my games, and having it on the sheet wouldn't bring any value.

Yeah, I suppose Man DX is a questionable one. I guess it's a bit like Acute Senses. Then again, I have seen character sheets with fields for Acute Sense bonuses right next to the Per field.

But then, I really do like your idea to include things like vigor and vitality. It's something that affects specific HT rolls that are common in a campaign with combat. So, the overall idea really appeals to me.

Waffling back and forth on Vigor/Vital. They're important rolls, but on the other hand, they're each only one roll, yet on the first hand again, lots of systems have "saving roll" fields and nobody has a problem with that...

I'm a little confused about how Charisma becomes an attribute though. In GURPS, Charisma provides a bonus to some skills and it affects the reaction rolls. So, you might have a +2 to reaction rolls with the Charisma advantage, but if you have a Charisma stat of 12... what does that mean for reactions?

One more radical idea that I had, which didn't make it into my OP, was to turn all secondary attributes, Per and Will included, into modifiers. You would still be encouraged write down, for example, the sum of your IQ and Will, since that's a roll you would have to make often, but if you bought Will up by 2 levels from an IQ of 10, you would be considered to have Will +2, not Will 12. This would also mean that skills like Meditation, which by RAW is an Will/Hard skill, would be expressed instead as an IQ+Will/Hard skill -- and influence skills would be expressed as IQ+Cha, and "add your Cha to reaction rolls" becomes a simple, one-sentence rule.

Ooh ooh and also it means that you can maybe make rolls to use Extra Effort into HT+Will rather than IQ+Will and maybe also add Will to resist HT rolls for pain or agony I'm just full ideas today aren't I.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

That said: nobody seems to have pointed out that the final issue of Pyramid had an article in it called “the Fifth Attribute”, which replaces Magery with a fifth Attribute called Quintessence.

Yeah, I saw that article, though I haven't read the issue yet. I think Thaumatology had something similar -- basing magic on your Magery level plus a constant of 10 rather than by IQ. The idea is interesting, and the name "Quintessence" is just perfect).

[kdtipa]

Originally Posted by VIVIT

Waffling back and forth on Vigor/Vital. They're important rolls, but on the other hand, they're each only one roll, yet on the first hand again, lots of systems have "saving roll" fields and nobody has a problem with that...

I think I like the vigor and vitality idea because having an advantage in my list is something I might forget when the time comes to roll, where if there's a stat specifically for rolling, it's right there and obvious. That happens to me more when I play Pathfinder and I forget I have a feat or class ability that covers some special situation or another. So, I think my fondness for the idea of additional secondary stats is more around the help with not forgetting I have an advantage or disadvantage.

Originally Posted by VIVIT

One more radical idea that I had, which didn't make it into my OP, was to turn all secondary attributes, Per and Will included, into modifiers. You would still be encouraged write down, for example, the sum of your IQ and Will, since that's a roll you would have to make often, but if you bought Will up by 2 levels from an IQ of 10, you would be considered to have Will +2, not Will 12. This would also mean that skills like Meditation, which by RAW is an Will/Hard skill, would be expressed instead as an IQ+Will/Hard skill -- and influence skills would be expressed as IQ+Cha, and "add your Cha to reaction rolls" becomes a simple, one-sentence rule.

Ooh ooh and also it means that you can maybe make rolls to use Extra Effort into HT+Will rather than IQ+Will and maybe also add Will to resist HT rolls for pain or agony I'm just full ideas today aren't I.

Hmm... it might be workable, but the amount of thought I'm having to put into considering is is high. And my reflex for simplicity is fighting back. A change that big affects how a lot of the book is written and makes it so you have to keep a lot in mind. I don't think it's fundamentally flawed as an idea, but it sounds like a fair amount of work, and I'm not sure I see a benefit that's enough to pay for that work.

I do actually like the idea of being able to make different combinations of rolls like the HT + Will for extra effort that you mentioned. I like that one a lot. But is it helpful to the fun of the game for the players to do it that way? And does it make things simpler at the table, or more complicated? You'll also have to consider attribute pricing to keep balance. If there are Will rolls that can be based on HT instead of Intelligence, HT become more useful, and IN loses some of its importance. It's not a big change, but it is something to consider.

I think as I close up this post, where I stand: I really like the idea from the perspective of helping me remember traits and for the ability to make custom secondary attribute rolls (it does seem strange to me a brilliant person is by default considered to have more will power than an average person), but the changes don't feel like the necessary work would change the game-play experience enough to justify it. I'm hemming and hawing as I write that. I like the thoughts, and I hope you keep this conversation going.