Sagatafl and QuestFRP

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Revision as of 17:48, 16 July 2010

Quest FRP v2.1 is one of Sagatafl's primary memetic ancestors and so there are some noticable similarities, but also some important differences.

Attributes

Sagatafl, like Quest FRP, has many attributes, but Sagatafl divides its attributes into two categories, Primary Attributes and Secondary Attributes. Most Primary Attributes (perhaps all; this is not yet certain) affect skill learning speed, and so do two of the Secondary Attributes: Vocal Control and Face Control. The division between Primary and Secondary denotes importance and to some extent point cost, and also trainability: None of the Primary Attributes can be trained. They have become pre-determined once the character leaves his Formative Years and can after that only be increased through magic or futuristic technology.

Strength and character size

Strength is a secondary attribute and quite cheap (but the cost depends on the sex of the character), and can be trained. There are no random rolls in Sagatafl character creation. Instead of rolling for Height and Build, one buys a Frame attribute and ??? (a Height attribute? IIRC Size is dropped as a within-species-variation attribute. Perhaps a Mass attribute?), with Frame determining the bulk of the character. (The above is a mess, look up sent and draft mailing list posts and see what the intent was!)

Attributes and skill learning speed

Attribute influence on skill learning speed is vastly more important in Sagatafl than in Quest FRP, especially for medium-and-higher skill levels where the Plateau Effect occurs. Also, the learning speed for each normal skill is determined by the weighted average of seven attributes, e.g. five parts Dexterity and two parts Agility, and the learning speed for each binary skill is determined by the weighted average of three attributes, e.g. two parts Intelligenc and one part Will, instead of a different number of attributes from skill to skill, divided by a divisor that also varies from skill to skill. This means that one can compare learning speed directly; one character may have an Aptitude for a skill of 2.76 and another character may have an Aptitude for that same skill of 7.28.

The fact that some skills are overall harder to learn than others is handled primarily via the Difficulty stat, which all skills have, and which serve as a linear multiplier to learning times, e.g. so that a Difficulty 4 skill is 33% faster to learn for everyone than a Difficulty 6 skill. Some skills are of non-normal Complexity, e.g. Compexity -1 or -2 (simple or very simple) or Complexity +1 or +2 (complex or very complex), or even have more extreme Complexities than that. Positive Complexity also makes a skill harder to learn (by affecting how soon the Plateau Effect occurs), and negative Complexity makes a skill easier to larn (the Plateau Effect occurs later).

Attribute demgraphic distribution

Quest FRP covers only relatively normal attributes levels. Soeone with Intellect 18 is very smart, but not starkly so, at least not in terms of game-mechanical effect. Someone with Agility 17 is agile, but not extremely so. Sagatafl covers all of human variety, and permits the creation of characters, e.g., who are smarter or more willful, or more dextrous or charismatic, than the 99.9999th percentile. Someone with an 8 in a primary attribute, the highest possible value in a realistic world (e.g. planet Earth in the 20th or 21st century) is statistically one in 3.5 million, and gets the gamemechanical benefits that one can realistically expect from such a stark innate potential. In semi-cinematic world, such as the Ärth historical fantasy setting, humans can have primary attributes as high as 9, which are even rarer.

Character classes

There are also no character classes. Just as in Quest FRP, one makes one own "class" by buying up some attributes to high levels, thereby optimizing one's character for learning the skills affected by those attributes, while selling down some other attributes, causing the character to be slow at learning the skills affected by those attributes. The only differences are that attributes have much greater influence on skill learning, and that there is no choice of skill class which gives a 10% learning speed bonus to one category of skills.

Magic system

Quest FRP has learnable spells only, categorized as Mage and Divine. Sagatafl instead divides magic into learnable magic and inborn magic, with learnable magic being somewhat comparable to Mage magic in Quest FRP, and divine magic being inborn, along with a lot of other types of magic being inborn.

Spell magic

Enchanting items and ohter permanent magic

Divine magic