Statistic preferences

I’m pretty sure I saw a post a while back about stat page preferences, and one person mentioned they liked when stats had explanations.

I made an attempt to give my stats a cutesy description but it looks clunky. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but do you think this is hard to look at? If so, any suggestions on how to do this better?

5 Likes

I had a separated glossary page with the definition of the stats there.

So in your stat set, I’d define:

Respect vs Contempt
Charming vs Intimidating
Lawful vs Renegade
Spiritual vs Human
Trustworthy vs Deceit
Logical vs Intuitive
Fighter vs Runner ( Fight vs Flight)


Just as an aside, some of those opposite pairs may not be intuitive to your audience - like: Why is charming the opposite of intimidating? Some charming people are also intimidating (or visa-versa)

1 Like

It’s a nice idea but it simply doesn’t work that well imo

As you’ve mentioned, it seems pretty clunky and redundant. For people who are just looking for a quick check of the stats, the added jumble of text isn’t really going to help, especially if the added text means you have to scroll down

On the other hand, for people who prefers text description, a short line of description followed by the usual stats bar isn’t exactly adding much to the experience

Overall, I think you just need to commit one of the two extremes, it’s either simple, straightforward and informative or detailed and immersive

1 Like

I’ll have to try using a separate page for the descriptions.

As for charming vs intimidating, I’ll give it some more thought. Intimidating was the first counter skill I could think of for charming. The stats are definitely not set in stone, I need to make some changes as it is.

Thanks for pointing that out, it was a pretty big oversight. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

You’re right. It doesn’t work at all, lol.

I think I’m going to keep it simple, and like Eiwynn mentioned, I’ll use another page for descriptions.

Thanks for the help. :slight_smile:

To be honest, I don’t think [Respect] and [Spiritual] goes into Skills category, either :"

1 Like

Nice idea but it looks a bit wordy and cluttered to me to be honest. Make stats page clear and simple. An alternative would be to use text rather than bars.

Ie have a stat for charming. (No opposed stats)
*If (charming > 50)
*Set charmingtxt “charming”
*If (charming < 51)
*Set charmingtxt “intimidating”

People find you {charmingtxt} ( {charming}% charm.)

Also probably change runner to something like fight/flee, or fighter/diplomat to get your point across better :).

I’m not sure about human and spiritual as opposed (I kind of think you could be both). Maybe spiritual/mundane? Not sure.

Edit: sorry discord is stealing my $ signs from the code

Yeah I realized after posting. I ended up changing skills to statistics for now. At least until I can find a better way to define/order them. Thanks for pointing out all the same.

Well, spiritual and human are for something atypical. They have to stay that way.

EDIT: Oh! I get what you mean. It’s late here lol. Human, I might change to old-school. I’m not sure yet. It’s kind of hard to define why it’s this way without giving a whole bunch of other information.

And Fighter and Runner, while I did have a similar thought process, I ultimately decided to keep it as is.

EDIT: I was going to use Fight and Flee, but it felt inconsistent and weird with all my other stats? I’m not sure, have to give more thought. I might actually change my mind as I go, but right now I just want to make sure it all looks pretty and organized. :slight_smile:

Thanks for your help!

For me, the wording of vs stats is very important. Both in playing and writing, I tend to avoid making choices that lead to increasing a stat I feel is negative. One that pops out for me on your list is the “Trustworthy vs Deceitful” option. If that really is a trust stat, then that’s fine. But if it instead refers to whether you’re considered open vs subtle, then I would maybe change deceitful to something with a bit more of a positive tone. Like maybe “Upright vs. Sneaky”, or something similar.

If the Trustworthy vs Deceitful is a trust rating meter, then it may work better as a percentage for just trustworthy, with 0% meaning no one trusts you at all.

Adding descriptions to stats…that is actually really clever. I may incorporate that in my next game.