Attribute (role-playing Games) - The Nature of Attributes

The Nature of Attributes

Most RPGs use attributes to describe characters’ physical and mental characteristics, for example their strength or wisdom. They often influence the chance to succeed in skill or other tests by adding to or reducing a dice roll or by determining the number of dice to be thrown. Ranges can be as small as 1–5 (for numbers of dice) or as great as 1–100 (when adding to results of percentile dice).

Some games work with only a few attributes (such as “Physical” or “Mental”), while others go into more detail. Most games have about 4–10 of them. Most games try to give all attributes about the same usefulness to a character. Therefore, certain characteristics might be merged (such as merging a Charisma-type and a Willpower-type attribute into a single Personality attribute), or split into more attributes (such as splitting out physical Comeliness from Charisma in the original Unearthed Arcana), or even ignored altogether (for example, Intelligence and Charisma in a hack and slash adventure). In many games, a small set of primary attributes control a larger number of derived statistics such as Armor Class or magic points.

During character creation, attribute scores are usually determined either randomly (by rolling dice) or by distributing character points. Because they represent common, in-born characteristics and not learned capabilities (as skills do), in some games they are fixed for the duration of the game. However, in other games they can be increased by spending experience points gained during the game, or as part of the process of leveling up.