Not op stat system

[ThrillingHuman]

In most litrpg stories, stats are op, right? How about making them not just nerfed, but somewhat realistic (could be possible to imagine that happening in rl) too?
All of them have soft caps, i.e. they have vertical assymptotes, limited from above, any increments after a certain point bring only insignificant gains.
So far I came up with this:

Luck: instead of making you defy laws of statistics, it just makes the system smarter, so it can judge when a fluke would be more beneficial to you. Otherwise, you will pretty much never defy the statistic hypothesis that you are following the same laws of nature as anything and anyone else, and by taking random large samples of the random occurrences happening to you, the possibility of them happening by chance this way will not be lower than 5%, ever.

Wisdom: wisdom is being able to make use of your intelligence efficiently. You are just calmer, more focused. You don't get distracted easily. When you level you wisdom too high relative to your intelligence, you become apathetic, unmotivated, numb.

Intelligence: Buddhists have compared your mind to a drunk wild monkey. By levelling intelligence, you give your monkey stronger and stronger booze, making it more active but more wild. If you lack Wisdom, you will always be distracted and never have control of your impulses and thoughts.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Luck:

Whenever the System needs to round, your luck stat determines whether it rounds up or down. When possible, of course. Sometimes reality is harsh, and things will be forced against you.

Wisdom:

Intelligence:

I like these two. Those are really nice ways to explain those stats.

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The vertical asymptotes sound really boring, honestly. Being limited sucks, especially if there's different limits for different people.
Still, I'll follow the scenario as it's laid out.

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Physical stats like Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are difficult to think of 'realistically' since they're too generic. You either have to specify stats like Muscle Density and Metabolism or make things even more general like Body. For a realistic system, I'd go specific, but that's difficult to write.

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Charisma, Appeal, Humor, Personality, etc: These are kind of weird stats, especially when they have effects outside of likeability or sexual appeal. I do kind of like the idea that they should cap out, since I have a seething hatred for Charisma Bards/Harem Protags just fucking their way through all obstacles though.

In terms of realism, it just... Makes it easier for people to notice you? Having a high stat will increase the odds that someone who sees you lets their attention linger or remembers you. Obviously, that's bad if you're a criminal or if you just want to mind your own business.

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Memory and Appraisal: The system will provide information to you if you're already familiar with it, in an at least tangential way. Maybe it will just increase the efficiency of recall instead of stuffing new information in your brain. As a downside... Maybe you'll get lots of useless trivia? Or perhaps you'll have the ability to delete memories, and accidentally delete information you really, reallly shouldn't have.

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Umm. Here's a completely random reference you can use for other stuff. I'm done thinking about this for now, maybe I'll come back to it later. https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Attribute

 

[NotaNuffian]

*raise hand*

Analogy for wisdom and intelligence is fine; the former is knowing how to use tools while the latter is how many tools you have.

Luck is a finicky mistress, it is the crutch for most authors when their MC is in the deep end like Zac in DoF, limiting it to how the system views the user is odd and useless imho because the system here is often depict as semi-alive but mostly it is still guided by The One Above All aka the Author.

In Paradise of Demonic Gods (https://www.novelupdates.com/series/paradise-of-demonic-gods/), stats are exponential; exponentially hard to increaae and exponentially strong as you get the numbers higher. Here the soft caps does not exist in the numbers, but rather if the person can get to that number.

You don't have to make the destination a disappointment, you just have to make the journey into one.

 

[Biggest-Kusa-Out-There]

So you can cure ADHD and the like with stats? Why make stats affect the mind? Anyone would optimize it and publish the results if they have high intelligence because they would become altruistic at some point.
There is a huge plothole on your system. If those above aren't driven by cutthroat greed, a better society would exist extremely early in the world this system inhabits. High level people would be flawless unless you retcon the system mid-story or add things to justify characters.
There is no BBG there. Ideology would become the antagonist's drive, making your story highly political (which is fine, mind you).
There is more to it than just "ugh, stats should be different!" you have to realise that making a single stat affect how smart people actually are means you either make everyone retarded or the mc is retarded.
Systemic deus ex machina is boring imo but I won't deny its usefulness.

 

[NotaNuffian]

Hi, I tried to link stat numbers with this list (https://powerlisting.fandom.com/wiki/Peak_Human_Condition) and it is shit.

Sure, reaching 10 points in a stat means said stat is Peak Human, also each stat is related to one another so minmaxing will get you killed (like Sovereign of Judgment, high Strength without Stamina to boot will fuck up the body, like a Ferrari with a 5 liter tank).

It is at here I fuck up because the list shifts from Peak Human to Enhanced Human like an orange rolling down a sandpaper slope, janky as crap and unclear as an opaque window. I made it worse by making increasing stats incremental, ie stat from 1 to 10 requires 1 EXP per increase and stat from 11 to 20 needs 10 EXP per increase, 21 to 30 needs 100 EXP, so on and so forth.

Meaning reaching stat 11 means supposedly my man has a stat of 2 Peak Humans... how do I even imagine that???

Also, the stat has a somewhat diminishing return, increasing strength makes one bulkier and taller but there is a limit of how tall a person can hit before dying.

 

[Jemini]

The rules for such a realistic system are actually quite simple. Don't just throw out numbers for the sake of having numbers. Actually consider them in the same ways game designers do.

That's the "in a nutshell" version, but to expand on what that means, there are really 3 simple steps.

1. Establish some firm benchmarks. Pair each stat to actual feats a person can accomplish with said stat at said level. D20 system table top games tend to do this the best. The standard in most of those is that 10 = average human level of strength. Working with those kinds of single digit incriments is probably recommended if you're trying to be more realistic with your liteRPG system.

2. Establish a progression rule for stat increases that makes the character gradually work harder and harder for each individual point of stat increase. For this objective, once again, table top has you covered. The major point where most liteRPGs fall on their face in terms of stat progression is causing Lv. to increase stats far to quickly. In D20 system games though, stats will only increase by 1 point per 3-5 or so levels. And by 1 point, I don't mean per stat. I mean that a single stat will increase by 1 point, and the rest will increase by zero.

On the same token, you shouldn't tie (much) of your stat growth to level increases. Make level increases all about improving the character's combat proficiency in ways that do not involve stats. Instead, have a separate stat progression system, and set it up where any increases of stats beyond the "average" benchmark become progressively tougher and tougher.

3. Establish some king of power ceiling. A power ceiling is a general term in writing anything that runs the risk of power creep. The power ceiling in your fictional world is not a hard cap. Rather, it is showing the audience the world's most practically powerful individual. By practically powerful, I mean the most powerful figure the protagonist has a hope of at least standing in front of and fighting. (not necessarily winning, but at least it's possible for them to stand in the same arena, even if they are an insignificant ant before the power ceiling figure.

In most cases, this tends to rule out gods as potential power ceilings. That is, in most cases. "The Faraway Paladin" actually used the god of undeath as it's early-story power ceiling. That, also, is a very good source I can point you to in order to get an idea of what an early power ceiling looks like.

Usually, if the theme of the story is becoming stronger, the protagonist will stand no hope of defeating the early power ceiling character when they first appear, and the objective long term is catching up to that level of power. On the other hand, if the theme of the story is that the protagonist is OP and they are facing other kinds of adversity in the world and trying to get by, then maybe the protagonist might actually beat the early power ceiling right at the beginning. It all depends on what kind of story you are telling.

Early power ceilings are a good policy to follow. But, it doesn't necessarily need to be shown to the reader early. But, just having the power ceiling as the author helps you to ground the progression rate in the series.