Stats

I've made it no secret how much I enjoy RPGs, though I perhaps haven't talked much about my preference for JRPGs over WRPGs. That kind of statement makes absolutely no sense to someone who doesn't know much about video game RPGs. To put is simply, a Western Role Playing Game is, appropriately, what people in the US are more like to think of - games like Dungeons and Dragons or the Elder Scrolls series. Japanese Role Playing Games are things like Final Fantasy.

The main difference is in how leveling up works. In JRPGs, leveling up gives you a pre-determined set of stats - your health goes up in generally the same way, your attack and defense go up in generally the same way. It's all dependent on the character and what their set levels are going to be. WRPGs, on the other hand, leave the stats entirely up to the player. A level up gives the player character a certain number of points that can then be distributed among their stats as desired, and frequently characters are additionally given some form of reimbursement - if they mess up their stat distribution, or decide later on they want to play in a new way, they can retract all of the points they have spent from their level ups and do it all over again without having to start over from the beginning.

Either way, in both the levels and the stats you gain from them are incredibly important, and because of that your stats are always easily accessible. A page full of numbers which may not mean much at first glance, but defines how a character acts, how it plays, what it's capable of, and what situations it is able to get in and out of. The skills they have, the skills they're capable of having, be it for combat or conversation. Everything is determined by that sheet of numbers.

I may not be a big fan of the way WRPGs play - never being sure of if I'm leveling my characters correctly is a big turn off for me - but I love the concept of that stat sheet. At times, I consider trying to make such sheets for my characters in stories. Having something in front of me to refer to on just how good my character is at different things would be supremely useful. Determining as the story goes when they have accomplished something worthy of a level, and where the points from that level are going to go. And it might not mean much to most people, but to be able to show someone how that character progressed through their levels and stats - I think -  would be a very cool and interesting way of viewing a character.

Unfortunately, doing that would also require knowing what a single point in a stat would mean. What is a single point in strength? What does it change? What does it allow? There's nothing about that that is consistent from game to game, nor even from person to person. After all, a person may have great strength in their arms, but very little in their legs. How would that equate on a stat sheet? Poorly, probably. You could try to equate that difference through the use of endurance instead, but they might still have incredible muscular endurance - just in the top half. But maybe that goes into willpower. What else can willpower do? What else does it effect?

It's a complicated matter, and the more complicated you make a stat sheet, the harder it is to read. You have to find a good balance. Kind of like when you're writing a character in the first place.