Well - isn''t that enough? If the player sees the character doing new things then doesn''t that satisfy that whole "growth" thing anyway? Why does he need to be given a number for his intelligence if (lets say it''s related to mana for example) he can see that his character can now cast alot more spells before he feels drained.
The character won''t know how strong "50 Str" is in a game till he tests it anyway. The same way that the character will only know how strong he is until he tries to arm wrestle that troll that hangs around in the bar (okay, more like try and kill the troll roaming under the bridge, but the point remains the same).
Even if you tell the player what number of a stat he has, even intelligence or wisdom, he can''t always immediately associate that with how good he really is, he *has* to test it out. The same way that if he''s been practising spells for ages and he thinks he''s getting better, then he should go and test it out to see how proficient he is.
Whether you give a player a number or not, it doesn''t help his/her understanding of his ability unless he/she has played the game for a while.
And seeing as these numbers tend to detract from roleplaying, and they don''t seem to serve any amazing purpose, then that''s why I say the player doesn''t need to know the numbers.

Err - that was my post just there.

Yeah, I could picture that actually.

Before the wizard casts his spell his head starts to throb violently...

An overwhelming hummm encasts the surrounding area as great balls of light stream down through the giant head, down over the shoulders and arms and out through the finger tips....

A thundering rush of power strikes forth at the evil enemies and the wizards head shrinks in size to indicate his loss of mental strength.. haha

I obviously watched to many cartoons when i was young! I''ll answer more seriously later, it was just such a great opportunity ;-)

Paul C

Adding a layer of abstration to the stats system of an RPG is a great idea, as long as you think it through.

As Niphty pointed out, no matter how you make it know (decriptive words, actions, whatever) people will eventually quantify it with a number (pulled from a FAQ or stradegy guide, if nothing else). So you have to accept that at least some of your players are going to ignore this nifty system you set up.

The second thing is that some people LIKE thier numbers in RPGs. People that min/max are great for that. So they aren''t going to appreciate the effort you''ve made to add that layer of abstraction.

Also, it requires a lot of thought in order to do properly. For example: I go to the weapon shop looking for something a little better to pound away at those hordes of undead that is plaguing the nearby town. I''m equally good with a sword or axe (as far as I know, anyway). They have Ye Sword of Much Wounding and an Axe of Much Sharpness. Now, I don''t have any sort of attack number to work with, so how do I know which weapon is better? Buy them both, and try them out?

Sword:
You hit Zombie for Medium Damage (it''s actually 21 points of damage, but you don''t know that)

Axe:
You hit Zombie for Medium Damage (it''s actually 28 points of damage, bout you don''t know that either)

Now, the axe is better, but you have no way of knowing without a descriptive system so precise that you''re using numbers anyway! Abstracting some of the stats only makes things confusing. If I only know in general how my strength is, but know specific amount of damage, am I hitting harder because of that new sword or is it the level raise/strength training paying off?

Not to discourage people from using something other than numbers to make it more of a role-playing experience and less of a dice-fest, but make sure that not using numbers hasn''t made your system harder to work with. For example, I don''t like the idea of knowing how many hit points you have. (Oh! I can take exactly 1 more hit without dying!) But at the same time, I don''t like a fixed economy in the world, so that everything is the same price no matter where you go, and more expensive always means better quality (doesn''t work like that here, why should it in a game?). However, price (a number, I should point out) is the only way to judge the effectivness of your armor without any other concrete stat.

I''m willing to hear ideas for a working system of hiding stats, and even more willing to help poke at the holes and flaws : )

Food for thought,

Silvanis

That''s a good point, and it had crossed my mind and I was hoping people would pay enough attention to the topic to bring that up, thankfully this was the case (more often than not these things can degrade to childish name calling, but hey - where''s the fun without that).
Gauging a weapon''s strength after you''ve bought it can be annoying, and sometimes we have to do it in real life, but that doesn''t make it any fun. And we aren''t aiming at real life here, we are aiming at fun.
On the one hand, you could go ahead and add a nice little abstract layer by asking the NPC what he thinks of two weapons compared blah blah, but even then, as previously stated multiple times, players will just tend to quantify that somehow or other in their minds.
On the other hand you could give the player a number. This has one problem - it reduces roleplaying, but it has the benefit of allowing the player to accurately make a good purchase.
I''m not sure I believe the player would feel they''ve some how mentally succeeded the game designer by deciphering what an NPC says of a weapon (as I think was previously mentioned in a reply to this post) but it could annoy players.
This is the annoying problem with not having stats. Sure it would greatly increase the amount of roleplaying in any online community, but when it comes to keeping the player happy with informed purchases it totally blows.
My suggestion - have an NPC appraise the weapon based on what he would apparently "see" about the character in the game. For instance, if you have a stronger sword mastery (sure the NPC can''t know this but does it really matter?) then the NPC will recommend the sword but if the axe had higher damage and the abilities were equal then he might suggest the axe. It does depend tho and some kind of weightage between the actual strength of the weapon and the character''s preferred class.
I dunno - random babblings.