Dexterity is King means that among all stats a character has, one of them is clearly more important than others. That one stat is usually Dexterity. Here are some examples of why that might be.
Godbound
Godbound is an OSR-based system that uses the well known stats of Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. You can use any of those stats for rolling checks ("roll vs Charisma to try to persuade someone") and two stats always contribute to a saving throw. However, when it comes to combat, you only use the first three stats.
Constitution gives you HP, and that's all it does. Strength and Dexterity are used when you attack something. If you are doing melee, you use Strength, and if you do ranged, you use Dexterity. Your to-hit is determined by the attribute used, your damage modifier is also determined by the attribute used. In that regard, they are interchangeable. However, on top of that, Dexterity is also used to determine your Armour Class, something that's useful for any combat character.
With all of that, if you are going strictly for optimal play, why wouldn't you always take max Dexterity and dump Strength? Being able to not only hit things at a range but also get better armour while you're at it is clearly a better option. Of course, flavouring your character and the choice of Words will encourage you to pick the other option, but usually you'll never make Dexterity your dump stat in Godbound.
Stars Without Number - Int is king too!
Stars Without Number (looking at the Revised Edition here) is another OSR-based system from the same author. Unsurprisingly, Dexterity is also King here - it still modifies your Armour Class, is used by ranged weapons, etc. On top of that it modifies your Initiative, and can be used for a variety of spaceship rolls.
The system does have a few things going for it though - melee weapons have an additional Shock amount of damage they inflict even on a miss, and there are a few Foci around you can use to make yourself quite viable as a melee or hand-to-hand combatant in a scifi setting with plasma guns.
While running a game in SWN, we came across another interesting quirk however - Intelligence can be King too. My specific character was a True AI and was very starship-focused. As it turned out, the system around using spaceships was built around the concept that some characters might not have Dexterity since they could lack a humanoid, physical body (such as a Virtual Intelligence that is the ship, or an AI that gets plugged into the ship). So now pretty much every starship-related roll can be made with Intelligence - piloting, gunnery, star navigation, ECM jamming, etc. On top of that, True AI use Intelligence modifier to get more Processing (power points used to power their "magic"). Int became such a dominant attribute that I developed a 6 level plan for my character to increase it by 4 ranks just to get that extra +1, which was a more optimal strategy than increasing my skills.
Mouse Guard - Attack is King
Mouse Guard is an RPG set in the comic book setting sharing the same name. In this system, the conflict resolution revolves around picking a series of actions to carry out against your opponent. You can Attack, Defend, Manoeuvre or Feint. Attack trumps Feint, Feint trumps Defend, and the other combinations carry out either independently or based on the difference between successes. Attack and Manoeuvre don't have any hard counters. Manoeuvre lets you gain some advantage over your next action, while Attack directly helps you resolve a conflict.
As such, after playing through an entire season of Mouse Guard, we came to the conclusion that you should "never not be Attacking" - it helps you achieve your goal directly, do it fast (which is always good - you don't want to take too long and be attacked more yourself), and there is no way to directly counter it. If the system even had one hard counter to Attack, this wouldn't be the case, but alas.
Old World of Darkness - Dex for everything
Old World of Darkness, even with its 20th anniversary editions, still uses Dexterity for everything. Rolling to-hit, whether it's with a gun, a thrown rock, a sword or with a fist, is a Dexterity roll with an appropriate skill. Block, Dodge, Parry? That's also Dexterity! Bite, Claw, Disarm, Kick, Sweep? All Dex! Initiative? Dex plus Wits. Moreover, after you roll to-hit, your successes carry over to become damage dice, so even if you are using a Sword that does Strength +2 damage, you can basically add half of your Dexterity on top of that. Since the system is also very minmaxy, if you are not starting the game with Dexterity 4 or 5, you are doing yourself a disservice!
Chronicles of Darkness - the king is mostly dead
With the release of the New World of Darkness, or later the Chronicles of Darkness, we finally have a system where Dexterity has been reigned in. In this system a lot of other stats have been given more usefulness. When you roll to-hit, you use Strength for melee or unarmed, and Dexterity only for ranged. Your to-hit roll is also your damage roll, so there is no weird carry-over. Your Defence is the lower of your Dexterity or Wits plus Athletics skill, so even if you don't have high Dex you can compensate. Initiative is Dexterity and Composure, while Speed is Strength and Dexterity. Your Stamina determines your hit points.
All in all, the many uses for Attributes allow you to build some very interesting characters without making them entirely useless - you can have a high Dexterity character that is hard to hit, but you'll probably be sacrificing Willpower or Stamina. You can have a character that doesn't have any Dexterity but can still brawl like a boss. Or you can have a tank that compensates for his lack of Dexterity, Wits or Strength by hitting the gym to get more Athletics to raise their Defence. And with the system being much more forgiving on the XP costs, you can easily tailor your build to match what is needed.
Conclusions
When designing an RPG system, you should avoid putting too much power into a single attribute or other gameplay element. The game is much more enjoyable when there are multiple "good solutions" rather than one "right solution".
If you're familiar w/ the old Champions and other Hero Systems games...
ReplyDeleteYou bought your stats w/ character points. Some of the stats were 1 point. DEX was the most expensive, at 3 (ignoring SPEED, which could be bought in parts)
COM (Comeliness) was 1/2 a point