One of the framework goals is improved realism. To ensure world coherence, each creature needs to be identified so that each of its modification could be made permanent. For instance, if a Player gives an Item to a Creature, this one will still be in possession of this Item at their next meeting.
Identity cannot be "influenced". We distinguish two different aspects of Identity: internal and external. Internal Identity will be used by game mechanisms to allow world coherence, correct persistence of Entities, efficient identification of an Entity, etc. External identity will be manipulated by Entities themselves. External identity includes name, title, nicknames, etc.
Cf Perceptions-RFC
Attributes provide the basic objective description of an Entity. Attributes are the target for Influences actions. We will focus here almost exclusively on what is common to all Entities and let the details of specifying other Attributes to other, more appropriate documents.
The Common Influence defines the set of Attributes that all Entities, regardless of their Type, share with others. Most of the Interactions between Entities should be resolved at the Common level for implementation purposes. Game designers need to be careful in their identification and description. Attributes should make sense regardless of the Entity Type. However, if an Attribute doesn't make sense for an Entity, then this Attribute will just be null for this particular kind of Entities.
Agreeing on the set of Attributes provided by the Common influence is really important and game designers should try to make sure that it will not change since most of interactions will rely on those sole Attributes. Some interactions could call more specific Attributes but they should be careful in that matter and try to rely only on the most common basis. Next, we propose a set of possible Attributes.
Endurance represents an Entity's resistance to outside forces. The greater the endurance, the better an Entity will resist to anything that can affect its physical state. For a living creature, changes in physical state involve injuries, fatigue or illness. For an inert Entity, its endurance represents its solidity (an Item with a high endurance will be harder to break), its resistance to external elements (rain, acid, fire...).
From Merriam-Webster dictionary: Ability to withstand hardship or adversity; especially: the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity.
Example 9. Raoul the baker
Raoul the baker is no athlete but he has to work hard everyday in the bakery, moving flour bags, working on the dough in hot environment so he has a slightly higher endurance an average human's.
Example 10. A cave
A cave in a granite cliff has a high endurance since it is very difficult to modify its size (it involves a lot of effort to cave it even more...).
An interesting idea could be to define a more complex endurance that will define distinct endurance for different elements (fire, water, earth, air).
Power represents an Entity's power to physically interact with other Entities. Basically, power represents what is physically acting in the essence of an Entity. It is against what endurance of an Entity has to resist when two Entities are in opposing physical interaction. For a living creature, power represents its physical power, its strength, just how strong it is. For an inert Entity, power represent how potent it is in modifying other Entities physical structure.
From Merriam-Webster dictionary: Ability to act or produce an effect.
Example 11. Behemoth
Behemoth is an impressive Minotaur with muscles therefore, Behemoth will have a high power.
Example 12. A sharp sword
A sharp sword will have a higher power attribute than a staff since it has a higher ability to damage other Entities. Similarly, an acid can have a power just as can a perfume.
Coordination represents an Entity's capacity to act efficiently and harmoniously. For a living creature, coordination represents its agility, its suppleness. It represents just how efficiently it is able to move or perform complex moves. For an inert Entity, coordination represents how well it is built or how well its part fits together. Obviously, a one-part Item will have a null coordination. Only Entities with a specific coordination level would be able to react appropriately to orders given by Controllers. Coordination will be used when Item are animated by spells and affect what the Item can do once animated.
From Merriam-Webster dictionary: Harmonious functioning of parts for effective results.
Example 13. Shankra the Yogi
Shankra the Yogi has spent years and years to gain perfect control of his body. He is therefore likely to have a high coordination. On the contrary, Bert (a well known couch potato) hasn't exercized much since he bought a TV set, so odds are that he won't have a good coordination attribute.
Example 14. An armor
The coordination of an armor will reflect how well it fits Entities that wear it. The coordination of a car is how smooth it will drive and handle the road.
Charisma represents how an Entity appears to others. the charisma of an Entity is not merely based on its appearance but reflects the capacity that an Entity has to attract positive reactions. For a living creature, charisma represents all that makes the Entity appealing: its beauty, its charm, its animal magic. The same applies also for inert Entities for which charisma can be considered as the way they can appeal to other Entities even when they aren't good looking. The charisma attribute of an Item can be thought as its potential artistic value and as something that will influence its commercial value. Characters will feel more comfortable with Entities with high charisma whereas they could feel that something is wrong with an Entity that has a low charisma. Spells can influence the charisma of Item (curse, "beautifiers"...).
From Merriam-Webster dictionary: A special magnetic charm or appeal.
Example 15. Raoul the baker
Raoul the baker is a rather solitary person that is more comfortable dealing with flour and making breads than conversing with people that find him a little strange, he obviously doesn't have a good charisma.
Example 16. A special necklace
The necklace in Philip K. Dick's novel The Man in the High Castle has obviously an intrinsic charm that is not only quantified by its appearance: it appeals to people, they feel comfortable when holding it, it has a high charisma. A well decorated room with good selected furniture and lights makes people feel comfortable when they stay in that room that seems to have a good charisma. An Item that has obviously a very high charisma is the Unique Ring created by Sauron in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
Intelligence represents an Entity's ability to take into account its surroundings and react to it in a sensible way, capacity to solve problems. The intelligence concept is pretty obvious for living creatures. It is a little bit more complex for inert Entities. Obviously, common Items will have a null intelligence. However, technology or magic can make Items more able to handle their surrounding effectively given them a kind of intelligence.
From Merriam-Webster dictionary: Ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations.
Example 17. Merlin the Sorcerer
Merlin the great Sorcerer is very smart and that is lucky since he has to handle powerful magic energies. He should have a high intelligence attribute.
Example 18. Java-enhanced appliances
Java-enhanced appliances are smarter than ones without any kind of program.
Will represents an Entity's self-control and power of sticking to its goal. For a living creature, will represents its strength of mind, the way it resists to adverse circumstances, seduction or mental manipulation. It is, once again, more complex for inert Entities. We can consider that an Item will is its inertia, its resistance to resist manipulation. It seems close to endurance but an Item's will is more oriented toward tricks (spells or playing with a mechanism for appropriate Items). Endurance deals more with resistance to destruction.
From Merriam-Webster dictionary: The power of control over one's own actions or emotions.
Example 19. Frodo the Hobbit
Frodo, Bilbo's nephew, has a strong will since he was able to go through all the obstacles he encountered on his quest to destroy the Unique Ring. He was also quite strong in resisting the incredible urge to wearing it.
Example 20. A dwarven lock
A dwarven lock is really hard to pick. We can therefore consider that it has a strong will. Moreover, it has a strong endurance too so that it can resist less subtle attempts to open the door it is guarding.
Magic represents an Entity's "understanding" of magical energies and capacity to control them. Magic is similar for both inert Entities and living creatures. This attribute represents just how good a medium an Entity is for magical energies. It represents the magical intensity that an Entity can put in spells or in resisting magic. An Entity with a null Magic attribute is consider as magically inactive. See the (yet to come) Magic-RFC for more information.
From Merriam-Webster dictionary: The use of means (as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces. (Note that this definition is slightly different from the one given here only as a reference.)
Example 21. Merlin the Sorcerer
Merlin the great Sorcerer has a high control on magical energies. He should therefore have a pretty high Magic attribute.
Example 22. Orichalchum
Orichalchum is well known to have magical properties and is very sought after by mages desiring to put its magical power to work. It is likely that Items made out of Orichalchum will have high magic attributes.
Essence represents an Entity's life energy or inherent magical energy. Essence is what separates inert Entities from living creatures. Inert entities have a null essence attribute whereas it is positive for living creatures. When a living creature loses essence to the point of having a null essence attribute, it becomes an inert Entity with different effects depending on what caused the loss of essence. It can mean death, reification (transformation into an Item as an example due to over-cybernetization), destruction of the Entity, transformation into a living-dead, etc. Essence is the most important attribute for living creatures since processes such as aging, diseases, poisoning, etc. can be modelled via the variation of this attribute. The life cycle can can also be simulated via this attribute by ensuring that constantly decreases, thus forcing living creatures to eat to regenerate their essence by getting a sufficient amount of essence back from the food they eat.
From Merriam-Webster dictionary: The individual, real, or ultimate nature of a thing especially as opposed to its existence
Example 23. Earendil the Elf
Earendil has been injured by Azaroth, his mortal enemy. He is bleeding pretty badly increasing the rate of his natural essence lost. Borg has just gone through surgery to add this last piece of equipment that he needed so bad to make him (it?) a full cyborg. He (it?) is now detached from the need of flesh and his essence attribute is now null.
Food provides an essence amount equals to their essence attribute minus possibly essence lost during food processing.
Each Type defines a law (such as 3D6+2) to initialize each Common Attribute.
Optional Influences cannot introduce new Attributes. They may however apply modifiers and/or constraints to them so that they customize an Entity to reflect how its profession or environment affects it. They will also most likely introduce Capabilities.
Capabilities are derived Attributes (probably affine functions of Attributes). Since they are based on Attributes, they evolve as these do. They reflect the inherent capabilities of an Entity at each moment (i.e there are calcuted dynamically). An Entity cannot learn a Capability since it is a natural ability. It should be possible to dynamically add Capabilities to an Entity at runtime. Capabilities can be considered as higher-level statistics for an Entity. As other Characteristics, Capabilities can be influenced.
Types are the priviledged place to add new Capabilities to Entities. Possibilities for Capabilities are almost endless so we won't try to define all of them. Moreover, Capabilities are highly Type-dependent. We will rather give a couple of examples to demonstrate what a Capability could look like.
Example 24. Capabilities for Characters
combat: (intelligence + will + coordination) / 2
reaction: (intelligence + coordination) / 2
spell-casting: (intelligence + will + magic) / 3
memory: (intelligence + will)
running: (endurance + coordination)
...
If a Capability is calculated with Properties or Capabilities enclosed in intervals, this Capability is also enclosed in a field (calculated with others intervals). This is just a default field. It's also possible to fix it to other values.
Even if most Capabilities will be introduced by Types, it is possible that other Influences will introduce new Capabilities. It is more likely that other Influences will act as modifiers on already defined Capabilities to increase or decrease inherent Capabilities according to the training an Entity had received via its profession or adaptation to its environment. It should therefore be possible for an Influence to re-define the way Capabilities introduced by other Influences are calculated.