What Happened To Stats?

Some have wondered why stats aren’t a thing in Space Aces: VOY when they were present in TNG. If that is you, then… welcome to my TED talk. XD

To start off, I intentionally wrote Voyages so that one could absolutely play it with the TNG stats and ruleset. So if rolling for wiggles, smarts, grit, friends, and pockets delights you and your players, then by all means do it! Everything will still run as smooth as freshly churned space butter (spbutter).

That being said…

Here’s my hot take: Stats are false idols that pressure you to play to your character’s numerical strengths rather than to play the world and use it for leverage.

Here’s my lukewarm take: In a game where hitting a monster always has a static difficulty, then your stats matter because they modify the outcome of the rolls. But in a game like Space Aces, where you dynamically adjust difficulty based on each individual character’s leverage at any given moment, stats are just unnecessary.

Full confession: I am allergic to abstraction, it pulls you out of the game and slows things down. Also, I teach a lot of kids, tired parents, and total newbies how to play RPGs, so things need to be as simple as possible. And finally, my wife rolls her eyes at me if I take more than 5 minutes to explain a game.

Originally for Space Aces, I wanted a resolution system that removed as much abstract complication as possible from the game but that could also deliver the same richness of results that a more complex system like Genesys does. After lots of testing, I realized that removing stats from Space Aces reduces extraneous abstraction without affecting that richness of the resolution results.

Stats just don’t matter when you are adjusting difficulty dynamically anyway. All that really matters is what your character wants to do and what leverage they have at any given moment to make it happen. Determine that, pick a difficulty, and roll. Adding a modifier to your roll is basically the same as reducing the difficulty. And since we are already doing that if they have an applicable knack, profession, tool, plan, etc… why bother with both? Stats become just an extra level of complication that I don’t think adds much. Now, instead of saying “I use my +3 Wiggles to dodge” players say “I am a Novaball star, so I use my finely honed reflexes to expertly feint left and dodge right.”

So, even though I love saying “roll for Wiggles” with all my heart, I removed stats from Space Aces: VOY. What you are left with is a game that can be taught to absolute newbies in 5 minutes, that makes you focus on playing the world rather than your character’s highest stat, and that doesn’t make my wife roll her eyes at me when I try to explain it. That’s a win-win-win in my book! 😅