Attributes
From Shadowrun: Awakened
In Shadowrun 4th edition (SR4) characters have a number of core statistics that determine the character's fundamental qualities. As in many games, these are called "attributes". Shadowrun Awakened borrows the 4th edition attributes.
Game Rules Description
Attributes are different aspects of a characte'rs innate abilities, represented by a number rating. The attributes in SR4 are:
- Body - Physical toughness and endurance.
- Agility - Physical grace and prowess.
- Reaction - Speed of reflective actions.
- Strength - physical power.
- Charisma - strength of personality, how likable you are.
- Intuition - perceptive ability, ability to arrive at solutions without thinking.
- Logic - intellect and ability to remember information.
- Willpower - mental resilience.
- Edge - How lucky you are, how much fate likes you.
- Resonance - For "Technomancers" (those that, more or less, magically use the matrix) ONLY. Measure of a technomancer's connection with technology.
- Magic - For Mages/Shamans only. The rating of how in tune with magical power you are.
All characters will possess Body, Agility, Reaction, Strength, Charisma, Intuition, Logic, Willpower, Essence, and Edge. Only magicians (shaman, mage, or adept) will possess a non-zero magic rating. Only a technomancer may posses a non-zero resonance rating. An average attributes rating is 3, while maximum unmodified human is 6. Different races will posses various modifications to their attributes. For an in-depth discussion in this topic, please consult pg. 60 of the SR4 manual.
A character's attributes will be one of the primary means for a player to participate in the universe, combining with skills to represent a player's proficiency while acting in the world. They will also figure into social interactions, where NPCs may react based on charisma or certain conversation options may required a certain logic score. Resonance and Magic also make up the backbone of magicians and technomancers.
Edge will be used as part of the death mechanic for the game. While this use is not directly derived from SR4, the ability to modify rolls in a real-time video game makes it difficult to use Edge as described in SR4.
Technical Implementation
Each character will store their attributes, allowing them to be retrieved by scripting and coded game mechanics. They will most likely be part of an important enumerated type, this type being used in various places to simply calling (instead of 10 accessors, there is only 1, etc).
For NPCs, it should be possible to always key their attributes versus the average for their race and only store a modified value if it is specifically set by a content creator. This should make it so generic NPCs created on-the-fly in any situation will, in the very least, always be average and it will be easy to tweak versus the racial averages to achieve quick and realistic stat lines.
