Stat Adjectives

Vx made a clever design choice with his stat labels. They are both noun and adjective, prescriptive and descriptive. I made this odd subliminal choice when playing last night to use those labels comparative to the other 'colour' adjectives for pure mechanical, numerical desciptors. (Used in Harm Countdown / Gear / Crap / Holds / Gigs / Gangs / Vehicles et.al) It made the game's meta-speak so awesome I thought I'd share.

-3               -2            -1             0              +1            +2           +3
Explosive    volatile      fickle         fresh         Cool          cooler        coolest 
softest       softer        soft        malleable    Hard          harder       hardest
coldest      colder         cold        warm         Hot           hotter       hottest
bluntest     blunter      blunt         dull           Sharp        sharper     sharpest
straightest   straighter  straight    usual         Weird        weirder      weirdest

So, Crunch, our chopper chose stat block 4, thus when introducing his character during Hx he said....

Cooler than most, Crunch is harder than nails. He may be as dull as the rusty machete strapped to his vintage bike, but he's a cold, straight badass.

And Must, our mesmerising Hocus using stat block 3....

She may be one of the Weirder cats round the den, but she is is warm and fresh in her approach. Don't let her outward demeanour relax you though, cause she's sharp and hard as when she needs to be.

Also, in play: So you're goin aggro on them Tanamai?! How hard are you? Well, I may be malleable, but shit, it highlights my concerns at present, 'kay? So I scream blue bloody murder waving my solar panel about like a club.'

Food for narrative thought, it worked for us.

Nifty idea, but it seems like it would be hard to get used to.  I mean, the descriptions for +1 and higher are all straightforward and easy to remember, but the lower ones not so much.  And even if most people never go as low as -3 and only a few people have -2s, that's still a lot of words to try to remember and equate to numbers.

Also, while I love the idea, I have to be pedantic: cool, hard, hot, sharp, and weird are definitely not nouns.

Just yesterday, I told my group that I think of my driver's -2 Hard as really being a +2 Soft.  :)

Also, while I love the idea, I have to be pedantic: cool, hard, hot, sharp, and weird are definitely not nouns.

I'm thinking of the phrase "You're losing your cool, man!" but can't get the others to make sense that way.

Hey man, you're losin' your cool! You just keep gettin' volatile very time someone gets into your shit. Don't think the gang hasn't noticed!

She used to be the hottest babe in the hold, but after all that shit with the brainer? Man, she's as cold as ice.

What the?! I thought you said that Gunlugger was dull as dogshit? Man, that bad MoFo is sharper than my narcostab!

I liked the idea of the negative being narratively postive. Perhaps thet may evolve into mechanical advantage too? As Chris says, +2 soft may not be good for goin' aggro (-2 Hard), but it may be of benefit for a hitherto unknown move, where -X hard may be an advantage?

The way I see it, O stat is the norm, facilitating 7-9 hard choices. (ironically the most 'average' character will statistically generate more hard choices) Deviation positive or negative allows for potential narrative swing and gratuitous colour. Thus I wanted the descriptor to be loaded either end of the scale.

Anyway, Its just an idea, take it or leave it. I know the game works awesome as is.

fnord - *embarrassed blush* I stand grammatically corrected.  My bad. What I meant was that within a nominal group, they can potentially take the role of head or pre/post modifier. This makes stats narratively full of potential.

Hey man, you're losin' your cool! You just keep gettin' volatile very time someone gets into your shit. Don't think the gang hasn't noticed!

Volatile is not a noun in that sentence. Volatility is a noun. You can talk about Jake's volatility. You cannot talk about Jake's volatile. You can say Jake is volatile, or Jake is big, or Jake is green.

[/grammar tangent]

The idea is neat! I'm glad it worked for you. Did you have titles for the Hx slider as well?

This makes stats narratively full of potential.

Oh they totally are!  And I love that the names of the stats (as adjectives) allow players to say stuff like that, "Crille?  That's one fuckin' hard bitch, man.  You don't wanna mess with her."  And have it be directly related to a stat.

And I like your idea a lot, of calling people with low hard "soft" or people with low cool "volatile."  I'm just glad it's not, ya know, a rule, cuz I think in my case, i'd have to be consulting your chart all the time.  :)

Hmmm. Hx is problematic in that it refers to how well you 'get' someone. The range of descriptors and nouns is varied as the relationships encapsulated. I'll have a stab, but this is open (as is the whole idea!) to debate and change.

  -3             -2               -1          0          +1         +2           +3
 Strained    Ignorant     Awkward      Appraised     percieved     insightful   acumen

or perhaps:

Jilted    Unpredictable    Surprising      Banal        Predictable   agreeable   Synergy

Its harder than the other scales! (mabye I'm just too soft! ;)  )

Well, to drift back into the grammar stuff again, I want to point out that "acumen" and "synergy" are nouns, so they don't fit with the others.

But I think I agree that Hx is "weirder" than the others to try to do this with.

*long face of chastisement*
I'm sorry I irritated that itch fnord, you perchant for pedantism is goin' aggro today huh?

Soooo.... What about Penetrating or Synergistic? But then as I wrote it realised that synergy implies harmony, when in fact the rules explicity state Hx is asymmetrical. Ho hum. Weird is right. *shakes head* What can of dogmeat have I opened now?

Thanks for the help and critique gang, but maybe nouns or adjectives are appropriate in these scales..... and that's O.K.?

So yeah, Must. You may have great Acumen with Crunch due to having seen his soul, but mate, you're fucking with his gang of savage hyenas when you declare this serious retroactive gig you've already set up with him!

Remember, he's crippled, shattered and probably not that interested anymore. Am I right Crunch? What do you do?!
 
Hell no, I may have turned malleable and a might fickle after my brush with death, but fuck me, I stand by my word. The dogs'll fight when I tell 'em to, even if I have to kill one of them to prove I ain't as soft as they think I am!

*long face of chastisement*
I'm sorry I irritated that itch fnord, you perchant for pedantism is goin' aggro today huh?

:)  In this case, it isn't irritating me at all.  I thought you wanted them all to be adjectives, so I was just pointing out that those two didn't fit.  I'm not trying to nit-pick or be insulting or anything, so I hope you don't take it that way.

Oh No Fnord!, I was just being cheeky! Sorry I didn't reply earlier, but I've been indulging my other pastime of leaping out of planes, and wasn't near a node.

I love our talks and have never been insulted - so please put your mind at ease! Thanks for all the encouragement and grammatical correction, it is much appreciated! :)

In lieu of the adjective thing, I guess in retrospect, either / or? Anyways, tonight we played a few scenes and reverted back to numerical values anyways (oops!) It does take a bit of effort to instigate the process. But its really cool with Chargen Hx Intros.

Also, while I love the idea, I have to be pedantic: cool, hard, hot, sharp, and weird are definitely not nouns.

A few of those can act as nouns, though. To continue the pedantry, I guess.

(1a) Balls lost his cool.
(1b) Balls lost his cat.

(2) Twice is cool/hot/hard/sharp/weird.

In (1), cool is acting as a noun. In (2), the verb 'be' is taking an adjective as a noun. Which is technically considered a substantive adjective, but that's just a fancy way of saying that the adjective is acting like a noun.

Similarly:

(3a) Roark is volatile.
(3b) Roark is a volatile motherfucker.

In (3), volatile is an adjective. But in (3a), it's a substantive adjective (acting as a noun) and in (3b) it's just an adjective. This is a shift in function. The category of a word never changes, but its function can.

This is where dictionaries trick you. They will list the same word multiple times under many categories. This is incorrect.

For example, Alaska will be listed in the noun and adjective category:

(4a) Mary is from Alaska.
(4b) Mary is an Alaska resident.

In (4), Alaska remains firmly in the noun category. In (4a), it is a noun functioning as a noun. In (4b), it is a noun functioning as an adjective. In Standard English, 'Alaskan' would be the 'correct' thing to use. Note that we have the inverse situation here:

(5a) Mary is an Alaskan.
(5b) Mary is an Alaskan citizen.

In (5), Alaskan remains firmly in the adjective category. In (5a), it's an adjective functioning as a noun. In (5b), it's an adjective functioning as an adjective.

Dig?

Thanks Framweard! I'm a strong advocate of functional grammar,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_functional_grammar
as it makes you think of the why of the english language, not just the how. You have framed it far more eloquently than I could have done.

In any case, the usefulness of the tool as a descriptor is irrespective of any paricular words classification grammatically. I just wanted to replace numbers with words in order to engender good storytelling at the table (especially when rolling the dice). ITo that end you could use any word you like, as long as it makes sense in the fiction, and doesn't cause dispute amongst the group.