[Ar-list] Getting rid of the Freudian attributes

[Joe Mason]

Checking the mailing list archives, I see that this is the first post for about
half a year.  Hi, everybody.

I recently found AR when I was looking around for a free RPG system to use as
the basis for a CRPG engine.  (I'd toyed with the idea of doing it with
Rolemaster for quite a while, but ICE's bankruptcy has sort of shot that one
down.)  I must admit that I initially wasn't sure how seriously to take the
whole thing - I'm on the last year of a B.Math, and I bounced off the sidebar
labelled "Coninuous Form Rational", thinking maybe the whole thing was an
elaborate parody.  Then I read Chameleon, which is one hell of a campaign
setting.

Anyway, to business.  I'm still absorbing the rules, but one thing I really
dislike is the use of Id, Ego and Superego attributes.  I have a real dislike
for Freud, so it ruins the immersion for me.  They'd be appropriate for a
modern setting game or maybe a B-movie scifi game ("Creatures from the id!")
but I prefer to avoid Freudian terms in my fantasy games.

The easiest way to get out of this is just to rename the Level 1 attributes,
which avoids having to worry about changing the inheritance tree.  (Can you
tell I'm a programmer?)  But I'd prefer to exise the whole triumvirate
structure, becaue I really hate Freud that much.

I was thinking of renaming Id to Instint, dropping Superego completely (since
the "normative" force should really be defined entirely by roleplaying), and
adding a new stat "Resiliency" for Ego.  I call it a new stat because it
wouldn't be considered a "mediator between the Id and Superego" anymore.
Instead, it would directly measure coolness under fire, ability to resist
stress, etc.  This would give 4 Level 1 Psycho-Social attributes, in line
with the others (except Sensory, where the 5-way split is logical).

Er, except I just realized Willpower is Level 0, so this only leaves 3
Level 1 attributes.  And "Presence, Instinct, Resiliency" just doesn't seem
to make a whole package somehow.  Any suggestions for how to improve this?

Does anyone have any opinions on this?  How many rules depend on Superego
that might be broken by removing it? 

I suppose the same problem comes with using Verbal, Quantitative, and Spatial
stats in a fantasy game, but they seem easier to rename because they're less
culturally specific.  "Rhetoric", "Arithmetic", "Geometric" - now we have
cool stats for an ancient Greek game.

Joe