Okay, so, Maniac’s stats from Wing Commander IV aside, I’m kinda wondering – what function would the “Courage” stat have in a game (if Attack, Defense, Magic Attack/Defense were already taken)? It could be anything from the rate at which you got items (for some reason), to the rate at which the Limit/Overdrive/Trance meter filled up.
I would say the rate at which Criticals Hits were made. It’s always bothered me that “good hits” are usually determined solely by Luck and not something like the Courage stat that you’re mentioning.
In an RPG, corect? An action game could make it a factor in AI behavior (which is what it did in the WCs I think, I remember maniac was often first to eject)
However, the context of your post indicates its an RPG (though for all I know its an action RPG, but I’ll assume from here on out that it isn’t such). For starters, I’m imagining it would be a factor in using certain attack types, like self-destruct. I can kinda see how it may have something to do with limit breaks/overdrives as you said earlier, since as FF9 pointed out, they are linked to emotions directly (well, trance at least), and courage could be interpreted as how one handle’s his emotions in dangerous times.
Another alternative is to make it so that a character has a chance of going berzerk (in a bad way, out of control but no strength bonus or anything) if low on health, an idea stolen from the X-Com games, but still usable in an RPG (heck, I think the original Shadow Hearts had something like this, but its been to long to remember clearly).
I think factoring it into certain types of attacks would work. Higher critical rate would make sense too.
That’s all I got to say. Other people have had better ideas so far. 
Oh, EarthBound did have a “Guts” stat. It increased your likelyhood to get a SMAAAASH!!, and gave you a small chance to hold on with 1 HP when you got killed.
Critical Hits, rate at which a special-attack bar fills and, in the appropriate genre, how much damage you take before you become routed.
BoF has “Guts” stat too, which determines the chances of reviving when your HP reaches 0.
Oh, I’ve always wondered what that did >.> Of course, I’ve almost never gotten my characters KO’d, so…
Courage usually would work best in a game where you don’t control the other chars. It would determine after how much damage taken they would panic or flee, or their reactions when severely outmatched. Or worse penalities when morale is low.
I can’t see a courage stat work in a traditional turnbased RPG.
Well, as it usually works, courage/guts makes little to no sense, but here is my thought on courage:
Compare levels between you and your foe. That difference can be compared to a courage score and if you didn’t have enough courage you’d have reduced stats, but if you had enough courage you might get a slight boost.
Bad attempt to create a fake example:
Your character is level 27 with a courage of 5. Against any monster level 27 or lower youd fight normally. Against levels 28-32 you’d get a slight boost (cause your brave). Against levels 33+ you’d get a penalty (cause your not THAT brave). These numbers of course mean almost nothing, but I think the point might have been made
:ah-ha!: I think this idea makes sense, and you should too. :ah-ha!:
I would think of it as the “Guts” stat from Earthbound. Guts is definitely one of the coolest ideas for a stat, I mean the surviving with 1 HP, that is just kickass. I can just imagine one of the times where Ness was the last person alive, and he is barraged with some huge attack and barely survives, doesn’t give up, and lets out one last giant baseball bat swing, “SMAAAAAAASH!!!” and he kills the giant boss creature! Ahhh Earthbound… How I love you so.
Hmm. Another thought – in a game with ATB, a low Courage might result in a slight delay in using certain moves after selecting 'em, or something like that.
That would be Reaction Time, courage has nothing to do with that.
It could still have an effect past reaction time.
Um. After someone recieves an order it has ALL to do with courage to fulfill that order. Especially if it’s going upand smacking that giant dragon with your little dagger. OPEN YOUR EYES, SERAPHIM! OPEN THEM TO THE LIGHT
I honestly have no idea what you are talking about. Reaction Time and Speed/Agility/Dexterity are the only constant factors when calculating the time between an order is issued and carried out. No character in any RPG has any problem launching itself against a thirty-meters tall dragon unless said reptile throws a fear spell at them (Baldur’s Gate II for example). I have never seen a character act scared of an enemy when not under a spell.
Unless you were doing some lame joke that I didn’t get.
You know we’re talking about a stat for a theretical new game, right? We aren’t looking at the courage stat of any currently existing game.
If you were LITERALLY facing a dragon with a dagger, don’t you think that, even after its occured to you/youve been told to swing the dagger at said dragon, you may hesitate for a bit?
No. Characters sometimes have panic status effects caused by severe damage, but no character ever hesitates to do anything you order them to do. If I tell my Lv1 mage to swing his stupid bone dagger at the Red Dragon, he’s gonna swing the stupid dagger at the Dragon regardless the fact that he’s going to die one second later.
And we are looking at what effect a Courage stat would have on RPGs and as far as I know, there is no RPG in existence where your PCs don’t do what you tell them to when you tell them to do it.
Think outside the box! Its true that, as you say, no RPG really uses that to an effect at the moment, but if someone is to design one of his own (which I suspect Yar is), there is some logical precedence based off reality to have an effect that Lanyx and I describe.
Ion speaks wisdom.
But I still think that if ATB isn’t an option in this hypothetical scenario, as Yar has offered, we should all agree with my idea about using courage to get a boost against enemies that are a little more dangerous than you and a penalty against things that are too scary.
Its the same concept:
Character - That’s one helluva monster!
Player - Punch it bare-fisted.
Character - Um… hesitation do I have to?
Player - Do it now!
Character - okay closes eyes and points his fist in the direction of the monster, then extends arm while looking the other way, cringing
Fuck quit being retarded. We aren’t talking about games that are out right now. After you tell a character to do something they are going to think about it, the less courages ones more than the more courages ones. Maybe even so much that the scared guys just dont do it, or run away.