Getting rid of ability scores

[quinron]

In D&D 5th Edition, there's been a lot of discussion about the paradigm shift that Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the implied standards set forth by the most recent Unearthed Arcana articles. I've been getting into Pathfinder 2nd Edition recently and its "ability boosts" are always +2, never +1, so you always have an even-numbered score*; the Bestiaries don't even include ability scores, just modifiers. This has gotten me thinking: given that the actual scores mattered beyond bonuses for several editions, do you think we'll see a complete elimination of scores in favor of modifiers? It seems to be the way other systems are trending (though I'm not too well-read outside D&D/PF, so take that with some salt). If you don't think we'll see it, why not? Am I missing something, or am I just thinking small?

*If you're increasing a score past 18 it gets reduced to +1, but unless you're using the optional rules for voluntary flaws to minmax, you won't see a score above 18 at character creation.

[Anymage]

The 3-18 scale will likely continue to exist because it's been around forever, and for a lot of people the fact that D&D has always done something is a good reason for it to continue doing so going forwards.

There are two questions to be asked as a followup. Everybody will need a certain primary stat in order to function well, so the game should just up and acknowledge as much even if that means that primary stats are essentially locked in place through the system. Priorities beyond that, the first question you might ask is if there's any reason why a bard might want to prioritize strength as their secondary stat over something like dexterity, and how you'd set up the system so that stats like that might be appealing. The second question is if, after you've brainstormed what might make each stat appealing enough that someone might want to think twice before dumping it, is if those rules are really worth the overhead they bring or if it's okay to have standardized archetypes and builds at the table.

[Tanarii]

If you can't roll for ability scores, it's not D&D.

(Fervently hope there weren't any editions of D&D that didn't include rolling. 4e had rolling right? It's been a while :smallamused:)

[P. G. Macer]

In D&D 5th Edition, there's been a lot of discussion about the paradigm shift that Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the implied standards set forth by the most recent Unearthed Arcana articles. I've been getting into Pathfinder 2nd Edition recently and its "ability boosts" are always +2, never +1, so you always have an even-numbered score*; the Bestiaries don't even include ability scores, just modifiers. This has gotten me thinking: given that the actual scores mattered beyond bonuses for several editions, do you think we'll see a complete elimination of scores in favor of modifiers? It seems to be the way other systems are trending (though I'm not too well-read outside D&D/PF, so take that with some salt). If you don't think we'll see it, why not? Am I missing something, or am I just thinking small?

*If you're increasing a score past 18 it gets reduced to +1, but unless you're using the optional rules for voluntary flaws to minmax, you won't see a score above 18 at character creation.

In a thread currently active on the 5e sub-forum, the fact that ability scores—especially once divorced from race/lineage/ancestry—are largely unneeded does in fact seem to be the general conclusion the commenters have reached, though they noted the Sacred Cow objections still remain, i.e. how much is a game without ability scores and only modifiers still Dungeons & Dragons? There are also a number of niche cases where an odd ability score in 5e matters, most notably feats that grant a +1 ASI and carrying capacity being a multiple of one’s STR score.

Also, if my 99.9%-secondhand memory of 4e serves me, races in that edition also had +2s to stats and no +1s, with 5e once again granting +1 to certain stats via races even as evens>odds for stats was a deliberate throwback to pre-4e editions in an effort to win back people who had abandoned the D&D brand.

[MoiMagnus]

Mutant and Mastermind, which started as a d20 system, also got rid of ability score in favour of modifier only in its 3rd edition.
Up to my knowledge, all the editions that got rid of ability score also got rid of rolling for abilities, which I think would be a mistake for D&D. But designing a method for rolling 6 abilities modifiers is not that hard when you give up having the exact same repartition as taking the modifier as 4d6b3.
[My favourite method use rolling a lot of d6 and each face is associated with an ability, rather than summing numbers you count dices of each face]

[Glorthindel]

I have kinda been saying it for a while. Don't get me wrong, I love Ability Scores, and I definitely ague that rolling for scores is the only way to do it, but at the same time, they just don't do what they used to do, and instead focus on something that was very much not their main purpose.

In AD&D, Strength effects Hit Probability, Damage, Weight Allowed, and the ability to Open Doors and Bend Bars. In 5th ed, the last two are gone, and the third is mostly ignored, leaving only To Hit and Damage (and then only if you aren't a Finesse user, or got a Class Ability that substitutes another Ability Score for those things). Not a lot of difference right? Well, actually a lot. Because Strength did other things, it wasn't laser-focussed on To Hit and Damage. In 5th ed, you get +1 To Hit and Damage at Strength 12, while in AD&D you didn't get +1 Damage til 16 Strength, and +1 To hit til 17. In 5th ed, the difference between a 8 Strength character and 16 Strength character is night and day (+4 To hit and Damage), while in AD&D there was literally a difference of 1 Damage.

In contrast, the bulk of the bonuses came from your class; a Fighter gained +1 To Hit every level, and most of their damage bonus came from Weapon Specialisation. Your Strength score was a minor consideration, especially as you would be overwriting it with Gauntlets of Ogre Strength at the earliest possibility.

And its the same for the other Ability Scores; you didn't get +1 HP from Con til 15, you didn't get +1 AC from Dex til 15 (and +1 Init and To Hit Ranged til 16). You didn't get wound up about a couple of points of an Ability Score, because it really made negligible difference; A Str 9 Fighter was a viable Fighter, 7 Con was acceptable for anybody, and Rogues only worried about Dex when it impacted their Thieves Skills. Sure, a Wizard needed a high Intelligence so they didn't walk into the wall of Maximum Spell level, and Chance to Learn Spell was so crippling it wasn't worth bothering with a Wizard without at least 15-16 Int, but that was one of the many (since removed) counterbalances to Wizard power.

What my long ramble is saying, is we have made this problem for ourselves over the last couple of editions, by radically increasing the effect Ability Scores have, so of course people get more bent out of shape by the slightest thing that effects them. The Elven +2 to Dex bonus was basically flavour when it meant your Fighter went from +0 AC, Init, and To Hit Ranged to, oh, still +0, but now, when that means +1 AC for everyone, regardless of the current level of the Score, of course its a big deal.

So lets bin em. Sure, it feels wrong to old timers like me, but they didn't really do all that much before, so we are just going back to those good old days we are always pining for.

[Morty]

In D&D 5th Edition, there's been a lot of discussion about the paradigm shift that Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the implied standards set forth by the most recent Unearthed Arcana articles. I've been getting into Pathfinder 2nd Edition recently and its "ability boosts" are always +2, never +1, so you always have an even-numbered score*; the Bestiaries don't even include ability scores, just modifiers. This has gotten me thinking: given that the actual scores mattered beyond bonuses for several editions, do you think we'll see a complete elimination of scores in favor of modifiers? It seems to be the way other systems are trending (though I'm not too well-read outside D&D/PF, so take that with some salt). If you don't think we'll see it, why not? Am I missing something, or am I just thinking small?

*If you're increasing a score past 18 it gets reduced to +1, but unless you're using the optional rules for voluntary flaws to minmax, you won't see a score above 18 at character creation.

I wouldn't say other systems are "trending" this way, because other systems never had this rather clunky distinction to begin with. Removing scores and boiling it down to only modifiers would be an eminently sensible thing to do, but it probably won't be done, because people are attached to the 3-18 scale for reasons that elude me.

[Silly Name]

I wouldn't say other systems are "trending" this way, because other systems never had this rather clunky distinction to begin with. Removing scores and boiling it down to only modifiers would be an eminently sensible thing to do, but it probably won't be done, because people are attached to the 3-18 scale for reasons that elude me.

Nostalgia/brand identity. I fully agree that in 5e the 3-18 scale is mostly an artifact of old editions and could be easily changed to just the modifiers, which would be an overall cleaner design, but like Alignment it's been with D&D since forever and while making them less important is ok, outright removal hurts the "feel" of playing D&D.

[Xervous]

I’d sooner like to see everything become MAD with better baseline coverage of ability score impact so there’s more reason to consider investing in each value. And if there’s point buy to determine scores why don’t they advance by the same point buy grrr...

Retention / rejection of scores is a marketing decision that I frankly don’t care much about. It’s cleaner with just the modifiers and it shunts out “who loses at session 0?” rolled ability scores, but it’s not a personal concern of mine since I can choose not to deal with that. They’ll probably hold on for a while more because brand identity and keep aiming for broadest appeal over a well polished system.

[OldTrees1]

What about Shadows that drain your strength?
Or poisons that attack your constitution?

When the ability is a resource that can be attacked/depleted, does using the modifier instead of a score still feel intuitive?

[MoiMagnus]

What about Shadows that drain your strength?
Or poisons that attack your constitution?

When the ability is a resource that can be attacked/depleted, does using the modifier instead of a score still feel intuitive?

(1) Those are pretty rare.
(2) The damage could be done to the ability modifier rather than the score. Either halve the damage so its the same powerlevel, or keep the same value but nerf the remaining the of creature/poison to compensate, or redesign the creature/poison from scratch to not use those kind of abilities.
E.g the shadow would be perfectly fine if it was "reduce the Strength modifier by 1" with some slight buff to compensate, or "by 1d2", "by 2" or "by 1d4" with some adequate nerf to compensate.

As for the part where an ability score at 0 kills you, I've played with plenty of games that had negative HP, and where death was at a given number of negative HP rather than 0. Didn't felt weird to me.
So I have zero problem with damage to constitution/strength being the same: damage can send you to some negative value, and death only happens at a given negative value.

[Willie the Duck]

I wouldn't say other systems are "trending" this way, because other systems never had this rather clunky distinction to begin with. Removing scores and boiling it down to only modifiers would be an eminently sensible thing to do, but it probably won't be done, because people are attached to the 3-18 scale for reasons that elude me.

Even within D&D, the setup where you rolled for attributes, but then consulted a chart and it gave you a singular bonus that you used if not all the time certainly much of the time, has existed since B/X in 1981. Clearly people have been aware that this is something you can do, not just easily, but easily for a D&D-style game, for a very long time. It likely simply hasn't been a priority.


, Strength effects Hit Probability, Damage, Weight Allowed, and the ability to Open Doors and Bend Bars. In 5th ed, the last two are gone, and the third is mostly ignored, leaving only To Hit and Damage (and then only if you aren't a Finesse user, or got a Class Ability that substitutes another Ability Score for those things). Not a lot of difference right? Well, actually a lot. Because Strength did other things, it wasn't laser-focussed on To Hit and Damage. In 5th ed, you get +1 To Hit and Damage at Strength 12, while in AD&D you didn't get +1 Damage til 16 Strength, and +1 To hit til 17. In 5th ed, the difference between a 8 Strength character and 16 Strength character is night and day (+4 To hit and Damage), while in AD&D there was literally a difference of 1 Damage.

In contrast, the bulk of the bonuses came from your class; a Fighter gained +1 To Hit every level, and most of their damage bonus came from Weapon Specialisation. Your Strength score was a minor consideration, especially as you would be overwriting it with Gauntlets of Ogre Strength at the earliest possibility.

And its the same for the other Ability Scores; you didn't get +1 HP from Con til 15, you didn't get +1 AC from Dex til 15 (and +1 Init and To Hit Ranged til 16). You didn't get wound up about a couple of points of an Ability Score, because it really made negligible difference; A Str 9 Fighter was a viable Fighter, 7 Con was acceptable for anybody, and Rogues only worried about Dex when it impacted their Thieves Skills. Sure, a Wizard needed a high Intelligence so they didn't walk into the wall of Maximum Spell level, and Chance to Learn Spell was so crippling it wasn't worth bothering with a Wizard without at least 15-16 Int, but that was one of the many (since removed) counterbalances to Wizard power.

What my long ramble is saying, is we have made this problem for ourselves over the last couple of editions, by radically increasing the effect Ability Scores have, so of course people get more bent out of shape by the slightest thing that effects them. The Elven +2 to Dex bonus was basically flavour when it meant your Fighter went from +0 AC, Init, and To Hit Ranged to, oh, still +0, but now, when that means +1 AC for everyone, regardless of the current level of the Score, of course its a big deal.

So lets bin em. Sure, it feels wrong to old timers like me, but they didn't really do all that much before, so we are just going back to those good old days we are always pining for.

More recent editions have simultaneously increased the effect of ability scores while at the same time decreased that amount that the effect varies, by making them 1) important enough to be fairly mandatory, and 2) encouraging things like point buy, where there aren't characters that have to 'make do with one good roll,' or, 'rolled 4 good rolls,' etc. As such, you end up with a scenario where just about everyone has a 12-16 Constitution (it is almost everyone's 2nd-3rd most important stat), and the only real question for your primary stat (Str for greatsword fighter, Dex for archer, int for wizard, etc.) is whether you start with ~16 and run straight towards the max as quickly as possible, or stop along the way to pick up some useful feats or the like. At this point, one could probably roll the +3 for a 16 Str or Int right into the fighting or spellcasting mechanics, add two to everyone's HD rolls, and get rid of attributes (the attributes themselves and the modifiers) altogether and make an attribute-less system. I don't think that will happen, as I feel like people actually do like the mucking about with the +s and -s (both modifiers, and maybe even the attributes in the 'well, I could use this ASI to max out my 18 charisma to 20, but there are two half-feats that each give +1 charisma and a nice little perk, do I want to take twice as long to get there, but end up with two extra abilities?' kind of optimization dance).

[Anonymouswizard]

I've seen other systems with the score/modifier split, it's generally because of a desire to keep scores on the D&D scale while using a different rolling mechanic. I've also seen one homebrew which had your modifier risk to your score-10, mainly because the designer thought it would be easier for people to grasp the scale (a 5 being set to roughly half as strong as a 10).

In general a score/modifier split it's unnecessary, and the industry seems to be moving towards a state of seeing the skill/attribute split as unnecessary. Which it kind of is, games which ditch one and define their lists to fit with their intended experience run fine. It's not completely without merit, but I find it hard to find cases where it matters that much.

You could remove Abilities from 5e and have it run fine. You could also remove proficiency bonuses and increase stat scaling slightly, and it would run exactly as intended. My favourite change is to essentially double Ability Modifiers and change Proficiency into automatic Advantage (but that requires a rewrite of the rogue).

[Morty]

In general a score/modifier split it's unnecessary, and the industry seems to be moving towards a state of seeing the skill/attribute split as unnecessary. Which it kind of is, games which ditch one and define their lists to fit with their intended experience run fine. It's not completely without merit, but I find it hard to find cases where it matters that much.

Even games that don't remove attributes frequently use a completely different attribute lineup than the traditional one or don't make them and skills (or the local equivalent thereof) part of the same math.

[Telok]

An interesting comparison of AD&D ability score charts to the D&D 5e model is to check the changes in combat bonuses to noncombat abilities/bonuses.

I don't have my books handly but a short list looks like:
Strength, damage and to-hit bonuses double or triple while door opening and feats of great strength stay about the same.
Dexterity, no real change beyond attack & initative bonuses doubling or more.
Constitution, everyone gets warrior type hp boosts (double or triple again), the bonus applies to poison saves (but saves no longer generally scale up with level either), and the system shock roll is replaced by Con saves (Con 10 in AD&D is 70% success, mapping to a DC 7 5e Con save, Con 16 is 95% mapping to a DC 4 save).
Intelligence only mattered to wizards and magic is a different topic, although a 16 did get you 5 more starting languages after common & your racial language.
Wisdom, no real changes except it now governs perception which used to be race/class/player skill based and looked like "rangers have a 1/8 chance to be surprised in the forest" sorts of stuff.
Charisma, a 16 went from 8 henchmen, +4 loyalty/morale, and +5 on npc reactions to a +3 on generic checks and everything else (followers & loyalty) being full DM fiat.

That's a trend of overall more ability score based combat capability but less noncombat ability and lower saving throws. The noncombat ability has been moved to class abilities, spells, and DM fiat. This follows the last 10 years/few editions of D&D generally moving away from noncombat rules and depowering the noncombat character/class abilities (again, magic is a different topic). Whether that's a good thing or not is someone's personal preference.

[Nifft]

If you can't roll for ability scores, it's not D&D.

(Fervently hope there weren't any editions of D&D that didn't include rolling. 4e had rolling right? It's been a while :smallamused:)

Every edition of D&D had some tables which used pre-gens, therefore to you all editions weren't D&D.



An interesting comparison of AD&D ability score charts to the D&D 5e model is to check the changes in combat bonuses to noncombat abilities/bonuses.

I don't have my books handly but a short list looks like:
Strength, damage and to-hit bonuses double or triple while door opening and feats of great strength stay about the same.
Dexterity, no real change beyond attack & initative bonuses doubling or more.
Constitution, everyone gets warrior type hp boosts (double or triple again), the bonus applies to poison saves (but saves no longer generally scale up with level either), and the system shock roll is replaced by Con saves (Con 10 in AD&D is 70% success, mapping to a DC 7 5e Con save, Con 16 is 95% mapping to a DC 4 save).
Intelligence only mattered to wizards and magic is a different topic, although a 16 did get you 5 more starting languages after common & your racial language.
Wisdom, no real changes except it now governs perception which used to be race/class/player skill based and looked like "rangers have a 1/8 chance to be surprised in the forest" sorts of stuff.
Charisma, a 16 went from 8 henchmen, +4 loyalty/morale, and +5 on npc reactions to a +3 on generic checks and everything else (followers & loyalty) being full DM fiat.

That's a trend of overall more ability score based combat capability but less noncombat ability and lower saving throws. The noncombat ability has been moved to class abilities, spells, and DM fiat. This follows the last 10 years/few editions of D&D generally moving away from noncombat rules and depowering the noncombat character/class abilities (again, magic is a different topic). Whether that's a good thing or not is someone's personal preference.

Another early-edition oddity: if you had a high score in your Prime Requisite, you got more XP.

Strong Fighters weren't merely better at winning fights, they also advanced faster.


Regarding this though:

the last 10 years/few editions of D&D generally moving away from noncombat rules and depowering the noncombat character/class abilities
... it's my impression that having noncombat rules = depowering mundane noncombat characters, in contrast to earlier editions where you could do anything because nobody had specific features which gate-kept doing certain things.

[Anonymouswizard]

Even games that don't remove attributes frequently use a completely different attribute lineup than the traditional one or don't make them and skills (or the local equivalent thereof) part of the same math.

Yeah, it's probably worth pointing out that while many early games started with a D&D-esque lineup, modern games vary wildly in what Attributes they have. Many skill fall into the D&D tradition of some for physical ability and some for mental, but even that isn't universal.

Also worth mentioning the games which get rid of numeric descriptors entirely, or are designed around those descriptors continually changing. I think GUMSHOE is designed so skills deplete over the course of an adventure, in fact swapping scores for pools has become more of a thing. I get disappointed when I see such a focus on D&D in discussions, because at this point it's about a decade behind the rest of the industry.


Actually, I'd like to mention Advanced Fighting Fantasy here, because it's the one game I own with both an Attribute/Skill split and one of the most unusual attribute lineups I've seen. Characters are defined by Skill (roll to do a mundane task), Stamina (your HP), Luck (a generic saving throw), and Magic (used to cast magic and for a couple of Special Skills). It works surprisingly well as Skill gives a floor to untrained attempts and then your various Special Skills help to differentiate characters. It works surprisingly well. The science fiction adaptation adds in weirdness by declaring that robot characters don't get luck, but the core idea still works.

Yes, everybody bumps their Skill up to the cap unless they need those points to buy up Magic, but the game kind of expects that and it becomes a question between Stamina or Luck Out of the sample characters the only ones which don't do that are the ones which have some kind of magic.

[Nifft]

I think GUMSHOE is designed so skills deplete over the course of an adventure, in fact swapping scores for pools has become more of a thing. I get disappointed when I see such a focus on D&D in discussions, because at this point it's about a decade behind the rest of the industry.

The thing which stuck in my head about GUMSHOE was that the most critical "skill checks" were never rolled.

If you had the relevant keyword for an investigation, and you tried looking for a matching clue, you just succeeded.

Keywords were always divvied up amongst the PCs -- the quantity of your PC's skills depended mostly on your party size.

[Telok]

Regarding this though:

... it's my impression that having noncombat rules = depowering mundane noncombat characters, in contrast to earlier editions where you could do anything because nobody had specific features which gate-kept doing certain things.

I think that having noncombat rules is different from having race/class features for gating pc actions. You can still have rules for loyalty, morale, hiring, and paying of followers without making them a specific class feature. Likewise you can have class features that say only one class can climb/jump/swim when you don't have any actual rules for climb/jump/swim.

[quinron]

I think that having noncombat rules is different from having race/class features for gating pc actions. You can still have rules for loyalty, morale, hiring, and paying of followers without making them a specific class feature. Likewise you can have class features that say only one class can climb/jump/swim when you don't have any actual rules for climb/jump/swim.

This is a good way to look at it. Though I still think the problem stands - as more and more noncombat capabilities have been shunted off to class features and skill lists, the designers seem to have decided that this qualifies as having created noncombat rules, when all they've really done is created noncombat mechanics.

Social interaction is an easy example of this - you have Charisma bonuses to social interaction and you've got skills like Diplomacy and Deception, but it's still effectively GM fiat at the end of the day whether or not a given social interaction succeeds and how much effect it has.

[False God]

As the first post said, the -10, divide by 2, 0-20+ ability score system is likely to remain simply because "that's D&D".

I've played a number of games that have eliminated it, or never had it to begin with and frankly I wouldn't miss it or think less of the game if D&D got rid of it. Personally I think it's unnecessary, but it is not so intrusive to my play as to bother me.

[Nifft]

I think that having noncombat rules is different from having race/class features for gating pc actions. You can still have rules for loyalty, morale, hiring, and paying of followers without making them a specific class feature. Likewise you can have class features that say only one class can climb/jump/swim when you don't have any actual rules for climb/jump/swim.

The rule saying only one class can do X is a rule for X.

It's not a very useful simulation of X nor an explanation of how X might work, but it absolutely is a rule for X.

[Anonymouswizard]

The thing which stuck in my head about GUMSHOE was that the most critical "skill checks" were never rolled.

If you had the relevant keyword for an investigation, and you tried looking for a matching clue, you just succeeded.

Keywords were always divvied up amongst the PCs -- the quantity of your PC's skills depended mostly on your party size.

I've never actually played GUMSHOE, hence my use of the words 'I think', but yeah, it seems to basically include everything you could want when running investigations.

There's a lot of games that do cool things with skills and stats, and I'm very interested in playing more of them.

[OldTrees1]

(1) Those are pretty rare.
(2) The damage could be done to the ability modifier rather than the score. Either halve the damage so its the same powerlevel, or keep the same value but nerf the remaining the of creature/poison to compensate, or redesign the creature/poison from scratch to not use those kind of abilities.
E.g the shadow would be perfectly fine if it was "reduce the Strength modifier by 1" with some slight buff to compensate, or "by 1d2", "by 2" or "by 1d4" with some adequate nerf to compensate.

As for the part where an ability score at 0 kills you, I've played with plenty of games that had negative HP, and where death was at a given number of negative HP rather than 0. Didn't felt weird to me.
So I have zero problem with damage to constitution/strength being the same: damage can send you to some negative value, and death only happens at a given negative value.

So the negative HP helped improve the intuition around using negative ability modifiers when a ______ (shadow) is draining your ______ (strength). That is good to hear. That was the only case I could think of to question which was more intuitive.

[Kane0]

In D&D 5th Edition, there's been a lot of discussion about the paradigm shift that Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the implied standards set forth by the most recent Unearthed Arcana articles. I've been getting into Pathfinder 2nd Edition recently and its "ability boosts" are always +2, never +1, so you always have an even-numbered score*; the Bestiaries don't even include ability scores, just modifiers. This has gotten me thinking: given that the actual scores mattered beyond bonuses for several editions, do you think we'll see a complete elimination of scores in favor of modifiers? It seems to be the way other systems are trending (though I'm not too well-read outside D&D/PF, so take that with some salt). If you don't think we'll see it, why not? Am I missing something, or am I just thinking small?

*If you're increasing a score past 18 it gets reduced to +1, but unless you're using the optional rules for voluntary flaws to minmax, you won't see a score above 18 at character creation.

Could scores be removed? Easily.
Will scores be removed? Very unlikely.

It's a major sacred cow, like having 20 levels/9 spell levels and classes including the fighter and wizard. You would need significant audience push to change those more resilient aspects of D&D game design.

[gijoemike]

What about Shadows that drain your strength?
Or poisons that attack your constitution?

When the ability is a resource that can be attacked/depleted, does using the modifier instead of a score still feel intuitive?

Exactly, 3.X and PF allow a PC to easily modify their stats. Having dead numbers is a safety net when getting ability drained/damaged. But this is unique to this system. Take 13th Age instead. In 13th Age buff/debuffs spells don't alter ones stats, nor do magic items. So the game loses NOTHING by using just modifiers. Instead magic items and spells do something interesting and active. Passive +/- adjustments are rather lame or extremely heavy handed ( Lookin' at you Shivering Touch).

[SandyAndy]

I actually have a system that we've used in games here. The ability scores are only used to determine your modifiers and the modifiers are on a -5 to +5 scale. So for character creation we just do 2d4 and that gives you your scale of 1 to 10 how cool are you. The only downside is that you could easily get more negatives than positives but that's how D&D was for decades and if you want more points than you can easily just peg 8 to +4 modifier and shift the scale to be more in line with 5e. I haven't run into any problems with this and if you NEED ability scores for whatever reason then you can just run it backwards to fill out the sheet.

[noob]

If you can't roll for ability scores, it's not D&D.

(Fervently hope there weren't any editions of D&D that didn't include rolling. 4e had rolling right? It's been a while :smallamused:)

Some older editions had rolling ability scores but they did not matter in the vast majority of the cases.

[OldTrees1]

I actually have a system that we've used in games here. The ability scores are only used to determine your modifiers and the modifiers are on a -5 to +5 scale. So for character creation we just do 2d4 and that gives you your scale of 1 to 10 how cool are you.

2d4 => 2-8 with an average of 5 and less of a bell curve than 3 dice.
3d3 => 3-9 with an average of 6 and a 3 dice curve.
3d4-2 => 1-10 with an average of 5.5 and a 3 dice curve.
This may or may not be useful information.

[MoiMagnus]

If you want low variance, "12d6 count the faces" gives:
0 => 12%
1 => 26%
2 => 30%
3 => 20%
4 => 8%
5 => 3%
6 => 1%
7-12 => unlikely (0.2% in total)

You probably want to subtract 1 to the number of face counted to obtain a modifier between -1 and +5. Typical result becomes is +3 / +2 / +1 / +1 / 0 / -1, though half of the rolls don't give a +3.

[kyoryu]

Fate gets rid of ability scores, leaving only skills. Okay, there's a couple of skills that are awfully like ability scores, but they function like skills and don't do the attribute+skill thing that's so common.

[Chalkarts]

It ain't broke.
Leave it alone.

[Duff]

the first question you might ask is if there's any reason why a bard might want to prioritize strength as their secondary stat

In a word - style. Sometimes you want to play a bard who can win an armwrestle, or a fighter who can win at chess, or a Paladin who can walk and chew gum at the same time, and that's a valuable part of being able to customize your character

[Zakhara]

In a word - style. Sometimes you want to play a bard who can win an armwrestle, or a fighter who can win at chess, or a Paladin who can walk and chew gum at the same time, and that's a valuable part of being able to customize your character

Noble as that is, so long as the game provides concrete benefits to consistent, narrow arrangements of attributes by class, that sort of fun will just get optimized out.

I think subsuming those particulars (Fighters boast high STR, Rogues DEX, Bards CHA, etc.) and abandoning the need for numbers would be a possible step towards the sort of diversity/freedom you're advocating.

[quinron]

Noble as that is, so long as the game provides concrete benefits to consistent, narrow arrangements of attributes by class, that sort of fun will just get optimized out.

I think subsuming those particulars (Fighters boast high STR, Rogues DEX, Bards CHA, etc.) and abandoning the need for numbers would be a possible step towards the sort of diversity/freedom you're advocating.

Pathfinder 2e already does this to a certain degree - every class gets a free +2 to their core ability score. I actually think this is a great idea - it means you have some more freedom in your own distribution of scores because your most important one is already getting boosted a little.

[Luccan]

You'd have to rebuild some core expectations, but there's no reason you have to keep ability scores and mods. But it would end up different than other editions, because there are those fiddly bits in each edition that rely on your exact stat (translated into a modifier or not), not your modifier.

[KorvinStarmast]

Another early-edition oddity: if you had a high score in your Prime Requisite, you got more XP. How is that an oddity? It's the original design framework. All since then has been a variant. (You can, if you like, argue that the variations have been improvements). The B/X model was, to me, the most sensible. 13-15 +1, 16-17 +2, 18 +3. (Mirrored with minuses at the other end). 9-12 is "+/- 0) What WoTC did with "a + at every other increase" doesn't fit very well with the bell curve shape of a 3d6 distribution...but it is still workable.

Strong Fighters weren't merely better at winning fights, they also advanced faster.
So did wiser clerics, and smarter wizards were able to cast the higher level spells.

It ain't broke.
Leave it alone. Yep. :smallcool:

[Willie the Duck]

How is that an oddity? It's the original design framework. All since then has been a variant. (You can, if you like, argue that the variations have been improvements).
It is an oddity for anyone who has never seen it. 'Oddity' is not a pejorative.


The B/X model was, to me, the most sensible. 13-15 +1, 16-17 +2, 18 +3. (Mirrored with minuses at the other end). 9-12 is "+/- 0) What WoTC did with "a + at every other increase" doesn't fit very well with the bell curve shape of a 3d6 distribution...but it is still workable.

I'm also rather impressed with the 14-17=+1, 18=+2 system that Stars Without Number (and now Worlds Without Number) uses, and how well that works with its 2d6-based skill system (and the games premise that combat experience/class+level is the primary contributor to combat outcome, not raw attributs).

I think it is a good thing that the WotC model is relatively divorced from the original 3d6/bell curve model (4d6, drop the lowest, while being a binomial distribution, is pretty far afield), and is instead it's own thing. The numbers are applied to the game rules differently, so I think the larger numbers largely fit (although, as I said upthread, because the attribute contribution is so high, you don't see nearly as much variation in attributes for a given role).

[Jason]

In a word - style. Sometimes you want to play a bard who can win an armwrestle, or a fighter who can win at chess, or a Paladin who can walk and chew gum at the same time, and that's a valuable part of being able to customize your character
I'm playing a half-orc bard (college of swords) gladiator, and Strength is his primary stat. He's basically a pro wrestler who adventures on the side.

[Morty]

The fact that D&D attributes are largely an illusion of choice and determined by class is another issue, that would remain true even if they were pared down just to modifiers.

[Elves]

Keeping ability scores would make sense if you brought back what was apparently the old rule about having to roll your score or lower on the d20 for an ability-dependent task. That's a cool mechanic and it also justifies 5e's capping of player stats at 20. And it ties ability scores back to the d20 in a very direct way.


If you don't bring back that mechanic, there's no justification for keeping separate scores and modifiers. Just have the score be the modifier. If you want the granularity of the current system, simply introduce half-scores (my Strength is 2.5 or -2.5). The .5 in that case actually has a function as a tiebreaker on opposed rolls. --And even if it had no function at all it would still be more elegant than introducing an entire alternate score.

So either bring back "roll under your score on the d20", or remove 1-20 ability scores.


It ain't broke.
Leave it alone.
It's natural for things that no longer have a use to be removed. Otherwise you get a buildup of detritus.

[FrogInATopHat]

The fact that D&D attributes are largely an illusion of choice and determined by class is another issue, that would remain true even if they were pared down just to modifiers.

Yep





[please see my mandatory extra text to meet forum post length here]

[Elves]

The fact that D&D attributes are largely an illusion of choice and determined by class is another issue, that would remain true even if they were pared down just to modifiers.

It's not hard to largely decouple abilities from class gameplay (no more primary spellcasting ability, making Finesse baseline as 5e did, remove statmod from scaling class features). At that point abilities are for skill checks, saves, and feats. Arguably they would need more functionality to fill the void but you could also just make skill/ability checks a larger part of gameplay.

[Anonymouswizard]

The fact that D&D attributes are largely an illusion of choice and determined by class is another issue, that would remain true even if they were pared down just to modifiers.

Honestly it's not an inherently bad thing as long as it's understood on a basic level. 'For archetype Y focus on attributes A, B, and C' is pretty standard game design. But I think it might work better for games without classes.

Now there are class based games with much stronger limits on distributing your attributes/skills/personality traits, and they can work really well. They do make playing against archetype much harder, but honestly if you're twisting the archetype enough you might just want another archetype or another game.

[Lord Raziere]

Honestly it's not an inherently bad thing as long as it's understood on a basic level. 'For archetype Y focus on attributes A, B, and C' is pretty standard game design. But I think it might work better for games without classes.

Now there are class based games with much stronger limits on distributing your attributes/skills/personality traits, and they can work really well. They do make playing against archetype much harder, but honestly if you're twisting the archetype enough you might just want another archetype or another game.

I mean your right.

But in my experience, this only exchanges one problem for another which is "can I even find anyone who plays this game that DOES allow to play against archetypes, as well?"

which is an entirely separate problem sure, but y'know.

if no one is going to see your archetype defying character because they all want to play popular archetype-holding game and dislike going against archetypes and think its negative to do so, it still sucks.

[Nifft]

But in my experience, this only exchanges one problem for another which is "can I even find anyone who plays this game that DOES allow to play against archetypes, as well?"

which is an entirely separate problem sure, but y'know.

if no one is going to see your archetype defying character because they all want to play popular archetype-holding game and dislike going against archetypes and think its negative to do so, it still sucks.

If your character can pull enough weight to be a net asset rather than a drag, there shouldn't be a problem.

IMHO the only character concepts which are bad are the ones which sabotage your ability to contribute to the party's success.


But without a class & ability score system, you might not need to "play against type" to get the character you want. You could hopefully just play into the actual type you want to play.

[DwarfFighter]

I remember from 3.x that there was a preference for even value bonuses to ability scores, since this very readily translated to an increase in modifiers. E.g, +4 Wis bonus meant your modifier mproved by 2, regardless of initial value.

An odd valued bonus like +3 would in some cases increase the modifier by 1, or 2 of applied to an odd valued ability score. That is less easy, less perfect.

I recall the Bioware video game, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, had lots of combat drugs that boosted stats by +3, which I felt was a neat way to make odd valued ability scores have meaning. I made sure that my custom 3.5 magical items featured odd valued ability score modifiers.

-DF

[Elves]

I recall the Bioware video game, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, had lots of combat drugs that boosted stats by +3, which I felt was a neat way to make odd valued ability scores have meaning. I made sure that my custom 3.5 magical items featured odd valued ability score modifiers.

1) You can find ways to make odd scores meaningful, but should you have to? Is there any actual value to the articulation?

2) Even if the answer is yes, it's more efficiently achieved with .5 score values than by splitting abilities into two values, score and modifier.

[Willie the Duck]

1) You can find ways to make odd scores meaningful, but should you have to? Is there any actual value to the articulation?

I feel like there's some value in the finding-ways to get an even score to an odd. The +3 potions are a good example. Half-feats in 5e are another good example. Tough decisions between putting a +2 in your even primary stat, evening up two odd non-primary stats, or taking this one half-feat which will even off an odd stat along with a desired smaller perk (or even picking a half-feat even though it adds to an already-even stat simply because you really want the side-benefit) -- those help make the character creation/advancement part of the game interesting and challenging.

[MoiMagnus]

those help make the character creation/advancement part of the game interesting and challenging.

Especially with 5e mindset, this is not necessarily considered a good thing. Arguably, character creation should be a mean (a) as simple, easy and quick as possible (b) to obtain a character as near as possible as the idea you have in mind (c) and also as interesting as possible to play. The point being that the character creation/advancement is "not the actual game", so the less challenge exist before you can start "playing the actual game" the better, and any complexity in it must proves its worth by significantly improving (b) or (c).

This opinion is much more extreme than my own, and obviously is far from universal even in the 5e player base, if not almost heresy for anyone who enjoy D&D 3.X.

[Willie the Duck]

Especially with 5e mindset, this is not necessarily considered a good thing. Arguably, character creation should be a mean (a) as simple, easy and quick as possible (b) to obtain a character as near as possible as the idea you have in mind (c) and also as interesting as possible to play. The point being that the character creation/advancement is "not the actual game", so the less challenge exist before you can start "playing the actual game" the better, and any complexity in it must proves its worth by significantly improving (b) or (c).

This opinion is much more extreme than my own, and obviously is far from universal even in the 5e player base, if not almost heresy for anyone who enjoy D&D 3.X.

Honestly, I'm not interested in re-fielding that argument one more time (not least of which because I agree with both sides*). Elves' question was whether there was any actual value to the articulation of odd ability scores, and my position is that there is. Whether it is a positive or negative value is outside of scope for me. Suffice to say, people should be aware of the value that odd stats might give to the character creation/advancement gameplay for the people that like (or times when a person with multiple preferred styles is in the mood for) that style of play.
*Personally, I come from a B/X background and love me some 'Quit dithering about in the character creation section and let's go!' style gaming; and I come from a GURPS/Champions background (don't forget Traveller and the career tables) and love me some of that too.

[noob]

Especially with 5e mindset, this is not necessarily considered a good thing. Arguably, character creation should be a mean (a) as simple, easy and quick as possible (b) to obtain a character as near as possible as the idea you have in mind (c) and also as interesting as possible to play. The point being that the character creation/advancement is "not the actual game", so the less challenge exist before you can start "playing the actual game" the better, and any complexity in it must proves its worth by significantly improving (b) or (c).

This opinion is much more extreme than my own, and obviously is far from universal even in the 5e player base, if not almost heresy for anyone who enjoy D&D 3.X.

I think dnd 3.5 should have given some options to make a competent character without reading 50 books or thinking for 3 hours which spells to pick in the player manual.

[Xervous]

I think dnd 3.5 should have given some options to make a competent character without reading 50 books or thinking for 3 hours which spells to pick in the player manual.

Care to define competence in such a manner that allows us to measure or at the very least gauge it?

[noob]

Care to define competence in such a manner that allows us to measure or at the very least gauge it?

Can at least tie in all encounters against equal cred monsters.
Even in the core monster manual there is monsters that are ridiculous (ex: a lot of the outsiders)

[neceros]

The 3-18 scale will likely continue to exist because it's been around forever, and for a lot of people the fact that D&D has always done something is a good reason for it to continue doing so going forwards.

Agreed. It's integral to the system.

[False God]

Agreed. It's integral to the system.

Is it?

D&D doesn't actually use a 3-18(or 0-20) system.

It uses a -5 to +5 system.

We don't add +16 to our d20 rolls, we add +3.
We don't add +18 to our skills, we add +4.

We even ignore every other number! 3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17...all basically don't even exist except for the occasional corner case where the system checks if you're capable of sentient thought or not.

[noob]

Is it?

D&D doesn't actually use a 3-18(or 0-20) system.

It uses a -5 to +5 system.

We don't add +16 to our d20 rolls, we add +3.
We don't add +18 to our skills, we add +4.

We even ignore every other number! 3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17...all basically don't even exist except for the occasional corner case where the system checks if you're capable of sentient thought or not.

In fact in much older dnd editions stats did not grant any bonus at all when below 15.(and I forgot if they did have stat caused penalties)
And even the highest stats you could get at char gen did not get you a +3.
You played mostly 3e, 4e and 5e(possibly 5e only if you are a new to dnd player which means that you never had to deal with giant piles of rules but instead had to deal with unclear rules) which have different stat systems than the previous editions where stats most of the time did not matter nearly as much as class or non weapon proficiencies or what you decided to carry in your backpack and on your mule this morning or the mercenaries you recruited this morning.

[Mastikator]

Is it?

D&D doesn't actually use a 3-18(or 0-20) system.

It uses a -5 to +5 system.

We don't add +16 to our d20 rolls, we add +3.
We don't add +18 to our skills, we add +4.

We even ignore every other number! 3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17...all basically don't even exist except for the occasional corner case where the system checks if you're capable of sentient thought or not.

5e checks for 13 when you multiclass. 3.5e also checked odd ability scores for various feats.

HOWEVER that doesn't mean that it should or that it's a good thing. I've played with systems that don't do ability scores, and systems that do direct abilites. I think that modifiers are unnecessary, scores are not.

Here's an idea, a craaaazy idea, instead of doing 3-18 ability scores you just have 1-10 ability scores, and ability score = ability modifier. All the DC for every thing? raise it by 5 points to keep it the same. No more odd ability score weirdness. A +1 to strength is a +1 to strength, period.

[False God]

5e checks for 13 when you multiclass. 3.5e also checked odd ability scores for various feats.

HOWEVER that doesn't mean that it should or that it's a good thing. I've played with systems that don't do ability scores, and systems that do direct abilites. I think that modifiers are unnecessary, scores are not.

Here's an idea, a craaaazy idea, instead of doing 3-18 ability scores you just have 1-10 ability scores, and ability score = ability modifier. All the DC for every thing? raise it by 5 points to keep it the same. No more odd ability score weirdness. A +1 to strength is a +1 to strength, period.

Right, we basically use a 1-10 system, where 1-5 are subtracted from your score, and 6-10 are added. I know a lot of systems use positive-only ability score systems, and even then D&D could run -5 to +5 and we'd have the same end result. Alternatively, the game could just apply a -5 modifier to everything, and the scores you're good at would be a 6 or a 7 or 8, giving you a +1,2,3 modifier.

The game would still be rather random-heavy on the d20 through, only real downside to "low numbers" games. Could be balanced out by using a 2d10 resulting in more average rolls, or even a 1d10 system, but now we're getting really crazy and killing whole herds of sacred cows!

[OldTrees1]

Right, we basically use a 1-10 system, where 1-5 are subtracted from your score, and 6-10 are added. I know a lot of systems use positive-only ability score systems, and even then D&D could run -5 to +5 and we'd have the same end result. Alternatively, the game could just apply a -5 modifier to everything, and the scores you're good at would be a 6 or a 7 or 8, giving you a +1,2,3 modifier.

The game would still be rather random-heavy on the d20 through, only real downside to "low numbers" games. Could be balanced out by using a 2d10 resulting in more average rolls, or even a 1d10 system, but now we're getting really crazy and killing whole herds of sacred cows!

We use a 1-12 system in 5E (Don't forget having a 0 or a 10-11). The 0 matters for ability damage and the +0 matters in general. However 5E sets an ability cap which is rather weird.

We could replace the current ability score / ability modifier scaling with a 1:1 scaling. Rolling 3d4 for ability scores would give a modifier of 3-12 (apply a +7 DC) which could work well.

[Elves]

Again, even if there is value to having a medial integer that doesn't change the modifier, it's more intelligible to do that by having .5 score values than by forcing people to remember two different numbers and how they correlate.

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly the main advantage to having odd scores in the current design is that it gives space for half Feats, which are somewhat useful from a 'not everything can be put into a big enough package to be a Feat' sense. However I suspect there could be a better way to handle them.

If we sidestep to Pathfinder I believe that the current implementation means that odd scores only matter because the advancement of abilities beyond a certain value (18? 20?)is halved.

Honestly, the only good reason I've seen to have both scores and modifiers is that if you're using a linear scale is easier to understand that 20 is twice as strong as 10 t than +5/+10 is twice as strong as +0. Which is a fair argument, but given that most games don't model reality they closely I'm not sure if has any benefits over, for example, the Fudge model (where everything is rated on a seven step adjective ladder with no scores).

Actually, if we're thinking of new players I think the descriptive Fudge model night actually be better. Just give them a printed adjective ladder and let them count steps up or down if they can't do it mentally.

So what I'm saying is that Fudge is a better game than D&D. Now let me get back on topic.


The are legitimate reasons to keep the idea of odd scores, but they're minor parts of the system and if you wanted to you could track the half score within the modifier itself or rebalance the maths to let you use +1 and +2 to your modifier instead of +0.5 and +1.

But Ability Scores separate from modifiers aren't going anywhere, because you're apparently not allowed to slaughter the sacred cows even if it would make a better game.

[Elves]

But Ability Scores separate from modifiers aren't going anywhere, because you're apparently not allowed to slaughter the sacred cows even if it would make a better game.
Eh. Don't be too quick to assume. Otherwise people end up doing things that no one really wants because everyone thinks the others want it. The way to get the real consensus is for people to base what they think on what they think and not what they think other people think.

[Silly Name]

But Ability Scores separate from modifiers aren't going anywhere, because you're apparently not allowed to slaughter the sacred cows even if it would make a better game.

I think there's a possibility that many years down the line we may see a reworking of ability scores and ability modifiers. Alignment restrictions for classes were a sacred cow until they weren't, for example. Wizards couldn't cast spells in armor, until they got a few ways to do it anyways.

Way I see it, while changing this specific part of the game would make for cleaner, easier to understand rules, this positive change is relatively small, thus, for the time being, there's more value in keeping the current system merely because it's a big part of what D&D is at an "aesthetic" level: you see a character sheet with six ability scores ranging from 3 to 20, you know it's a D&D character sheet.

Odd ability scores also facilitate a lot of game mechanics - arguably this got toned down in 5e, but having a "buffer" between +2 and +1 is very useful when dealing with ability score damage and/or loss.

[noob]

I think there's a possibility that many years down the line we may see a reworking of ability scores and ability modifiers. Alignment restrictions for classes were a sacred cow until they weren't, for example. Wizards couldn't cast spells in armor, until they got a few ways to do it anyways.

Way I see it, while changing this specific part of the game would make for cleaner, easier to understand rules, this positive change is relatively small, thus, for the time being, there's more value in keeping the current system merely because it's a big part of what D&D is at an "aesthetic" level: you see a character sheet with six ability scores ranging from 3 to 20, you know it's a D&D character sheet.

Odd ability scores also facilitate a lot of game mechanics - arguably this got toned down in 5e, but having a "buffer" between +2 and +1 is very useful when dealing with ability score damage and/or loss.
You could also remove ability modifiers together with ability scores.
Reduces the number of things that changes the results of actions.
There is a lot of systems without ability scores or modifiers.

[Anonymouswizard]

Eh. Don't be too quick to assume. Otherwise people end up doing things that no one really wants because everyone thinks the others want it. The way to get the real consensus is for people to base what they think on what they think and not what they think other people think.

Okay, I think I've parsed that? While I agree with what you said, I'm still not sure what you're saying.


I think there's a possibility that many years down the line we may see a reworking of ability scores and ability modifiers. Alignment restrictions for classes were a sacred cow until they weren't, for example. Wizards couldn't cast spells in armor, until they got a few ways to do it anyways.

Way I see it, while changing this specific part of the game would make for cleaner, easier to understand rules, this positive change is relatively small, thus, for the time being, there's more value in keeping the current system merely because it's a big part of what D&D is at an "aesthetic" level: you see a character sheet with six ability scores ranging from 3 to 20, you know it's a D&D character sheet.

Odd ability scores also facilitate a lot of game mechanics - arguably this got toned down in 5e, but having a "buffer" between +2 and +1 is very useful when dealing with ability score damage and/or loss.

Yes, but I'm partially bitter at 5e dropping almost everything I liked abut 4e (Healing Surges,clear combat roles for PCs and enemies, an honest attempt to add structure to noncombat play flawed as it was).

But then again a lot of my issues with D&D ultimately boil down to 'I'll stop complaining when it's easier to get people to play something else'. I've got a whole host of Fate settings I want to run (Gods and Monsters, Under the Table, Loose Threads, Red Planet, Straw Boss, The Ministry, Tachyon Squadron, and Shadow of the Century is a short version of the list), as well as a bunch of other games, but it can be hard to get people to commit to something new.

So I honestly don't care what D&D does with ability scores, but my favourite model for a game is to actually completely fold them and skills (and other proficiencies) together. It's what I'd do if I was in charge of 6e (make a list of maybe twenty proficiencies, grant +2 to X number from your class, +2 to Y number from your race, and then Y discresionary points but cap them at +4. Then every level give a +1 and an addition two +1s or a feat every X levels). But that approach would appear radical to many casual players.

[quinron]

Okay, I think I've parsed that? While I agree with what you said, I'm still not sure what you're saying.



Yes, but I'm partially bitter at 5e dropping almost everything I liked abut 4e (Healing Surges,clear combat roles for PCs and enemies, an honest attempt to add structure to noncombat play flawed as it was).

But then again a lot of my issues with D&D ultimately boil down to 'I'll stop complaining when it's easier to get people to play something else'. I've got a whole host of Fate settings I want to run (Gods and Monsters, Under the Table, Loose Threads, Red Planet, Straw Boss, The Ministry, Tachyon Squadron, and Shadow of the Century is a short version of the list), as well as a bunch of other games, but it can be hard to get people to commit to something new.

So I honestly don't care what D&D does with ability scores, but my favourite model for a game is to actually completely fold them and skills (and other proficiencies) together. It's what I'd do if I was in charge of 6e (make a list of maybe twenty proficiencies, grant +2 to X number from your class, +2 to Y number from your race, and then Y discresionary points but cap them at +4. Then every level give a +1 and an addition two +1s or a feat every X levels). But that approach would appear radical to many casual players.

I feel you. I'm not even good about trying other systems. And in D&D, once you get into the realm of rolls that need GM adjudication rather than having been established beforehand, I tend to see one of two prevailing styles: either GMs ask for a skill roll, then let themselves be talked into applying the character's highest ability to it (the oft-compained-about Strenth (Intimidation) check comes to mind); or they think they're cleverer and ask for an ability check, but let the player find a way to apply their best skill to the check (which is the way I play it, of course, as I am very clever :smalltongue:)

Either way, you're getting the same thing: a limit is being placed on one of two interacting mechanics, but it's being alleviated by a degree of freedom in the other mechanic. And personally, as I explore the design, I'm starting to see how limiting ability scores can really be - for example, when there's always a superior armor choice for your desired degree of stealthiness and the slow doling out of ASIs mean you have to choose between specializing in one weapon category or being decent-but-not-great with all weapons, does the fighter's stated status as a "master of all weapons & armors" really feels like it bears out?

[Jay R]

I doubt if we will get rid of either the stat or the modifier, because they are each useful at different times, and they are each intuitive and different times.

It makes sense to me that a score should always be positive, even when the modifier is negative. IQ is centered around 100, not around 0. Somebody with less strength than me still has positive strength.

And which makes more intuitive sense?

When CON = 0, the character is dead, or
When the CON Modifier = -5, the character is dead.
Note also that using the modifier without the score technically changes when the character dies. When CON =1, the modifier = -5, so you can't tell the difference between dead (CON = 0) and not yet dead (CON = 1). ["It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead."]

Mathematically, MOD = (STAT - 10) / 2, so you could use track only the STAT and the MOD is simply a conversion, or you could remember only the MOD and the STAT is simply a conversion. If I were in a game with only modifiers, I'd still think in terms of the ability score as well. There's no difference in my mind between a CHA bonus of +4 and a CHA of 18-19. And I think that true for anybody who's played for awhile.

In 3.5 you lose some structure, because at every 4th level you get +1 to a stat, and there are books (Tome of Understanding, Manual of Bodily Health, etc.) that can raise a STAT by an odd number.

So I can see some problems that getting rid of the scores will cause. What I don't see is what problem you are trying to fix. What actual improvement to the game do you think this will cause?

[Tanarii]

It'd be easy enough to juggle system math so ability scores are the modifiers and are always positive.

[Democratus]

What is the goal of the new system trying to be created here?

Is the goal of D&D to be efficient? Other games have much more efficient systems, but aren't D&D.

D&D is its own peculiar beast. It is sometimes byzantine and it has strange moving parts. But that's what D&D is. If you are seeking out D&D then stats, hit points, classes, spells...these are part of what the game is. It's identity.

If you are seeking out a game that is simpler, easier, stat-free, etc. there are games out there for you. They just aren't D&D.

Trying to file the serial numbers off the game to make it "cleaner" gets you 4th Edition - or something even less like D&D.

[Mendicant]

I feel wildly on the outside of this conversation, because I think the game genuinely benefits from having both a score and a modifier, and should embrace it rather than slowly running away from it. Overall, I'd also like to push back on the narrative that D&D is some legacy kuldge everyone is stuck with because of the ignorance and inertia of most players. It's a family of systems that have had an immense amount of thought and iteration applied to them that--in point of fact--work quite well for what they're meant to do. That also happens to be what a *lot* of people want to do. Moreover, it is not only very hackable, its age and popularity give it a huge knowledge base to work from when you're doing that.

Score and modifier, like Jay said, are intuitive in different contexts. The two pieces make the character description more robust, mechanically. This is a good thing. This isn't D&D being "byzantine", or a "strange beast," it's a perfectly valid design choice that gives you things to hang mechanics on and more options to resolve conflicts or challenges outside of what the designer envisioned.

I love Blades in the Dark, but the reality is that there are interactions that you can drop the characters into gracefully. Their sheets just don't answer questions not directly related to criminal scores. BitD is more efficient, more elegant, even, but D&D is a more powerful tool. That power and versatility is a direct function of its mix of hyper-specific mechanics (many spells, for instance, or carrying capacity) and general skeleton mechanics like ability scores. That ability scores have become more and more vestigial is a problem that weakens one of the ruleset's core competencies.

[Morty]

What is the goal of the new system trying to be created here?

Is the goal of D&D to be efficient? Other games have much more efficient systems, but aren't D&D.

D&D is its own peculiar beast. It is sometimes byzantine and it has strange moving parts. But that's what D&D is. If you are seeking out D&D then stats, hit points, classes, spells...these are part of what the game is. It's identity.

If you are seeking out a game that is simpler, easier, stat-free, etc. there are games out there for you. They just aren't D&D.

Trying to file the serial numbers off the game to make it "cleaner" gets you 4th Edition - or something even less like D&D.

I do wonder what people would say if 4E had never come out and they didn't have it available as an easy counter-argument to changing anything ever. Including things 4E itself didn't even touch.

[Jason]

I do wonder what people would say if 4E had never come out and they didn't have it available as an easy counter-argument to changing anything ever. Including things 4E itself didn't even touch.

Probably they would be arguing over the shift between 3.0 and 3.5. "Use Rope was a fantastic skill! I can't believe they got rid of it!"

Or the old 2nd edition Player's Options books and what they did to that system. "Point-based character abilities? You can take my Classes and my roll 3d6 in order when you pry the dice from my cold dead hands!"

Or even the 1st edition Unearthed Arcana. "Comliness! In my day we had 6 ability scores and we liked it!"

Basically anytime a big change or two was made to the system.

[Tanarii]

Or the old 2nd edition Player's Options books and what they did to that system. "Point-based character abilities? You can take my Classes and my roll 3d6 in order when you pry the dice from my cold dead hands!"Or back when 1e was released. "4d6b3 for ability scores as the standard method? You can take my 3d6 when you etc etc".

[Anonymouswizard]

I do wonder what people would say if 4E had never come out and they didn't have it available as an easy counter-argument to changing anything ever. Including things 4E itself didn't even touch.

You forgot the good things abput 4e that helped it hit the genre or streamlined the game but that 5e dropped. I'm looking at you Healing Surges and Racial Powers (oh, and Fort, Ref, and Will bring defences).

But generally people would give something new to compassion about. The shifts of 0e->AD&D, AD&D->3e, 3.5->4e, and 4e->5e are massive shifts no other 'system' had, except maybe 2e->3e Fate (I've never fully read 1e or 2e, but it looks like there were significant he l changes to Aspects somewhere along the line).

Honestly, if I could change D&D in one easy it wouldn't be by removing Ability Scores or multipliers. It would honestly be bringing in Setting Creation as in Fate Core or Unknown Armies, where you start at a central concept/issue/goal and build a setting outwards from that. It leads to a really nice situation where you already have relationships and a supporting cast set up, witch can make transitioning into a have much more smooth even if the players know that the big bad is going to be Mayor Davidson from the start. Faces and places are what brings a setting to life, session 0 should be at least about the local environment and NPCs as it is about the PCs.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Honestly, if I could change D&D in one easy it wouldn't be by removing Ability Scores or multipliers. It would honestly be bringing in Setting Creation as in Fate Core or Unknown Armies, where you start at a central concept/issue/goal and build a setting outwards from that. It leads to a really nice situation where you already have relationships and a supporting cast set up, witch can make transitioning into a have much more smooth even if the players know that the big bad is going to be Mayor Davidson from the start. Faces and places are what brings a setting to life, session 0 should be at least about the local environment and NPCs as it is about the PCs.

De gustibas. If that were the primary mode of playing D&D, I'd not play. Because I need long-running, multi-party settings with deep metaphysics. Per-campaign settings end up being ultra-shallow or tiny. Neither of which fit my play style and enjoyment at all. And building characters without a world to give them context makes for a mess, thematically. And if you start out small, you're constraining the world because adding anything on to such a thing becomes more difficult.

I'm currently running one of my favorite campaigns. This is #14 in this world over the course of 6 years. Every campaign has touched the world and shaped it for the next one. Each set of players leaves behind a legacy for the next set. And this is one of my favorites because the players have trusted me with most of their backstory. They've given me bare bones and let me have the freedom to weave in the details. And through the characters, I see the world afresh and find new beauty in it despite being the one to have built it. They build the world through their characters' actions, and that leads to much more important detail, in the places it needs to be. In ways none of us suspected when we began.

To be perfectly honest, I had no clue what the campaign's primary themes were going to be at the start. All I had was a place, and a situation. They've left that behind now, but the ripples of the decisions they made then have shaped the rest of things. And I'm finding places where a decision or an off-hand character remark from way back when suddenly resonates in a situation I'd never have been able to plan for up front.

If it's not clear, my primary mode of enjoyment is discovery. And that's something that pre-planning your setting around a central goal and doing "shallow" settings focused on a single issue misses almost entirely. Without that, I'd have no motivation to plan sessions.

I'm not saying that that style is bad, just bad for me. I'm glad there are a variety of games out there.

[Jason]

You forgot the good things abput 4e that helped it hit the genre or streamlined the game but that 5e dropped. I'm looking at you Healing Surges and Racial Powers (oh, and Fort, Ref, and Will bring defences).Healing surges and short rests are pretty similar, 5th has saving throws for all attributes, and there are several races that have powers that scale with level, so 5th basically did keep those ideas - slightly reworked.


But generally people would give something new to compassion about. The shifts of 0e->AD&D, AD&D->3e, 3.5->4e, and 4e->5e are massive shifts no other 'system' had, except maybe 2e->3e Fate (I've never fully read 1e or 2e, but it looks like there were significant he l changes to Aspects somewhere along the line). Uh, no. Many other RPGs have had changes just as big or bigger between editions. Just off the top of my head: Traveller, Legend of the Five Rings, Spycraft, Mechwarrior, GURPS, Twilight:2000, Top Secret that's just the ones I am most familiar with. Then you have licensed properties that are completely different with wildly different systems in each incarnation: Star Wars, Star Trek, Paranoia, Marvel, Traveller again, etc.
Really, RPGs that are mostly the same between editions are something of an exception. Call of Cthulhu is probably the best example, though the 7th edition has shaken it up more. All of Palladiums games are pretty much the same thing too, but it's arguable if that's a good or bad thing.


Honestly, if I could change D&D in one easy it wouldn't be by removing Ability Scores or multipliers. It would honestly be bringing in Setting Creation as in Fate Core or Unknown Armies, where you start at a central concept/issue/goal and build a setting outwards from that. It leads to a really nice situation where you already have relationships and a supporting cast set up, witch can make transitioning into a have much more smooth even if the players know that the big bad is going to be Mayor Davidson from the start. Faces and places are what brings a setting to life, session 0 should be at least about the local environment and NPCs as it is about the PCs. I don't think that's something every group would want. Many groups don't want the whole group to create the setting and the relationships and the supporting cast. They are perfectly content to let the GM do most of that work, and just add a few flourishes here and there. I know I like to let the GM do it when I'm playing.

[quinron]

I don't think that's something every group would want. Many groups don't want the whole group to create the setting and the relationships and the supporting cast. They are perfectly content to let the GM do most of that work, and just add a few flourishes here and there. I know I like to let the GM do it when I'm playing.

This is why I think D&D would benefit (in design terms) from being more up-front about what it is.

So many complaints I see about the game are about how clumsy it is handling other modes of play, which I blame on WotC attempting to retain (or, in 5e's case, reclaim from Paizo) their position as top dog of TTRPGs by pitching D&D as a game that can be everything to everyone. I think people would be happier with the game overall if it admitted that at this point it's primarily a heroic fantasy game with a well-developed system for staging exciting fights; on any category outside that, there's almost certainly a system that's better for what you want.

But, of course, "you can play anything with this system" is a pitch that sells a lot better than "some things are going to work better than others in this system."

[Morty]

You forgot the good things abput 4e that helped it hit the genre or streamlined the game but that 5e dropped. I'm looking at you Healing Surges and Racial Powers (oh, and Fort, Ref, and Will bring defences).

But generally people would give something new to compassion about. The shifts of 0e->AD&D, AD&D->3e, 3.5->4e, and 4e->5e are massive shifts no other 'system' had, except maybe 2e->3e Fate (I've never fully read 1e or 2e, but it looks like there were significant he l changes to Aspects somewhere along the line).

Honestly, if I could change D&D in one easy it wouldn't be by removing Ability Scores or multipliers. It would honestly be bringing in Setting Creation as in Fate Core or Unknown Armies, where you start at a central concept/issue/goal and build a setting outwards from that. It leads to a really nice situation where you already have relationships and a supporting cast set up, witch can make transitioning into a have much more smooth even if the players know that the big bad is going to be Mayor Davidson from the start. Faces and places are what brings a setting to life, session 0 should be at least about the local environment and NPCs as it is about the PCs.

I'm not really arguing as to whether 4E was good or not here. I'm pointing out that it's a logical fallacy to reply to any proposal for change with "well, 4E changed things and it was bad/unpopular/not D&D". Even if those were true (and only the unpopular part is), it's irrelevant. It might be relevant if 4E had changed anything about ability scores... but it didn't. And if it had changed them but kept a caster/non-caster split in the rules, it would be considerably more similar to past editions. Modifying 5E to give it a unified power structure rather than just spells would take a lot of work and wind up with a noticeably different game - cutting away ability scores but keeping the modifiers would leave the experience virtually unchanged.

[Democratus]

I'm not really arguing as to whether 4E was good or not here. I'm pointing out that it's a logical fallacy to reply to any proposal for change with "well, 4E changed things and it was bad/unpopular/not D&D". Even if those were true (and only the unpopular part is), it's irrelevant. It might be relevant if 4E had changed anything about ability scores... but it didn't. And if it had changed them but kept a caster/non-caster split in the rules, it would be considerably more similar to past editions. Modifying 5E to give it a unified power structure rather than just spells would take a lot of work and wind up with a noticeably different game - cutting away ability scores but keeping the modifiers would leave the experience virtually unchanged.

Because that the main complaint about 4e was not that it was a bad system, but that the changes removed the D&D feel.

This thread is about making a change to D&D. I argued that some changes would remove the "feel" of D&D - much like 4E. Entirely on topic.

Improving a system is great all the way up to the point where the improved game you are playing is unrecognizable - and that playing the recognizable game is part of the point of playing at all.

[DwarfFighter]

How do we go about to introduce this change?

[Anonymouswizard]

Healing surges and short rests are pretty similar, 5th has saving throws for all attributes, and there are several races that have powers that scale with level, so 5th basically did keep those ideas - slightly reworked.

Short rests put a soft cap on maximum healing for the day? Because that was a thing Healing Surges did.


I don't think that's something every group would want. Many groups don't want the whole group to create the setting and the relationships and the supporting cast. They are perfectly content to let the GM do most of that work, and just add a few flourishes here and there. I know I like to let the GM do it when I'm playing.

Ah yes, the good old 'dump all the work on one person' model.

The thing is, when I'm not allowed to participate in setting creation I find it really hard to get established relationships with NPCs or add organisatrions my character concept needs. Plus I just find it really fun, and with even D&D books starting to push 'session 0' having world creation be a part of it, even if it's only defining people and groups and not the campaign's central thread is a logical net step. Just sit down with an A3 or A2 sheet of paper, plonk the campaign's theme or goal in the middle, add the PCs as nodes, then take turns adding new people/places/organisations as nodes or relationships to connect them, ideally with every PC having connections to multiple other PCs. Even when working within an established setting it can be fun.

Not that dumping all the work on one person is inherently bad, but you'd be amazed at what the imagination of five people comes up with. When I ran Unknown Armies the first few elements took a little jostling, but soon it was all 'the drug dealer's boss is my sister, who goes by "the lady in red" because she associates her own name with old people'.


I'm not really arguing as to whether 4E was good or not here. I'm pointing out that it's a logical fallacy to reply to any proposal for change with "well, 4E changed things and it was bad/unpopular/not D&D". Even if those were true (and only the unpopular part is), it's irrelevant. It might be relevant if 4E had changed anything about ability scores... but it didn't. And if it had changed them but kept a caster/non-caster split in the rules, it would be considerably more similar to past editions. Modifying 5E to give it a unified power structure rather than just spells would take a lot of work and wind up with a noticeably different game - cutting away ability scores but keeping the modifiers would leave the experience virtually unchanged.

True, although I'll also note that I don't get some of the complaints (especially 'didn't feel like D&D'), and that's possibly reflected in my post.


As to 'does 4e feel like D&D', it's going to depend a lot on what you've played. To me it did, with some tweaks to give it an even greater combat focus, because it's a game about going into an area to kill monsters and get loot. But yes it does make a lot of changes, I expect if 4e had instead been more like 13th Age, especiallyin the greater variety of how class's core mechanics work, there would have been a lot less push back.

But my favourite games are not like D&D, and I'm not a fan of a lot of the things it does.

[False God]

Because that the main complaint about 4e was not that it was a bad system, but that the changes removed the D&D feel.

This thread is about making a change to D&D. I argued that some changes would remove the "feel" of D&D - much like 4E. Entirely on topic.

Improving a system is great all the way up to the point where the improved game you are playing is unrecognizable - and that playing the recognizable game is part of the point of playing at all.

I'm just gonna have to say it: What exactly is the "D&D feel"?

I've played so many D&D games. I've played meat grinders, I've played noir horror, I've played bog-standard fantasy. I've played sci-fi, epic fantasy, and everything in-between. Which one of those was the "D&D feel"?

D&D, has, for multiple editions, offered little more than "generic fantasy". It's not laser-swords and mystical arts like Star Wars. It's not high-minded space exploration ala Trek. It's not eldritch horror like CoC. Sure, you can do these things with the system, as innumerable d20-variants have demonstrated, but by default D&D is none of those things.

So, what exactly is this mystical "feel" that 4E didn't include?

[Jason]

Not that dumping all the work on one person is inherently bad, but you'd be amazed at what the imagination of five people comes up with. No, I don't think I would, really. I've been gaming with most of my current group weekly for almost 20 years now, and we've tried the sort of thing you're talking about. The "let the GM do it" system seems to work best for us, mostly because not everyone in my group wants to create a world, though they've all had turns being a GM. YMMV.

There was an article on the Angry GM's site about players acting as "secondary GMs" not too long ago, and I generally agree with Angry:

Some people can’t be trusted with the power of the game master...Your players aren’t game designers, though. They’re not GMs. They probably don’t want the power of game design. And when they get it, they’re going to do crappy, stupid, unsatisfying things with it. Power that’s given, rather than earned or acquired, comes without discipline. And without discipline, power’s not a great thing to have...And you also have to understand—and accept—that not everyone wants to be a GM. And not everyone can be good at it...As for your game? Well, I hope your players have taught you something. Don’t trust them with the power of creation. It’s your world. You’re the GM. Stop dumping your responsibility on people who never signed up for the job.

[noob]

I'm just gonna have to say it: What exactly is the "D&D feel"?

I've played so many D&D games. I've played meat grinders, I've played noir horror, I've played bog-standard fantasy. I've played sci-fi, epic fantasy, and everything in-between. Which one of those was the "D&D feel"?

D&D, has, for multiple editions, offered little more than "generic fantasy". It's not laser-swords and mystical arts like Star Wars. It's not high-minded space exploration ala Trek. It's not eldritch horror like CoC. Sure, you can do these things with the system, as innumerable d20-variants have demonstrated, but by default D&D is none of those things.

So, what exactly is this mystical "feel" that 4E didn't include?

What dnd does if you play many sessions in a row is some sort of "from hero to superhero with time travel and planet explosions that travels between dimensions"
Few rpgs grants that experience even if there is some that allow to have such experience such as mutants and masterminds.

[Lord Raziere]

What dnd does if you play many sessions in a row is some sort of "from hero to superhero with time travel and planet explosions that travels between dimensions"
Few rpgs grants that experience even if there is some that allow to have such experience such as mutants and masterminds.

wat. :smallconfused:

Since when? I must have missed that between swinging a sword at the latest minion and checking for traps in a dungeon.

[False God]

What dnd does if you play many sessions in a row is some sort of "from hero to superhero with time travel and planet explosions that travels between dimensions"
Few rpgs grants that experience even if there is some that allow to have such experience such as mutants and masterminds.

Are you asserting D&D does this universally? That the meat grinders, the noir horror, the sci-fantasy, all provide this experience and it is so uniquely D&D that the experience is almost never found elsewhere in TTRPGs?

Am I understanding your assertion correctly?

[Silly Name]

I'm just gonna have to say it: What exactly is the "D&D feel"?

I've played so many D&D games. I've played meat grinders, I've played noir horror, I've played bog-standard fantasy. I've played sci-fi, epic fantasy, and everything in-between. Which one of those was the "D&D feel"?

D&D, has, for multiple editions, offered little more than "generic fantasy". It's not laser-swords and mystical arts like Star Wars. It's not high-minded space exploration ala Trek. It's not eldritch horror like CoC. Sure, you can do these things with the system, as innumerable d20-variants have demonstrated, but by default D&D is none of those things.

So, what exactly is this mystical "feel" that 4E didn't include?

Disclaimer: Never got to play 4e, have no strong opinion on it anyways, I think some of its ideas look nifty though.

For me, D&D is particularly good at a specific genre. It can satisfyingly integrate other genres, draw from them and use them as a springboard, but there's a very specific thing D&D is good at simulating: D&D.

D&D is very much something that took on a life of its own. It takes inspiration from previous works and myths, but the idea of the adventuring party of fighter, wizard, thief and cleric heading into a "dungeon" (no, not prison cells) to retrieve treasure or face some mighty enemy is something that really started to take form with D&D (and at first the thieves weren't there!). There are some vague precedents in Conan or The Hobbit, but it's not quite exactly the same. This idea in turn has come to be its own trend, inspiring fantasy stories that came out afterwards. And then it kept growing, integrating many styles of play and types of plots and it's a really weird mess, but strangely charming and, somehow, recognisable. Whether you're in a dark, damp dungeon fighting trolls, or running away from the elite elven knights and that damn Shield Guardian after a failed heist in the palace of a noble wizard, there's a lot of little contextual hints that scream "D&D" - the makeup of the player party being of particular note most of the time.

D&D is pretty good at doing its own strange subgenre of medieval fantasy where every mythological monster is out there, eldritch lovecraftian entities lurk at the edge of reality, and in the middle you have those bands of variably-heroic adventurers and you focus on how they deal with this strange world and to what degree (the abovementioned eldtrich horrors see relatively little play, but they exist in all monster manuals). Other games also try their hand at this, some more successfully than others, some giving it a very specific slant or edging closer to one of D&D's many sources.

And I realise this isn't a really good description, because D&D is really hard to properly describe. What it is and how it feels really depends on who you are and who you play with and when did you play. I think there is a "D&D feel" most affectionate players are able to recognise. I can tell you many great, fun systems I've played felt nothing like D&D, but I can't really point at this ephemeral qualia that makes me say "yep, this is D&D". I just know it's there.



No, I don't think I would, really. I've been gaming with most of my current group weekly for almost 20 years now, and we've tried the sort of thing you're talking about. The "let the GM do it" system seems to work best for us, mostly because not everyone in my group wants to create a world, though they've all had turns being a GM. YMMV.

I just want to say that I share AnonymousWizard's liking for games that involve players in the creative process to a greater degree, but I also agree that it's not something that automatically makes the game better. As you said, this style of play can simply not be appealing to certain players (I have exactly two players in my main group I think would be interested into this, and another player in another group with whom I alternate DM'ing who may enjoy it).

[kyoryu]

There's some validity to the "not feeling like D&D" argument, and I liked 4e.

Specifically, a lot of numbers were on a different scale than previous editions, and a lot of mechanics either inverted, got moved, got new names, or were old names on new mechanics.

[False God]

Disclaimer: Never got to play 4e, have no strong opinion on it anyways, I think some of its ideas look nifty though.

For me, D&D is particularly good at a specific genre. It can satisfyingly integrate other genres, draw from them and use them as a springboard, but there's a very specific thing D&D is good at simulating: D&D.

D&D is very much something that took on a life of its own. It takes inspiration from previous works and myths, but the idea of the adventuring party of fighter, wizard, thief and cleric heading into a "dungeon" (no, not prison cells) to retrieve treasure or face some mighty enemy is something that really started to take form with D&D (and at first the thieves weren't there!). There are some vague precedents in Conan or The Hobbit, but it's not quite exactly the same. This idea in turn has come to be its own trend, inspiring fantasy stories that came out afterwards. And then it kept growing, integrating many styles of play and types of plots and it's a really weird mess, but strangely charming and, somehow, recognisable. Whether you're in a dark, damp dungeon fighting trolls, or running away from the elite elven knights and that damn Shield Guardian after a failed heist in the palace of a noble wizard, there's a lot of little contextual hints that scream "D&D" - the makeup of the player party being of particular note most of the time.

D&D is pretty good at doing its own strange subgenre of medieval fantasy where every mythological monster is out there, eldritch lovecraftian entities lurk at the edge of reality, and in the middle you have those bands of variably-heroic adventurers and you focus on how they deal with this strange world and to what degree (the abovementioned eldtrich horrors see relatively little play, but they exist in all monster manuals). Other games also try their hand at this, some more successfully than others, some giving it a very specific slant or edging closer to one of D&D's many sources.

And I realise this isn't a really good description, because D&D is really hard to properly describe. What it is and how it feels really depends on who you are and who you play with and when did you play. I think there is a "D&D feel" most affectionate players are able to recognise. I can tell you many great, fun systems I've played felt nothing like D&D, but I can't really point at this ephemeral qualia that makes me say "yep, this is D&D". I just know it's there.




I just want to say that I share AnonymousWizard's liking for games that involve players in the creative process to a greater degree, but I also agree that it's not something that automatically makes the game better. As you said, this style of play can simply not be appealing to certain players (I have exactly two players in my main group I think would be interested into this, and another player in another group with whom I alternate DM'ing who may enjoy it).

So....the "D&D feel" is a specific sort of experience that the game lends itsself to?


There's some validity to the "not feeling like D&D" argument, and I liked 4e.

Specifically, a lot of numbers were on a different scale than previous editions, and a lot of mechanics either inverted, got moved, got new names, or were old names on new mechanics.

So...the "D&D feel" is a specific set of numbers and mechanics in a particular arrangement?

[kyoryu]

So....the "D&D feel" is a specific sort of experience that the game lends itsself to?

So...the "D&D feel" is a specific set of numbers and mechanics in a particular arrangement?

It's almost like it's a somewhat fuzzy, subjective thing, that's dependent on personal opinions and perception, and you're trying to lock it down to specifics as a way to somehow prove you're right.

Frankly, I think it's all of the above. I pointed out the number and mechanics thing because it's the most obvious to look at and see the difference. While HP and damage for new characters (for instance) is fairly compatible in OD&D, 1e, 2e, 3e, and 5e, they're on a totally different scale in 4e. And, yes, that can throw people off.

Spells requiring attack rolls.

"Saving throws" having nothing to do with what they used to.

All of those things add up to the game not feeling like the familiar, comfortable thing many were used to.

I personally didn't care, because when I started playing 4e I hadn't played D&D in a while. But even I had moments of that confusion, and I could see how people that were more invested in it would continue to do so.

Again - I like 4e. Definitely better than 3e, probably better than 5e.

[Silly Name]

So....the "D&D feel" is a specific sort of experience that the game lends itsself to?


Eh, partially? The kind of experience D&D creates is definitely important, but I think there are some mainstays of D&D across editions that you can't avoid, even when leaning towards other genres - for example, even if there are multiple "whodunit" mysteries one could run in a D&D ruleset, I would still expect a fight at the end and/or some other fights along the way. I would expect magic to play a role, and so on. Because I (and most people) associate some expectations with the phrase "we're playing D&D", the same way we associate certain expectations with "we're playing Risk". I won't be miffed if you bring out a slightly-modified Risk board or use a different ruleset with the one I prefer, but if you instead pull out Settlers of Cataan I'll be mighty confused.

Honestly, I strongly disagree with the attitude of "D&D as a generic system": it's not what it is, and falls flat on its face if you push things too much. What you can do is take a genre, transplant it into D&D-land, and see what changes, how well you can integrate this genre while also keeping its most distinctive and important features (for example, whodunit mysteries stop making sense if high-level divination magic is readily and easily available without the villain having countermeasures, so you either keep it low-level or get to work to figure out those countermeasures...).

There is still a very broad space of play as you pointed out - meatgrinder dungeons, noir mysteries, political intrigue, exploring ancient ruins, conquering and then managing kingdoms, etc - but you will notice a trend of all those options to converge on some peculiar D&D-isms, such as the combat encounter or the presence of "paladins" and "rangers" or having to go through a dungeon, at some points, and if they don't you may ask yourself "are we playing D&D anymore? If we want to run crime noir, why do we use D&D other than inertia?". Short bursts (one or two sessions) can go by relatively easy, and other times you can very successfully transplant some new pieces on your personal D&D experience (Eberron did a pretty good job, I think, for example), but the core experience of playing D&D remains.

Circling back to the original topic: ability scores may not be the most elegant or efficient system to use in an RPG, but the six ability scores, usually ranging from 1 to 20, are very ingrained into D&D's identity as something meaningfully distinct from the rest of the market. Sometimes the "ugly" and "clunky" may end up creating a functional experience anyways, and become mainstays.

[Anonymouswizard]

No, I don't think I would, really. I've been gaming with most of my current group weekly for almost 20 years now, and we've tried the sort of thing you're talking about. The "let the GM do it" system seems to work best for us, mostly because not everyone in my group wants to create a world, though they've all had turns being a GM. YMMV.

Again, my issues mainly come from the fact that note I've person is doing 99% of the work. It's certainly not for every group, but then again neither are druids. Hazing something doesn't mean you have to use it.

Also don't you just love it when players refuse to be involved in designing the setting and then send you a 6 paste backstory that contradicts what you've written?


There was an article on the Angry GM's site about players acting as "secondary GMs" not too long ago, and I generally agree with Angry:

Yeah, no. As far as I'm concerned they lost all credibility the moment they advocated for actively deceiving players about allowed character options.

Even before that their advice only worked for a specific style of game. So while I'll accept that works creation isn't for every group (I mean, in not going to stop the backstory less murder hobos), I'm calling an appeal to the Tunnel Visioned GM as bull****. At best their words are limited in applicability, at worst they tell you to break the social contract.

[Morty]

I can believe that 4E didn't "feel like D&D" to some people. But removing ability scores isn't even close to the changes it made - which, to be clear, were still very much within the D&D identity. Ability scores are just math. One of several sources of numbers behind a character. I don't understand being this attached to a specific arrangement of numbers on a sheet.

[Silly Name]

I can believe that 4E didn't "feel like D&D" to some people. But removing ability scores isn't even close to the changes it made - which, to be clear, were still very much within the D&D identity. Ability scores are just math. One of several sources of numbers behind a character. I don't understand being this attached to a specific arrangement of numbers on a sheet.

Closest example I can make is that at this point they sorta feel like D&D's team colours, and so do the base classes (sans warlock and artificer, at least to me, but they may be getting there). If your favourite soccer team switches to a new jersey and changes colours, it's still the same team. At the same time, many fans would complain about it because there exists an attachment to those symbols.

[noob]

Closest example I can make is that at this point they sorta feel like D&D's team colours, and so do the base classes (sans warlock and artificer, at least to me, but they may be getting there). If your favourite soccer team switches to a new jersey and changes colours, it's still the same team. At the same time, many fans would complain about it because there exists an attachment to those symbols.

I think some of the dnd 4e base classes were legitimately cool such as the warlord.
The closest thing conceptually to the warlord in other dnd editions is the marshal and 5e have no warlord equivalent(some might say that the mastermind is an equivalent but it is conceptually very different because the mastermind is a skilled and stealthy guy while the warlord is a charismatic and high profile guy).
If the warlord entered the classical base classes like warlock and artificer I would not have complained.

[Xervous]

I think some of the dnd 4e base classes were legitimately cool such as the warlord.
The closest thing conceptually to the warlord in other dnd editions is the marshal and 5e have no warlord equivalent(some might say that the mastermind is an equivalent but it is conceptually very different because the mastermind is a skilled and stealthy guy while the warlord is a charismatic and high profile guy).
If the warlord entered the classical base classes like warlock and artificer I would not have complained.

If the design intent had allowed warlord for 5e we’d be looking at a radically different game. One that assumed people wanted to play a complex class that did not derive its complexity from magic. If I was to point out one difference that sets 4e apart by feel, it’s the relative complexity of 4e classes vs their legacy counterparts, not so much the fact that everything was the same complexity. As 5e popularity polls demonstrate the design intent of “smooth sleek simple” fighter was on the mark for general player expectations and desires. 4e Martials were simply too much for players who were expecting fighting man and sneak thief. Similarly wizards were simpler than players expected.

[noob]

If the design intent had allowed warlord for 5e we’d be looking at a radically different game. One that assumed people wanted to play a complex class that did not derive its complexity from magic. If I was to point out one difference that sets 4e apart by feel, it’s the relative complexity of 4e classes vs their legacy counterparts, not so much the fact that everything was the same complexity. As 5e popularity polls demonstrate the design intent of “smooth sleek simple” fighter was on the mark for general player expectations and desires. 4e Martials were simply too much for players who were expecting fighting man and sneak thief. Similarly wizards were simpler than players expected.

I was speaking of the concept not of the mechanics.
A warlord could be a subclass of fighter with "battle orders: you can substitute one attack with the help action or with granting a move action or a single attack to an ally" and "second wind can be used on allies" it would be reasonably simple and feel like the warlord.

[Willie the Duck]

I'm just gonna have to say it: What exactly is the "D&D feel"?
...
So, what exactly is this mystical "feel" that 4E didn't include?

I think that's the thing -- no one really knows, but that doesn't change the state of affairs that for a some-to-a-lot of people*, 4e didn't include it. We don't get a vote in other peoples' opinions and we also can't really go out and find these people who didn't like the game and quiz them (much less have an opportunity to change their minds) -- they simply did not buy/did not continue to buy the game. That it is hard to quantify might be one of the reasons it comes up in discussions like this so frequently -- if no one knows what change is the change-to-many/much, you can apply that fear to any proposed change. That does limit how useful a tool it is in discussions like these of course.
*There are some claims that 4e actually failed for reason X, Y, or Z. Those being things like the marketing campaign (which did kinda belittle 3e or people who liked it), that people just weren't done with 3e yet, that the digital platform that never happened (later we learned because of a murder-suicide by a developer). I'm unconvinced -- too many people did initially start buying the system, and then reporting that they didn't like it/think they would use it much.

[Tanarii]

I think some of the dnd 4e base classes were legitimately cool such as the warlord.
The closest thing conceptually to the warlord in other dnd editions is the marshal and 5e have no warlord equivalent(some might say that the mastermind is an equivalent but it is conceptually very different because the mastermind is a skilled and stealthy guy while the warlord is a charismatic and high profile guy).
If the warlord entered the classical base classes like warlock and artificer I would not have complained.
Also the Warden with daily thematic shape shifting forms. And the Barbarian with daily Primal Rages. Both were amazing concepts.

The problem with the warlord, specifically, was it was highly dependent on a complex and battle-mat & minis oriented combat system. When they didn't port that forward, the class fell by the wayside. As did many other incredible things, such as attacks for fighters and rogues being far more than a basic melee attack.

[Jason]

Again, my issues mainly come from the fact that note I've person is doing 99% of the work. It's certainly not for every group, but then again neither are druids. Hazing something doesn't mean you have to use it.

Also don't you just love it when players refuse to be involved in designing the setting and then send you a 6 paste backstory that contradicts what you've written?Yes, they do that sometimes still. But character backstory is not exactly what we were talking about, is it?

Basically, the advice boils down to "let the people who want to do the work and enjoy doing it do the work." If the players want more of a hand in creating the world then give it to them, sure, but in my own experience this is seldom the case and it works better with one GM doing the world-building. And then you rotate GMs now and then to allow everyone a turn if they want it.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yes, they do that sometimes still. But character backstory is not exactly what we were talking about, is it?

Basically, the advice boils down to "let the people who want to do the work and enjoy doing it do the work." If the players want more of a hand in creating the world then give it to them, sure, but in my own experience this is seldom the case and it works better with one GM doing the world-building. And then you rotate GMs now and then to allow everyone a turn if they want it.

Sorry, this all comes from me not being clear and then getting defensive. To spell it out:

When I say 'this is how I'd change D&D', I'm talking about how I'd change it to appeal to me. I enjoy setting creation and as such I'd like to see it in D&D. Not everybody is going to like it, but of course if I'm going to change it I'm going to change it to suit me. I also think that there's a lot of people who'd legitimately enjoy setting creation minigames if they tried it, but I'll concede that there's also many people who don't or wouldn't.

[Jason]

Sorry, this all comes from me not being clear and then getting defensive. To spell it out:

When I say 'this is how I'd change D&D', I'm talking about how I'd change it to appeal to me. I enjoy setting creation and as such I'd like to see it in D&D. Not everybody is going to like it, but of course if I'm going to change it I'm going to change it to suit me. I also think that there's a lot of people who'd legitimately enjoy setting creation minigames if they tried it, but I'll concede that there's also many people who don't or wouldn't.
Fair enough. Thank you for clarifying.

[False God]

I think that's the thing -- no one really knows, but that doesn't change the state of affairs that for a some-to-a-lot of people*, 4e didn't include it. We don't get a vote in other peoples' opinions and we also can't really go out and find these people who didn't like the game and quiz them (much less have an opportunity to change their minds) -- they simply did not buy/did not continue to buy the game. That it is hard to quantify might be one of the reasons it comes up in discussions like this so frequently -- if no one knows what change is the change-to-many/much, you can apply that fear to any proposed change. That does limit how useful a tool it is in discussions like these of course.
*There are some claims that 4e actually failed for reason X, Y, or Z. Those being things like the marketing campaign (which did kinda belittle 3e or people who liked it), that people just weren't done with 3e yet, that the digital platform that never happened (later we learned because of a murder-suicide by a developer). I'm unconvinced -- too many people did initially start buying the system, and then reporting that they didn't like it/think they would use it much.

So if we can't really say what D&D's feel is, we can only say we didn't like or did like any given edition.

See, from my perspective, D&D has no feel. None. It is about the most default you can possibly get in a game system. Like, in D&D's own lingo, it's TN. Now, I say this because I use (quite literally) zero of the lore. D&D is more like a box of LEGO, lots of interesting colorful bits for me to assemble into whatever I want. And the lore that it does have I generally find unappealing, with either too little detail to be meaningful or too much detail that gets in the way.

So, 4E having or not having "the D&D feel" means nothing to me. No edition of D&D has a "feel" to me in the way Shadowrun has a feel, or the way CoC has a feel, or the way Rokugan/L5R. The "feel" comes from the mechanics being woven into the lore and making sense for the setting or the sort of game you're 9/10 times going to run. D&D doesn't do that. The mechanics and the lore are always divorced. The games you can run are myriad and can cover any of the games above and move (while they in return, typically cannot).

World of Darkness, for example, has a similar "lack of feel". The system is capable of running such a gamut of games and worlds, aside from its inherently grittiness, when playing it I don't get any sort of "feel" from it. The "feel" comes entirely from the story the DM tells and the people I play with.

If I had to really pin down the feelings I always have while playing D&D that are specific to D&D, it's like wearing a sweaty, worn-out sock. It mostly does its job, but needs a little changing. It mostly keeps your foot warm, except for the hole where your pinky toe keeps falling out. So, at best D&D is "a worn out but comfortable sock". All of my distinctly positive assotiations with playing it stem from the particulars of the table: the people, the characters, the events we played through. None of which are bound to D&D.

Did 4E "feel like D&D"? To me, yeah, except it felt like a new pair of socks. Still socks, but not ya know, soggy and worn.

[Williamnot]

I like the ability scores and hope they stay around. A lot of people have brought up how losing ability scores would mean losing rolling for abilities and such, but I feel like the ability scores show a characters ability in that area better than modifiers do. To me, an 18 charisma means one smooth mother****er, and a +4 charisma means "oh they're good telling lies". Just doesn't have the same feel to me. I suppose if I had only been given modifiers when being introduced, I would likely feel the opposite way, but that's my 2 cents.

[Anonymouswizard]

I like the ability scores and hope they stay around. A lot of people have brought up how losing ability scores would mean losing rolling for abilities

It doesn't. It requires another hoop to jump through if you don't want to rewrite your maths, like AGE systems having a 3d6 to score conversion table, but it didn't revive the possibility.

I've removed the rest of your post because, while entirely subjective, it's completely valid.

[Glorthindel]

So if we can't really say what D&D's feel is, we can only say we didn't like or did like any given edition.

See, from my perspective, D&D has no feel. None. It is about the most default you can possibly get in a game system. Like, in D&D's own lingo, it's TN. Now, I say this because I use (quite literally) zero of the lore. D&D is more like a box of LEGO, lots of interesting colorful bits for me to assemble into whatever I want. And the lore that it does have I generally find unappealing, with either too little detail to be meaningful or too much detail that gets in the way.

So, 4E having or not having "the D&D feel" means nothing to me. No edition of D&D has a "feel" to me in the way Shadowrun has a feel, or the way CoC has a feel, or the way Rokugan/L5R. The "feel" comes from the mechanics being woven into the lore and making sense for the setting or the sort of game you're 9/10 times going to run. D&D doesn't do that. The mechanics and the lore are always divorced. The games you can run are myriad and can cover any of the games above and move (while they in return, typically cannot).

World of Darkness, for example, has a similar "lack of feel". The system is capable of running such a gamut of games and worlds, aside from its inherently grittiness, when playing it I don't get any sort of "feel" from it. The "feel" comes entirely from the story the DM tells and the people I play with.

If I had to really pin down the feelings I always have while playing D&D that are specific to D&D, it's like wearing a sweaty, worn-out sock. It mostly does its job, but needs a little changing. It mostly keeps your foot warm, except for the hole where your pinky toe keeps falling out. So, at best D&D is "a worn out but comfortable sock". All of my distinctly positive assotiations with playing it stem from the particulars of the table: the people, the characters, the events we played through. None of which are bound to D&D.

Did 4E "feel like D&D"? To me, yeah, except it felt like a new pair of socks. Still socks, but not ya know, soggy and worn.

For me, its easy to pin the "D&D feel" the more you have played similar-but-not systems. Its easy to pigeonhole D&D as generic-medieval-fantasy-mashup, but when you play other systems, you can clearly detect a difference.

I have played (and ran some of) Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Hackmaster, Rolemaster (as itself and as MERP), and Pendragon. All are medieval fantasy, but rules aside, it doesn't take long to sense the differences. The games are built with very different ethos's, and the mechanics at a fundamental level play into that. You could play D&D using the Warhammer Old World as a campaign setting easily enough, but within a couple of encounters, you would feel the difference between that and WFRP - even with the best efforts, without extensive modification (at which point you might as well be playing WFRP) you wont be able to capture the intrinsic feel of the WFRP Old World. Hell, original Hackmaster used a modified version of AD&D for its rules, but even then, there is a tangible difference you can detect before you even get out of character creation.

I wont go to far into the '4th ed debate', but it was clear before you even rolled a dice that something was 'off' (Disclaimer: I did still give the game an honest go). For me, it was apparent before I had even got past the character creation section. I think my first 'negative' thoughts were "that seems like a lot of hit points" (with the implication that that would change combat at a fundamental level, which I was right about) and "eh, elves start with a racial teleport, what the hell is that about?" (ok, we know Eladrin and Elves as a different thing now, but that was a big change to just throw out unheralded in the core rulebook, especially because alphabetical listing caused the Eladrin entry to appear before the Elf one, so the shock of the new came before the reassurance of the old - really bad planning there). Personally, I have always thought if they had named it "Dungeons and Dragons : Tactics", they would have got away with it, as sometimes all you need to do is set expectations right.

[Tanarii]

Personally, I have always thought if they had named it "Dungeons and Dragons : Tactics", they would have got away with it, as sometimes all you need to do is set expectations right.
Oh wow, yes. If they slap 'Tactics' on something it makes me go all shivery inside. I was conditioned by the awesomeness that was Combat & Tactics and Final Fantasy: Tactics. Both of which were probably the best thing ever released in their lines (says nostalgia of hours of fun gameplay with them).

[kyoryu]

See, from my perspective, D&D has no feel. None. It is about the most default you can possibly get in a game system. Like, in D&D's own lingo, it's TN. Now, I say this because I use (quite literally) zero of the lore. D&D is more like a box of LEGO, lots of interesting colorful bits for me to assemble into whatever I want. And the lore that it does have I generally find unappealing, with either too little detail to be meaningful or too much detail that gets in the way.

So, 4E having or not having "the D&D feel" means nothing to me. No edition of D&D has a "feel" to me in the way Shadowrun has a feel, or the way CoC has a feel, or the way Rokugan/L5R. The "feel" comes from the mechanics being woven into the lore and making sense for the setting or the sort of game you're 9/10 times going to run. D&D doesn't do that. The mechanics and the lore are always divorced. The games you can run are myriad and can cover any of the games above and move (while they in return, typically cannot).

Oh, I totally disagree. I think D&D has a very specific feel that no other game comes close to. If it doesn't have a feel for you, it's just because (likely) it's been your primary system for so long that to you "D&D" is the standard for RPGs, and so everything else is measured in relationship to it.

As far as D&D running any game... I mean, at the end of the day, any system can... if you try hard enough. I don't think D&D is very good at it. Even 3.x, the edition best at "running any game", doesn't do a fantastic job of it. D&D's conceits are very much baked into it - zero-to-superhero progression, high focus on combat, faux-medieval world, Vancian magic, lots of magic item acquisition, etc.

OTOH, GURPS, BRP, Fate, Savage Worlds, HERO (and I'm sure others)... these systems are still somewhat limited in what they can do (any game run in any of them will have some "feel" of that game), but any of them can do "anything" much better than D&D can do... ironically, the only thing they don't do well is run "D&D".



I wont go to far into the '4th ed debate', but it was clear before you even rolled a dice that something was 'off' (Disclaimer: I did still give the game an honest go). For me, it was apparent before I had even got past the character creation section. I think my first 'negative' thoughts were "that seems like a lot of hit points" (with the implication that that would change combat at a fundamental level, which I was right about) and "eh, elves start with a racial teleport, what the hell is that about?" (ok, we know Eladrin and Elves as a different thing now, but that was a big change to just throw out unheralded in the core rulebook, especially because alphabetical listing caused the Eladrin entry to appear before the Elf one, so the shock of the new came before the reassurance of the old - really bad planning there). Personally, I have always thought if they had named it "Dungeons and Dragons : Tactics", they would have got away with it, as sometimes all you need to do is set expectations right.

It's interesting because you've hit on two of the things that I pointed out as causing that feeling... numbers being at different scales (like HP), and organization (in this case a new race being before an old one) leading to assumptions that just... aren't correct.

Similar things happened with "spells" being split into "powers" and "rituals", causing people to assume that the old spells weren't there (they mostly were), etc. I was also told all non-combat skills were gone, when the changes from the skill list were fairly minor, all told.

I think it depends a lot on what you "want" from D&D, and your viewpoint. If you're not deeply embedded in D&D play, I think it looks very much like D&D. If you rejected 3e, some parts of 4e look "more D&D" than 3.x, while others still look odd. If you're a heavy 3.x player, I think it's the worst, since so many things look almost but not quite like D&D that every time you think you see something familiar, it ends up being different and throws you for a loop. All the familiar things that you reach for just aren't there.

[Jason]

Oh, I totally disagree. I think D&D has a very specific feel that no other game comes close to. If it doesn't have a feel for you, it's just because (likely) it's been your primary system for so long that to you "D&D" is the standard for RPGs, and so everything else is measured in relationship to it.Undoubtedly. Anyone who has spent time playing other fantasy games will see before long that the "feel" of D&D is quite discernable.
All of those d20-based games with different genres that came out during the OGL era ended up feeling more like 3E D&D than completely different systems for the same settings do. Compare for example Rokugan d20 with "vanilla" Legend of the Five Rings, or Traveller T20 with Mongoose Traveller, or d20 Call of Cthulhu with 5th edition CoC. Even GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, which is an attempt to do D&D with GURPS rules, feels very different from actual D&D.

[Glorthindel]

It's interesting because you've hit on two of the things that I pointed out as causing that feeling... numbers being at different scales (like HP), and organization (in this case a new race being before an old one) leading to assumptions that just... aren't correct.

I have always maintained a lot of 4th eds problems was in presentation; problems that wouldn't have been problems if they had just presented it right, but were amplified by the way they did present it.

Take for example, the oft-used remark that "it feels like a video game". Sure, its an overblown statement, and not really fair, but one that gets re-used often. You know where that feeling came from for me? The Magic Item section. The second I read the word "slot" when referred to item locations, it stopped me cold like being slapped around the face with a large cod. Sure, they just used it to explain why you couldn't wear multiple magic rings, or why you couldn't wear a set of bracers and a bracelet at the same time, but the terminology was just wrong, and evoked the wrong imagery. Its a terminology that evokes WoW or Diablo, not D&D. My character is putting gloves on his hands, not "dropping them in a hands slot". Sure, in the long run it means the same thing, but enough of these things presented wrong, and the reader has their back up, and they are in the mood to not like it before they have even given it a fair shake.

[kyoryu]

I have always maintained a lot of 4th eds problems was in presentation; problems that wouldn't have been problems if they had just presented it right, but were amplified by the way they did present it.

Take for example, the oft-used remark that "it feels like a video game". Sure, its an overblown statement, and not really fair, but one that gets re-used often. You know where that feeling came from for me? The Magic Item section. The second I read the word "slot" when referred to item locations, it stopped me cold like being slapped around the face with a large cod. Sure, they just used it to explain why you couldn't wear multiple magic rings, or why you couldn't wear a set of bracers and a bracelet at the same time, but the terminology was just wrong, and evoked the wrong imagery. Its a terminology that evokes WoW or Diablo, not D&D. My character is putting gloves on his hands, not "dropping them in a hands slot". Sure, in the long run it means the same thing, but enough of these things presented wrong, and the reader has their back up, and they are in the mood to not like it before they have even given it a fair shake.

Oh, for sure. A presentation pass, a polish pass, and a differentiation pass would have done tons.

... you could argue that, in many ways, 5e is exactly that. Even look at the first two accelerated levels in 5e

But yeah, I think you're 100% correct. I actually think that it's less "video-gamey" and more "Magic: the Gathering-y". I mean, they had power cards! That you tapped! And the technical language is very much in line with that, and the goal (more Organized Play) as a driver seems also in line with that.

[Morty]

Once again, I feel like pointing out that 4E didn't do anything to attributes. The only reason it's being discussed is because it was used as a deflection to avoid actually addressing the question of whether ability scores are necessary.

[kyoryu]

The relevance is that people react very strongly to things that, in their minds, trample on their particular sacred cows of D&D.

Ability scores have been in D&D from the beginning, and have always been scaled (roughly) the same.

Ability scores are not "needed". D&D can be written without them, and other games exist that don't use them. The issue is whether that change would be accepted, and I frankly doubt it.

4e is the perfect example of a game that caused very strong reactions due at least in part due to "not looking like" D&D.

[Democratus]

Once again, I feel like pointing out that 4E didn't do anything to attributes. The only reason it's being discussed is because it was used as a deflection to avoid actually addressing the question of whether ability scores are necessary.

No. It was used as an example of how modifying the rules of the game can remove the feel of D&D.

Removing attributes is a modification of the rules.

All entirely on topic.

[Morty]

The relevance is that people react very strongly to things that, in their minds, trample on their particular sacred cows of D&D.

Ability scores have been in D&D from the beginning, and have always been scaled (roughly) the same.

Ability scores are not "needed". D&D can be written without them, and other games exist that don't use them. The issue is whether that change would be accepted, and I frankly doubt it.

4e is the perfect example of a game that caused very strong reactions due at least in part due to "not looking like" D&D.

I just feel like there's no comparison. 4E does feel different in play than other editions, for better or for worse (that's up to debate). I don't see how removing ability scores while leaving modifiers would have anywhere near this kind of impact.

[kyoryu]

I just feel like there's no comparison. 4E does feel different in play than other editions, for better or for worse (that's up to debate). I don't see how removing ability scores while leaving modifiers would have anywhere near this kind of impact.

That was part of the pushback for sure.

Other parts were things that really were just presentation - changing spell saving throws to spell to-hit (just changed who rolled), moving spells into "powers" and "rituals" (the same utility stuff existed, just organized differently) and so on.

[Jason]

I just feel like there's no comparison. 4E does feel different in play than other editions, for better or for worse (that's up to debate). I don't see how removing ability scores while leaving modifiers would have anywhere near this kind of impact.

My group still rolls attributes. We would object.

[False God]

As far as D&D running any game... I mean, at the end of the day, any system can... if you try hard enough. I don't think D&D is very good at it. Even 3.x, the edition best at "running any game", doesn't do a fantastic job of it. D&D's conceits are very much baked into it - zero-to-superhero progression, high focus on combat, faux-medieval world, Vancian magic, lots of magic item acquisition, etc.

See, I disagree that those things are so baked in. Zero-to-superhero progression is moderated by reduced XP gain and slower XP progression tables, or ya know, just not (ala E6). The focus on combat is only mechanically baked in. It's easy to not engage in it. And obviously as I've mentioned I've already run several games that weren't faux-medieval with little discernable effort. Vancian magic is partially avoidable via spell-points but arguably vancian magic is also my least favorite element of non-4E D&D, well, of TTRPGs period that aren't just bad systems on the whole. And again, high magic item acquisition seems to be more a default assumption in online discussion boards than it has ever been my experience at a table. (1/10 DMs I think, do high-magic-item drops, the rest almost universally swerve into low-magic and low-magic-items)

Again, I find non-4E D&D highly modular. It's made up of a lot of little elements that can be taken in part or in whole in a way that a number of more focused games with a specific genre and feel just can't. Because of that, there's very little (IMO) "feel" to any of the given parts, or even any of the given parts combined.

But don't get me wrong, I like the lack of feel. It allows much more room for the things I actually get feeling from to prosper. Like, the feeling of L5R is always going to be that kind of romanticized feudal Japan thing. Doesn't really matter what kind of game you're playing, combaty, gritty, horror, intrigue, it's all still romanticized feudal japan horrow/romance/intrigue/grit/etc... I can run romanticized feudal japan in D&D just fine, with whatever flavor I want, precisely because the game systems inject so little "feel" into the actual gameplay. Because on the flipside, if I don't want to play romanticized feudal japan, I have to set down my L5R books and pick up something else.

[Jason]

But don't get me wrong, I like the lack of feel. It allows much more room for the things I actually get feeling from to prosper. Like, the feeling of L5R is always going to be that kind of romanticized feudal Japan thing. Doesn't really matter what kind of game you're playing, combaty, gritty, horror, intrigue, it's all still romanticized feudal japan horrow/romance/intrigue/grit/etc... I can run romanticized feudal japan in D&D just fine, with whatever flavor I want, precisely because the game systems inject so little "feel" into the actual gameplay. Because on the flipside, if I don't want to play romanticized feudal japan, I have to set down my L5R books and pick up something else.
Interesting example, since there is a d20 version of Legend of the Five Rings and AEG used basically the same system for their Seventh Sea swashbuckling pirate/renaissance intrigue game. I would say that d20 Rokugan feels much more like 3e D&D than does "vanilla" Legend of the Five Rings, but 7th Sea doesn't feel at all like "romanticized feudal Japan" despite using the same basic mechanics as L5R.

[Anonymouswizard]

My group still rolls attributes. We would object.

I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I'm revising my answer slightly.

Nothing meanigful would hange, and there'd be no additional hoops to jump through. You'd roll and then look up your modifier in a table, but most people do that anyway. If we keep the modifiers the same and want the same distribution we don't even need to change the table from it's current iteration beyond the headers.

And of course, the operation is a simple floor(roll/2)-5.

[Lord Raziere]

But don't get me wrong, I like the lack of feel. It allows much more room for the things I actually get feeling from to prosper. Like, the feeling of L5R is always going to be that kind of romanticized feudal Japan thing. Doesn't really matter what kind of game you're playing, combaty, gritty, horror, intrigue, it's all still romanticized feudal japan horrow/romance/intrigue/grit/etc... I can run romanticized feudal japan in D&D just fine, with whatever flavor I want, precisely because the game systems inject so little "feel" into the actual gameplay. Because on the flipside, if I don't want to play romanticized feudal japan, I have to set down my L5R books and pick up something else.

I mean I understand the lack of feel being good, I'm just confused as to how DnD achieves it for you when there are so many universal systems that does it better without its DnD-isms getting in the way. to me DnD will always be a bizarre choice to consider a universal system.

[Jason]

I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I'm revising my answer slightly.

Nothing meanigful would hange, and there'd be no additional hoops to jump through. You'd roll and then look up your modifier in a table, but most people do that anyway. If we keep the modifiers the same and want the same distribution we don't even need to change the table from it's current iteration beyond the headers.

And of course, the operation is a simple floor(roll/2)-5.

But "+4 Strength" doesn't have the same feel as "18 Strength". Feel is meaningful, even if mechanically it works just the same. THAC0 works mathematically just the same as BAB, but the feel is not the same.

I still miss having "18/00 Strength" (or at least the possibility of having 18/00 Strength. Very few of my characters actually had 18/00). Removing even the 18 would be going too far. It would no longer be Theseus' ship.

[False God]

I mean I understand the lack of feel being good, I'm just confused as to how DnD achieves it for you when there are so many universal systems that does it better without its DnD-isms getting in the way. to me DnD will always be a bizarre choice to consider a universal system.

For two reasons:
1: D&D is well known and there are enough people skilled in it to make finding players easy and finding players who are willing to play *whatever* with the D&D system is also pretty easy. Even 5th-editioners (folks who started with 5E) are typically by this point skilled enough in the system to be open to new experiences beyond "generic quasi-medieval-but-not-really fantasy".
2: While I argue that D&D lacks a particular "feel", most "we can do anything!" systems are just plain dull. They've been opened up, widened out, watered down and generally genericized to the point where they're just not even interesting to run. D&D at least says "We're generic fantasy, but you can also do other stuff.". "universal systems" say "do whatever"...which isn't terribly inspiring.

Like, to go back to my LEGO analogy, D&D is LEGO, you're stuck working with a bunch of little blocks of various colors and while they have fixed sizes, shapes and colors to them, they're still general enough you could take the same pieces you used to build a house and build a boat, or a starship, or a gun. There is a starting point you can both build towards, and build away from. Instead of a house you build a space-house, or instead of a house you build a house-boat.

"Universal" systems on the other hand are like clay. Dull. Grey. Blobular. But with significant skill and effort you can forge something truly amazing. But if you lack that skill, you get something misshapen, half-baked and generally unpleasant. Further, there's no "jumping off point". You didn't get a clay shoe that you're going to reform into a clay cup, you got a clay block that you have to reshape into...something. It's a massive amount of effort for a comparatively minor result that could have been achieved via tweaking an existing if imperfect generic system.

[Lord Raziere]

"Universal" systems on the other hand are like clay. Dull. Grey. Blobular. But with significant skill and effort you can forge something truly amazing. But if you lack that skill, you get something misshapen, half-baked and generally unpleasant. Further, there's no "jumping off point". You didn't get a clay shoe that you're going to reform into a clay cup, you got a clay block that you have to reshape into...something. It's a massive amount of effort for a comparatively minor result that could have been achieved via tweaking an existing if imperfect generic system.

Eh, tweaking an imperfect generic system just doesn't feel right to me. by using one system for something its clearly not built for, your distracting from what your trying to actually do and it feels messy trying to use something with aesthetics and systems clearly built for a specific thing for something completely different. sure you can use it for that, but its fitting an already bad tool into an even worse slot. sure its a clay block, but at least its not a stone shoe your trying to use as a sword.

[False God]

Eh, tweaking an imperfect generic system just doesn't feel right to me. by using one system for something its clearly not built for, your distracting from what your trying to actually do and it feels messy trying to use something with aesthetics and systems clearly built for a specific thing for something completely different. sure you can use it for that, but its fitting an already bad tool into an even worse slot. sure its a clay block, but at least its not a stone shoe your trying to use as a sword.

But D&D has been used for everything, even officially. It may not have been initially designed for Rokugan, Spelljammer, CoC or Star Wars, but these all work fairly well. Referring back above, much of D&D's mechanics are already divorced from the lore. There aren't any particular skills or stats that aren't perfectly suitable elsewhere. There's no thematic reason to use AC (and a fair share of arguments against) or to use a 1d8 for a longsword. They're just indifferent mechanical aspects. Faerun doesn't care if your sword does 1d8 or 4d2. It's lore is just as divorced from the mechanics.

To me, D&D's "systems" aren't specific at all, and IMO, the designers put quite some effort into making the mechanics and the lore pretty easy to divorce. Sure the lore's all there if you want to use it. But if you stripped "D&D" off the character sheet, or "troll" off the monster stats, that sheet could be for a dozen different games and that monster could be a dozen different things.

[Anonymouswizard]

D&D is less like LEGO and more like an Airfix kit. Sure, you can turn it into a model of something other than what's intended, but it's going to take a lot of work, but on the other hand if you use it as intended you get a nice model. Or if I'm using my actual thoughts it's like MegaBlocks: it claims to be a construction you and then mainly gives you specialised pieces, but an Airfix model works for specialised systems.

A well done generic system is like a box of Lego bricks. You can build a ton of things with them, but you're limited by what bricks you have and when all put together it's not going to look as sleek and nice as an Airfix model.

And occasionally you get systems that are like a Lego model of the ISS. There's not a whole lot you can do with the set and have it look good, but if you don't want the ISS you can use the bricks with other bricks to make something new.


D&D is full of things that point out towards a very specific model of world and game. That's not bad, but it does imply a certain kind of feel.

But having played all three of the Big Generics, I can say that GURPS, Savage Worlds, and Fate all have specific feels to them and if you threw the same setting at all three you'd get different games. If anybody can find me an RPG without feel I'd be surprised, I'm sure if I played enough Fudge I could tell you how it felt.

[Tanarii]

D&D is less like LEGO and more like an Airfix kit. Sure, you can turn it into a model of something other than what's intended, but it's going to take a lot of work, but on the other hand if you use it as intended you get a nice model. Or if I'm using my actual thoughts it's like MegaBlocks: it claims to be a construction you and then mainly gives you specialised pieces, but an Airfix model works for specialised systems.
As someone that loves D&D ... I completely agree. And the newer editions aren't even very good at what D&D was for originally. Heck, D&D wasn't very good for a lot of the kinds of later modules released. It pretty much started to go downhill when TSR tried to shoehorn it into something other than dungeon or hex crawls.

That's why there are constant complaints about 5e lacking an exploration component. In an effort to make it more generic, WotC didn't emphasize and provide and even removed a lot of things that were designed around crawls, starting in 3e. In 5e they just try to handwave everything. At least in 4e they knew what they were building it for, 3-4 hour sessions of official play, with pickup tables and self-contained adventures heavy on tactical combat and heroics. There are lots of echoes of that in 5e, but they loosened up the structure to make it more generic, and then published a bunch of adventure-paths instead.

As such 5e ends up being like the Lego ISS, as you say. I just had a lot of fun building that 2 months ago, but it's a little janky looking on the stand it comes with and half the good stuff is out of sight when on the shelf, I couldn't make anything but the ISS out of it, and large numbers of the parts wouldn't be useful for anything else even if I were to combine it with other lego parts.

But, and this is the thing that I like, I just picked it up, followed the instructions, and had a blast. Even when I was a kid with dozens of space lego sets all parts mixed together, I'd rather put them all together from the plans. I'm not a fan of picking up a box of lego parts and building my own stuff from it. It always looks terrible and doesn't work right. That's how I feel about 'generic' systems. Or even point buy character systems.


But "+4 Strength" doesn't have the same feel as "18 Strength". Feel is meaningful, even if mechanically it works just the same. THAC0 works mathematically just the same as BAB, but the feel is not the same.How would you feel about ability scores that went from 4-10 instead of 8-20? With your bonus to a d20 roll being your ability score.

[Lord Raziere]

But D&D has been used for everything, even officially. It may not have been initially designed for Rokugan, Spelljammer, CoC or Star Wars, but these all work fairly well. Referring back above, much of D&D's mechanics are already divorced from the lore. There aren't any particular skills or stats that aren't perfectly suitable elsewhere. There's no thematic reason to use AC (and a fair share of arguments against) or to use a 1d8 for a longsword. They're just indifferent mechanical aspects. Faerun doesn't care if your sword does 1d8 or 4d2. It's lore is just as divorced from the mechanics.

To me, D&D's "systems" aren't specific at all, and IMO, the designers put quite some effort into making the mechanics and the lore pretty easy to divorce. Sure the lore's all there if you want to use it. But if you stripped "D&D" off the character sheet, or "troll" off the monster stats, that sheet could be for a dozen different games and that monster could be a dozen different things.

Yeah but.....

it just feels so......wrong to treat DnD that way, and its not because any particular love for the system, I kind of actively dislike it actually because of the way its designed. its so clearly NOT meant to be universal, and anything that is made from it to make something else feels so obviously kludgey and haphazard. and I don't get how people think its so easy to make it universal or why just because its a specific system forced into a thousand different specifics that it gets worse at the farther way its from its source that its somehow universal.

anything you could possibly make feels more like a reskinned DnD adventure than actual emulation. I know this because I've seen D20 conversions of some anime and they feel wrong because they have to adhere to the class-level system and thus its equipment style as well, when such anime aren't about getting loot, don't have dungeons and such. its like this one fanfic I've read where Naruto gets gamer powers: the author has to come up with this dungeon-like training ground that simply doesn't fit in with the rest of the world to justify random encounters, loot drops, mutant squirrels and whatnot to kill because of "leftover chakra" and it just feels so out of place, unnatural and forced in.

like, any DnD conversion just feels real videogamey in how its done and I just can't see that as a good conversion.

[Jason]

How would you feel about ability scores that went from 4-10 instead of 8-20? With your bonus to a d20 roll being your ability score.
Like it wasn't D&D. And my ability scores go from 3-18 before racial modifiers, not 8-20.

[False God]

like, any DnD conversion just feels real videogamey in how its done and I just can't see that as a good conversion.

You do realize that the design of like, 90% of action/adventure video games come from a D&D basis? A great many of them even use "random number generation", ie: dice rolls, in their base mechanics.

Saying D&D reskins feel "videogamey" is so weirdly circular.

Going back a couple posts, I mean, this IS video game design:

As far as D&D running any game... I mean, at the end of the day, any system can... if you try hard enough. I don't think D&D is very good at it. Even 3.x, the edition best at "running any game", doesn't do a fantastic job of it. D&D's conceits are very much baked into it - zero-to-superhero progression, high focus on combat, faux-medieval world, Vancian magic, lots of magic item acquisition, etc.

[Lord Raziere]

You do realize that the design of like, 90% of action/adventure video games come from a D&D basis? A great many of them even use "random number generation", ie: dice rolls, in their base mechanics.

Saying D&D reskins feel "videogamey" is so weirdly circular.

Going back a couple posts, I mean, this IS video game design:

I know. That doesn't stop it from being true though. the kludgy artificiality of it doesn't go away just because DnD was the origin.

the point is, it doesn't work for many worlds. it forces worlds that don't actually rely on equipment stat boosts to function to implement it even though it makes no sense. it forces world to treat everything as zero-to-hero progression even though it makes no sense. focus on combat, makes sense, I've yet to see d20 used for a world that doesn't focus on combat, but the last thing I want for some forms of combat is a tactical grid as if I'm playing Fire Emblem or other turn based strategy game.

[InvisibleBison]

But "+4 Strength" doesn't have the same feel as "18 Strength". Feel is meaningful, even if mechanically it works just the same. THAC0 works mathematically just the same as BAB, but the feel is not the same.

I still miss having "18/00 Strength" (or at least the possibility of having 18/00 Strength. Very few of my characters actually had 18/00). Removing even the 18 would be going too far. It would no longer be Theseus' ship.

Feel is meaningful, but it's also subjective. My first D&D was 3.5, and to me "18/00 Strength" feels equivalent to "18 Strength" - the slash reads as a decimal point. I've picked up enough from hanging around on these forums to know that's not correct, but that knowledge doesn't change how the feel. If 6th Edition did away with ability modifiers there would be lots of people for whom "+4 Strength" would feel just as strong as "18 Strength" does to me or "18/00 Strength" does to you.

[quinron]

I think a big thing that's made D&D feel more "universal" is the lack of a defined setting. The most you ever get in the core books is the brief rundowns on how the classes and races might fit into any given world and a list of gods with maybe a brief description of each. The official settings have always been a big source for content, sure, but the key there is settings - there's always more than one, and they're almost always supplementary rather than core. Many non-universal systems (especially the popular ones) have a built-in setting with a degree of metaplot and/or lore (see Shadowrun, Pathfinder, Warhammer, etc.). Core D&D is always "generic fantasy setting," and even with 5e being explicitly Forgotten Realms-based, the FR lore is still minimal.

[Anonymouswizard]

As someone that loves D&D ... I completely agree. And the newer editions aren't even very good at what D&D was for originally. Heck, D&D wasn't very good for a lot of the kinds of later modules released. It pretty much started to go downhill when TSR tried to shoehorn it into something other than dungeon or hex crawls.

That's why there are constant complaints about 5e lacking an exploration component. In an effort to make it more generic, WotC didn't emphasize and provide and even removed a lot of things that were designed around crawls, starting in 3e. In 5e they just try to handwave everything. At least in 4e they knew what they were building it for, 3-4 hour sessions of official play, with pickup tables and self-contained adventures heavy on tactical combat and heroics. There are lots of echoes of that in 5e, but they loosened up the structure to make it more generic, and then published a bunch of adventure-paths instead.

As such 5e ends up being like the Lego ISS, as you say. I just had a lot of fun building that 2 months ago, but it's a little janky looking on the stand it comes with and half the good stuff is out of sight when on the shelf, I couldn't make anything but the ISS out of it, and large numbers of the parts wouldn't be useful for anything else even if I were to combine it with other lego parts.

But, and this is the thing that I like, I just picked it up, followed the instructions, and had a blast. Even when I was a kid with dozens of space lego sets all parts mixed together, I'd rather put them all together from the plans. I'm not a fan of picking up a box of lego parts and building my own stuff from it. It always looks terrible and doesn't work right. That's how I feel about 'generic' systems. Or even point buy character systems.

Oh, I picked the ISS because I had a blast building it about a year ago, even if the model is better suited to a table than a shelf.

I'll agree with everything you say, with one additional note: D&D, especially 5e, are presented as things it isn't and some of those have been taken at face value. D&D is great when being used for what it's designed for, but the insistence on it having three 'pillars' while only giving rules for one of those areas, a tendency for people to assume it's a storytelling game when it isn't, and ab tendency to ignore all the setting implications in the roles. But if I want a dungeon crawl free systems are better for that than D&D, and it might say a lot that I've spent more time recently going cver the Rules Cyclopaedia then the current Player's Handbook.


I think a big thing that's made D&D feel more "universal" is the lack of a defined setting. The most you ever get in the core books is the brief rundowns on how the classes and races might fit into any given world and a list of gods with maybe a brief description of each. The official settings have always been a big source for content, sure, but the key there is settings - there's always more than one, and they're almost always supplementary rather than core. Many non-universal systems (especially the popular ones) have a built-in setting with a degree of metaplot and/or lore (see Shadowrun, Pathfinder, Warhammer, etc.). Core D&D is always "generic fantasy setting," and even with 5e being explicitly Forgotten Realms-based, the FR lore is still minimal.

The only way D&D is generic it's if you ignore all the food that is actually there. It's nondescript, but it has (in the latest edition):
-Active yet distant gods
-Multiple different types of magic.
-All these intelligent nonhuman species that come with their own fluff, sometimes pages of it.
-All that fluff that monsters have, although 5e might have got rid of that so it could wear a false moustache.
-Dangerous subterranean complexes filled with shiny things, a rare concept outside of it's descendants.

And that's just off the top of my head without going through the book, and editions like BECM had even more (hello explicitly assumed political systems and frontier lands). The end result is an arguably nondescript but not generic setting.

D&D's settings are great and some of them really break the mould, I've tried to move Dark Sun into about three other rules systems just so the magic makes sense. But at the end of the day they do start to struggle the further you get from Greyhawk. It's not like Fate, where a fairy tale, an intergalactic cooking show, the Gangsters of the Round Table and a gritty Quatermass homage all fit into the same system (and yes, all four of those are Fate settings).

[quinron]

The only way D&D is generic it's if you ignore all the food that is actually there. It's nondescript, but it has (in the latest edition):
-Active yet distant gods
-Multiple different types of magic.
-All these intelligent nonhuman species that come with their own fluff, sometimes pages of it.
-All that fluff that monsters have, although 5e might have got rid of that so it could wear a false moustache.
-Dangerous subterranean complexes filled with shiny things, a rare concept outside of it's descendants.

And that's just off the top of my head without going through the book, and editions like BECM had even more (hello explicitly assumed political systems and frontier lands). The end result is an arguably nondescript but not generic setting.

D&D's settings are great and some of them really break the mould, I've tried to move Dark Sun into about three other rules systems just so the magic makes sense. But at the end of the day they do start to struggle the further you get from Greyhawk. It's not like Fate, where a fairy tale, an intergalactic cooking show, the Gangsters of the Round Table and a gritty Quatermass homage all fit into the same system (and yes, all four of those are Fate settings).

I'm basically in agreement - I don't think D&D is actually generic. I just think this is one possible explanation for why people tend to view it as generic - because it is, compared to the most similar other properties, more setting-generic.

There's also the fact that, still being the most widely known system by a long stretch, D&D is most likely to attract new players, most likely to retain them once they start, and most frequently discussed online - all of that is simply a numbers and name recognition phenomenon. Because of all those factors, D&D is the easiest system for which to find homebrew that can make the game into something other than what it is. So while D&D isn't generic, there are probably enough subsystems and system overhauls homebrewed for it that you can turn it into something generic without too much effort.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm basically in agreement - I don't think D&D is actually generic. I just think this is one possible explanation for why people tend to view it as generic - because it is, compared to the most similar other properties, more setting-generic.

I think it might be a terminology issue as well, because we're basically in agreement. Which is why I brought up 'nondescript', universal suggests all-encompassing which isn't true for D&D even if we limit it to the fantasy genre.


There's also the fact that, still being the most widely known system by a long stretch, D&D is most likely to attract new players, most likely to retain them once they start, and most frequently discussed online - all of that is simply a numbers and name recognition phenomenon. Because of all those factors, D&D is the easiest system for which to find homebrew that can make the game into something other than what it is. So while D&D isn't generic, there are probably enough subsystems and system overhauls homebrewed for it that you can turn it into something generic without too much effort.

Oh, yeah, I'm not disputing that there isn't a wide variety of good (and not so good) stuff based on D&D, some of it even in other genres entirely. I actually really like Low Fantasy Gaming by Psikerlord, and think it does a lot to try and refocus the D&D structure on sandbox exploration (and the Deluxe Edition with additional theming is great).

[Jason]

Feel is meaningful, but it's also subjective.No, it isn't really. How someone reacts to the feel of a system is subjective, but the feel of a system is as fixed as the words that make up the system.

[Tanarii]

I'll agree with everything you say, with one additional note: D&D, especially 5e, are presented as things it isn't and some of those have been taken at face value. D&D is great when being used for what it's designed for, but the insistence on it having three 'pillars' while only giving rules for one of those areas, a tendency for people to assume it's a storytelling game when it isn't, and ab tendency to ignore all the setting implications in the roles. But if I want a dungeon crawl free systems are better for that than D&D, and it might say a lot that I've spent more time recently going cver the Rules Cyclopaedia then the current Player's Handbook.
5e isn't just people assuming it's a storytelling game when it isn't. The Developers wax lyrical about it being a storytelling game, it's the very first sentence in the PHB. When the only thing they included that slightly resembles a narrative tool is the Personality System and Inspiration. Which is a groundbreaking (for D&D)roleplaying aid, not really a narrative tool. About the only "storytelling" is closer to the old trope of railroading = storytelling, and publish some fairly linear adventure-paths.

Agreed BECMI (and RC specifically) has far better crawling tools built in. The checklists are awesome. It also has a better progression / outline of the transitions, dungeon -> wilderness -> ruler -> planar exploration/immortality quest. I consider it superior to AD&D (either edition) because of that.


No, it isn't really. How someone reacts to the feel of a system is subjective, but the feel of a system is as fixed as the words that make up the system.Brotha, people can't even agree on the meaning of written rules. And you want us to accept that the way systems feel is objective? :smallamused:

[Jason]

Brotha, people can't even agree on the meaning of written rules. And you want us to accept that the way systems feel is objective? :smallamused:
I'm saying it is objective. It doesn't matter if people accept that or not.

RPGs are fixed groups of words, just like any book. The feel or tone or character or whatever you want to call it of the system is fixed when the words are printed. If you go read the Original D&D rules the same words are there, even if you react differently to them today than someone who read them for the first time in 1974 reacted.

[Tanarii]

I'm saying it is objective. It doesn't matter if people accept that or not.

RPGs are fixed groups of words, just like any book. The feel or tone or character or whatever you want to call it of the system is fixed when the words are printed. If you go read the Original D&D rules the same words are there, even if you react differently to them today than someone who read them for the first time in 1974 reacted.
But that's not what objective means. Objective means personal feelings and opinions don't enter into the matter. The "feel" of something is inherently subjective. That's why we call it the feel in the first place.

[Jason]

But that's not what objective means. Objective means personal feelings and opinions don't enter into the matter. The "feel" of something is inherently subjective. That's why we call it the feel in the first place.

Which is perhaps why "feel" isn't the right word for it. Tone, character, or something else, perhaps.

If a movie is dark in tone then some people will like it, and some won't, and some will think it's too dark, and some will be fine with it, but those are all reactions to the tone, not the tone itself. The movie has a specific combination of sights and sounds that do not change from viewer to viewer, despite the change in reactions from viewer to viewer.

[Anonymouswizard]

5e isn't just people assuming it's a storytelling game when it isn't. The Developers wax lyrical about it being a storytelling game, it's the very first sentence in the PHB. When the only thing they included that slightly resembles a narrative tool is the Personality System and Inspiration. Which is a groundbreaking (for D&D)roleplaying aid, not really a narrative tool. About the only "storytelling" is closer to the old trope of railroading = storytelling, and publish some fairly linear adventure-paths.

It says a lot that groundbreaking for D&D had been part of the industry for at least eight years (Aspects appearing in Spirit of the Century, although 'metagame currency for playing your character as you defined' is far older). It also shows how little I've bothered to read the current edition, I basically own the PhB on sufferance and supplements only to expand chargen and have the one setting I care about.

So revise that to 'the designers spread barefaced lies as to what the game is'. At least when Evil Hat says it in Fate Core they have a firmer leg to stand on and generalise it to every game in the industry.


Agreed BECMI (and RC specifically) has far better crawling tools built in. The checklists are awesome. It also has a better progression / outline of the transitions, dungeon -> wilderness -> ruler -> planar exploration/immortality quest. I consider it superior to AD&D (either edition) because of that.

BECM is great (I have never read either version gf the Immortals rules, so I'm not counting them), and the RC is the one example of D&D doing core how I like it: an entire game in a single book. I really need to get it in print.

Like, I don't often want what D&D provides, bbut if I did I'd run either BECM or use it to support Basic Fantasy.


Brotha, people can't even agree on the meaning of written rules. And you want us to accept that the way systems feel is objective? :smallamused:

How dare you imply that somebody's opinion isn't universal! :smalltongue:

[quinron]

Which is perhaps why "feel" isn't the right word for it. Tone, character, or something else, perhaps.

If a movie is dark in tone then some people will like it, and some won't, and some will think it's too dark, and some will be fine with it, but those are all reactions to the tone, not the tone itself. The movie has a specific combination of sights and sounds that do not change from viewer to viewer, despite the change in reactions from viewer to viewer.

Just because something has objective correlates doesn't mean the effect it produces is objective. A movie can be technically proficient, capably written, and acted with conviction by skilled performers, but that doesn't mean it's objectively a "good" movie. It just means more people are going to subjectively consider it "good" than "bad." Consensus is not an empirical value.

[OldTrees1]

Which is perhaps why "feel" isn't the right word for it. Tone, character, or something else, perhaps.

If a movie is dark in tone then some people will like it, and some won't, and some will think it's too dark, and some will be fine with it, but those are all reactions to the tone, not the tone itself. The movie has a specific combination of sights and sounds that do not change from viewer to viewer, despite the change in reactions from viewer to viewer.

You are trying to communicate that objective differences in mechanics can create different textures. Players may notice or not notice different differences in texture. Players that notice a difference in texture might feel something about that difference.

Changing from the 3-18 ability scores to just modifiers (or ability scores equal to modifiers) is similar to the difference in TCGs having stats in the 1000s, 10s, or 1s. The math can be tuned to nearly or completely account for the difference during calculations. However some players might still notice a difference between a 14(+2)Str and an 8(+8 but DCs increase by 6)Str. The math will have those be equivalent but they might feel different because there is a texture difference.

Normally mechanical texture pops up as extra context for opinions when there is a difference in the math but opinions about the difference go beyond just the literal difference. Consider what the ludonarrative is saying about being able to do a whirlwind attack at will vs 3 times per encounter vs 12 times per day. Half of the difference is the frequency you can use it, but the other half is the difference between how at will vs consumable abilities feel (even when the number of uses are identical).


Would a change from 0-20 to 0-10 cause an issue for many players? I cannot tell. But I believe you when you say it will impact you.

[quinron]

You are trying to communicate that objective differences in mechanics can create different textures. Players may notice or not notice different differences in texture. Players that notice a difference in texture might feel something about that difference.

Changing from the 3-18 ability scores to just modifiers (or ability scores equal to modifiers) is similar to the difference in TCGs having stats in the 1000s, 10s, or 1s. The math can be tuned to nearly or completely account for the difference during calculations. However some players might still notice a difference between a 14(+2)Str and an 8(+8 but DCs increase by 6)Str. The math will have those be equivalent but they might feel different because there is a texture difference.

Normally mechanical texture pops up as extra context for opinions when there is a difference in the math but opinions about the difference go beyond just the literal difference. Consider what the ludonarrative is saying about being able to do a whirlwind attack at will vs 3 times per encounter vs 12 times per day. Half of the difference is the frequency you can use it, but the other half is the difference between how at will vs consumable abilities feel (even when the number of uses are identical).


Would a change from 0-20 to 0-10 cause an issue for many players? I cannot tell. But I believe you when you say it will impact you.

The first thing I could see changing in the "increase all DCs by 6" scenario is that a lot more beginners and non-optimizers would be willing to take what amounts to an ability penalty if the ability was getting a +4 (out of a total 10) rather than a -1. I actually think the notion of an ability penalty is pretty key to D&D's identity, or at least 5e's - by signaling to you that there are things you're bad enough at that your score hurts your end result, they increase the sense that you're a collaborative party that will need to cover each other's weaknesses. Though, of course, it's very easy (probably too easy, by my reckoning) to get rid of those penalties.

[OldTrees1]

The first thing I could see changing in the "increase all DCs by 6" scenario is that a lot more beginners and non-optimizers would be willing to take what amounts to an ability penalty if the ability was getting a +4 (out of a total 10) rather than a -1. I actually think the notion of an ability penalty is pretty key to D&D's identity, or at least 5e's - by signaling to you that there are things you're bad enough at that your score hurts your end result, they increase the sense that you're a collaborative party that will need to cover each other's weaknesses. Though, of course, it's very easy (probably too easy, by my reckoning) to get rid of those penalties.

I really like ability scores as something that can be damaged. Not only can you take hp damage, but necromancy can even bypass your hp to attack your Constitution directly. Unfortunately if a stat can be damaged it is more intuitive for 0 to be the death / failure state.

You bring up a good reason to want negative ability modifiers. Signaling to the player that there are things the PC is bad enough at they their modifier hurts their end result.

And this whole thread has been full of reasons to prefer ability modifier to be equal to ability score.

Is it just me, or is this a classic "pick 2 of the 3" situation? We can't have the minimum ability score be 0, have negative ability modifiers, and have ability score equal ability modifier. We can pick any 2.

[SunsetWaraxe]

Ability Scores have not needed to really exist for at least the last 21 years. They remain because they are something that many players associate with what makes the game feel like D&D (which was the entire goal with 5th edition).

[Mendicant]

I really like ability scores as something that can be damaged. Not only can you take hp damage, but necromancy can even bypass your hp to attack your Constitution directly. Unfortunately if a stat can be damaged it is more intuitive for 0 to be the death / failure state.

You bring up a good reason to want negative ability modifiers. Signaling to the player that there are things the PC is bad enough at they their modifier hurts their end result.

And this whole thread has been full of reasons to prefer ability modifier to be equal to ability score.

Is it just me, or is this a classic "pick 2 of the 3" situation? We can't have the minimum ability score be 0, have negative ability modifiers, and have ability score equal ability modifier. We can pick any 2.

I agree. Ability score damage and the intuitive benefit of negative modifiers hits at what I think is one of the disconnects this conversation keeps having. Ability scores separate from modifiers may or may not be necessary, but that isn't the same thing as deciding if they're useful. I haven't seen much reason why they're actively harmful; in fact, the ease with which they could lift out seems pretty directly correlated with how little harm they do if left in.

If the actual upside of keeping the scores is kinda small at this point, the net benefit of taking them out seems even smaller.

[DwarfFighter]

Ability Scores have not needed to really exist for at least the last 21 years. They remain because they are something that many players associate with what makes the game feel like D&D (which was the entire goal with 5th edition).
I disagree, at least with regards to 5e.

The basic premise is that any unskilled and average (human) character makes their tests at +0. They have not special training (proficiency bonus) or talent (ability modifier). Yet they do have basic competence that enables them to perform the action.

However, not all creatures are the same. Goblins, gelatinous cubes, dragons - these have characteristics where the average for their category is of different capability than that of a human (the presumed norm), and it makes sense to allow for lower or higher ability modifiers than +0.

Now, for some reason modifiers will not go below -5, but are practically unlimited as to how high they can go. I don't think this is an issue: players characters are the ones that experience the game world, and encountering extraordinarily powerful enemies is in keeping with the fact that the PCs advance in power themselves, while encountering extraordinarily weak or vulnerable creatures doesn't make for great drama, challenge, or excitement.

So what purpose do ability scores serve? Well, if nothing else they make it possible for ability modifier advancement to be more gradual. This is kinda enforced by ability scores in general coming in every 4 levels, but is kinda undermined by the characters getting 2 points to spend each time, which happens to be the "cost" of a full +1 increase. A wily player will quickly realize that it is better to invest both points in one ability to get the +1 now, and later invest both points in another ability, rather than invest a single point in both abilities and get two +1s when he has done so twice.

However, for my own character I found it a a worthwhile decision to invest my first ability score increase in the Resilience feat to gain proficiency with Dexterity saves, then spend the second ability score increase to get Dexterity to a even number and Wisdom to an odd number, and my next ability score increase will be invested in the Resilience feat to gain proficiency with Wisdom saves. What can I say, I like to have a better chance at making saves. This has resulted in my character having odd numbered abilities throughout his career, even if I had the possibility to round them out fairly early.

So, do ability scores have a purpose? Yes, if you go looking for reasons. But arguably they could fairly readily be replaced by plain bonuses in 6e. I like them, though. It's part of the DnD brand the way D20s, dragons and fireballs are.

[Anonymouswizard]

I disagree, at least with regards to 5e.

The basic premise is that any unskilled and average (human) character makes their tests at +0. They have not special training (proficiency bonus) or talent (ability modifier). Yet they do have basic competence that enables them to perform the action.

Eh, +0 as basic competence is arbitrary. It makes done sense in D&D and other 'roll plus add' systems, certainly, but it's still arbitrary.

As a side note it doesn't make sense in dice pool and roll under systems. But this thread has been focused in D&D, so I'll just now that those seem to assume basic competency is either about three dice or 50%.

As for slowing down Ability progression, well you can either award points more slowly, or lessen the impact of s point by tinkering with system maths. 5e mages the latter somewhat harder via its intention to keep PC modifiers under +20 at all times, but I'm sure if you put your mind to it you could work out a way. Maybe reduce Proficiency to compensate, grant proficiencies from leveling, or your Ability Score increases into z proficiency (get a +1 to an ability sure whenever your Proficiency Bonus increases?).

[DwarfFighter]

Eh, +0 as basic competence is arbitrary. It makes done sense in D&D and other 'roll plus add' systems, certainly, but it's still arbitrary.


Without insight into what the designers had in mind I can only look at what they have created. They put their system's origin point of +0 at the average ability score value (10-11), without training. That doesn't seem arbitrary to me.

-DF

[Anonymouswizard]

Without insight into what the designers had in mind I can only look at what they have created. They put their system's origin point of +0 at the average ability score value (10-11), without training. That doesn't seem arbitrary to me.

-DF

I'm this case it's arbitrary. A score of 10 could give you a +768 modifier, and as long as it held true for everybody the maths would still work. It being +0 might be easier to grasp for some people, but it being +0 instead of +10 is an entirely arbitrary decision.

10-11 being the average is also relatively arbitrary, although assuming random generation there's less practical values it could be. But I can come up with random generations for a wide variety of values, especially if I'm allowed to move beyond using d6s and include static modifiers.

But really whether or not the value is arbitrary is less important than whether we need the two separate values, and I got carried away due to a boring reason journey. But we can define our origin however we want, and nothing changes as long as it's the same for everybody (at least for standard checks, we might get some weirdness with things like D&D hp and damage).

[DwarfFighter]

I'm this case it's arbitrary. A score of 10 could give you a +768 modifier, and as long as it held true for everybody the maths would still work. It being +0 might be easier to grasp for some people, but it being +0 instead of +10 is an entirely arbitrary decision.

10-11 being the average is also relatively arbitrary, although assuming random generation there's less practical values it could be. But I can come up with random generations for a wide variety of values, especially if I'm allowed to move beyond using d6s and include static modifiers.

But really whether or not the value is arbitrary is less important than whether we need the two separate values, and I got carried away due to a boring reason journey. But we can define our origin however we want, and nothing changes as long as it's the same for everybody (at least for standard checks, we might get some weirdness with things like D&D hp and damage).

Starting out at +768 would indeed be arbitrary, as in "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system".

Starting out at a+0 for a presumed average and untrained character seems to fit with a reasoned decision. I can't say it's true, it just seems to fit the facts.

Anyway: The actual ability score values are occasionally used in the rules, though I can really only think of Strength being used to determine very specific in-world capabilities like how much a character can lift or carry in terms of weight, or how far they can jump in feet and inches. Not the most inspiring implementations, if you ask me, but there you have it - it's not nothing.

I don't know if that justifies keeping the ability scores as part of the system, but I'm not seeing any good arguments for removing them either. I can understand that a player can be annoyed that his character has an odd-numbered ability score like 13 that is functionally identical to having a 12.

If that is the actual issue you want to address there are lots of ways you can home brew rules for that, you can remove the odd-numbered values from play by having the players adjust their ability scores. You can have a rule that when you make an attack roll, saving throw or ability check with an odd-numbered ability you roll an extra dice for a 50/50 chance of adding +1 to the roll. E.g. Making a Strength 15 saving throw, roll 12d0 and 1d6. If the d6 rolls 4-6 you add +1 to the total.

Other than that, Wizards of the Coast seems to put out a lot of UA content. I am sure they would be intrigued to see a writeup that comprehensively removes the Ability Scores from the game.

-DF