Frankly, if the long-term consequences of doing away with ability score increases is that the fantasy genre as a whole gets less archetypal and more diverse? So much the better. I don’t believe for a second that would happen, but if it did? Awesome.
Of course it is not. But by blowing these expectations to smithereens you can also alienate new players. Fantasy is a genre filled with stereotypes (for good or bad) and some stereotypes takes a long (relatively speaking) experience in role playing to bypass and get over. Young players will readily accept that a woman can be as strong as a man (a good thing) but will have a hard time to accept that the halfling starts as strong as the half-orc beside it. It takes time and just saying because won't do it. It might also be a deterrent for some.
You say that like “rest more often” is a thing the players can just decide to do. If the adventure is built with proper time constraints and/or complications for stopping and resting, this isn’t a problem.
I have never seen a new player confused why a character of race A has a high score in stat B. I have, however, seen new players who want to play novel concepts be disheartened when they realize doing so would put them at a disadvantage. Frequently.
If you were near my area, I would invite you to my games. You'd see what gritty means. And we use the rules written in the game. No house rule save the strict enforcing of the 6 to 8 encounters per day. I have seen more TPK in 5ed than in any other edition combined.
On this I agree. But we did have our halfling barb. We had a Dwarven wizard, a half-orc sorcerer, a half-orc paladin, a dragonborn thief and even a thiefling ranger/rogue. As I said, playing the underdog can be fun, darn fun. It takes the will to be a bit behind the power curve and a good role play from the DM to make sure that the underdog thing comes as a surprise to the foes and is a worthwhile experience. No need to change the rules one iota for that.
Of course. Which is why resting in the middle of the dungeon should feel just as likely to result in their characters’ deaths than pressing on, and retreating to a safe place to rest should mean failing the quest.
Obviously. The key is to set up challenges such that, when factoring in those complications, stopping to rest does not seem like the safer option.
