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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tomBitonti" data-source="post: 5718869" data-attributes="member: 13107">I think to answer this one needs to go beyond a question of whether there should be ability scores, or exactly six of them, since many games have ability scores (and D&D flirted with Comeliness).   One must also consider how the operational/function details of the ability scores.  That is:Whether to use a normal distribution (more along the 3d6 model) than the more current point buy with most scores in the middle and one or two high values?What portion of ones power level is derived from ability bonuses?How hard is it to improve ability scores?  Does one gain more points as one levels, and, are ability boosting items common or expected?Just looking at D&D, while all of 1E, 3E, and 4E use the same six abilities, these are not the same in all three cases: I have to say, 3E and then 4E on top of it seemed to change the basic flavor of abilities, such that 3E seems to be quite different than 1E.I also think it's worth considering different ability schemes, for example:1E D&D (normal curve; more random)3E D&D (point buy; expectation of 26 in prime state at later levels)4E D&D (dual stats for saving throws)And:Rolemaster (increase to 10; 1-100 scale; actual + potential)WHFRP, WH40K (etc) (1-100; increased by +10 by experience purchases; narrow initial ranges; direct use for resolution)I can't remember how Traveller did character attributes, and didn't play RQ or Vampire to know how those were done.Out of all of this, I found that I rather miss the sense of the attributes distinguishing characters as having different raw attributes, with 18 Str fighters being rare (~1 in 200), and, for games up to about 10'th level, the attributes not changing hardly at all.  That is, I rather am not liking the 3E way of using attributes, and 4E even less.  I find that I don't like how the initial raw ability is overwhelmed by player abilities at later levels.  At the least, I would prefer to limit initial abilities (so -2 to -4 on everything at the start), with reaching potential only at a higher level.I found Rolemaster to be alright, although, there was somewhat too much variance.I'm not sure how it plays, but the WH scheme seems to be interesting (I've read a lot of their rules, but haven't played it yet.)TomB</blockquote>

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