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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 7177171" data-attributes="member: 5100">I'm going with: it depends.Overall, no. I prefer a player deterministic approach to the point where I'm really not even thrilled about racial modifiers, let alone floors and ceilings. If you envision dwarves as being super strong, then spend your points on strength. If you want to play a puny dwarf, for whatever character-driven reason, then put the points elsewhere. I do not care. As a GM, I'll just describe the dwarven race as being stronger and stat them accordingly. Obviously, there are limits to this; if, say, you allow a hill giant PC, then that can't be built by the normal character creation rules. But.... that can't be built be the normal character creation rules, so we're talking about a different baseline, anyway.AD&D, however, was balanced around a different aesthetic. Character creation used dice, not points. For dwarves to be sturdier, they had to get a bonus to constitution. There was no way to separate the narrative from the mechanics. Along with that came a preference to reward good rolls at character creation. I suspect some of it was to throw the PCs on a different XP table and to give them multiple dependencies, but that's somewhat beside the point. Characters were viewed as somewhat more expendable. Sure, many of them made it to name level, but those were often semi-retired, with their henchman taking the spotlight. New PCs generally started at 1st level, even if the rest of the characters were 8th or 9th. Enjoy that Ranger for the 30 minutes you're going to get to play it (unless you're pretty savvy). I would totally be willing to play this way, but it'd have to be whole-hog -- if we're playing with random stats, all PCs start at 1st level, there are "dead levels", no attempt at defining a balanced encounter, etc.But, I digress. You can have racial adjustments and min/maxes without the randomization. Hero uses soft caps (pay double points above 20, with setting rules available for racial variation) and it's a fine game. I still use the racial mods in 5E because it'd be more work to try to remove them (and, while I like home brew, I've grown to appreciate the value of standardization). Even where caps exist, I've never really used the caps by sex. Part of that may have been due to having all-male groups until 2E came out (which, IIRC, did away with them -- either that, or the women never wanted to play the brutes), so we never had cause to think about it.So, I guess my answer is "No, I don't miss them." But, I didn't hate them, either, for a certain play style.</blockquote>

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