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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8405873" data-attributes="member: 58172">The original post describes my creating a system (a character sheet) that allows the DM and players to choose whether to have four abilities, or the traditional six.I did this by separating out Perception and Abilities as separate abilities. So that the eight could pair off into four, or correspond arrange according to the six.To my surprise, the eight too as eight separate abilities seem reasonably balanced with each other.So the system (the character sheet) allows the table to choose during the ability score generation, whether to have four, eight, or six ability scores.These eight are great, because some gamers are "lumpers" and like to consolidate and some gamers are "splitters" and like to quantify smaller details. Hence, choose four, six, or eight depending on ones own style.Going beyond the original post.The eight derive from a bottom-up analysis of the gaming system. Which mechanics do players normally roll during a gaming session? These are the mechanics that need to organize in a way that is salient and useful and about equally balanced with each other.(Top-down analysis tends to create categories that sound like a comprehensive simulation. But in practice, some of these categories fail be useful during actual gameplay, because they lack meaningful mechanics that make them valuable. Consider the current imbalance between Dexterity and Intelligence. Being "smart" or "educated" sounds like something that should be valuable, but knowledge skills are problematic during gameplay, and there are no other mechanics for Intelligence. Knowledge is problematic because if a DM needs players to know something, the DM will inform them one way or an other regardless of Intelligence score, and oppositely, if the DM doesnt want the players to know something, they will never know it, regardless of Intelligence score. The DM has gamist reasons to divulge information. Thus the usefulness of Intelligence varies from DM to DM. Personally, because my DM style adjudicates narratively, before resorting to dice-rolling, I often use knowledge skills to determine success if a story idea is plausible but uncertain. So, our games get alot of mileage out of knowledge skills − and Intelligence.)I am surprised these eight seem roughly balanced with each other. One of the benefits of having fewer abilities − four − is the lumping makes it easier to bundle an assemblage of mechanics that is roughly equal to other assemblages. Because the abilities convey assymetric benefits (such as Strength extra damage versus Wisdom charm resistance), I didnt think it was possible to split the abilities into eight and have them balance each other. But I consider these eight comparable. I find it worthwhile to invest pointbuy and increases in any of them.There is still value in lumping. For example. For the Strength-Constitution pair, one aspect gives active abilities that help compensate for the boringness of the passive aspect. For the Intelligence-Perception pair, the perceptive aspect is very useful mechanically and happens often during a gaming session, whereas the intelligent aspect of lore is useful for controlling a narrative but more nebulous mechanically. The pairing combines aspects that complement each other, and make each of the four overall choices more holistic and robust choices.I prefer mechanical "elegance", making the abilities as simple as possible but not simpler. So both consolidation and flexibility are valuable to me. This is why my gaming style prefers four abilities.But splitting is a legitimate gaming style too, and having eight separate abilities can finetune a concept carefully.</blockquote>

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