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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gothmog" data-source="post: 1628892" data-attributes="member: 317">Mark, this is exactly what I was going to suggest.  Back in 1992, the 2E AD&D group I gamed with was getting WAY into the rules and powergaming.  I was running a weekly game, and I started to get really burned out with all the rules discussion.  Finally I got to the point I couldn't take it anymore, and we took a break from gaming over the summer between high school and college.  We decided we'd start gaming again in August, and I'd run a new campaign world I would make over the summer.  I'd been working on my homebrew world, which was a rare-magic dark fantasy medieval mirror world with strong Lovecraftian and horror elements.  I was getting excited about running it, but not if I had to put up with the rules lawyering.As I sat and thought about it, I realized what had made the game tedious for me was the players obsessing over every little rule detail, and trying to twink out their characters (we were using the Complete Handbook series if I remember correctly).  So two weeks before the game was to start, everyone came over to make characters, and I told them this crazy idea I had- that the players wouldn't have access to numerical data about their character other than the prime ability scores (since they had to generate them) and their level.  No AC, no HP, no THAC0, nothing.  While there was some protesting at first, they eventually accepted to try it for five sessions, and then we'd re-evaluate to see how everyone liked it.  Those first five adventures were incredible!  The former rules-layers and powergamers actually GOT INTO CHARACTER, role-played, and had the times of their lives.  They unanimously decided to keep the numerical values secret (I took care of all the calculations, hp, AC, etc) since they felt it added so much more to the game to be able to identify with their characters as people rather than as stat blocks to be optimized.  I still let them roll their dice, but I figured in any damage mods, etc.  It sounds like a lot of work, but after the first session or two, I found I had memorized all the combat data for each character, and what I didn't memorize I had on an Excel spreadsheet in front of me.  Twelve years later I'm still running the same campaign, with many of the same characters, and its still a blast (although we only get to play a few times a year now).  Definitely give the secret stat method a try BelenUmeria, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.</blockquote>

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