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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9825299" data-attributes="member: 7035894">Inherent disparity makes those games MUCH worse if you aspire to be more than a spectator at the highest levels. You can argue that it makes them better entertainment, but I don't think disparity makes them better games.Whereas in a tabletop game, we don't have to have random disparity. So why should we? We control all the variables. Nobody is born with a certain size, brain, personality, etc.As a form of entertinment, 100%. But if you were actually playing them as a TTRPG, I suspect the person playing Hawkeye would feel pretty useless in most situations when compared to the person playing Thor, once the dice start rolling. Yes, a skilled DM could try to balance things ("Oh look, another trap that involves pinpoint accuracy!"), but most of the time, it's not gonna feel like you're contributing much.If D&D was pure roleplay, this becomes less of an issue. But it's still a game. With a lot of rules and a lot of rolls. Balance is normally very important in games. When we play Eldritch Horror, each character is different and you can argue about which are better or worse overall, but it is clear that the designers were at pains to make them as close to equal as possible. Ditto Pandemic, or whatever. Same for almost all TTRPGS that aren't D&D or D&D clones like Pathfinder.Going back to my example, would soccer be a better game if we randomly assigned some kids to have an extra disadvantage at the start, like one less shoe? I think we all agree that no, it would not. It doesn't make sense to make the parts of the game that you can control unfair. People inherently rebel at that.I played D&D for years when rolling was the only method, and I can't think of one time when the game was improved by some players having better ability score totals than others. And I can think of lots of times when it was a problem. Maybe not a huge problem, but it was there.</blockquote>

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