D&D General Hypothetical: D&D without ability scores (or bonuses)

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Not sure why this..

Skills
Animal Handling
Arcana
Charisma
Constitution
Deception
Dexterity
History
Intelligence
Intimidation
Medicine
Nature
Perception
Performance
Religion
Sleight of Hand
Stealth
Strength
Survival
Wisdom

... would be not-D&D.

 

[Marc17]

Seems removing the ability scores and bonuses would make the PCs a little bit less powerful and even less differentiated from each other, just to make the game trivially less complicated. Would I play it? There are few games I wouldn't play at least once, but I don't see such a change being a net positive for the game and would probably hurt my chance of ever playing it twice.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Just coming in orthogonal, but I think of D&D as a vibe. It's a mashup of Critical Role, Stranger Things, the six funny and 1 (or 3) "normal - aka Monopoly" dice, Baldur's Gate 3, settings, nostalgia, and ALL the various ways people roleplay where they do a tavern scene or a locked door scene or a fight a dragon scene or chase through dungeon corridors scene or mystically attune to a wondrous item scene or figure out a trap or... or... or...

Personally, I call all the OSRs D&D's, wherein D&D isn't a proper noun, it's a common noun, capital D's notwithstanding. (I include both the retro-clones like OSRIC as well as the NSR stuff like Cairn, Dolmenwood, et al. Even Stonetop I'd consider a D&D - although it's way out on the edge).

So coming back to the OP - yeah, I'd call it D&D still if you didn't have the 6 stats. But boy it had really better hit the vibe right with everything else, or it's a different thing.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Seems removing the ability scores and bonuses would make the PCs a little bit less powerful and even less differentiated from each other, just to make the game trivially less complicated. Would I play it? There are few games I wouldn't play at least once, but I don't see such a change being a net positive for the game and would probably hurt my chance of ever playing it twice.

If one removes the 6 abilities, I would imagine monsters would lose them too. i.e. your less powerful comment would apply to monsters as well.
If they did not then some sort of other measurement would be required on behalf of the PCs.

 

[Tigris]

The question was inspired by multiple threads in which people were talking about the balance inherent in rolling for stats versus point buy, or how very good luck or bad luck had impacts on whether a character was fun to play, etc... It occurred to me that if you just eliminated Ability Scores entirely, you could eliminate those potential problems and arguments as well.

You can just remove the long outdated rolling for scores, like most d&d clone games and most D&D players nowadays do, if thats the concern.


If everyone is using a GOOD standard array (like in 13th age) or fixed stat increases like in pf2 then this old bad gamedesign element (which made the whole game a lot more luck dependant) is easily removed.

 

[Reynard]

You can just remove the long outdated rolling for scores, like most d&d clone games and most D&D players nowadays do, if thats the concern.


If everyone is using a GOOD standard array (like in 13th age) or fixed stat increases like in pf2 then this old bad gamedesign element (which made the whole game a lot more luck dependant) is easily removed.

Sure, but there is definitely more interesting design space and discussion juice in eliminating them.

 

[mellored]

IMO
Keep the scores for saves and skill, but don't them to attacks, spell DC, HP.
Also, classes add to scores. Strong people don't become barbarian, being a barbarian makes you strong.

I.e.
Roll 4d6, drop lowest.
Fighters then add +2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con.
Background and species can add a another + few.

But irrelevant of the scores, Fighters always have +3 to hit with all weapons, scaling as they level and being higher than other classes.


That also simplifies the character building. Your to-hit and HP is just on the level chart.


So a Goliath Farmer turned Fighter (18 Str) would be able to lift a lot more and have better Str saves than a Halfling Merchant turned Fighter (14 Str), but they both equally good at wielding weapons.


Also, a rule that says small creatures who grapple big ones effectively ride them. A Halfling grappling a Dragon would get a different kind of bonus than a Goliath grappling a fairy.

 

[Tigris]

Sure, but there is definitely more interesting design space and discussion juice in eliminating them.

Ah sure with this I agree.

I personally like attribute (but as bonus direcrly not as score), but there is of course also interesting possibilities without.

 

[Willie the Duck]

The 6 attributes are the most sacred of the D&D legacy elements. But what if we just eliminated them entirely? What if we just used skills, proficiencies, feats, etc to define what a character is good at mechanically?

Could D&D be D&D without ability scores? Would you play D&D without ability scores?

I've long said that with the addition of weapon specialization, NWPs/skills, feats, and all these other ways to differentiate characters, that attributes have become one of the least interesting ways of doing this differentiation. This is doubly so as attributes (at least in the classes most associated with them) have moved from a handy way to get a +10% bonus to a real and consistent bonus, to a major bonus, to an effectively required high score. This means that there are few if any weak fighters* or dumb wizards** or unwise clerics running around, and the best way to play a 12 Str fighter since 1975 has been to find a way to make their Str be not-12 (through ASIs, magic items that replace rolled stats, or strategic restarting with new characters/chances to roll stats).
*dex-based fighters being an exception, but one that just means there are two alternative scores to which you need one to be high.
**yes, yes, 5e you can theoretically make 8-int wizards work -- with some very specific niche builds.

That said, this has been mostly an argument against making attributes be an integral part of a class's basic gameplay architecture. If you could actually make a weak fighter or dumb wizard or the like (or just be able to put your most middling stat there and focus your high/low stats on your wizard's wisdom or your fighter's intelligence or the like) then suddenly attributes could be character-defining again. To do this, I would try making attributes only count for a few things (not class-role-definitional). Maybe just skills and related checks (jumping, climbing, etc.). Maybe saves as well, or even tangential class role stuff like encumbrance (just not to-hit and damage, etc.). This would mean you could reasonably play Taran the pig-keeper (from The Chronicles of Prydain) as a Str 8-10 boy knight-aspirant, or a Puss in Boots-style Int-based fighter or rogue, or similar.

Mind you, none of these require attributes to actually go away. However, I am suggesting that they don't matter overly much for various aspects of the game (the part where fighters hit things with swords and wizards cast spells to solve problems, etc.). Whereupon, I guess they become optional, if not actually requiring them. Whether you could then remove them and it still 'be D&D' is one of those subjective feelings-based things that are hard to pin down. Generally I'd leave them in with some kind of mechanical usefulness, but exactly what or how much, I am not sure.