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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9018094">This is how I did it in all my campaigns. And most groups i was in used method 1. I think for me it was one of the things that made the transition into 3e a bit of a culture shock The idea though is you normally roll then pick class. So if you are going with the 7 Con on a fighter, that is still a choice (because you could have made a wizard). But to your point, you would then suffer the Con penalty. And obviously every region and even every town was different in how it approached D&D back then. In the groups I played in, because we were in high school from like 90 or 91 to 95 (can't even remember what year I graduated), I think we were very much absorbing the zeitgeist of the time (Storyteller was big, a lot of games were leaning into things like cinematic play rather than tactical, etc). I ran Ravenloft and that was a lot more about characters and mood than whether your fighter was effective (a fighter who was tortured by failure was considered a more interesting character than one who hacked his way to the lich lord). I am not saying this is the one true way. Like I said, I think both the 3E and the 2E era have their own value in that respect. I just remember the mindset around this stuff often being very different. But that isn't to say you didn't have guys trying to optimize. It was also a time when, at least in my experience, groups were often less coherent in terms of all adhering to a particular gaming philosophy. So you might have a pretty mixed group with someone who was really into making compelling personalities, someone who wanted to kick down doors and kill orcs, someone who very into solving puzzles, etc. Again I think it is about extremes here and also about group dynamics. If you have a group who wants to focus more on role-play, less on combat, and deal more with the inner worlds of the characters, it is pretty non-problematic for someone to intentionally make a wizard who is bad at casting spells. Where it becomes a problem is when these styles are creating conflict in the group One thing I like about 2e is it is harder to optimize than 3E. You can do just about anything with 3E, and that is great for players who are good at optimization (as a GM running 3E I got good at it and learned to appreciate it because I had to in order to make the game function). But in 2E optimization got you very little juice for the squeeze. So I feel the overall disparity between characters wasn't as noticeable anyways (sure if someone has a 6 strength and is the fighter, that is going to matter, but it isn't the catastrophe it might be in 3E where your party really needs to be a well oiled machine).</blockquote>

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