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<blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 7632868" data-attributes="member: 1210">My experience was that almost any character, regardless of stats, could be fun to play, and that almost any character, regardless of stats, was one bad roll away from death or other career-ending disaster. So my favorite, and highest level, fighter that I played in 1e (he probably made around... 11th level?) had a Str of 16 and never had a strength-boosting item. Yet he was an awesome character and really fun, which certainly fits my definition of &quot;viable&quot;. Meanwhile, characters with great stat arrays would fail a save vs. Poison and die. Or catch a lethal disease and die. Or get exposed to yellow mold/green slime/toxic gas and die. It really wasn't a matter of rules so much as attitude and style of play. Not if it's what someone enjoys. Even if the appeal is 100% nostalgia, if a game scratches that itch, if it is fun because of that, awesome- have fun. It's not for me to cry badwrongfun.I'm not sure who is insisting on what here, but in general, I'd say that rules definitely inform the experience of play, and some rule sets definitely enable some play styles better than others. Sure, you can do the work to tweak any system for any style, but it's often easier and better to just work with something that is already suited to what you're after.Anyway, I never found the range between two characters with differing stats to be game-breaking or fun-stopping. It just wasn't like that for me. Maybe some of that was DMs being more prone to fudge; maybe some of it was that we were a bit more cavalier with pc lives when one bad roll could end you and about half of all pcs died at first level.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="the Jester, post: 7632868, member: 1210"] My experience was that almost any character, regardless of stats, could be fun to play, and that almost any character, regardless of stats, was one bad roll away from death or other career-ending disaster. So my favorite, and highest level, fighter that I played in 1e (he probably made around... 11th level?) had a Str of 16 and never had a strength-boosting item. Yet he was an awesome character and really fun, which certainly fits my definition of "viable". Meanwhile, characters with great stat arrays would fail a save vs. Poison and die. Or catch a lethal disease and die. Or get exposed to yellow mold/green slime/toxic gas and die. It really wasn't a matter of rules so much as attitude and style of play. Not if it's what someone enjoys. Even if the appeal is 100% nostalgia, if a game scratches that itch, if it is fun because of that, awesome- have fun. It's not for me to cry badwrongfun. I'm not sure who is insisting on what here, but in general, I'd say that rules definitely inform the experience of play, and some rule sets definitely enable some play styles better than others. Sure, you can do the work to tweak any system for any style, but it's often easier and better to just work with something that is already suited to what you're after. Anyway, I never found the range between two characters with differing stats to be game-breaking or fun-stopping. It just wasn't like that for me. Maybe some of that was DMs being more prone to fudge; maybe some of it was that we were a bit more cavalier with pc lives when one bad roll could end you and about half of all pcs died at first level. [/QUOTE]

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