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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6799715" data-attributes="member: 6787650">We must have played AD&D differently then. I played two styles: one was Gold Box computer games in 1E and the Dark Sun games in 2E, and those were very much 5 minute work-day style games where resting back to full after almost every encounter was the norm (and if wandering monsters came along, you just dealt with them); the other was small AD&D 2nd edition games where the emphasis was on sneaking and contingency planning before an engagement and good use of spells (Fire Trap multiple places in the orc base) and having the right spells in the first place. Attrition is a component of that model, but not in the 5E sense of "nothing is really a threat until repeated encounters grind you down first."I don't believe that any such roleplaying system could ever be interesting to me. In order to completely negate the differential effects of player intelligence and skill, the game would have to be simpler than Checkers, on the same level as Chutes and Ladders.You can try to push 5E in this direction by having the optimizers build characters for the other characters, which would make them look equal on paper, but then when it comes to the part I'm actually interested in (actual game time, interacting with the world) you will find that the skillful players will rapidly outpace the unskillful ones, because the unskillful ones do ineffective things like blow their 9th level spell slots on Chromatic Orb IX (true story) and don't know when to play defense/Dodge (instead of rolling another attack for 8 HP of damage) and don't think to Hide when they're being chased and never come up with creative uses for a Bag of Devouring, etc., etc.In short, you can't negate the effects of intelligence in a roleplaying game unless you remove the possibility for some decisions to be better than others. From my perspective, if all choices made at game-time are viable, then no choices are meaningful. (Which BTW is precisely why I find DMG-balanced Medium/Hard encounters meaningless and boring. They're balanced to be beatable even if all you do is charge into the 10' x 10' room and start making attack rolls in melee.)TL;DR I'll believe in it when I see one.</blockquote>

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