NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 8277096" data-attributes="member: 59082">First off, if you want to try out this approach (and can convince your players), go for it. I always encourage experimentation - the game is yours to do what you want. And you are right; you don't "need" ability scores, or at least can play without them.That said, I think you are starting on a faulty premise. For one, Ability scores represent raw, untrained aptitude and thus aren't exactly the same thing as skills. Think of a baseball prospect who is super athletic, but raw. He might do very well in the low minors, but then start struggling in the higher minors, once his lack of skill development is revealed. If he develops his skills, he should become a good major leaguer, but if he instead relies only on his athleticism, he'll stall out. It happens a lot. But there's a different between a character with high aptitude and one with low aptitude when trying something they're not trained in. Some people are naturally better at athletics, sword-play, processing information, social interaction, etc. And the more natural talent you have, the more likely you are to develop that capacity into a skill. Furthermore, to follow along with what ECMO3 said, Wisdom and Intelligence are not the same thing, and this is relatively clearly defined in the rulebooks. I kind of see the difference between akin to right and left brainedness. The left brain (INT) is about processing information, while the right brain (WIS) is more holistic. Or to put it another way, INT is roughly synonymous with IQ (which is only one form of intelligence, as per people like Howard Gardner), and WIS is holistic awareness.Finally, and most importantly, D&D is a role-playing game and involves a player pretending to be a character. Part of the fun of it is trying to be something you're not, whether it is a brawny barbarian or a clever gnome or a wise cleric, etc. So it isn't "unfair" to penalize PCs with low Charisma in social interactions because that is the choice the player made in creating their character - to have a low CHA.If you get rid of Ability scores, you run the risk of making the game more about player skill and less about pure make-believe. So players that are good at social interaction will be good at social interaction, regardless of their character's stat sheet. The non-physical abilities and skills (INT, WIS, CHA) will become less meaningful and more based on the players themselves.If that is what you want, fine - go for it. But it takes out an element of role-playing that is traditionally part of the game. I mean, there's something kind of fun about a socially-awkward person playing a charismatic bard, or a physically weak person playing a vitalistic barbarian, or a hyper-rationalist left-brain thinker playing a wisely mystical monk. Isn't that partially why we love this game, that we get to pretend we're something that we're not?</blockquote>

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