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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6298404" data-attributes="member: 27160">What gives you to be sure that beings with different narrative importance must necessarily NOT be substantively different? Why should we not conceive of a world where that is true?As an aside, I remember the first time that I ever realised that it was possible to have a game where &quot;monsters&quot; were statted just as PCs were, with attributes (STR, DEX, etc. - which they never had in AD&amp;D) and skills. It was when I read a White Dwarf article detailing an adventure for RuneQuest; the &quot;monsters&quot; had skills and personalities and everything. It came as a complete revelation to a school kid initiated only in D&amp;D (this would have been around 1978, I guess), because that was not how monsters worked in our D&amp;D games at all. For a while I became besotted with the idea that this was the &quot;only right and true&quot;(TM) method to do things - &quot;Monsters are People, Too!&quot;, we would cry - but I have since realised that there are just two ways of doing things that are just different. Both&nbsp; methods are good for different &quot;modes&quot; of play, there is absolutely nothing wrong with either. It is a division much like the classed/classless one, actually; both structures have their uses and are fine methods in their own right - they are simply different. Of course, you can't combine both methods into the same game very well, which seems (inexplicably, to my mind) to give some folks &quot;issues&quot;. The answer is simple, though - play several different RPGs!!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6298404, member: 27160"] What gives you to be sure that beings with different narrative importance must necessarily NOT be substantively different? Why should we not conceive of a world where that is true? As an aside, I remember the first time that I ever realised that it was possible to have a game where "monsters" were statted just as PCs were, with attributes (STR, DEX, etc. - which they never had in AD&D) and skills. It was when I read a White Dwarf article detailing an adventure for RuneQuest; the "monsters" had skills and personalities and everything. It came as a complete revelation to a school kid initiated only in D&D (this would have been around 1978, I guess), because that was not how monsters worked in our D&D games at all. For a while I became besotted with the idea that this was the "only right and true"(TM) method to do things - "Monsters are People, Too!", we would cry - but I have since realised that there are just two ways of doing things that are just different. Both methods are good for different "modes" of play, there is absolutely nothing wrong with either. It is a division much like the classed/classless one, actually; both structures have their uses and are fine methods in their own right - they are simply different. Of course, you can't combine both methods into the same game very well, which seems (inexplicably, to my mind) to give some folks "issues". The answer is simple, though - play several different RPGs!! [/QUOTE]

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