Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 6081745" data-attributes="member: 54877">That, and every item you add to such a list, which is supposed to affect the entire game (or else why even bother?), has consequences.&nbsp; Assuming we are going to have &quot;ability scores&quot; at all, then having only 1 is definitely too few, and there rapidly comes a point somewhere after 6-10 where it is definitely too many.&nbsp; The range in between is something to discuss.But then the second question is nailing down what in the game &quot;ability score&quot; is meant to handle.&nbsp; Whether very abstract or very specific, that decision should be somewhat consistent.&nbsp; So to pick some ability scores is to reject others.&nbsp; In games that I've found to work well in this regard, it works out that you usually end up with around 3-7 items in each such list--or if you have more, they are naturally categorized into subsets with about that many items in each subset.&nbsp; So I'm not inherently against having 8 ability scores in D&amp;D, though I am against simply adding another couple willy-nilly.&nbsp; Such a change requires careful consideration of what ability scores do--and don't do.&nbsp; I think after such an exercise we keep the traditional six, because such careful consideration of a list of 7 or 8 will not keep the original six close enough to their original form.&nbsp; Or in other words, I'm not impressed with the kneejerk simulationist instinct that thinks adding &quot;perception&quot; and &quot;comeliness&quot; to the standard six is both useful and not disruptive. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue&nbsp; &nbsp; :p"&nbsp; data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />&nbsp; Done well, it might be useful and highly disruptive.&nbsp; Done poorly, it might be not at all disruptive, but practically useless.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 6081745, member: 54877"] That, and every item you add to such a list, which is supposed to affect the entire game (or else why even bother?), has consequences. Assuming we are going to have "ability scores" at all, then having only 1 is definitely too few, and there rapidly comes a point somewhere after 6-10 where it is definitely too many. The range in between is something to discuss. But then the second question is nailing down what in the game "ability score" is meant to handle. Whether very abstract or very specific, that decision should be somewhat consistent. So to pick some ability scores is to reject others. In games that I've found to work well in this regard, it works out that you usually end up with around 3-7 items in each such list--or if you have more, they are [I]naturally [/I]categorized into subsets with about that many items in each subset. So I'm not inherently against having 8 ability scores in D&D, though I am against simply adding another couple willy-nilly. Such a change requires careful consideration of what ability scores do--and don't do. I think after such an exercise we keep the traditional six, because such careful consideration of a list of 7 or 8 will not keep the original six close enough to their original form. Or in other words, I'm not impressed with the kneejerk simulationist instinct that thinks adding "perception" and "comeliness" to the standard six is both useful and not disruptive. :p Done well, it might be useful and highly disruptive. Done poorly, it might be not at all disruptive, but practically useless. [/QUOTE]

Verification