D&D 5E What if we got rid of stats entirely?

[Pedantic]

My preferred take on this is still Scott Gearin's reworking of the core 6 for his Alabaster system. Skills are evenly divided between them, and they completely separate ranged accuracy, melee accuracy, defense, health and perception into different attributes.

The key is to look at the mechanical impact of each attribute, and then design them with an eye toward keeping those all equally desirable. The goal of character building becomes squeezing out a strong enough advantage to justify/push an edge from not staying perfectly even across the board. Specializing is expensive and produces a character that will play differently.

 

[FrogReaver]

Flaws, however, are notorious for their min/max potential.

Somewhat less problematic are specializations, which at least have that min/max as part of the design - rather than have a fighter who is good at everything, you have the fencer, who is super-good with fencing blades, but really don't ask him to pick up a two-handed sword.

Strange. I find it 10x easier to find and pick the optimal specialization.

I find my most memorable characters are well above average in their main schtick, while having a serious deficiency in another game area.

Whether there is an actual flaw or I just significantly dump a stat, I really want the flaw for my characterization.

 

[Cadence]

One of my favorite games at the moment is Fate Accelerated.
No classes, no skills. You have 5 Approaches, 3 to 5 Aspects, and a couple of stunts. That's it.

There is no difficulty differentiating between my former non-commissioned officer in Her Majesty's service from my wife's super-science botanist noblewoman. Really. You won't get them confused at all.

I played in a four or five session game of fate once. Do use it for things like a longer campaign as well?

 

[Corinnguard]

The trick to keep everything from being samey

Determining your ability scores by rolling the dice, using a point-buy system or choosing from a standard array of numbers are one part of the customization process used by players in any RPG in order to make sure that their characters differ from everyone else's character. Your choice of species, background, class, subclass, skills, feats, spells and gear further help distinguish one character from one another. Role-playing your character also helps because you have your own role-playing style.

So I don't think any of us has to be concerned about our characters being clones of one another.

 

[FrogReaver]

Determining your ability scores by rolling the dice, using a point-buy system or choosing from a standard array of numbers are one part of the customization process used by players in any RPG in order to make sure that their characters differ from everyone else's character. Your choice of species, background, class, subclass, skills, feats, spells and gear further help distinguish one character from one another. Role-playing your character also helps because you have your own role-playing style.

So I don't think any of us has to be concerned about our characters being clones of one another.

I do.

 

[Corinnguard]

I do.

Even with the amount of customization already being offered by 5e?

 

[overgeeked]

You could easily tie proficiency bonus (or double proficiency bonus) to things you should be good at as part of your race, class, subclass, background, etc. That would effectively remove the need for ability scores and mods. There's something similar about removing skills in the DMG. You could easily take it a step further.

One way to do it would be prof from any of those sources and expertise if you have multiple sources that cover the same thing.

For example, a dwarf ranger trying to track orcs underground. Racial enmity of orcs, racial proclivity for being underground, ranger class tracking, etc. would get double prof for that task whereas someone who's only a ranger would get prof.

It could easily work.

 

[FrogReaver]

Even with the amount of customization already being offered by 5e?

Yes. Are there any combinations you will not play?

 

[Corinnguard]

Yes. Are there any combinations you will not play?

There are character classes, backgrounds and species that I don't have any interest in role-playing. However, I have only been role-playing 5e for almost three years, and I am still role-playing my second 5e character.

 

[Voadam]

Flaws are generally detriments with an incentive to work around them in and out of game. Having flaws as an advantage that provide a benefit gives an incentive to lean into the hopefully interesting and fun flaw. So for 5e say a flaw is a straight up feat you pay for but every time that flaw activated you got inspiration you would then have an incentive to have your flaw come into play.

The trick then would be to come up with interesting fun flaws that add fun elements to the game but are not problematic for the game.