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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6656407" data-attributes="member: 42582">As  [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] says, this is just not true.In Tunnels & Trolls, monsters and NPCs aren't statted the same way as PCs at all - they just have "monster dice", no ability scores, spells or weapons that are mechanically broken out. (There is an optional rule that allows statting up monsters like PCs. But it is optional. It also warns that this will tend to make monsters more dangerous, because monster statted up using "monster dice" have a fairly steep death spiral - losing dice to damage also reduces combat potency because it reduces the number of dice rolled - whereas T&T PCs do not have a death spiral.)In AD&D, a man-at-arms has 4 to 7 hit points (1d4+3), whereas a bandit has 1d6 hit points. Man-at-arms attack sa 0-level fighters. It's not entirely clear whether bandits attack as 0-level fighters or on the appropriate column on the monster chart. Then there are the hit point ranges for 0-level NPCs set out in the DMG. Then there are 1st level sergeants who have 1d10 hp but are unable to gain levels, and have on average fewer hit points than a man-at-arms while also having a better attack table. Then there is the rule for NPC half-orcs attacking using the monster chart rather than the classes chart.None of this was based on a principle that there is one and only one way of statting up a particular individual!Rolemaster is similar to AD&D, in that many NPCs have a simplified stat range that is not broken out or built out of components in the same way that a PC's is. Later RM Companions had rules for giving monsters stats like PCs. HARP, a Rolemaster derived system that is contemperaneous with 3E, differs from RM precisely in following 3E-style build principles for monsters (eg monster skill bonuses are constructed out of skill ranks + stats, etc).There is no universal principle of RPGs that monsters and NPCs are to be built as PCs.The bizarre thing is that Tunnels & Trolls, one of the oldest RPGs around and predating the 1980s, is by your standards not a traditional RPG.What you are calling a traditional RPG is really something that became the norm in the mid-to-late 80s, under the influence of systems like HERO and Runequest and Rolemaster (which then affected D&D design in 3E). In the 1970s and early 80s D&D wasn't a "traditional RPG" by your standards, and despite attempts to regularise it through supplements like DSG and WSG, and then via a certain strand of 2nd ed, it wasn't until 3E that it became fully "traditional"!</blockquote>

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