What's the Point of Ability Scores? (Part V)

Before I post my final thoughts and musings on the matter of ability scores in Dungeons & Dragons, I wanted to bring our attention back to a few brief sections found in various rulebooks. OD&D (1974) does not, prior to the publication of Supplement I, place much emphasis on ability scores, mechanically or otherwise. Greyhawk greatly expands the scope of abilities, providing significant advantages to characters with high scores, to the point where players begin to feel that their characters need them. This perspective shift can be seen even in the Holmes Basic Rules (1977).

We touched on the notion of "hopeless characters" in an earlier post, but it's worth looking more carefully at what Holmes has written here. The rationale behind allowing a player to roll a different character is that those who are "below average in everything" might not fare well in "dangerous adventures." The emphasis is thus on survivability. Even so, Holmes go on to note that, chance being what it is, even "a character like this" might nevertheless survive and "advance to a position of power and importance." Moldvay's version of this section is more specific – a "hopeless" character is one with more than one ability score in the 3–6 range – and does not suggest that such a character might nevertheless succeed, despite his handicap.

I find these sections intriguing. Each in their own ways represents a subtle shift away from the idea that one ought to simply take what one gets when randomly generating ability scores. A similar shift is also evident in the first edition of Gamma World. Both Holmes and Moldvay leave final judgment of whether or not a character is "hopeless" up to the referee, as does James Ward in the case of Gamma World. The shift toward emphasizing the importance of ability scores is well under way, to be sure, but the role of the referee has not yet been downplayed or eliminated in the process of generating a player character. 

Toward the beginning of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook, Gary Gygax writes of abilities:

The range of these abilities is between 3 and 18. The premise of the game is that each player character is above average [italics mine] – at least in some respects – and has superior potential. Furthermore, it is usually essential to the character's survival to be exceptional (with a rating 15 or above) in no fewer than two ability characteristics.

Please take note of the section I have italicized: the premise of the game is that each player character is above average. That's a very far cry from Xylarthen! What's more fascinating, though, is that Gygax has flipped the perspective of Holmes and Moldvay. All three tie ability scores to survivability – evidence of their increasing mechanical importance since 1974 – but, whereas Holmes and Moldvay, see being "below average" as evidence of a character's unsuitability, Gygax instead sees being "above average" as a sine qua non. 

In the Dungeon Masters Guide, just prior to the section describing the various methods for generating ability scores, Gygax offers some further insight into his perspective.

While it is possible to generate some fairly playable characters by rolling 3d6, there is often an extended period of attempts at finding a suitable one due to quirks of the dice. Furthermore, these rather marginal characters tend to have short life expectancy – which tends to discourage players, as does having to make do with some character of a race and/or class which he or she really can't or won't identify with.

Talk about a shift in perspective! Once again, we see reference to survivability, but it's clear that's not Gygax's main concern. Instead, he's interested in ensuring that the player can generate a character that he can "identify with." I think that's a perfectly defensible position, even if I don't quite share it. Still, it's quite removed from OD&D in any of its forms. More significantly – and this will form the topic of my final post in this series – if one's intention is to ensure that all characters are "above average" and of a sort that each player can identify with them, what's the point of random generation at all? Indeed, what's the point of ability scores?

Part I | Interlude | Part II | Part III | Part IV