But What About the Paladins?

The 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons will officially release on the 19th of August.  I have already pre-ordered my copy partly because I am damned curious about the full new release and partly because I entertain notions of actually playing.  I have downloaded and read through the free basic rules, 100 pages of pdf with no pictures but the essentials to play.  I was impressed enough with the basic rules to make the order.  One thing that the free rules do is point to the Player's Handbook as having more options and I want to see those options.  I have reason to believe there will be paladins.
I have reason to believe this because the Basic Rules mention paladins a few times (and bards as well) but only has the four basic classes of Fighter, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard.  I have every confidence the other favorites will be in the full PHB but what I do not have every confidence in is that they will not suck.

This is my major concern then: will the paladin suck this go round?

I've explained this before, I seem to recall.  Twice to be more accurate.  In the days before the horribly egalitarian method of play we see today, the post MMORPG method of play, paladin was one of those special classes that had entry requirements.  Yes, it is a pain when you don't roll well enough to get the requirements but that was what made those classes special.  These days not so much.  Of course once everybody can be everything everybody has to be on par with each other and play their role and the poor paladin gets left out in the cold.  Doesn't heal or turn as well as a cleric, doesn't fight as well as a fighter.  It's a sad hybrid if you take away the special qualities required to get the job.
Then of course there is the problem where players confuse a special ability with the "only thing a class can do".  That's a shame because the ability to put a hurting on evil, into which undead and demons fall, should not be the only thing a class can do.  However it happens, with the stat addiction fully in effect players foolishly think that if there is no bonus to something then that is something a class or character does poorly.  "Oh you don't even get a +1 unless we are fighting undead.  You should just let the real damage dealers handle it."
Which is total bullshit but that's people for you.  Now if you are getting negatives I can understand that attitude.
"I shall pick the lock!" Sir Hopeless said bravely.
"Let me handle that, plate-boy," said Skulky McShadow, the party thief.
That makes sense.
So I don't know if I should be foolishly optimistic that with the new streamlined rules I will again see the furious warrior paladin or be stuck with the less useful than a stick of spaghetti in feeding frenzy paladin.
I've got my fingers crossed for a return to the glory days.  I'll keep you posted.

Less of this:

And more of this:

Now.  Dammit.

Ah Hell

Well I'm watching Hell On Wheels again.  I know, I swore if off last season because I felt the season finale was complete and utter bullshit.  I wasn't going to watch it.  I really wasn't.  Then the Chief (my father-in-law) talked me into giving it another go this season.  He was quite looking forward to it, you see.  So I DVRed last week's premiere and watched it.  I DVRed last night's episode and watched it today.
I guess I'm watching Hell On Wheels this season.
I'm big enough to admit when I have been a bit hasty.

This season's new baddie for Durant and Bohanon...provisional Wyoming governor and General Grant's bully boy, Governor Complete Bastard

This week's episode.  What can I say?  Preach, Cullen, preach.  That's my summation.
Anyway, where the hell else am I to get my fix for westerns and trains?
So far a promising season ahead for the only western about the building of the transcontinental railroad on television currently.

In other news...

I'm trying to fight it.  I really am.  I'm trying to keep my mind on Summer things so as not to rush into THE season too soon.  If the weather in Virginia would just comply instead of providing an August that seems like Autumn too much too soon, I think I can make it.  There's too much crossover.  My general love for all things spooky, the end of the Pirate Renaissance with the cancellation of Crossbones, and the presence of pumpkin scented candles showing up in stores are all conspiring to blur the lines.

Bugger.

Crossbones: It's not like I actually TOLD you so

I mentioned that the Pirate Renaissance was drawing to a close, but then I sounded hopeful for NBC's Crossbones, so you would be well within your rights to tell me that I didn't say specifically that Crossbones was not going to do well.  So I won't say, "Told you".  If we consider that great post linked above, however, well...I told you so.
According to my online sources Crossbones started strong with the target 18-49 demographic (how the hell is that a single demographic) with over 5 million viewers of its opening episode but dropped to less than 3 million shortly thereafter.  Oh shit.  Only 3 million people to see the commercials?  If Lifetime or FX used that metric they'd never have a damn show on the air.
Now who to blame for this?
Well I start by blaming NBC.  Friday night at 10 PM for a demographic that is traditionally out at that time, you know, 18 to 49 year olds.  Having dinner, going to sporting events and such.  Then we have to consider that it ran during the Summer.  It's still light out until after 8 PM during this time.  People are doing things.  That's why they have DVR.  They also preempted the July 4th episode.  You know, because people are out doing things.
When you put a show in that time slot you are basically cancelling it at launch.
So, yes, I blame the network.
The show was actually quite good.  I admit if it were on HBO, Showtime or STARZ it probably would have done better, but even then I have said before that the Pirate Renaissance is basically over.  It's back to the geeks and hardcore fans now.  Away you day sailors.  It ended on an appropriately dramatic note and I thought the story was well told.  Maybe it is better to have one good season instead of hitting that horrible third season nightmare slump.
And now a short emotional outburst:

Fuck you, you lackwitted bastards at NBC and the bloody demographic at which you pander you whores shilling product for a brainless consumer base.  You soulless, dickless turds who would not know quality if it came up and waved its naughty bits in your collective faces.  And a double fuck you to the jaded television viewing audience that can't appreciate story or character development, you who cannot handle even 3 minutes of exposition unless some naked hookers are fisting one another in the background for your sordid amusement.  Go back to watching your witch porn on WGN that has done more to harm the reputation of actual Wiccans and the victims of Salem than 300 years of inaccurate history ever could.  And finally fuck you to Johnny Depp for making pirates marketable and then ruining them all in one fell swishing Nancy Boy swoop.

Outburst ends.

So farewell and following seas to Crossbones and the Pirate Renaissance.  We'll see you again in an another 20 years when the cycle comes back around.

Crossbones on Crossbones

I talk about wizards on this blog.  I do this quite a bit.  I do this because it interests me.  Pirates interest me as well, but I don't seem to talk about pirates that often, especially not when compared to wizards and other game bullshit.  There is a good reason for this.  Despite what it may seem, all evidence available posted on this blog, I do like to wait until I have something reasonably intelligent or entertaining to say.  Or write.  As the case may be and most definitely is.
This is one of those times...

Having recently spent time enjoying Black Sails (thanks to a couple of pirate friends of mine who should probably remain nameless for legal reasons but we will call them Leo and Bobby) and the first episode of Crossbones, and being an avid reader and student of all things pirate, I have come to the decision that there are really two conceptions of pirates.  The first is the larger conception, or if you prefer the conception held by the larger portion of the population and thus the more popular one; let us call it the ideal of pirates.  This is typified by the Disney attraction The Pirates of the Caribbean and the films that were inspired by, and share the name of, that attraction.  This is the sort of swaggering, arrrr matey, Talk Like A Pirate Day bollocks that sells so well in the form of merchandise.  It is a mythical type of ideal, as so many are.  When you think about talking like a pirate you are thinking of talking like Robert Newton who "invented" the pirate speak by exaggerating his native Dorset accent when he played Long John Silver for Disney.  This is the sea food restaurant, drinks with umbrellas in, treasure hunting, plank walking, hook-hand-having, eye-patch-loving, raping, robbing, pillaging, freebooter lifestyle that inspires miniature golf courses and Halloween costumes and is typified today by Jack Sparrow.
Then there is the other conception, held by a very few (by comparison) and enjoyed fully by even fewer; let us call it the reality of pirates.  To the larger group, when asked about the reality of the pirates they so love to emulate, they will most likely sheepishly admit that pirates were bad, bad people who engaged in theft, murder and destruction.  Sadly that does not accurately or completely describe the reality and is akin to tarring all of a social group with the same brush for the rather public actions of a few.
Television and films, of course, are designed to appeal to the widest possible audience to garner the greatest possible market share.  This means that the overwhelming majority of piracy shown is of the first type.  When you do see more realistic piracy it is likely of the type seen in Captain Phillips, where Somali pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama.  Desperate men taking desperate actions.  Yet this is not the same sort of thing as we would have seen during the age of Blackbeard.  To some degree it is, but the exact specifications are a bit different.  During the time of Blackbeard the vast majority of pirates were sailors, not just thieves and ruffians looking to make a buck.  Those were bandits and lived on land.  Ships at sea need skilled hands if they had any hope of staying at sea and those hands were accustomed to a certain amount of natural discipline.  Not the lash of the cat type of discipline, but the sort of routine that kept their ship afloat, which was the difference between life and death.  Piracy was, essentially, a business.  It was the livelihood of the men (and yes, occasionally women) who turned pirate.  If we look past the Hollywood and popular imagery and read the actual documents of the era we see a very different picture of piracy.  We see real people with varied attitudes and personalities banding together to achieve common goals of survival, revenge, and even political achievement.  Some of them, according to the documents of the era, where quite charming and intelligent even.

A pirate (no really, just ask the British)

So what, if anything, does this have to do with Crossbones?  Specifically this has to do with John Malkovich's portrayal of Blackbeard.  Malkovich is portraying a pirate lord, a self-styled commodore that is anything but Jack Sparrow.  Seafaring types tended to pick up odds and ends from across the globe.  Bits, baubles, interesting diseases, and customs were assimilated into an already alien (to a landsman) lifestyle.  A sash of fine silk from the Far East, a Mameluke sabre taken from a plundered enemy, or a fine hat obtained in some foreign port looking quite out of fashion to the homeland were the sorts of things a sailor could (and often did) obtain, along with strange habits gained from living in such close quarters as ships require.  The pirate lifestyle demanded election of leaders from among the crew, which meant that those who rose to such ranks tended (with varying degrees of success) to be cunning, charismatic, tough and skilled fellows.  Malkovich's Blackbeard does take something from Colin Woodard's The Republic of Pirates, although it seems more like the behavior of Benjamin Hornigold (who had been Teach's mentor as both a privateer and then a pirate).  In his decorating tastes, styles of clothing and habits there is a flair of the East.  He loves the silks and his outfits are often white and floral when not looking like a Han Emperor.  (Believe it or not fine gentlemen's coats were once very much in the pattern and style of your maiden aunt Sally's favorite sofa...the one in the living room, that she called the "parlor" where no one was allowed to sit unless they were a guest and there was no television and it always seemed cold...no?  Just me?...carry on)  He seems to have a dangerous intelligence about him.  A desire, as far as we have seen, to maintain the sanctity of his fledgling republic seems to motivate him.  He speaks with a somewhat cultured air of topics outside of rum and wenching, but is also keenly aware that he has built a legend that must be maintained.  He makes threats that are far more effective than blustering boasts normally seen in such fare.  None of this, "I'll have yer guts for garters, you damned lubber" business.  You could imagine him as J.R. Ewing in Dallas, using his reputation and willingness to go to extreme measures to get what he wants.  Indeed this reminds us of Long John Silver as he was written by R.L. Stevenson in the novel Treasure Island.  Not physically imposing, Silver controlled men with his cunning and will.
We see this in Black Sails as well to a far larger degree.  In the persons of Captain Flint, John Silver, and Jack Rackham, among others (landsmen included).  With a show primarily about pirates each character must be a character, that is, must not be a simple stereotype, although plenty of extras will be.  It's only natural.  The swaggering, the "arrrs", the fannying about like a swishy gypsy rent boy (i.e. Jack Sparrow) are all absent.  This is not the ideal of piracy, nor is it, strictly speaking, the reality, but it lists far more to the reality, and that's a good thing.

Not a pirate.  Not even close.  Nancy the Swaggering Rent Boy, yes.  Pirate, not so much.

Of course the fact that these works are not engaging in the exploitation of the ideal of piracy is probably a sign of doom in terms of market share.  The vast majority expect the swagger and, sadly, want the swagger.  The swagger is fun.  I'll admit it.  It's an image that instantly says "Pirate!" and that visual shorthand is part of the nature of storytelling.  The audience doesn't want to be TOLD that Jack Tar is a pirate, they want to see Jack Tar and instantly KNOW he is a pirate.  So if it is a situation of image, of LEGEND, then perhaps the polyester pirate of Hollywood (and thousands of fan girls' disturbing fantasies...including the cross-dressing...oh Manga what have you wrought?) is what is needed to keep this sort of salty fare viable in the market today.
Even so, I confess that I do like Malkovich's portrayal thus far.  It is more cultured master villain than pirate, but to me it is far closer to the reality of the legend than all the Jack Sparrows combined.  In the hold.  Of a ship.  That is sinking.

Crossbones Episode 1: A Review

Danger: Spoilers ahead
Now that the obligatory warning is out of the way, let us proceed.
Friday 30th of May saw the series premiere of the newest NBC nighttime drama, Crossbones, a story of intrigue and human drama set in the 18th century Caribbean and loosely connected with pirates.
The tale presented in the premiere, and thus setting up the driving plot of the initial season (assuming that there will be a second and subsequent seasons, which I am not willing to do at this juncture), is of the British Empire ruling the waves, unmatched, but for pesky pirates in the New World, the worst among them, Blackbeard!  Secret Agent Tom Lowe (played by Brit Richard Coyle who famously played Jeff Murdock in the BBC's Coupling and starred in the adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Going Postal as Moist von Lipwig) is assigned cover as a ship's surgeon by the governor of Jamaica (played by Julian Sands of Warlock fame) as a prized chronometer, the plans for said device and the inventor are being transported back to England to present the marvelous MacGuffin to the king.  This device will allow sailing ships to accurately determine longitude at sea (if you know nothing about seamanship and navigation then just think of it as a GPS) and thus the British can immediately overcome all pirates everywhere all the time.  Take that, Blackbeard.  Only that's silly.  Plot contrivance notwithstanding, Lowe is NOT there to prevent the chronometer from falling into enemy hands.
He's there to kill Blackbeard, the infamous freedom fighter pirate who Lowe believes to be dead already; killed by the governor's own hand.  Only he's not. This fact the governor confirms and so off Lowe goes to, presumably, get captured on purpose as not a soul knows where Blackbeard hides out.  There are just so many islands out there and nobody has a chart...I guess.
As happens in these stories Lowe is captured after blowing up the chronometer, partially burning the plans for its creation and poisoning the inventor, but he is kept alive to keep the inventor alive as the pirates WANT THAT GPS.  But he dies anyway and Lowe buys his life by saying that he will decipher the unburned parts of the plans, which are encoded.
His meeting with Blackbeard reveals a worldly, intelligent, cultured man (played by the esteemed John Malkovich), who does have cruel streak and headaches with weird visions and nosebleeds.  Through a series of spy events Lowe successfully poisons Blackbeard and as he makes his escape discovers a plot forming between Spain and the pirates and so he turns back and risks his all to SAVE Blackbeard because if Eddie dies, Lowe will never know what the plans are to be with Spain to the demise of England.  And thus is the series set up.

Tom Lowe (port side) and Blackbeard (starboard)

This series is supposedly based on Collin Woodard's non-fiction account of the pirate republic in the Bahamas in the early 18th century entitled The Republic of Pirates, but I've read that book twice and it seems more like NBC's attempt to make STARZ's Black Sails without all the tits adrift.  Crossbones has the feel of the type of drama currently very fashionable on pay television, but taking that Game of Thrones market share is going to be damn nigh impossible.  As comfortable as prime time network TV is getting with lewd behavior, fisting on the big 3 is still many, many years away.
As with any series a certain liberty with historical accuracy is expected and not too jarring...yet.  There is a definite poetic comparison between Eddie Blackbeard, who calls himself commodore of the island, denounces kings, speaks intelligently about a variety of subjects (God is a clockmaker...supported by the imagery of many clocks surrounding him), and claims to govern by the authority of his people and the governor of Jamaica, who in the few scenes we see of him seems completely at home with torture and brutality, torturing and murdering a captured pirate while seeking information about Blackbeard.  In the middle is Lowe, loyal to his King and Country, seeking to kill Blackbeard upon orders but saving him for a higher purpose.  No doubt the two of them will have much cat and mouse playing and verbal fencing as the plot continues.
After the cancellation of NBC's Dracula, one cannot help but think that Crossbones is likely doomed to a single season.  Unlike the latest police procedural, shows such as this must go up against similar shows on pay channels that give the same intrigue and character development, but throw in lots of sex and language to get the jaded viewers to commit.  As it stands, Crossbones was more swashbuckling than I expected given the supposed basis (Woodard's book) and felt more like Black Sails than was comfortable (including the key, "I've got the secret code stored in my head so you can't kill me, ha ha" scene), but Black Sails, for all its fancy does seem to have more, dare I say it, historical verisimilitude.  Black Sails seems to focus often on piracy as a business and for all their bluster the pirates of Black Sails seem more like real people, not just stock villains, while much of the pirating on Crossbones seemed of the POTC variety.
I won't praise nor condemn the show on a single episode and I am intrigued enough to watch again next week.  It is a pirate show (well, there are pirates in it) after all.
If you are looking for Pirates of the Caribbean, however, you will be sadly disappointed.  There is not a swishing sugar-pants Jackie Sparrow amongst them.  Yet.

The Mythology of Horror

Horror fans, as well as Science Fiction fans and Fantasy fans, are nuts about the mythology of their genres.  I find this all too appropriate given that these are really sibling genres all birthed from the same mother: Mythology herself.
Other genres such as Action, Adventure, or Romance are all related in the sense that they are all fiction, but Horror and her younger sisters Fantasy and Sci-Fi (who I swear are twins) are different from the others, yet share a connection evident in their fandoms.  Surely any genre can be crossed with any other genre, such as a Horror-Adventure-Comedy (Army of Darkness, anyone?) but that is one genre taking on the characteristics of another for purposes of telling the story.  At their cores, the Sisters (which I will now call Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy as a group) are the true heirs of their respected mother, Mythology.  The fans of the Sisters are obsessed with minutia and continuity.  They are obsessed with the mythology of their fandoms.  I don't mean the mythological underpinnings, which is a legitimate concept in much of the works of the Sisters, but the mythologies that develop as part of the genre works themselves.  This is evident when we look at the blogs, the forums, the fanfics (love them or hate them, fanfiction works are some of the purest expressions of the mythologies of the genres), and the fan-films found all over the internet.  Prior to the internet there were newsletters, conventions, clubs, and simple meetings where the mythologies were developed and shared.  For the fans of the Sisters the mythology is as important as the works themselves.
Doubt me?
Look at the internet backlash when a new installment, episode, book, what have you, comes out and breaks the understood fan mythology.  Look at Jar Jar Binks, damn you!
Need I say it?  MIDICHLORIANS!
An excellent example of this can be seen in the Friday the 13th franchise.  The casual viewer of the Friday films can tell you Jason is the killer of the series.  Most casual viewers can probably also tell you his last name.  The hardcore fan will tell you that Jason is the only son of Pamela and Elias Voorhees, that he had a half-sister named Diana (daughter of Elias) that he was not the killer in the first and fifth films and that he got his hockey mask in the 3rd film.  The really hardcore fans will tell you even more, having gleaned information from interviews, screenplays, behind the scenes cutting room footage, issues of Fangoria, and dozens of spin-off media.
It's all part of the mythology of the franchise and the hardcore fan is interested in it.  Indeed the hardcore fan becomes offended when something breaks the "canon" of the franchise and will go to great lengths to establish how this occurred.
They do it with Star Trek.  They do it with Star Wars.  They do it with Dragonlance, Lord of the Rings, and all manner of genre work that collective are the darling daughters of Mythology herself.
Because Mythology was the first horror movie.
Yes, I know it is supposed to explain origins, culturally speaking, and what Joseph Campbell said about it, but these primordial monsters that have haunted us for generations come from Mythology.  It's the source of our nightmares, bless it.
Which is why, I believe, we have documentaries about how horror films have impacted society and reflected society.  We love, us fans, to delve into the mythology of our fandom.  You can't get this kind of mythology from an Action flick.  Not this level of commitment.
Anecdotal Evidence: When I was young the older kids I sometimes hung out with loved A Nightmare On Elm Street.   In the 80s Freddy Krueger was cool.  I learned from an authority on the subject (when you are 13 a 17 year old girl is an authority on horror movies, trust me) that, as she put it, Nightmare 2 sucked and was not part of the story.  Just skip it, was her advice.  It was A Nightmare On Elm Street and A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors.  She was not the only person to tell me this, by the way.  I suspect Don Dokken would agree.
And if you watch the films from start to finish, back-to-bloody-back you will see that Nightmare 2 just doesn't fit.  Freddy's powers are weird in that one, he seems to be trying new tricks.  The mythology is wrong.  Nightmare 2 does nothing to advance the mythology of the series, but Dream Warriors?  Ah, now that is proper mythological development.  Many of us like to pretend Nightmare 2 doesn't exist, but Nightmare 3 makes up for it.  Firstly it has Nancy.  Final girl from Nightmare 1.  That's a sequel.  Secondly it expands upon Freddy's dream powers and we have the kids who also have dream powers.  We are seeing a mythological development that is logical for the franchise.  Note that mythology does not have to be logical in the real world sense, but it does need to be logical to the IP itself.  All films after 3 followed the logical mythological development to a reboot, which kept with the established mythology.  That is how you win the fandom's love and admiration.  Well, and respect, I suppose.
Much like many people like to pretend Halloween III: Season of the Witch did not happen because it was not part of the Myers cycle.  Well TOUGH SHIT BECAUSE IT DID HAPPEN, SUNSHINE!  And it's a damn fine work, so there.  Yet it does suffer from breaking the mythology of the previous films and that was rectified in the following 5 films as well.  And then Rob Zombie happened.  Dammit.
And that is coming from someone who likes Zombie's work.  Except Lords of Salem.  That was pig shit.

That's my argument about the Mythology of Horror then.  Not the mythology underpinning horror, or why we are afraid, but the mythology of the franchises and works themselves, for which the true fans hunger and will develop.

I could be wrong.  It happens.

Confessions of a Stat Junkie

This is one of those posts about RPGs and such.  Just thought I'd warn you.

Some while back (years really) I noticed a trend in MMORPGs (hereafter called MMOs for brevity) where the player characters did not have stats or choices in stats at creation.  The player selects a race and class and the game provides a 1st level character.  Thus all characters of the same class and race have the same stats.  I don't suppose there is a problem with this, but at the time it struck me as odd.  Coming from an old school game background, and being the sort of person that compares and contrasts everything, I found myself a bit put out that I could not determine the stats for myself.  Yet why should I?  What does it matter if my Fighter has high strength and low dexterity and someone else's Fighter has low strength and high dexterity?  Ultimately it is level and gear that drives success.  It did make me think about my past in gaming.
I was a stat junkie.
So was everyone I ever played with.  EVERYONE.
If you are a gamer you know what I mean.  If you come from that glorious old school world of describing characteristics with numbers vice descriptive adjectives you know what I mean.
"So this half-elven priestess...how sexy is she?"
"19 Charisma, my man."
"Sweet."

The simple fact is that we look at numerical scales as a rating of good, bad, and otherwise and why would anyone want a 17 when an 18 is available?  Or for that matter a 19 or 20?  When those stats comes with bonuses it is inevitable that everyone is going to want the high stats.  When the low stats come with penalties is is even more so.  This leads to players wanting better rolling methods for making super characters or simply trashing good characters to make better ones.  So why not just set all your stats to max and get on with the power gaming?
Well the problem is that we, as gamers, MUST OBEY THE DICE.  We can't just set the stats where we want them.  That would be cheating.  If the dice "give" us high rolls, that is okay.  Yet if everybody is working for max stats does that not raise the bar of normal to the high stats?  It does, that was rhetorical.

I can tell you from experience, however, that a "Straight 18" fighter of level 1 will still get killed in a trice by a level 5 fighter of average stats.  This leads to annoyance from gamers who live by the dice and the numbers.  Yes, the numbers are in the level 5's favor but "dammit, I have all 18s!"

Games use their stats, or ability scores, or characteristics (it's all the same) in two ways:
1) Provide a source for other abilities, usually in the form of bonuses to rolls, penalties to rolls, and benchmarks for qualifications (such as class entry and spell use).
2) An absolute value that directly affects the rolls.

Type 1 is the Dungeons and Dragons type where the stat score tells you the highest spell level you can cast, if you can be a Paladin, and how many points you add or subtract from attack rolls and the like.
Type 2 is common in skill-based games and dice pool games.  Type 2 can be further sub-divided into two more general classes: those that are the roll itself (dice pools and Savage Worlds work like this) and those that are added as a straight modifier to a dice roll (such as R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2020 system).  In Type 2 games the stat is EVERYTHING.  The difference between a 5 strength and a 6 is a real value of 1 die or point toward a roll.  It is always better to have a bigger number in a Type 2 game because it has a real effect on the outcomes.  Take the Cyberpunk system where you roll 1d10 and add the relevant stat and skill values.  A 6 is always better than a 5 because that is 1 more point.

This leads, of course, to being a stat junkie.  Rather than see the character as an alter ego to be played in a game, or even as a simple pawn, the player sees the character as a stack of numbers and he wants high numbers.  In skill-based RPG this is at its worst as the points MUST be high.  If your dex-based rogue-like character has less dex than the dex-based fighter-like character you become frustrated.  Even more so if you can't cast the spells you want because you put some points in a health stat to keep yourself from dying.  So now you have a bunch of fragile wizards with nuking overkill magic who will die if they trip and stumble into a Sheetrock wall.  Frankly I blame the games themselves.

And it's no good writing a clever little line in character creation sections of game manuals saying that a character with some flaws is more fun to play.  Yes, game designers, I'm talking to you.  We all know that is a lie.  The funny thing about being a stat junkie is that in a Type 1 game the stats quickly become outstripped by the class itself.  Having a +3 bonus to hit and damage will always be a good thing (it is, after all a +15% bonus to hit) but the class improvements, such as hit points and skills, are more important.  Or they should be.  A Wizard with a huge strength bonus, say a +4, has the same hit probability at level 1 as a 4th level fighter with no strength bonuses at all.  He will have the same probability as a 5th level fighter at levels 2 and 3, and then a 6th level fighter at level 4.  At 20th level the Wizard has the same hit probability as a 14th level fighter of no bonuses, except that the Fighter has far more hit points, uses better weapons, and can attack 3 times to the Wizard's 2.  Now that's 3.5 edition D&D, but it was always like this.  We aren't even taking the other things into account, like Saving Throws.  Just hit probability.  The class is more vital to the character than the stats themselves.

Am I suggesting do away with stats entirely?  Well, not exactly.  I just don't like how the bonus structure or outright roll value makes them the driving goal of character creation.  MMOs haven't done away with stats, indeed the MMO is so driven by math that its binary brain cannot function without it.  I might be suggesting that bonus structures put too much importance on them, however.  I look back at OD&D (the 1974 inaugural release, pre Greyhawk) and note that Strength, Wisdom and Intelligence were only bonuses for the class for whom they were the prime requisite, and then only for purposes of XP gain.  I look at other games I have played and enjoyed (HeroQuest, Warhammer Quest) where the stats are fixed for each class (well character model technically) and the party works together.  Yeah the Barbarian is strongest of all but he won't be disarming a trap or phasing through a stone wall anytime soon.  What these minimalist games and MMOs are saying is, "This is what a warrior looks like.  This is what a wizard looks like."  It's simple but effective.  A wizard may be quite a fine physical specimen in terms of strength, dexterity and constitution, but rather than learn to make athletic use of it he studied arcane mysteries.  The warrior might be very smart in absolute terms of IQ and quite the brilliant field tactician, but he simply didn't take the time to learn the dead languages of magic.  It is more about a simplified way of looking at the character as a role within an established work of interactive fiction.  It does not do away with stats or math, indeed the class abilities will be key to the success of the character in the game, but it does away with the obsessive drive to use special rolling methods, scrapping characters, and stat jealousy.  It frees the player and allows him or her to simply PLAY THE GAME.  Isn't that why we do this?  Play.  Fun.  Games.

Which links back to my complaints about wizards not being allowed to use swords.  By all means let the wizard use a sword.  He won't ever be as good with it as the fighter.  He is not supposed to be.  That's okay.  I prefer it that way.  The warrior is not supposed to use a magic wand.

Anyway, so that's about me having been, in the past, a stat junkie.  Bloody games.