Design: Ability Scores

"Why have Attributes at all?"  Few gamers ask this question unless they mean it as a snarky response to questions about the use of Attribute checks as a separate system from skill checks.  I ask the question legitimately.  There is an overwhelming number of game systems that rely on skills over attributes, but the attribute system is still in place.  At most, attributes are used as a small boost or minor advantage increase on top of the skill.  I think the bigger issue is what that means in terms of the game being played.

Considering that attribute systems have become a standard, I start to wonder if that means most games are pretty much the same.  There are setting differences, and that's almost all that distinguishes them.  I haven't seen (at least not for several years) a game that boasts a mechanic system as the best way to represent a particular type of setting, rather than touting the setting itself.  I don't necessarily want to focus on settings, but it's hard to discuss attributes in any realistic way without mentioning it.

I can think of one game that doesn't use an attribute system - at least not the way we think of it.  Car Wars characters spend so little time on foot (the game calls people who walk 'pedestrians') that there is almost no need for attributes.  Characters focus on skill use, and the greatest use comes from three skills in particular: Driver, Mechanic, and Gunner.  On top of that, they have stats for Prestige (which changes during a campaign) and Wealth (which also changes).  Every character starts with 3 hit points, and only someone with a weightlifting skill can increase that.  The scale of the game, after all, is based on big American sedans of the 1980s as the average, and a puny human is much less durable.  The "Character Sheets" for vehicles, though, are outrageously complex, and there is no clear-cut method of 'character' creation for vehicles.  There is a lot of basic information that the GM has to supply arbitrarily with no guidance to new GMs.

The only system I've seen that comes close to minimalizing attributes is the famous D6 system (West End Games and the original Star Wars RPG).  Attributes begin as a basic start of what and where a character's abilities sit, but they can be totally left behind after some development.  Okay, after a LOT of development.  I haven't seen a sustainable D6 campaign in which characters developed more than a couple of their favorite skills beyond basic attribute levels.  Even so, I wonder what a character with a 5D rating in Strength can lift compared to a character with a 2D Strength but an 8D Lifting skill.  It just doesn't seem feasible to me that the first character can't lift more than the second, even with that skill bonus.  For that matter, I don't quite understand why Lifting is a skill at all, and not just a representation of a developed Strength attribute.


Are Attributes Necessary for Skill Systems?
Couple Questions, If I May
Car Wars