Err, I think removing athletics (and acrobatics) was more than overdue. Was there any point, apart from levelling, in those two "skills".

Skyrim, to my own surprise, thas the best character development so far in the TES series. You have to play it to believe it, because at first I also thought "WTF?". But all this "targeted training" in Morrowind to get the +5 is finally gone. No more "uber chars" and "miss levelling" is less likely. It still isn't perfect, but way better than what was before.

Was delayed in getting back to this... Yeah. The gist of the argument I posted was that you'd have things like Strength that is used to determine Damage and Carrying Capacity. His argument was why not just drop Strength and have Damage and Carrying Capacity as primary stats.

The writer wasn't arguing against stats in general. He wasn't against stats like Swordsmanship, Lockpicking, and Fast Talk. He was arguing against D&D-style "primary" stats that are meant to be the core of your character with all other stats being designated "secondary". Where each primary stat tries to do a bunch of things at once, few of them really well.

It's like how we often distinguish between stats and skills. I assume the writer would have looked at this distinction and asked..."Why?" Because it is kind of an artificial distinction mechanically.

He was also arguing against stats being planned before the actual gameplay was designed, causing mechanics to be shoehorned in to make each stat useful. That's where you get games that have a Charisma stat, but it's never actually used anywhere beyond fiddling with shop prices. He was arguing in favour of having the gameplay designed and implemented first to be sure you only show stats to the player that are actually relevant.

Also, the discussion was primarily concerned about roguelikes, which have different priorities than either Skyrim-likes or Fallout-likes.

I'm starting to believe that calling RPGs "RPG"'s has been harmful, as they have resulted in several widespread false expectations in what these games can be. We're never going to replicate the tabletop experience unless we manage to create actual game master AIs that ship with the game, and Dwarf Fortress is likely going to be the only full-blown world simulator we're going to have for decades. These impossible expectations, and the games that regularly fail to meet them, has resulted in us accumulating communities of angry, bitter men.

Edit: Actually, the guy that wrote that article wrote the roguelike POWDER, so I guess it'd be interesting to see how much of his philosophy gets into a working game.

I prefer stats that are intuitive. I want to play the game as a certain character and have that playstyle advance the character along those lines. I loved the Oblivion concept of advance through use even though it was poorly executed. What I didn't care for was having to look at the stat sheet to preplan and always keeping that in mind while I played. It was distracting. I am not a min/maxer though, so YMMV. I haven't played Skyrim yet but if they have improved on Oblivion's leveling flaws I'm sure I could forgive them for other mistakes.

Stats are a calculation tool. In a fight between two Warriors, generally the one with the higher "Strength" count will win. A true, "play into your character" role-playing game that allows for more than just lateral strategies will also allow for a player to overcome a low stat score with creative playing. On that same token, there are a dozen other subsidiary stats that govern what actions you can make. You can roll for Spot all you want to notice that hidden button, but if you didn't spend enough points in it, it will probably remain unnoticed. But then, that's what playing with friends is for.