The Campaign Builder's Guild

When I first started playing D&D, 3E was my first system. Initially, we played with random dice rolls for generating ability scores; it was what I was familiar with, after playing the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale video games (Baldur's Gate 2 came coupled with a 3E character generator, which sparked my interest in the PnP game). It was a year or so into our first game (still the longest game I've ever gotten to run) that we became dissatisfied with rolling ability scores; I believe one of the characters had rolled especially worse than the others, and one character had rolled especially better. We began using point buy.

Quickly after using the standard point buy array in 3E (was it 25 points?), we started to want bigger stats (4d6 drop the lowest always felt like it produced better stats than 25 point buy, since the rules said to throw out especially low rolls). To counter the higher stats for the players, I started giving monsters and NPCs better stats; the players had more fun with their higher stats, and I felt like the game was still balanced.

When 4E came out, point buy and static arrays were the baseline. It made characters balanced, but eventually I began to long to see more organic characters. We quickly discovered that 16, 14, 14, 13, 10, 8 was one of the better arrays: if your 16 and a 14 were put in your race's bonus stats, you'd have a +4, +3, +2, +1, +0, -1 modifier spread. Occasionally, you'd see someone push for a starting 18 (18, 14, 11, 10, 10, 8), or you'd get someone who spread out their ability bonuses (ending with 16, 16, 16, 13, 10, 8), but by and large everyone's stats were the same. Gone were the days of having a high strength wizard or a high charisma fighter.

I don't fully want to go back to rolling, but as a compromise I did think of this idea: Why not roll and use point buy at the same time? The idea is simple; begin rolling your stats, and keep a running tally of what your point buy total is. If you roll 5 scores and still have points left over, use those points to purchase your final score. If one of your rolls puts you over your total, decrease that roll appropriately and round out the rest.

Using 4E's point buy system, here's some stat arrays it could generate, using the 3.5 pointbuy system (modified to include low stats; rather than 25 base, this is 55 base):

Ability	Points	Ability	Points	Ability	Points
4	1	9	6	14	11
5	2	10	7	15	13
6	3	11	8	16	15
7	4	12	9	17	18
8	5	13	10	18	21

14, 14, 10, 6, 9; this leaves 17 points left over, so 15 points buys a 16, and the remaining 2 points over flow into the 9, increasing it to 11: 14, 14, 10, 6, 11, 16

15, 10, 14, 17; this set now has 6 points remaining, which could buy a 9 and a 3, or two 6's.

Any thoughts? Just a random idea really.

I always enjoyed the variant of 3E where your roll each statistic in order (Strength, then Dex, then Con, etc.) with the 4d6-lowest method. You had to keep each number you rolled for each stat, but were allowed to swap 2 and re-roll 1 (I think). It always made for good roleplaying to see a Fighter with 16 Cha, or a Wizard with a 17 in Str. The variant still allowed players to make sure their characters had good primary stats, but kept the rest organic, randomized, and somewhat realistic - as in the real world, we're stuck with the "stats" we have, regardless whether we like them or not.

2d6+6? I mean, your system is cool and everything too, so whatever works :)

I don't understand the fascination people have with randomly determined stats.
If you want a 16 charisma fighter or 17 strength wizard or whatever, make one. If that's the goal, why sit there tossing dice until they come up a certain way?

Because, at least in my opinion, most people won't chose to give their Wizard 17 Str unless they really like role-playing and have no interest in power-gaming. The randomization makes for some interesting characters that normally wouldn't be made. I just think it's a nice variation that adds a bit of chaos to the law of D&D (See what I did there? Hey-o zing!)

One thing I liked about 4E, as far as ability scores were concerned, what they did with the ties of scores and defenses. It caused a few problems, like making high Str/Con, Dex/Int, or Wis/Cha characters slightly inferior, but it always gave me an idea: What if defenses were the addition of both stats in a pair? This would allow characters to gain something substantial from random high stats.

Now, I don't like fully random stats, simply because I like players to have even playing fields.

Quote from: Señor Leetzmost people won't chose to give their Wizard 17 Str unless they really like role-playing and have no interest in power-gaming. The randomization makes for some interesting characters that normally wouldn't be made.

People won't give a Wizard 17 Str or whatever because it's not optimal to do that with the current point-buy system. However, if the goal of the game is to try to play some kind of unconventional character archetype, there's nothing stopping the group from deciding they're going to generate characters differently, to support that, like giving more points in the point-buy or coming up with a stat array for each class that is optimized except for some weirdness like that, or... well, whatever they want, really. Like I said, just make one. Randomly rolling stats just removes any player choice, which is not necessary in the least.

I agree with you for the most part, Sparkle, but sometimes narrowing  (not eliminating) player involvement makes for some really interesting and fun situations that wouldn't be created under normal circumstances - such as the Wizard who can throw a solid punch, the curmudgeon Bard, or the Fighter who can understand chaos theory mathematics. Simply from a literary, story-telling perspective, I think those kinds of characters - the imperfect, non-optimized type - make for more interesting and, at the end of the day, realistic, characters, as none of us are optimized for anything.  

EDIT - I suppose the difference is whether the game is played as that, a game, or is played more as a story. I like the randomized option, as I am much more in line with the story-telling, fluffy aspects of D&D as opposed to the crunch.

I understand what you're saying but I just feel completely differently about it. I guess randomly throwing some dice can create archetypes you wouldn't have thought of, but look at that list of examples you gave-- you just thought of three cool archetypes right off the top of your head, so it's not like it's that hard to generate interesting character archetypes without resorting to pure randomness. And, you know, throwing dice wouldn't even give you that level of depth, you'd have to come up with the background touches like "can understand chaos theory" yourself, the dice would just say "You get Int 16."

So, to make a comment that fits the original topic of the thread, personally, I dislike any sort of random stat generation at all.  :grin:

Personally I like the most important stats for a class/race to be the highest. And by highest I mean highest possible. I'm one of those guys who's not happy without a 20 if he can point buy. I did what people tend to do with the rest (ranking them and scaling them down to the points I could accept) but that seemed more like tedious bookwork after the 20.

In what I'm working on, I'm favoring two maxed stats (determined by class and race) and the rest rolled in order. I like it for the potential idea generation, and because it might encourage interesting skill and power choices down the road (this being more specific to how my system works).

For the rolled portion I'm going with 4d4 no drops. The range of ability modifiers is smaller, and the curve a bit tighter, but that's sort of what I was after.

To make a comment that fits the OP, I consider the rolling of dice to represent the chaos function/randomization effect of a game, whether it be in chargen or in the game itself. 
The random part of the game, and the way players respond to it, is part of the unknowability of the game.  I have often allowed PCs to change one or two things to fit an archetype or ideal....but I have always found, with dozens of gamers and literally hundreds of PCS, that the most fun characters develop, as Xev mentions, organically.    All the time.

Quote from: Xev
When 4E came out, point buy and static arrays were the baseline. It made characters balanced, but eventually I began to long to see more organic characters. We quickly discovered that 16, 14, 14, 13, 10, 8 was one of the better arrays: if your 16 and a 14 were put in your race's bonus stats, you'd have a +4, +3, +2, +1, +0, -1 modifier spread. Occasionally, you'd see someone push for a starting 18 (18, 14, 11, 10, 10, 8), or you'd get someone who spread out their ability bonuses (ending with 16, 16, 16, 13, 10, 8), but by and large everyone's stats were the same. Gone were the days of having a high strength wizard or a high charisma fighter.

Yes.  After a while, sincde the mindset it to 'manufacture' instead of 'respond to', of course most players go similar routes.

Damn, I responded an lost it.

Quote from: Xev
When 4E came out, point buy and static arrays were the baseline. It made characters balanced, but eventually I began to long to see more organic characters. We quickly discovered that 16, 14, 14, 13, 10, 8 was one of the better arrays: if your 16 and a 14 were put in your race's bonus stats, you'd have a +4, +3, +2, +1, +0, -1 modifier spread. Occasionally, you'd see someone push for a starting 18 (18, 14, 11, 10, 10, 8), or you'd get someone who spread out their ability bonuses (ending with 16, 16, 16, 13, 10, 8), but by and large everyone's stats were the same. Gone were the days of having a high strength wizard or a high charisma fighter.

Of course, the mindset has gone from roleplaying to manufacturing.

Randomization, whether in the game or in chargen, takes the placed of the unknowable.  Of chaos.  Of something unusual happenning.  Of excitement.
Some people like games with lots of 'get out of jail free cards' and some people want the dice to represent random chance unburnished.
After playing hundreds of games and running hundreds of characters (literally), uniformly, it is the players who synergize what they are given with the game world that seem to make the most remarkable characters.

It's like sex.  You can do it by yourself and decide everything safely.  Or, you can dare to introduce the randomness of a partner.  Point buy is chargen masturbation.

Quote from: LordVreegOf course, the mindset has gone from roleplaying to manufacturing.

This is treading dangerously close to the old "rollplayer vs roleplayer" false dichotomy.

In a role playing game, all characters are "manufactured." Players generally show up to the game with some idea of what the game's genre, milieu, and so on are going to be, and some idea how they are going to want to fit into that world. Naturally, these players would like for the mechanics to support them being able to play that chosen character archetype. If they don't, the player probably won't be too engaged in the game, because nothing takes you out of an RPG faster than being stuck with a character you don't really want to play. Sure, sometimes players just don't know or don't care, and at that point, maybe a bit of randomness is fun. But they usually have some idea, and in those cases, not allowing players to "manufacture" their characters (at least to some extent) is simply a recipe for a disappointing game all around.

Quote from: LordVreegit is the players who synergize what they are given with the game world that seem to make the most remarkable characters

I see what you are saying here, but I don't think this really has anything to do with how the stats are generated. All point buy or an array do is attempt to assure some degree of mechanical balance, so the guy with all 3's isn't stuck in the party with the guy with all 18's. It's just a starting point. Beyond this, the character generation process can and should be organic. I'd also say it's not just players taking "what they are given" but rather an exchange of ideas-- the GM building the world around the characters while the players build their characters to fit in the world.

A true partnership. Doesn't that better fit your "sex" analogy anyway?  :grin:

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: LordVreegOf course, the mindset has gone from roleplaying to manufacturing.

This is treading dangerously close to the old "rollplayer vs roleplayer" false dichotomy.

In a role playing game, all characters are "manufactured." Players generally show up to the game with some idea of what the game's genre, milieu, and so on are going to be, and some idea how they are going to want to fit into that world. Naturally, these players would like for the mechanics to support them being able to play that chosen character archetype. If they don't, the player probably won't be too engaged in the game, because nothing takes you out of an RPG faster than being stuck with a character you don't really want to play. Sure, sometimes players just don't know or don't care, and at that point, maybe a bit of randomness is fun. But they usually have some idea, and in those cases, not allowing players to "manufacture" their characters (at least to some extent) is simply a recipe for a disappointing game all around.

Quote from: LordVreegit is the players who synergize what they are given with the game world that seem to make the most remarkable characters

I see what you are saying here, but I don't think this really has anything to do with how the stats are generated. All point buy or an array do is attempt to assure some degree of mechanical balance, so the guy with all 3's isn't stuck in the party with the guy with all 18's. It's just a starting point. Beyond this, the character generation process can and should be organic. I'd also say it's not just players taking "what they are given" but rather an exchange of ideas-- the GM building the world around the characters while the players build their characters to fit in the world.

A true partnership. Doesn't that better fit your "sex" analogy anyway?  :grin:

You know, you may be onto something about the 'rollplayer vs roleplayer' thing, though I don't know if it is so much a false dichotomy as much as a real pair of ingredients that go into almost every player. I agree that players like to know about a setting and game, and often have an idea what they want to play.  I also agree that no one likes playing a character they really don;t want.  Seen it happen, and it is ugly.

As to the second part, I was specifically talking about players who synergize what they were given in Chargen, including stats generation.  And it was taking what they were given, when it comes to random generation.  Some of the most amazingly played characters were off the beaten track and would have never been created.  I understand what point buy is for, but I really believe it fundamentally changes the character generation...but I also don't believe that it changes it into something bad or wrong.

And I'm not sure if it fits the sex analogy better...but it is another good fit

Quote from: LordVreegI don't know if it is so much a false dichotomy as much as a real pair of ingredients that go into almost every player.

Yes, that's what I meant. There seems to be a certain belief going around in some circles that "real roleplayers don't care about stats" or "character optimizers are all munchkins who don't roleplay" or whatever, and of course this is nonsense.

Quote from: LordVreegSome of the most amazingly played characters were off the beaten track and would have never been created.

That goes back to my initial point. I just don't buy that interesting/weird/off the beaten track characters necessarily require any sort of randomization in order to be created. All it takes is the spark of an offbeat idea-- a random roll can give that, sure, but all that background that really makes the offbeat character so compelling doesn't come from the roll. And it's certainly possible to make a character like that by design, too, and even do something weird with the stats so they look more "organic," while still preserving some semblance of game balance.