I always enjoy estar's and CRK's posts, even if I disagree.

As far as Fritz is concerned, his primary role in the party is to take an arrow or an axe swing for another character.  Preferably in the most hilarious way possible.  His secondary role is, if I decide my GM is an ass, is to annoy the GM to the point of insanity.  

Becuase he forced me to keep a bad roll.  

Quote from: Tristram Evans;954674Well, misewell join in with schlongs a swingin'...

Point buy is abomination. It is the work of Satan, created by The Swinelord Beelzebub to propagate communist/marxist thought throughout the RPG hobby. Baby Jesus cries every time a character is created through point-buy. It corrupts the minds of our children, and weakens the resolve of our allies.

The only thing worse than point-buy is random roll. Random generation is a subvervise design meant to induct and addict gamers to gambling. It is unethical, suggesting that strength of character is based upon fate and luck rather than virtue and hard work. In this way it infects players with atheistic tendencies and moral relativism.

I physically lol'd at this.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;954674Point buy is abomination. It is the work of Satan, created by The Swinelord Beelzebub to propagate communist/marxist thought throughout the RPG hobby. Baby Jesus cries every time a character is created through point-buy. It corrupts the minds of our children, and weakens the resolve of our allies.

The only thing worse than point-buy is random roll. Random generation is a subvervise design meant to induct and addict gamers to gambling. It is unethical, suggesting that strength of character is based upon fate and luck rather than virtue and hard work. In this way it infects players with atheistic tendencies and moral relativism.

Indeed, which is why a good lifepath guides you through life and allows you to serve the will of the Eternal Tangra:D!

I recently ran a super hero's game that was an homage to V&V.

The players made their characters (not themselves) with the game's point-buy system and then rolled up super powers (roll 4 randomly, drop one -- and there's ALWAYS an opportunity to be a character who can kind-of dodge bullets, if you didn't really roll any defenses or otherwise dislike what you rolled).

It worked great. The characters were way, way, way more creative and idiosyncratic than pure point-buy characters tend to be, and they were also somewhat sub-optimized which made the game more enjoyable. Nothing against optimized characters, but given the opportunity, most PCs will tend to be bullet-proof, because why not?

In a supers game where you can't be bulletproof unless you rolled the right number, it made heroes fighting henchmen more... interesting, even if the outcome was really never in doubt.

I also like mixing point-buy with class frameworks. So you're going to be a thief or a magic user or whatever... you get points to spend, but within a framework defined by your class. It creates a sense of structure and a feel for the world that pure point-buy often doesn't.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Tod13;954609Because it gives Fritz incentive to find alternatives: talk to the orcs, stampede the mammoths into the goblins, or hire henchmen and shout advice.

If someone wants to play Fritz, cool, game on. But no one should be *forced* to play Fritz. Which is what a random system does. A player doesn't get to play the character they *want* to play. They get to play the character fate hands them. That is real life. I don't want to play real life. I want to play high fantasy.

Quote from: Tod13;954609Because it gives Fritz incentive to find alternatives: talk to the orcs, stampede the mammoths into the goblins, or hire henchmen and shout advice.

But he's a -1 to do that too.  Why is Fritz doing that, when his friends are likely better at it than he will ever be (Unless you're playing D&D 4-5e, in which he can get a couple of stat boosts and/or feats to cover up deficiencies, but even then, the other better statted players will have the same chances.  Which means Fritz is still a millstone around the party's neck.)

Quote from: Spinachcat;954556It sounds like you and your players need a new hobby.

"LISTEN TO ME ROAR!  WE ARE SO HARDCORE!"  Yeah, no.  And that's the beauty of this hobby, we can all play our way and ignore the tryhards!  Aren't RPGs awesome?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;954693But he's a -1 to do that too.  Why is Fritz doing that, when his friends are likely better at it than he will ever be (Unless you're playing D&D 4-5e, in which he can get a couple of stat boosts and/or feats to cover up deficiencies, but even then, the other better statted players will have the same chances.  Which means Fritz is still a millstone around the party's neck.)

Maybe Fritz is there because it makes a better story?

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I'll show myself out, thanks.

Quote from: Nexus;954697Maybe Fritz is there because it makes a better story?

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I'll show myself out, thanks.

*Summons the Bouncers anyway.*

Quote from: Tetsubo;954691If someone wants to play Fritz, cool, game on. But no one should be *forced* to play Fritz. Which is what a random system does. A player doesn't get to play the character they *want* to play. They get to play the character fate hands them. That is real life. I don't want to play real life. I want to play high fantasy.

This!  OMG this.  This, This, This!

Upthread, Spinachcat made this point:

Quote from: Spinachcat;954499THIS is the #1 reason hands down for random rolls.[/B]

Fritz is a GREAT character. He is x100 more interesting than yet another point buy min/max by the numbers Paladin.

No, he's not.  Fritz was the afterbirth of a bad character roll that I was forced to play because the GM insisted on it.  Fine.  His table, his rules.  But Fritz wasn't interesting because of bad rolls.  He was interesting because I made him interesting.  And guess what, folks.  I can do with with a strong character as well as I can with a weak one.  I can also do that regardless of the the type of character creation system employed.  Interesting characters have nothing whatsoever to do with game system or game style.  It's on the player.

I played Fritz out until the end, because I rarely get to be a player, and the other players were fun.  The GM was decent, but he was too rigid, and too insistent on certain things the players didn't like as a whole.  But like I said: it's his table.  He can run it however he wants.

But at my table, I don't care if a player comes up with a character I view as interesting.  That's not an important metric.  I care that my players have a character they're going to enjoy playing.  Does that mean I make them all super powerful to keep my players happy?  Of course not.  I keep the power levels pretty even.  No, it means I don't mind being flexible about keeping the game fun.

And that's what this is about for me: fun.  It's my first and only rule as a GM: Are my players having fun?  Everything else is details.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;954586My 4 year old rolled up a character in DCC last night. 3d6 straight down the line with random race generation. She ended up with a gimp halfling gypsy 8 strength(-1); 8 agility (-1); 6 luck (-1). 3hp.

She drew a great stick figure halfling on the front. My wife told me I was in no way to allow that tear fest waiting to happen anywhere near a real game or I get to deal with the sobbing.

Point array it is, I guess...

This is why BX and AD&D tell the DM to consider asking the player re-roll if they get a really bad set of rolls.

Quote from: Nexus;954675Can I use this in my sig?

lol go for it

Quote from: Tristram Evans;954674Well, misewell join in with schlongs a swingin'...

Point buy is abomination. It is the work of Satan, created by The Swinelord Beelzebub to propagate communist/marxist thought throughout the RPG hobby. Baby Jesus cries every time a character is created through point-buy. It corrupts the minds of our children, and weakens the resolve of our allies.

The only thing worse than point-buy is random roll. Random generation is a subvervise design meant to induct and addict gamers to gambling. It is unethical, suggesting that strength of character is based upon fate and luck rather than virtue and hard work. In this way it infects players with atheistic tendencies and moral relativism.

And then we were saved by pre-gens. Till people started bitching about those too.

And then we were saved by array. Till people started bitching about those too.

Quote from: AsenRG;954686Indeed, which is why a good lifepath guides you through life and allows you to serve the will of the Eternal Tangra:D!

Alot of lifepaths are random though. Cruel heartless random.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;954693But he's a -1 to do that too.  Why is Fritz doing that, when his friends are likely better at it than he will ever be (Unless you're playing D&D 4-5e, in which he can get a couple of stat boosts and/or feats to cover up deficiencies, but even then, the other better statted players will have the same chances.  Which means Fritz is still a millstone around the party's neck.)

Depends on the version of D&D and the DM and the Players.

In BX and according to Gronan even OD&D stats dont exactly correlate to the characters actual ability to function. Especially cognitive ability.

Aside from BX having a low INT score limiting your reading skill and languages known, or at the low end even your ability to speak in complete sentences, the stats do not hinder the character. As I have pointed out before. A character with 3 STR can walk around hauling up to 160LB at 1/4th normal movement.

And while AD&D links stats to function to some degrees. Even there some play it as not effecting cognitive ability.

Quote from: Omega;954711Alot of lifepaths are random though. Cruel heartless random.

No, lifepaths are a combination of choices, made by the player, and adapting to the rolls, representing the fate that the Eternal Tangra has chosen to befall you, just like RPGs themselves:)!

(Besides, if lifepaths were "random", then all of RPGs would be "random", and playing them would fall under the same "godlessness" objection. And while this is an accurate representation of a certain fringe religious sects, it defeats the point of using the rant in a discussion about RPGs;)).

Quote from: AsenRG;954719No, lifepaths are a combination of choices, made by the player, and adapting to the rolls, representing the fate that the Eternal Tangra has chosen to befall you, just like RPGs themselves:)!

(Besides, if lifepaths were "random", then all of RPGs would be "random", and playing them would fall under the same "godlessness" objection. And while this is an accurate representation of a certain fringe religious sects, it defeats the point of using the rant in a discussion about RPGs;)).

Says you. The lifepaths I've seen were mostly random with maybee some choice tossed in. Maybee not.