Quote from: Sommerjon;954846Actually the raw math does support the panic over the numbers.
2 sessions in and everyone else around Fritz realizes he has massive delusions of grandeur and leaves him home.

Yeah unless he rolled a 10 for hitpoints and more money than anyone else to have the best armor.  Then he just became a frontline fighter.

Quote from: Sommerjon;954846I am not going to constantly keep rolling characters to appease some dumbfuck Dm's love of Krueger's shitfuck of a character.

I play as if I am actually there, you may have heard of this concept,  why in the hell would I want to put my life on the line for someone I know is not cut out for this line of work?

What was that?  Because that's what Krueger rolled?  I give a fuck what Krueger rolled,  we don't have to suffer his special snowflake character, play something remotely in the realm of realism or GTFO.

Somehow this morphed into choosing to roleplay a person with all 8's just because, when the GM gives you the opportunity to reroll...quite the goalpost shift.

You're acting as if your newly minted 1st level D&D group is DeNiro's crew in Heat, or Seal Team Six instead of a group going on their first adventure.

But the whole "basket-weaver" tangent, as this kind of discussion is called by jackholes over at TGD is just that, a tangent.

Some GM forcing someone when they were 12 to play a guy with all 8's, and Brady's resulting mental anguish, isn't compelling evidence for Point Buy.  As said numerous times, a simple threshold for playable characters aka Shopkeeper Rule is all you need, and people have been using that method since the beginning.

Quote from: Nexus;954824I've largely stayed out of this since its mostly involved D and D, something I don't play (in part due to the emphasis on random character generation).

Er... WHAT emphasis? The only random in chargen in D&D is rolling stats and gold? And every edition has given one or more options or controls over that random. Everything from point swapping right out the gate, to arranging, to multiple rolls, to targeted rolls, to weighted rolls, to point buy, to array, and so on.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;954804Sorry, man, but you never took the RCMP training course, I know someone who has, before he went to NWT and yeah, the belt is 9lbs.

You stupid fuck, I wore a Sam Browne with all the trimmings on duty for thirteen years, on road patrol, foot patrol, and mounted patrol, in front country and backcountry and wilderness, so kiss my entire fucking ass, you ignorant pile of shit.

Quote from: Omega;954862Er... WHAT emphasis? The only random in chargen in D&D is rolling stats and gold? And every edition has given one or more options or controls over that random. Everything from point swapping right out the gate, to arranging, to multiple rolls, to targeted rolls, to weighted rolls, to point buy, to array, and so on.

When I tried D and D (Redbox/BEMCI, I guess?) there was only randomly rolling your attributes. That pretty much was the character. Its the core of what they are and determines allot of what they can be or how they'll be depicted. The other options came later or in different editions that I didn't get into. Every time someone talked me into playing D and D it was strictly random character generation. It always struck me as the intended default. These other options are just something I've heard about fairly recently since I didn't keep up with the game much at all. And there's other mechanical reason I moved on to different games but primacy of random character generation was one of them.

Quote from: Skarg;954841What I remember from failing and giving up trying to figure out White Box D&D in 5th grade (over 30 years ago) was that attribute values actually had pretty much zero effect on anything except for rules of the form:

The Prime Attribute for a Fighter is Strength.
The Prime Attribute for Cleric is Wisdom.
...
If your Prime Attribute is X, your character gains needs Y% less experience to gain an experience level.

Were there other effects of attributes that had non-house rules in White Box D&D?

Omega had the right of it: "INT got you +1 languages per point over 10, DEX got you +1 ranged bonus at 13+, CON got you +1 HP bonus if 15+, CHA granted more potential hirelings, better loyalty of hirelings and better reactions from encounters."

That's one of the issues with this discussion: In some editions, stats really aren't that important (they're just something that's easy to argue over). In others, they at least can be (the difference between a Str 9 fighter and Str 18/90+ fighter in AD&D is pretty significant).

But 1st level HD roll and GP rolls probably contribute more to whether you survive the low levels.

Quote from: Skarg;954841What I remember from failing and giving up trying to figure out White Box D&D in 5th grade (over 30 years ago) was that attribute values actually had pretty much zero effect on anything except for rules of the form:

The Prime Attribute for a Fighter is Strength.
The Prime Attribute for Cleric is Wisdom.
...
If your Prime Attribute is X, your character gains needs Y% less experience to gain an experience level.

Were there other effects of attributes that had non-house rules in White Box D&D?

You mean the ones I enumerated above? Also you missed that Intelligence is the prime for Magic Users.

So once more.

Strength = just an EXP bonus if was high enough.
Intelligence = Learn additional languages if high enough
Wisdom = just an EXP bonus if was high enough.
Constitution = +1 HP and better survival chance if high enough.
Dexterity = +1 ranged attack bonus if high enough.
Charisma = more hirelings, better loyalty and reaction bonus if high enough.

And stuff that is mentioned but far as I can tell. Never explained.

Quote from: Nexus;954867When I tried D and D (Redbox/BEMCI, I guess?) there was only randomly rolling your attributes. That pretty much was the character. Its the core of what they are and determines allot of what they can be or how they'll be depicted.

BECMI still had the point swapping. Not as free as BX. But was still there.You were still free to play whatever class you wanted even with low stats as they didnt lock you out like in AD&D or 2e. They might narrow your options a little but you could play a fighter with a 3 STR if you really wanted to.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;954866You stupid fuck, I wore a Sam Browne with all the trimmings on duty for thirteen years, on road patrol, foot patrol, and mounted patrol, in front country and backcountry and wilderness, so kiss my entire fucking ass, you ignorant pile of shit.

You get Sam Browne Syndrome?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;954868But 1st level HD roll and GP rolls probably contribute more to whether you survive the low levels.

HP possibly, but even that can be mitigated to some degree. Gold can be not so much a problem if characters are willing to share or the PC can scrounge a weapon from a patron or monster ASAP. Or just make a club and go fourth.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;954866You stupid fuck, I wore a Sam Browne with all the trimmings on duty for thirteen years, on road patrol, foot patrol, and mounted patrol, in front country and backcountry and wilderness, so kiss my entire fucking ass, you ignorant pile of shit.

Translated from the original Vulmean: "The ambassador says he respectfully disagrees!" (big, nervous grin)

Quote from: Omega;954890BECMI still had the point swapping. Not as free as BX. But was still there.You were still free to play whatever class you wanted even with low stats as they didnt lock you out like in AD&D or 2e. They might narrow your options a little but you could play a fighter with a 3 STR if you really wanted to.

Honestly, I don't recall any point swapping rules so I'll take your word for it. Its going on 30 yrs ago. But even though you could switch things about to some degree it was still random character generation so wasn't my cuppa.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;954511I didn't think one could make a dick measuring contest out of options of rolling up characters for an RPG... I guess I was wrong.

Always good for a laugh. Fucking nerds acting like tough guys based on their choice of make believe character creation. Give me a break.

Quote from: Necrozius;954906Always good for a laugh. Fucking nerds acting like tough guys based on their choice of make believe character creation. Give me a break.

Always good for a laugh.  Fucking nerds acting like tough guys based on their choice of elfgames discussion threads to consider themselves above posting in.  Give me a break.

Quote from: Omega;954885You mean the ones I enumerated above? Also you missed that Intelligence is the prime for Magic Users.

So once more.

Strength = just an EXP bonus if was high enough.
Intelligence = Learn additional languages if high enough
Wisdom = just an EXP bonus if was high enough.
Constitution = +1 HP and better survival chance if high enough.
Dexterity = +1 ranged attack bonus if high enough.
Charisma = more hirelings, better loyalty and reaction bonus if high enough.

And stuff that is mentioned but far as I can tell. Never explained.

Oh thanks. Yes I must've missed your post. In other words, not really much actual effect - almost meaningless what your attributes are except for a few peculiar rules.

Quote from: Tequila SunriseShaming gamers who want their PCs to start on a level playing field is as ridiculous as shaming poker players who want to start with the same chips as players who put the same cash into the pot, or shaming parents who want their kids to have the same treatment and opportunities in school as other kids.

Quote from: CatelfNo. This is false equivalence. A game is still a GAME, Cash play is more serious, and Education is Entirely serious.

Quote from: Tristram EvansVulmea's charismatic style of response aside, I have to agree that those analogies are completely inappropriate, because they both are examples of people in direct competition, the lack of which is pretty much a common identifying feature of what makes RPGs unique.

Primary school education is a direct competition? :confused: Well ok, given how Republicans like to underfund classrooms and promote 'school choice'...

I can come up with endless analogies. Shaming gamers who want a level playing field is as ridiculous as shaming a casual poker player who wants to start with the same number of equally valueless chips as his friends. Shaming gamers who want a level playing field is as ridiculous as shaming hobbyists who want an equal stake in the bullets they chipped in equally for, the yarn they chipped in equally for, etc.. But let's be real here -- I can come up with endless analogies, and someone somewhere will come up with an objection to every one of them. So let's talk about the thing itself rather than images of the thing:

One of the most common and strongest of human values is that of fairness -- insofar as being fair to others is feasible, we teach kids to do so, and we often shame and judge harshly adults who act unfairly in the face of self-interest or when it conflicts with other values. Anecdotally, there is exactly one activity I can think of where being fair is automatically 100% worthy of ridicule, and that activity is nothing like any rpg. One of the big appeals of point buy is that it introduces more fairness to the chargen process. (And before someone who thinks themselves clever says "life isn't fair," reread the first sentence of this paragraph, and remember that we're talking about fantasy elfgames.)

So if you do believe that D&Ders who want an even playing field are worthy of shame -- and I'm asking here, because neither of you did more than object to my analogies, so maybe you don't believe so -- let's turn this issue around. What in your mind makes a cooperative hobby like D&D, or any other ttrpg, such an appropriate medium for shaming those who want more fairness, a foundational human value?