Quote from: Marleycat;818580I meant what I said in old versions of DnD (largely before 2e but especially 3e and beyond) your ability scores didn't mean all that much because you rarely had any bonuses to the roll and skills weren't really codified beyond a simple skill check and the player just winging it anyway. Nothing is wrong with that method it's just different then later editions for the most part.

The idea that you described as "ridiculously false" was the idea that CHA did in fact matter as a stat in OD&D due. The reasons put forth for CHA mattering were the significant effect of CHA on the reaction table and for henchman hiring and loyalty. Prime requisite stats matter for an experience bonus which was a 5% or 10% bonus on experience earned. Not an enormous difference, but even that was not exactly worthless.

I don't see how you get your conclusion that CHA mattering is "ridiculously false" unless you just mean that in games you played CHA seldom mattered because you didn't use the reaction table or hire henchmen.

"We skipped over the parts of the rules that make CHA important, therefore people who say CHA is important are objectively wrong."

Sounds like 99% of the Internet, frankly.

The reaction tables only helped a bit they were by no means the end all and be all. Stupidity and mistreatment of said NPC's cancelled out that awesome CHA score regardless.

Just suffice to say I think the premise of ability scores meaning a damn thing in 0e-1e and earlier versions of DnD is ridiculous and no amount of questioning it will change my opinion on the matter. It's just a fact that the game wasn't driven by said ability scores unlike later versions. I would in fact argue that if a person actually had a high charisma in real life it made said everything even more irrelevant.

Quote from: Marleycat;818730The reaction tables only helped a bit they were by no means the end all and be all. Stupidity and mistreatment of said NPC's cancelled out that awesome CHA score regardless.

Just suffice to say I think the premise of ability scores meaning a damn thing in 0e-1e and earlier versions of DnD is ridiculous and no amount of questioning it will change my opinion on the matter. It's just a fact that the game wasn't driven by said ability scores unlike later versions. I would in fact argue that if a person actually had a high charisma in real life it made said everything even more irrelevant.

Aside from modifiers for exceptionally high or low scores and the reaction table what did the Ability scores do?

In 1E, 18/00 Strength gave you +3/+6, which was at least a 2 level jump in hit chance, plus if you used a broadsword, 2-8 you were guaranteed a one-hit kill on a 1HD monster.

Practically a rounding error.

Quote from: Marleycat;818730The reaction tables only helped a bit they were by no means the end all and be all. Stupidity and mistreatment of said NPC's cancelled out that awesome CHA score regardless.

Just suffice to say I think the premise of ability scores meaning a damn thing in 0e-1e and earlier versions of DnD is ridiculous and no amount of questioning it will change my opinion on the matter. It's just a fact that the game wasn't driven by said ability scores unlike later versions. I would in fact argue that if a person actually had a high charisma in real life it made said everything even more irrelevant.

They only don't mean a thing in OD&D; they certainly do in B/X, BECMI and AD&D1e.

Quote from: Kiero;818804They only don't mean a thing in OD&D; they certainly do in B/X, BECMI and AD&D1e.

And that's OD&D without Greyhawk, which added significant bonuses for most high ability scores.

Quote from: rawma;819158And that's OD&D without Greyhawk, which added significant bonuses for most high ability scores.

Not signifigant. But it did add them. 18 STR was a +3 damage bump. (+6 max if you rolled 00 on fighter exceptional strength.)
Pretty much the foundations of what would become AD&D.

Quote from: Omega;819202Not signifigant. But it did add them. 18 STR was a +3 damage bump. (+6 max if you rolled 00 on fighter exceptional strength.)
Pretty much the foundations of what would become AD&D.

The weird thing is that in all my years of playing TSR D&D (OD&D with Greyhawk, B/X, BECMI, AD&D 1e and AD&D 2e core) only a couple of the 120+ players who played in my games over the years ever complained about the attribute mods being somehow unfair. The only complaints I got even semi-regularly from players about attributes was about not meeting the minimums to play a class they wanted in AD&D.

Quote from: Ravenswing;816186I suspect that, like so many "traditional" elements of the hobby, the willingness of players to put up with random gen has a lot to do with whether they grew up playing early editions of D&D, and that the younger the gamer, the more likely he or she'll have little use for random gen.  FWIW.

This gets to the heart of the matter.  In the groups I tended to play with over the years (and by years I mean mainly the mid to late 80's) played 1eAD&D, Star Frontiers, and the like.  Random Chargen was just how it was done.  It wasn't questioned.  In later years, a slightly different group played Rifts, where random but - to some extent - customizable via race, class and skill selection chargen was still the watchword.  The only game we ever tried where chargen wasn't truly random was DC Heroes, with the HeroPoint system.  With that one exception, I think the guys I play with (a few members of the previous gaming groups, with similarly aged and experienced peers added) would balk at the idea of NON random character generation as an utterly foreign concept.

ETA: The above is meant to apply to stats.  Class and race SHOULD, IMO, be left to the characters to maximize the fun and good role playing potential for them.  Within reason.  Disallowing some things because they unbalance the game is still the DM's prerogative.  I recently disallowed a bard because, even though I've never had one in a campaign before and welcomed the variety and challenge of DM'ing one, the fighter and thief levels he'd have to have amassed to get to the bard stage were far beyond the level of the module we were running - and the rest of the party.  And some Rifts RCC's - particularly from South America - with thousands of MDC out of the gate are just no-brainer exclusions.

Quote from: Omega;819202Not signifigant. But it did add them. 18 STR was a +3 damage bump. (+6 max if you rolled 00 on fighter exceptional strength.)
Pretty much the foundations of what would become AD&D.

From +0 for unusual strength to just +2 to hit, +3 to damage seems significant to me; but I was thinking of 18 constitution (+3 HP per die, when d8 was the largest size of hit die) and 18 dexterity (+4 to AC, which would take significant magic items to match otherwise). I guess it depends on your standard of significance; higher than +1 on d20 seems to exceed the usual standard for statistical signficance.

Quote from: RandallS;819209The weird thing is that in all my years of playing TSR D&D (OD&D with Greyhawk, B/X, BECMI, AD&D 1e and AD&D 2e core) only a couple of the 120+ players who played in my games over the years ever complained about the attribute mods being somehow unfair. The only complaints I got even semi-regularly from players about attributes was about not meeting the minimums to play a class they wanted in AD&D.

Same here. The only real problem I have yet had was from a 3e player.

Jan will occasionally grumble about just missing the stats for so-n-so class in AD&D. But she allways just sits down and puzzles out something else in those cases. Bemusingly about every time she is in the mood to play a non- ranger or non-fighter class in AD&D she misses it by like 1 point even with creative race selection. Yet she is not a fan of point buy systems.

odd

fuck you software i want to make a post that just says odd

Quote from: tuypo1;819263odd

fuck you software i want to make a post that just says odd

I believe that's twice so far. I am tempted to sig this phenomenon.

Odd?