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. 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.

Your perception is entirely understandable and largely reasonable. D&D has gradually grown less chargen random over the years, but ability scores remain a foundational part of a character's options and representation, and 4e remains the only edition where something other than rolling scores as well as other odds and ends is the default.

Quote from: Tod13;954733You're talking to the wrong person. I never said anyone should have to play Fritz. I did say I could see one of my players building a Fritz and having fun playing it successfully.

I was speaking to the topic rather than you personally.

Quote from: Skarg;954926Oh 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.

Pretty much. Which makes one wonder why roll stats in the first place since aside from Charisma and Intelligence they don't actually do much? Some holdover from Chainmail? Or there for stat checks?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;954764I agree with everything except the part I've bold.  In 'real life' if Fritz REALLY wanted to adventure, he'd train his body to be able to do it.  After all, police officers are trained to carry 9lbs. of gear on their waist, that will increase your strength and constitution.  Same thing with weapon's training, that will build your body.

A person rarely enters the police academy unable to carry their gear. They train prior to entry. There may well be minimum standards for entry. Otherwise, they enter already close to what they want to be. they get to 'play' the 'character' they want from day one. They have already done their point-buy.

Adventurers are effectively special forces units. They are not conscripts. Random generation is conscripts. You go adventuring not with the team you want but the team you have. I want special forces units. I don't think that is unreasonable. And I shouldn't be judged for that choice. But I am, constantly.

Quote from: CRKrueger;954739Shopkeeper Rule - problem solved - next?

That isn't a 'solution'. That is at best a band-aid. If the player wants to play X they should get to play X. If they are happy to play anything, cool. Not everyone wants that. They want X. They should get to play X.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;954948Primary school education is a direct competition? :confused: ?

Absolutely.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;954957Absolutely.

Who doesn't have fond memories of Kindergarten Death-match?

Quote from: Tetsubo;954950I was speaking to the topic rather than you personally.

Cool.

Quote from: Tetsubo;954959Who doesn't have fond memories of Kindergarten Death-match?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCIGN-jpYJo&t=28s

Quote from: CRKrueger;954891You get Sam Browne Syndrome?

I had lower back injuries dating to track in high school and college, so I wore mine as little as possible. I took wildland firefighter's web gear, dyed it cordovan, and used that in place of my Sam Browne whenever I was in the backcountry; it had an integral hip pack which incredibly convenient and the web suspension distributed the weight to my shoulders as well as my hips. Gave my district ranger kittens since it wasn't as secure as the Sam Browne and I couldn't wear it in the front country because I would have to take it off any time I was operating a vehicle, but one of our risk managers liked it so much she asked me to make one for her to show her bosses - she said Sam Brownes were often the source of lost days and career-ending injuries.

Quote from: Tequila SunriseIt eliminates the temptation of "Let's see how fast I can get this lame set of stats killed" and "See ya lucky guys, let me know when the next campaign starts." We can shame and blame until we're blue in the face, but everyone has a point at which an acceptable and possibly even creativity-inspiring handicap becomes an intolerable and pointless disability. Different people have different breaking points, but "he who throws the first stone," and all that.

Quote from: Christopher BradyI've actually seen.  And never in a malicious way.  If the stats are so low that the player doesn't feel he can contribute, or feels like he's going to drag the team down, the few that have done this have stepped back. And again, this is anecdotal.  But it's always been from a spirit of cooperation:  If I can't help the party in a meaningful way, then why am I here?  I've had a couple players explain it to me in that way, back in my AD&D 2e days.  It's what makes me prefer arrays and point buys.

I like my players to be heroic, you know a point or three above the norm, because nothing and I mean nothing has killed my enjoyment of the game when after spending 15 to 45 minutes (depending on the game/edition/what have you) in character creation and then watching my players TPK to five Kobolds with spears in about 5 minutes in.  At that point, we broke out a couple of boardgames to wash out the bad tastes in our mouths.  Yeah, yeah, I get it, "That's how the dice rolled, Binky."  But this is a game, not real life.  Hell, one can make an argument that in real life, none of those who go into a dangerous job, Firefighting, Police, Emergency work in general, are the base normal.  After all, they all train their bodies as well as their skills.

Indeed. I get why people like to roll, but I've experienced that bad as well as the good, and selfishness is not the only motivation for rejecting a set of low or consistently average rolls.

Quote from: Spinachcat;954499The easier solution is to eliminate asshats from your table. Why put up with such lame bitches?

I've never met the human being without a fault or two, so the question is: Which faults can I deal with, which can I turn into non-issues, and which are going to kill my enthusiasm for running a game? Every time I designate a fault as 'asshat,' I narrow my pool of potential players, and if I demand faultlessness I'll have nobody to game with except myself. So we all have our priorities.

Personally, I'd rather game with good people who may not be impervious to the temptation to reject a bad set of rolls than game with some of the manchildren I've seen on this forum.

I played many early games that did not offer random generation (D6 Star Wars, Shadowrun, and WoD) more than I played D&D, so for me random was never the default method. I got back into D&D with 3e, and when I saw it offered a point-buy option, it seemed more natural to me than random rolling. This preference continues to this day.

Quote from: Tetsubo;954953A person rarely enters the police academy unable to carry their gear. They train prior to entry. There may well be minimum standards for entry. Otherwise, they enter already close to what they want to be. they get to 'play' the 'character' they want from day one. They have already done their point-buy.

Which is my point:  Fritz's stats would not have been that low, he'd have trained them up so he could be an adventurer.  So random rolls are not only unrealistic, the fact that earlier versions of D&D locked you into them with no chance of improving them aside from magic! makes it as much of a fantasy as Dragons are.

Quote from: Tetsubo;954953Adventurers are effectively special forces units. They are not conscripts. Random generation is conscripts. You go adventuring not with the team you want but the team you have. I want special forces units. I don't think that is unreasonable. And I shouldn't be judged for that choice. But I am, constantly.

Totally with you there.

Quote from: Tetsubo;954954That isn't a 'solution'. That is at best a band-aid. If the player wants to play X they should get to play X. If they are happy to play anything, cool. Not everyone wants that. They want X. They should get to play X.

So when we play a TOS Federation campaign, I guess we'll do it aboard the U.S.S. Snowflake with a Q Captain, an Organian Doctor, Gorn First Officer, Borg Science Officer, Romulan Engineer, Klingon Security Officer, and Medusan Navigator.

Or I guess everyone should just play with a full statline of 18s?  In fact, you know, they win...what's the next game?

Or maybe you actually meant players should be able to play characters allowed within the logic of the setting and the campaign?

So if certain races are extremely rare in the campaign and must be qualified for with a very rare roll, or certain classes, social statuses, cultures, whatever are adequately represented through randomness, thus keeping the integrity of the setting intact, that's less important than fulfilling a player's every wish?

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;954853More or less the same here. I started D&Ding using random stats, and I've enjoyed being a player despite rolling for stats, but I can't even remember the last time a player rolled for stats at my table.

My wife likes to roll, so I'm really excited to playtest a new D&D-ish indie game that has options for both rolling (a randomly arranged array) and point buy. Players who like to roll to discover their character can do that, and those who show up with a character in mind can make it happen. Imagine that!

Now that's just crazy talk:D!
(It's also what I do at my tables:)).

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.

Completely unrelated question, but are road patrol, foot patrol and mounted patrol performed by different officers?
(I'm working on my notes for a game, yes).

Quote from: Willie the Duck;954868Omega 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.

My experience confirms this.
Yet you never hear people complaining about low HD rolls on forums. Sometimes I wonder why.

Quote from: Nexus;954901Honestly, 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.

I just checked my copy of OD&D, it seems to have been there from the beginning.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;954948One 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?

To me, at least, fairness doesn't translate to "equal starting point". We strive to be fair to them despite that.
(And even point-buy does, in quite a few games, create very unequal characters. Do I need to mention White Wolf, or how some concepts will make you suck XP penalties even in Savage Worlds, not to mention GURPS?)

Quote from: Tetsubo;954954That isn't a 'solution'. That is at best a band-aid. If the player wants to play X they should get to play X. If they are happy to play anything, cool. Not everyone wants that. They want X. They should get to play X.

I disagree, it is a solution. In fact, it's the same solution the states enact to decide who gets to be in the special forces and who doesn't: they set qualification minimums:p.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;954969I had lower back injuries dating to track in high school and college, so I wore mine as little as possible. I took wildland firefighter's web gear, dyed it cordovan, and used that in place of my Sam Browne whenever I was in the backcountry; it had an integral hip pack which incredibly convenient and the web suspension distributed the weight to my shoulders as well as my hips. Gave my district ranger kittens since it wasn't as secure as the Sam Browne and I couldn't wear it in the front country because I would have to take it off any time I was operating a vehicle, but one of our risk managers liked it so much she asked me to make one for her to show her bosses - she said Sam Brownes were often the source of lost days and career-ending injuries.

Been wearing armour lately, so I can definitely appreciate how much of a difference the weight distribution makes!

Quote from: CRKrueger;954986So when we play a TOS Federation campaign, I guess we'll do it aboard the U.S.S. Snowflake with a Q Captain, an Organian Doctor, Gorn First Officer, Borg Science Officer, Romulan Engineer, Klingon Security Officer, and Medusan Navigator.

Or I guess everyone should just play with a full statline of 18s?  In fact, you know, they win...what's the next game?

Or maybe you actually meant players should be able to play characters allowed within the logic of the setting and the campaign?

So if certain races are extremely rare in the campaign and must be qualified for with a very rare roll, or certain classes, social statuses, cultures, whatever are adequately represented through randomness, thus keeping the integrity of the setting intact, that's less important than fulfilling a player's every wish?

You two are talking about what's important, and you probably value the same things, but you shouldn't expect everyone to value the same things equally Green One;)!