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Zombimode
2016-11-13, 06:10 AM
Character generation with a random factor was an integral part of D&D for a very long time. Other (older) games followed suit. Nowadays you don't see it very often if at all. But it is still a polarizing topic among players and GMs alike.

For D&D it meant determining your attribute scores through roll of dice. The most obvious issue with this way of determining stats is the inequality that it will create. Point buy addresses exactly that issue.

But with point buy you are also loosing one of the properties that is often brought up in favor of rolling for stats: the uncertainty of the result, the challenge of character creation that this uncertainty creates, the boundaries that foster creativity.
Now, those effects are not desired by everyone. But there are people who like the situations like this: "I have good scores across the board but only an 8 for Con and a 6 for Wis. What kind of character can I create out of this?". Point buy simply can not create such situations.

This got me thinking: why not simply propose a method of determining attribute scores that is both randomized and equal in that it will always produce an array of equal point buy value for all players?*
As an added bonus, players who don't like rolling for stats could just use point buy at no advantage or disadvantage.

What do you think?
Especially for people who favor rolling: does this idea actually address your issues in the question "point buy vs. rolling" or does it completely miss the point?

* Don't mind the "how". It is not important to this question. But if you're wondering: the answer is both easy and obvious: use a computer program. A brute force algorithm would be very easy to implement and, considering the context of this application, absolutely feasible.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-11-13, 06:39 AM
Even if they all produced the same point buy value it would still produce inequality in that some people's stat arrangements would be more useful than others.

Sneak Dog
2016-11-13, 07:25 AM
Inequality is only an issue between the individual characters of a single party. If the whole party is stronger/weaker than the average, it doesn't really matter. So why not simply roll once and use that array for all players, letting them freely order the array.

Spore
2016-11-13, 08:00 AM
We rolled 4d6 drop lowest for our new campaign (minimum average of 12 or reroll) and then were allowed to trade results.

Zombimode
2016-11-13, 03:15 PM
@Koo Rehtorb
For 3.5 with all it's wealth of material? I doubt it. Some combinations have a broader appeal then others, sure.

@Sneak Dog
Sure, but some people like rolling because that way that don't have control over their stat configurations.
What is the relevant difference between your suggestion and simply using point buy?

@Sporeegg
That's a different approach but nonetheless interesting. My concerns would be that people are not willing to trade or only reluctantly so. But it seems to worked out for you :)

Xuc Xac
2016-11-13, 03:18 PM
Inequality is only an issue between the individual characters of a single party. If the whole party is stronger/weaker than the average, it doesn't really matter. So why not simply roll once and use that array for all players, letting them freely order the array.

If you're playing a game like 3rd edition or Pathfinder, you only need one good stat for some classes while others suffer if they don't have decent scores in three. If you want to play a monk, three 16s are better than one 18 and five 8s. If you want a wizard, you'll take the single 18 for intelligence and the other stats don't matter.

Sneak Dog
2016-11-13, 04:58 PM
@Sneak Dog
Sure, but some people like rolling because that way that don't have control over their stat configurations.
What is the relevant difference between your suggestion and simply using point buy?

The thrill of rolling up characters with non-standard stats. The thrill of rolling dice in general. It's an in-between option, keeping some of the virtues of rolling up stats while also adhering to the inter-party balancedness of point-buy.


If you're playing a game like 3rd edition or Pathfinder, you only need one good stat for some classes while others suffer if they don't have decent scores in three. If you want to play a monk, three 16s are better than one 18 and five 8s. If you want a wizard, you'll take the single 18 for intelligence and the other stats don't matter.

Isn't that always an issue because they can buff that one stat better with magical equipment than others? Certain classes are better than others, then these power levels are adjusted by the ability scores as you mentioned and many other optimization factors like race, amount of magical equipment, types of encounters et cetera.

It's just a bit easier to balance when there is less/no chance involved while the players are carefully trying to create characters that are at approximately similar power levels.

ExLibrisMortis
2016-11-13, 05:12 PM
When some people prefer A, and others prefer B, the mid-point C is not necessarily the optimal - or even a generally acceptable - solution.

That said, there's nothing wrong with hybrids. You can do something like 3d6 drop lowest, in order, add 25 pb on top.

FreddyNoNose
2016-11-13, 06:29 PM
I think some of it depends on the game system. For adnd/dnd, I have a major preference for the die roll method. It provides a more interesting and fun result. You get that guy with the bad dexterity and it becomes something you talk about at the game and makes the game more fun. It adds character to your character and some challenge and uniqueness.

Here is my (extreme/absurd) impression of point systems: Ok the 3 fighters at the game what are your strengths? Fred1: "18", Fred2: "18", Fred3: "18". Ok, now your constitution scores. Fred1: "18", Fred2: "18", Fred3: "18". To me, that is extremely boring.

There is also the issue of cost to improve by 1 point. Is raising a 9 to 10 at the same cost to raise a 17 to 18? That doesn't sound right.

It also depends on how the DM runs his game. Is he the type that goes by the phrase "A good DM never kills a player" or "We are making a story together", then it really doesn't matter you might as well give the players whatever they want and get on with making your story. Also, point systems are better if you want players to choose their class before the stats are created. In a game where you pick the class first, point systems might be forced. You can't have that 3 int mage.

One of the fun things back in the 70s is you would roll stats then see what you could make with it. Paladins, which had tough minimum stat requirements, would become rare. When it is rare, rather than get one anytime you like, you have more value of having it. This is a good thing from that context.

That brings up another issue with point buy in 70s standard 1stadnd. Some classes had more stat requirements than others. Paladin needed 17 charisma plus others. So it is harder for him to get all those stats he would like if he could just pick them. While a magic-user had much less requirements and therefore more free points to spend and would get 18 int so he could learn lots of spells and had a lower failure to learn spells chance.

This really is a DM issue. For my campaign it is 4d6 keep the best three in order. The dropped dice are added to a system of points that can be used to modify dice rolls (before the roll).

So, figure out what you want. Do you want them to pick a class first? Are you making a story together? If so, why not do a point system.

Blackhawk748
2016-11-13, 07:23 PM
I always do it like this:
Roll 4d6 drop the lowest reroll 1s until it isn't a one
You can only have one stat below 10 after racials (the stat must be at least an 8 though)
If your stats dont add up to at least a 32 point buy, keep your highest and reroll the rest

Basically i've found if someone has more than 1 stat below 10 (or really any stat below 8) it has a tendency to severely cripple them. Now some people would say that this would allow for great roleplay and while it may it also doesnt make a ton of sense. Adventurers must be above the average in almost every-way if they want to survive. So if someone has an 8 and a 6 in something, why the hell are they an adventurer?

I will say i've shifted over to 78 straight buy. Each stat point costs one and your stats cant be below 8 or higher than 18 before racials, this gives everyone 18 18 12 10 10 10 if you want to have no negatives or you could have three 18s and three 8s if you really wanted.

Jormengand
2016-11-13, 07:53 PM
I will point out that 32 point buy can get you 12/12/14/16/12/12 or 12/13/8/17/13/13, the latter being pretty much strictly worse, and it can also get you 12/12/8/15/15/15 which is just not a great array for any character. Worse, randomly choosing one of the 32 point buy arrays doesn't address the "Eternal, unavoidable, major decision made at character creation without any player input" part of rolling.

Spore
2016-11-14, 02:28 AM
@Sporeegg
That's a different approach but nonetheless interesting. My concerns would be that people are not willing to trade or only reluctantly so. But it seems to worked out for you :)

Having average rolls of 12+ meant we were always better off than using point buy. And it supported the idea of: "You are a group, your success depends on everyone around you." And yes, we traded. There was a bit of moaning to be honest (due to both tanks rolling low and the rogue having a set of completely odd and mediocre results, like 11s and 13s) but we managed to create something good out of it.

Even I who feels slightly undertuned (compared to the party that is) have more than the PB 32 would have allowed. And our safety net, the cleric has almost divine stats (heh!). But if equal rolls are important to you, it might not be your cup of tea.

thedanster7000
2016-11-14, 07:14 AM
I find rolling or not rolling for stats to be a thematic/game-by-game thing really. If I'm pre-making characters for players, I'll use Point Buy to make sure no-one is forced into a sub-optimal character. If it's a particularly or thematically difficult session or game system I'll use Point Buy so that my character is effective (character building in this way can be fun within itself). I'd only roll in more casual D&D games, where getting every little bit of extra character power isn't hugely important, or is tedious compared to how important it is. I can appreciate the fun of rolling; it makes everything feel more organic, and can make for some amusingly crippled (not something I say very often) characters that wouldn't come about through Point Buy.

One reason people don't like rolling nowadays is that players tend to go into a game wanting to play a specific character/archetype, and randomly generated stats will prevent that, whereas the more old school mindset is to base your character concept off of your stats (this is built into lots of old games like WHFRP or AD&D, where your character's class was based on their stats).

On the topic of randomness/fairness, one could randomly assign numbers to stats from a pre-made array that everyone shares (or use a program or complex algorithm to assign actual Point Buy points rather than arrays), that way everyone's stats add up to the same, but still have randomness involved that isn't uniquely crippling to any given player.

SimonMoon6
2016-11-14, 09:36 AM
The inequality is what makes purely random stats utterly unacceptable to me. When you roll all 10's and someone else rolls all 18's, it's hard to not be a bit upset and/or jealous. It does, however, make it easier to want to suicide your character so that you can try again. And again. And again. And if that's what you desire, then fine. Go ahead and have a campaign where nobody really cares about their characters except that one guy who got lucky stats.

If one must have randomness, I would say this: have everyone roll their stats. Then afterwards, count up the points of each character in the point buy system. Then, tell people that they get to use the point buy system to generate their stats using the number of points that was the highest that the rolled results came out to, but with the restriction that the rolled stats are the minimum values that they may have for each stat. That way, somebody might have an unexpected stat (my fighter has INT 17?) but everybody has the same points worth of stats.





Here is my (extreme/absurd) impression of point systems: Ok the 3 fighters at the game what are your strengths? Fred1: "18", Fred2: "18", Fred3: "18". Ok, now your constitution scores. Fred1: "18", Fred2: "18", Fred3: "18". To me, that is extremely boring.


Now imagine you are Fred4. Your strength is 10 and you are a fighter. But you have to adventure with the three Freds with 18 strengths. This will not be fun.



There is also the issue of cost to improve by 1 point. Is raising a 9 to 10 at the same cost to raise a 17 to 18? That doesn't sound right.

It isn't right. Most point buy systems do start to make it more expensive to get higher stat values. I know for sure that 3.0's point buy system did this.



One of the fun things back in the 70s is you would roll stats then see what you could make with it. Paladins, which had tough minimum stat requirements, would become rare.

Until that **** book Unearthed Arcana came out. You had to roll your stats according to a table. If you were trying to be a wizard, you would roll more dice for INT than you would for STR, and then you'd keep the best three dice. BUT... and this is a large "but"... you then raised your stats to the minimum for your class. So, if you wanted to be a Paladin, you got a 17 Charisma no matter what. And to make this worse, each class got the same total number of dice to roll for their stats, but Paladins only used like 3d6 or 4d6 for Charisma (their highest requirement) whereas other classes would roll something like 5d6 or 6d6 for their highest requirement, so Paladins got better stats than anybody else, on average.

Joe the Rat
2016-11-14, 09:54 AM
One of the approaches I've seen mentioned here (and I'll be baatored to remember who it was) suggested an inverse roll approach: You roll 3 stats, then subtract those results from a number to get your other three. Truncate results to range. Each insanely good or bad roll was offset by another, better or worse roll. That select number gives you your balance point. 21 means every 18 gives you a 3, 26 means every 18 gives you an 8, etc. This doesn't solve the Joe-slightly-above-average distributions, however.

If you really like random rolls, you can play with some of the late "methods" for rolling from 1e. One of the options (mostly for generating NPCs, but why stop now?) has you roll pools of dice for attributes, depending on their importance to the character. So your thief rolls 8d6k3 for dex, but only gets 3d6 for wis (or something similar, it's been a few years).
There are a few modes to attempt here:
Assigned pools: You get 6 dice pools: 8d6, 6d6, 5d6, 4d6, 3d6, 3d6 (or adjust to taste). Assign to stats, then roll, keeping best 3. You are ("probably") going to score well in your high stats, but it leaves room for surprises.
Free pools: You get 30d6 (or some other appropriate number). Assign dice to your stats (min 3d6 in a stat), then roll. This gives you more control on distribution, but does leave open the possibility of a generous 5d6 in everything spread.
Common Dice Pool Assignment: Roll 24d6. Assign 3 of the dice to each stat. There's still a lot of luck on what you have, but you don't "lose" dropped high dice compared to standard 4d6k3. You can even make this a common pool for all players, letting them assign dice rolls as they like. You could even have everyone rolling part of the pool for a little more shared dice luck. Bump the number of dice up and down (minimum 18 dice) to fit your power tastes or collective need to stay out of Vegas.

galan
2016-11-14, 10:02 AM
When you roll all 10's and someone else rolls all 18's, it's hard to not be a bit upset and/or jealous.

But this scenario is very unlikely. Possible, but unlikely. The more likely scenario is having a somewhat weaker character, and that's ok. You don't see everyone playing wizards/other powerful class options because being powerful isn't everything. The game is already unbalanced, and many players are ok with that. Most players, even.

Jay R
2016-11-14, 11:00 AM
For D&D it meant determining your attribute scores through roll of dice. The most obvious issue with this way of determining stats is the inequality that it will create.

That was not originally an issue. In original D&D it was not a big problem primarily because stats didn't have that big an effect. The best character was always the one whose player came up with the most imaginative, tactical, and intuitive moves.

For instance, a high charisma gave you a higher initial reaction from strangers, but over time, coming up with convincing arguments had a larger effect on how well you convinced people.

Saving throws were dependent on level and class, but not stats.

As the number of uses for stats increased, the effects of unequal die rolls increased.

jindra34
2016-11-14, 01:14 PM
Another method would be to set a base number, then grab a number of dice with sides greater than the number of stats (a d6 for D&D for example) assign each stat a number and then roll them. Allowing ones greater than the cap to either be rerolled or freely assigned.

FreddyNoNose
2016-11-14, 07:42 PM
The inequality is what makes purely random stats utterly unacceptable to me. When you roll all 10's and someone else rolls all 18's, it's hard to not be a bit upset and/or jealous. It does, however, make it easier to want to suicide your character so that you can try again. And again. And again. And if that's what you desire, then fine. Go ahead and have a campaign where nobody really cares about their characters except that one guy who got lucky stats.

If one must have randomness, I would say this: have everyone roll their stats. Then afterwards, count up the points of each character in the point buy system. Then, tell people that they get to use the point buy system to generate their stats using the number of points that was the highest that the rolled results came out to, but with the restriction that the rolled stats are the minimum values that they may have for each stat. That way, somebody might have an unexpected stat (my fighter has INT 17?) but everybody has the same points worth of stats.




Now imagine you are Fred4. Your strength is 10 and you are a fighter. But you have to adventure with the three Freds with 18 strengths. This will not be fun.



It isn't right. Most point buy systems do start to make it more expensive to get higher stat values. I know for sure that 3.0's point buy system did this.



Until that **** book Unearthed Arcana came out. You had to roll your stats according to a table. If you were trying to be a wizard, you would roll more dice for INT than you would for STR, and then you'd keep the best three dice. BUT... and this is a large "but"... you then raised your stats to the minimum for your class. So, if you wanted to be a Paladin, you got a 17 Charisma no matter what. And to make this worse, each class got the same total number of dice to roll for their stats, but Paladins only used like 3d6 or 4d6 for Charisma (their highest requirement) whereas other classes would roll something like 5d6 or 6d6 for their highest requirement, so Paladins got better stats than anybody else, on average.
DM is not bound by that.

LibraryOgre
2016-11-14, 08:26 PM
Hackmaster does this, sort of.

All stats are rolled 3d6. If you fail to meet certain criteria (IIRC, two stats of 5 or less, or no stat above a 13... bear in mind, bonuses and such are calibrated to this), then the character is an automatic reject. Doesn't count, gets given to the GM as a shopkeeper. However, once you have your seven stats, you have a choice.

1) You can keep them as rolled. You get a bonus of 50 BP (the average character starts with 40 BP, and you get 15 for leveling up, so this is significant).
2) You can switch two stats. You get a bonus of 25 BP.
3) You can rearrange your stats to your choice. You get no bonus.

Now, since you have to purchase your class at a cost based on your race, it may be that your dreams of a certain race/class combination are impossible if you rearrange (dwarf mages cost 75 BP due to their rarity), so you're limited by the dice to an extent... but you can also spend BP to increase stats, so there's some negotiating to be done... I had a gnomish rogue who wasn't going to qualify for spellcasting without spending a whole ton of BPs or switching stats... once I realized it was going to cost more than 25 BPs to get him to an acceptable intelligence, I just switched stats.

(He still wound up with the Needy flaw; combined with good Looks and a great Charisma, he was a lot of fun, especially when combined with the simple-minded halfling arsonist... again, someone suggested by random rolls in character creation).

FreddyNoNose
2016-11-14, 09:48 PM
The inequality is what makes purely random stats utterly unacceptable to me. When you roll all 10's and someone else rolls all 18's, it's hard to not be a bit upset and/or jealous. It does, however, make it easier to want to suicide your character so that you can try again. And again. And again. And if that's what you desire, then fine. Go ahead and have a campaign where nobody really cares about their characters except that one guy who got lucky stats.

If one must have randomness, I would say this: have everyone roll their stats. Then afterwards, count up the points of each character in the point buy system. Then, tell people that they get to use the point buy system to generate their stats using the number of points that was the highest that the rolled results came out to, but with the restriction that the rolled stats are the minimum values that they may have for each stat. That way, somebody might have an unexpected stat (my fighter has INT 17?) but everybody has the same points worth of stats.




Now imagine you are Fred4. Your strength is 10 and you are a fighter. But you have to adventure with the three Freds with 18 strengths. This will not be fun.



It isn't right. Most point buy systems do start to make it more expensive to get higher stat values. I know for sure that 3.0's point buy system did this.



Until that **** book Unearthed Arcana came out. You had to roll your stats according to a table. If you were trying to be a wizard, you would roll more dice for INT than you would for STR, and then you'd keep the best three dice. BUT... and this is a large "but"... you then raised your stats to the minimum for your class. So, if you wanted to be a Paladin, you got a 17 Charisma no matter what. And to make this worse, each class got the same total number of dice to roll for their stats, but Paladins only used like 3d6 or 4d6 for Charisma (their highest requirement) whereas other classes would roll something like 5d6 or 6d6 for their highest requirement, so Paladins got better stats than anybody else, on average.

Ok here is what I hear. You are telling me your little fred4 bit and that is how you roll or something. You show up to the game with 18 in str and con. haha. Hope you get the meaning here. There is what people say vs what they do.

LibraryOgre
2016-11-15, 11:34 AM
Now imagine you are Fred4. Your strength is 10 and you are a fighter. But you have to adventure with the three Freds with 18 strengths. This will not be fun.

Why is Fred4 a fighter? I mean, if Fred1 is 18 strength and 15 Con, and Fred 2 is 18 strength and 15 Dex, and Fred 3 is 18 strength and 15 Intelligence... are you positing a Fred4 who is straight 10s, and nothing else? If so, why did he make a fighter? As a thief, he'd be contributing something unique to the group. As a cleric, he'd be subpar (what with the chance to fail from a sub 13 Wisdom), but still adequate. He'd even do OK as a magic-user... not too many spells, but not much different than a mage with an 18 intelligence at the outset. For straight 10s, in AD&D? Half-elf mage/thief is a good idea. Dwarven fighter/thief or straight thief. Mage/Cleric might work. You might also do well with an elf fighter/mage... the +1 with long bows and long-swords would help overcome your stat weaknesses (the resultant 9 Con and 11 Dex from stat modifiers are irrelevant), and the combination would let you be pretty sneaky (elf stealth), good with a sword and bow, and able to reinforce your skills with just as many spells as any other mage of your level.

When you have random stat assignment, it is a bad idea to go in with a strong concept. The concept flows from the numbers rolled, rather than trying to make the numbers rolled fit the concept. Really, it's one of the beauties of the system... serendipitious character creation.

I mentioned above the needy gnomish rogue in Hackmaster. In the same batch of pregens, I also created a halfling thief. Now, he had pretty good stats overall, but his Intelligence was 4. He was dumb as a bag of hammer's bag of hammers. In making him, I wound up with a couple of weird parts that made the character come together. He was dumb, yes. But his rolls on Fire-Building mastery dice was insanely good... somewhere in the 60s, IIRC, at 1st level. And his flaw was "Pocking." He has scars all over his face. Suddenly, the character of a dumb pyromaniac thief came together. He wasn't bright, but he knew fire, even if he'd gotten burned by in the past (I pictured it as a spark-and-cinder spray). Combine that with a gnome rogue who is charismatic, intelligent, and very needy, and you have a great pair of characters that wouldn't have come out of point buy. The 4 Intelligence would be impossible without a severe penalty, in many systems.

the OOD
2016-11-15, 02:46 PM
my solution a few years ago, when designing Additive Basic, was random stats, rolled in order, but then giving the players a few extra dice to add to stats at their discretion, and the ability to move points around at a cost.

have a look:
STATS:
STR - strength
CON - constitution
DEX - dexterity
INT - intellect
WILL - willpower
APP - appearance
RAP - rapport

roll 3d6 for each stat, in order, then add 1d6 to one stat, and 1d4 to two others.
you may remove 2 points from any stat(s) to raise another stat by one.
no stat may exceed 18.
any stat less than 5 leaves the character crippled in that area(spend dice to raise!)

value modifier
3/4 crippled
5 -3
6/7 -2
8/9 -1
10/11 0
12/13 +1
14/15 +2
16/17 +3
18 +4
this system worked out great, with the initially rolled stats inspiring a particular character, then allowing the player to assign a few dice where they really need it to tweak as necessary.
my players loved it, and it served our(X-Files style) game quite well.

Ashtagon
2016-11-16, 01:28 AM
1) Start with scores of 8 in each ability.
2) Roll 1d6. The result of that roll indicates which ability score you add one point to (i.e., 1 = +1 Strength, 2= +1 Dexterity, 3 = +1 Constitution, 4 = +1 Intelligence, 5 = +1 Wisdom, 6 = +1 Charisma).
3) Calculate the current points value of this array.
4) If points value is below desired score (typically 28, 32, r something in that general range), go to step 2.

I once made a spreadsheet to do this.

Kane0
2016-11-16, 02:09 AM
That sounds pretty cool actually, do you still have it?

galan
2016-11-17, 12:09 PM
I made a spreadsheet like that on google drive, let me know if it's any good (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1curzY2i2qjYDZ5EMsurHLZ-ph1EnIo6KZlHFlTHgWRY/edit#gid=0). I believe you need to create a copy on your own drive, but I might be wrong. In order to roll ability scores, type =CREATE_ABILITIES(points) in any cell, replace 'points' with a number of your choice (I tested on 28 and 32 to make sure it works correctly). I'm by no mean experienced with javascript so there is probably a better way to make this.

D+1
2016-11-17, 03:27 PM
http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/stat_generation.htm
I wrote that so many moons ago the electrons that display it actually come through as yellow, but people occasionally still tell me it's a useful resource.

SethoMarkus
2016-11-17, 05:47 PM
I apologize if this method for stat generation is mentioned elsewhere, but I didn't notice it in this thread.

What about 2d6+6? It guarantees a minimum of 8, which is acceptable (IMO) but still allows for randomness.

What about 3d6k2+6? Skews towards higher stats but still allows an 8 low score.

Changing it to xd6(k2)+8 would set a 10 minimum.

Ate there any drawbacks to these methods? Even rolling in order I think this system would allow for most character concepts without too much issue. I've been toying with using one of these methods for my next game, and this thread is perfect for asking opinion. It's also given me some great perspective and other systems to ponder over.

propheticsteel
2016-11-28, 12:42 AM
Inequality is only an issue between the individual characters of a single party. If the whole party is stronger/weaker than the average, it doesn't really matter. So why not simply roll once and use that array for all players, letting them freely order the array.

very true, this

Psikerlord
2016-11-28, 04:25 PM
Character generation with a random factor was an integral part of D&D for a very long time. Other (older) games followed suit. Nowadays you don't see it very often if at all. But it is still a polarizing topic among players and GMs alike.

For D&D it meant determining your attribute scores through roll of dice. The most obvious issue with this way of determining stats is the inequality that it will create. Point buy addresses exactly that issue.

But with point buy you are also loosing one of the properties that is often brought up in favor of rolling for stats: the uncertainty of the result, the challenge of character creation that this uncertainty creates, the boundaries that foster creativity.
Now, those effects are not desired by everyone. But there are people who like the situations like this: "I have good scores across the board but only an 8 for Con and a 6 for Wis. What kind of character can I create out of this?". Point buy simply can not create such situations.

This got me thinking: why not simply propose a method of determining attribute scores that is both randomized and equal in that it will always produce an array of equal point buy value for all players?*
As an added bonus, players who don't like rolling for stats could just use point buy at no advantage or disadvantage.

What do you think?
Especially for people who favor rolling: does this idea actually address your issues in the question "point buy vs. rolling" or does it completely miss the point?

* Don't mind the "how". It is not important to this question. But if you're wondering: the answer is both easy and obvious: use a computer program. A brute force algorithm would be very easy to implement and, considering the context of this application, absolutely feasible.

Low Fantasy Gaming RPG has something like this, where one player can choose to use another player's rolled array, possibly at a small penalty (GM discretion).

braveheart
2016-12-01, 01:17 PM
Personally I let always let my players do the standard 4d6b3 6 times and choose where your stats go, but then I give them the option to use a point buy if they find that their rolls are inadequate. this way some players get great stats, and shine, but no one is forced to use a bad set of rolls

exelsisxax
2016-12-01, 01:39 PM
Roll however you want, then allow everyone point buy equal to the highest anyone rolled.

Everybody wins.