Rolled stats, why the hate?

[DementedFellow]

I noticed in another thread that a poster stated he wouldn't play with a particular DM because he used rolled stats. I've seen this sentiment echoed several times by others. Why is there such a disconnect between players and rolling stats?

Personally, I feel it gives you a bit more excitement in rolling up a character, which is a pretty tedious process.

In addition to that, I feel that the point buy system is the most needlessly complex system out there. Try explaining how many points it costs to go from 16 to 17 to a newcomer. It would just be simpler to say, "You have a pool of X points. 1 point = +1 to a stat. Don't go higher than 18 before racial bonuses are applied." But that's not the way people do it. Instead they focus on some system that will take multiple questions to answer when trying to bring someone in to an already rules-heavy game.

[Dr Bwaa]

Well, point-buy can feel very comforting, especially to people who care about party balance--it's no fun to be the one guy who rolled three stats under 10 while everyone else has 40-point-buy equivalents. Not to mention that (A) it's not actually particularly complex, and (B) there are a plethora of point-buy calculators available for free online, so you don't even have to know how it works if you don't want to learn.

Point-buy stats basically ensure that, all other things being equal, all party members will be approximately equal in terms of power. Obviously all other things are generally not equal, but you get the point.

Personally I do prefer rolled stats. Point-buy is exceedingly boring to me, and all characters feel pretty much the same--you've got one high stat, a bunch of 10s, maybe an 8, and a couple of 12s and 13s. It's hard to justify playing classes with MAD in point-buy systems for this reason--whereas if you roll your stats, you could get lucky and have enough high rolls to make even a monk or paladin decent. Of course, it also helps if the GM alters the rerolling threshold so that nobody gets totally shafted.

[DiscipleofBob]

Because when I roll four 18's, a 16, and a 14 before racial modifiers, I feel like I'm cheating.

And when I roll up two 6's and nothing above a 14, I feel cheated.

[Glimbur]

Depending on if you get to assign the rolls to stats or if you go in order, it can make it unfeasible to build the character you intended to build.

If each person rolls stats separately, there are likely to be differences in who has bigger numbers and such. Why should one character be (slightly) better long term just because they rolled better at char gen?

I would point the new players at a point buy calculator, which simplifies the math. Alternately, once you have explained how the modifier comes from stats, which you will need to do eventually anyway, the point cost follows directly.

[Ozreth]

Well, for what it's worth you won't that attitude in other online communities as much as you'll find it here as GitP is known for build and balance minded folks.

[valadil]

In web discussion of RPGs it's easier to have a standardized set of rules. We spend a whole lot more time talking about character builds in RAW than with house rules, just because the RAW rules are the only ones everyone knows.

I think this preference for standardization extends to die rolls as well in online discussion. I also think that die rolls give us something to discuss. You can't really talk about strategies for hoping you roll all 18s. But when you say 32 point buy, there's an optimal set of stats to be found.

Finally, buying stats straight up like you suggest will work fine for casual gamers or newbies. But wily veterans will exploit it and take nothing but 18s and 8s. The point buy system rewards you for choosing a 16 instead of an 18. It's also not that complicated. Start with 8. Spend a point to bump it up 1. At 14 and up, it costs the stat modifier to increase. This isn't obvious from the chart, but once you have that formula worked out it's really straightforward.

[QuidEst]

I don't mind rolling… if there's a very generous rolling system that all but guarantees you're going to get a very nice setup. But when I manage to get stuck out on the low end of the bell curve with a four on 4d6b3 and not much to show for it, it's a nuisance to work out a character who's that awful at something, especially when a number of choices are ruled out for practical reasons. Can't have a bad will save, can't have hp that low, can't take the penalty to AC, which leaves my character barely literate, staggering under the weight of their clothes, or an anathema to anybody they meet. (Making the character, I went with the massive hit to will save instead.)

The upside is that if I get a fantastic roll, that lets me feel better about playing a Bard or something less powerful.

[caden_varn]

It depends a lot on the group. If I am playing in a game which is more about tactical combat it's good to start from a level playing field. If I'm playing in a more role-play oriented group it is not so important. It also depends if I have a good idea of the sort of character I want to play before I start - in that case it is better to be able to build the stats the way you want them.

This is particularly true with older stat rolling systems like OD&D (3d6, roll in order), as this can massively limit the classes you can play.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Think on this: You don't have to use dice to decide your race, class, skill point distribution, your feats, or spells known, so why are ability scores special?

Though what we're really objecting to is the forced rolling of dice to decide parts of a character. If you wanna roll to get some interesting ideas, fine, but you should never be permanently stuck with something you don't want because of how the dice turn up at the beginning of the game.

[Lord Il Palazzo]

If each person rolls stats separately, there are likely to be differences in who has bigger numbers and such. Why should one character be (slightly) better long term just because they rolled better at char gen?

Characters are going to have different power levels based on the races and classes they chose, the feats and spells they pick, what loot the party finds and any number of other things. I (and my group) don't see one more source of minor discrepency* as a deal breaker and (as was noted above) some builds be just about impossible to make work with point buy.

*And it does tend to be minor as any rolls low enough to make the character actually bad get rerolled.

[Anxe]

My group uses rolled stats pretty much exclusively. We roll them in order and then allow one stat to be rerolled and two to be swapped with each other. It's the 5th option in the DMG called Organic Characters. We like it a lot. The characters are all strong, and the reroll prevents anyone from having awful stats. Not sure where the hatred is coming from either.

[valadil]

Oh, here's a reason why we abandoned rolling. Players don't like bad rolls. Some of them will suck it up and try to enjoy the character in spite of his stats. Others will intentionally get themselves killed off so they can get a reroll. I try not to play with that type of player, but seeing that behavior a couple times ruined the fun of rolling for me.

[Eldan]

Also, personally? Point Buy tends to give you characters that feel more or less the same. Characters without any major flaws. I personally find it quite enjoyable to play a character with a 6 in a stat.

[Jay R]

Rolled stats work fine - for people who think their role-playing skills, rather than their stats, are what's important (and in games in which role-playing skills, rather than stats, really are what's important).

In our current 2E game, I rolled significantly worse than the others. It's a playable character, just not as high, statistically, as the others. I carry my share of the load, and have been quite successful. But that's partly because we have a DM who sets up situations we have to think through.

In a game in which it's just direct encounter after direct encounter, and all problems are solved with die rolls, then having significantly worse die rolls would be a much bigger problem.

[dsmiles]

No hate for rolled stats, here. I love 'em. I grew up on 'em. Everybody in my current group loves 'em and grew up on 'em. (Of course we're a bunch of old guys, but that's not the point.)
They give variety to the characters, and keep things interesting. Especially when you come up with an extremely low stat amidst 5 above average or better stats.

[Hyde]

Have you considered that the player's problem is not the fact the DM uses rolled stats, but the apparent inflexibility of the DM to even consider something else?

When the players are directly involved (which somehow happens in character creation), the DM's opinion is no more or less important than that of any given character.

In fact, if no one objects to using an array over rolled stats, the DM probably shouldn't care too much about how the characters get their stats to begin with- what has it got to do with him? If the end result is that three people in the party have lackluster saves or hit points, it doesn't really matter how they got there.

but I digress.

I wouldn't much care to play with a DM that didn't care for my opinions, either.

[obryn]

It depends on the game I'm running, honestly.

For AD&D, I think rolled stats are great. 4d6 drop low, arrange to taste. It's part of the excitement. For OD&D or RC, I think 3d6 (either in-order or arrange to taste, with 2-for-1 trades) is great. For WFRP2e, rolling for everything (including your profession) is the whole point.

For 3e, I switched to point buy after having the superman-with-commoners thing happen one too many times. I continued to use point buy all through 3.5 and into 4e, and have not gone back.

-O

[Menteith]

It's less balanced, can really screw over some characters out of the blue, and takes away from the character creation subgame that some people enjoy. That's enough to go on, really.

- It can easily result in a character no longer being appropriate for a campaign, entirely randomly. As an example, I recently joined a PbP game where I was running a Paladin, and rolled for stats. I ended up an array that would not allow me to have a positive Charisma modifier, qualify for Power Attack, or cast spells at the same time (pick 2 of those 3). While the array did have an 18, it fundamentally was not suitable for the character I wanted to play, and would not not been appropriate for the power level of the campaign. Point Buy allows players to select what they're character is actually like, and ensures that they can make their characters playable.

- It can easily create substantial imbalances between players. If a player is rocking out 18, 16, 16, 14, 12, 12 while another player has 14, 12, 12, 10, 10, 8, it's going to power up one character for no real reason - and that is a significant power disparity. That second player is forever going to be much lower power with no way to recover it; some people might be comfortable with that, but in my experience, not many people like being randomly depowered. Point Buy ensures reasonable fairness across all players, and players can be given different Point Buy amounts depending on the class they took as an additional way to help balance a group (In my experience, Paladins or Monks can receive larger Point Buys in most groups, which helps a bit).

- It takes away control from the player. At least in D&D3.5, most of the people I game with really enjoy the character creation subgame. Figuring out exactly how everything in a build fits together, the exact ways that they qualify for this feat, how many levels of this PrC. Balancing Point Buy is part of that, and there are players who will resent the loss of control that it represents.

[Doug Lampert]

- It can easily create substantial imbalances between players. If a player is rocking out 18, 16, 16, 14, 12, 12 while another player has 14, 12, 12, 10, 10, 8, it's going to power up one character for no real reason - and that is a significant power disparity.

I've seen worse than the above at the table. I've watched people roll arrays that would be over 60 points by point buy, and the "low" roll above could drop both 12s to 10 and would STILL not be eligable to reroll by the rules.

If character creation takes 3 minutes (original D&D), and characters have an average life expectancy of 2 sessions (so much for any continuing plot or characterisization) then rolling works fine. It's quick and easy.

If you roll in order then at least there's a CHANCE that you'll get an oddity like an orkish wizard.

But if you're taking an hour or more to build a character, expected to have a fair chance of taking that character from level 1 to 20, and the rolls would be arrange to taste so you get the same type of stereotypes that point buy gives only with pointless power variations, count me out.

Why not roll for what level your character is while you're at it? Heck, I'd have LESS trouble with that because in the long run level really would even out.

[Ashtagon]

I love rolling for chargen. I especially like games where your PC might die during chargen.

[The Glyphstone]

I love rolling for chargen. I especially like games where your PC might die during chargen.

Is that possible for any game besides FATAL, certain old editions of Traveller, and (technically) certain World of Darkness lines?

[Melayl]

I like rolling for stats. Like others have said, it gives variety. I might have to play a character that has a serious penalty to a stat, sure. It might make it hard for me to play a certain class or concept, but that's ok. So you have a guy that's not a genius but wants to be a wizard. He might not be the best, but to me that just gives good RP fodder.

If your group uses rolling, cool. If it doesn't, cool. I'd go with whatever stat building style my group went with.

[kyoryu]

I think it depends on a lot of things, really.

Fundamentally, I *like* the idea, for many of the reasons said by others above. That said, I realize it's not necessarily for every game.

It works *best* in an old-school, AD&D type game where:

1) Lethality is present, so you may have to make a new character
2) You may have multiple characters you play at different times anyway.
3) Stat bonuses are not the be-all, end-all of your character's power.
4) The game is more about what the characters do, and less about what the characters *are*/their backstory.

It works less well in games where:

1) You will probably have the same character, and no others, for an extended period of time
2) The game is more about what the characters *are*, and their identities and backstories are woven into the fabric of the game.
3) Stat bonuses are larger and more important.

As far as stat bonuses go, in AD&D a 10 gives a +0/+0, while a 16 gives a +0/+1. Even a flat 18 gives only +1/+2, and an 18/99 gives +2/+5. Given that to-hit is generally considered more important than damage, that's only a max +2 bonus to hit until you hit 19 strength, which is impossible for a starting character.

On the other hand, an 18 strength in 3.x/4e (which is probably considered a *minimum* under most point buy games) gives you a +4/+4. And many characters would be walking around with +5/+5 if they have the racial bonuses.

So, yeah, I like them, in the right game, with the right campaign, the right assumptions, and the right ruleset.

[Roguenewb]

Both are solidly fun, so I don't really care which the DM uses (as long as the point guy is 32). Point buy allows you a large amount of fiddly control over all the tiny moving parts of a character. Rolling allows you to end up with characters who are more or less spread than a standard deviation, and thus presenting flavor choices. Also, you can end up really strong or really weak, which can be intriguing in its own right. A game composed entirely of direct combat, then it's not a good idea to use die rolls, because it's about power, and the characters are weaker if they roll worse.

[WarKitty]

It's less balanced, can really screw over some characters out of the blue, and takes away from the character creation subgame that some people enjoy. That's enough to go on, really.

- It can easily result in a character no longer being appropriate for a campaign, entirely randomly. As an example, I recently joined a PbP game where I was running a Paladin, and rolled for stats. I ended up an array that would not allow me to have a positive Charisma modifier, qualify for Power Attack, or cast spells at the same time (pick 2 of those 3). While the array did have an 18, it fundamentally was not suitable for the character I wanted to play, and would not not been appropriate for the power level of the campaign. Point Buy allows players to select what they're character is actually like, and ensures that they can make their characters playable.

This. My worst memory with rolls is when I'd decided I wanted to play a gish. So bam, of course I get a set of rolls that gets one 18 and nothing else over 13. If I'd been playing a wizard or something, it would have been great. As it was, it rendered the character concept I had unplayable. With point buy, I'd just have gotten myself two 16's and been happy with it.

[Menteith]

Kyoryu hit the nail on the head. In systems where I'm not as invested in my character, I probably won't mind having a bit of randomness involved in CharGen. It can add excitement to a game that otherwise would become stale after a few plays (like some current gen board game RPGs), and it's honestly really fun when you do get those awesome rolls. At the same time, it's incredibly, incredibly annoying to be shackled for real life weeks or months of subpar performance in a 3.5 campaign because you rolled poorly. Choosing to play a lower powered character is fine for some people - being forced to play a useless character isn't, and that's what bad rolls can accomplish.

[Thiyr]

Is that possible for any game besides FATAL, certain old editions of Traveller, and (technically) certain World of Darkness lines?

I know in at least one edition of Hackmaster it's possible through a few ways (only one I know offhand is due to low Honor).

As far as rolled vs point buy, I'd say it depends a lot on the system. In all my D&D games, we've done rolls, and generally if someone gets really screwed they are allowed to reroll (for reference, though, 4d6k3, 7 times keep 6, 3 times keep one is the default start). That said, I found that the WoD system (which doesn't allow for rolls) is actually quite refreshing as a fairly strict point buy. Honestly, though, I'm not much a fan of either choice. If I'm doing rolls, I tend towards getting playable and functional sets, but if I don't get enough good stats, or get too many if the concept isn't based on more than one or two stats being good. Point buys, on the other hand, almost always feel too much like I'm trying to game the system, so conceptually it feels like I'm making my characters savants rather than characters.

Personally, I've been itching to try something I read here the last time this conversation came up: Players just choose their stats, anywhere between 3 and 18 per stat, based on the character they want to play (still subject to DM approval, and under the assumption that it's with a fairly mature playgroup in a game not intended for being just a meatgrinder. Personally I add the stipulation that non-racial modifiers are already factored in, so no gaming age penalties). That said, I also want to try a game where the characters are all DM generated based on player description, no direct input from the player (and to make up for the lack of control, the DM is also free to ignore prereqs for abilities that would be fitting for such a character).

[Rallicus]

I have no problem with rolled stats.

You are asking the Playground though, which predominately consists of players who are very concerned about balance, builds, so on and so forth. Sometimes when I come on here I feel like I'm reading the viable builds section of an MMO forum. But hey, to each their own.

[Malystryx]

I've always used rolled stats so dont have any problem with them.

In my campaigns i prefer high powered PC's and actively help my players optimize theyr characters and rolled stats usually give better stats then standard point buy. I could of course use higher power point buy but i prefer the randomness and not being able to have you'r stats excatly as you want them.

I also dont restrict rerolls at all so my players are free to roll as many sets of stats as they want until they are happy with they'r stats. Sometimes players roll one stat extremely low but really high in all others and decides to take that set of stats, which makes it intresting roleplaying the particular weakness.

[GolemsVoice]

I like rolling for stats, because I like to gamble, but on the other hand, I can really see why people would dislike that system, and I would drop it if several players complained. I'm always in favor of player control over their characters.

As far as I see it, there are generally two schools of thought:

You pick what you want to be, race, class, stats, gender, whatever there is to pick,

or

you play the person you are born as, be it man or woman, rich or poor, wizard or thief (or in some cases, rat-catcher or cook).