Rant: even when rolling for ability scores, standard array should be a floor

[druid91]

Who is saying that? The OP specifically said they don't want to roll stats. The DM said they had to roll stats.


See, according to the people I've been debating with, that is impossible. Stats don't matter to play, low, high, middle, it does not matter. So no matter how you generate the stats, you should never end up with a dull lifeless character.

And of course, to quote Burger Beast and his favorite advice, if your DM forces you to do point buy "just forget what you want and have fun anyways."


Or, we can acknowledge that things are a bit more nuanced.

Wrong.

Doing worse than your party members makes you feel like an anchor. People don't want to be the weak link.

If you are spending an ASI to get a +1 to hit so you can start getting closer to where they are, while your party members are discussing which feat will give them new options to add even more, are you going to feel like you are doing a good job?

If you get a magic item that sets your stats to equal your party members, while they get magic items that let them do new and interesting things, are you going to feel like you are doing well, or that you are getting life support from the DM to catch up.


Being significantly weaker than your teammates is a problem.

And not rolling stats wasn't an option, so they're complaining that they can't have the benefits of not rolling stats, while rolling stats. I mean, it doesn't matter how high or low your stats are. But when everyone has the same set of stats every time it's dull and boring.

And I never said you should just 'go along' with whatever your DM says and ignore your own fun, but neither are you immune to criticism for what you find unplayable.

I mean.... unless you literally just want to be a big dumb fighter who does nothing but sword swing then there's a thousand things you could be doing to contribute without needing peak stats. You could buy a horse, and specialize in mounted combat for mobility. You could play an Entrenchment wizard. You could play an alchemist or do any number of things to allow you to contribute without needing to have a 20 or whatever arbitrary number you decide is playable.

Your minimum of 8, you need 14 to hit a goblin.

At a maximum of 20, you need a 9 to hit that same goblin.

It's significant, but not all that much. It's a variance of 5 at max. And that's comparing the most extreme ends. Your ability score variance is effectively eliminated by level 13 at the latest by proficiency bonus.

The idea that you have to play catchup at all is the issue. Not your stats.

[Rynjin]

Your minimum of 8, you need 14 to hit a goblin.

At a maximum of 20, you need a 9 to hit that same goblin.

It's significant, but not all that much. It's a variance of 5 at max. And that's comparing the most extreme ends. Your ability score variance is effectively eliminated by level 13 at the latest by proficiency bonus.

That is a 25% difference in success rate, or to put it in other terms, that is a 60% chance of success vs a 35% chance of success. Well over half, vs a little over a third.

You recognize it as "significant" but I'm not sure you recognize HOW significant a 25% difference in success or failure is. And that's against one of the weakest monsters in the book. Which by your own admission is only negated at level 13, a level which historically does not see very much play; unless 5e is wildly different than every other d20 game ever made, most games end around level 9-10 at the latest.

Even taking a less extreme viewpoint, we have in the actual scenario presented, a character with an 18 vs a 14. That's a 10% difference in success. That is still quite significant, and will in point of fact never be made up.

Even in your extreme scenario you fail to take into account that everyone in the party levels. The Proficiency bonus will NEVER make up that difference.

[Amechra]

To make it even more concrete, druid91, the person with a 20 in their stat is almost twice as likely to succeed at hitting that goblin as the person with an 8 in their stat. On top of that, they'll have a much larger effect when they do succeed.

And the same goes for other stuff - a 1st level Wizard with an Intelligence of 8 would have a save DC of 9, compared to the DC 15 that their much smarter colleague would have. A goblin would have a 70% chance of passing a save vs. the first Wizard's Burning Hands, and only a 40% of passing their save vs. the second.

EDIT: Also, both of you are slightly off - the difference is 30%, not 25%.

[druid91]

Again, that's honestly not a huge deal there are all manner of things you can do that don't require saves or attack rolls, or allow you to boost them. And also again, your only stuck with that character until they die.

It's not that significant.

[MaxWilson]

Even taking a less extreme viewpoint, we have in the actual scenario presented, a character with an 18 vs a 14. That's a 10% difference in success. That is still quite significant, and will in point of fact never be made up.

Are we really claiming that a 10% difference in success is enough to render a PC un-playable? If I cast Fear and scare away 6 out of 10 orcs instead of 7 out of 10 orcs because my Int is "only" 14 instead of 18 (DC 13 vs. 15), am I really so bad that the party would rather have no wizard than me as a wizard? I'm incredibly skeptical of that perspective.

10% difference in success rates: significant? Sure, in a statistical sense. If you pay careful attention to two spellcasters over multiple sessions, you'll probably be able to guess fairly well which of them has a higher spellcasting stat. But it's still much less significant in its effect on play than player skill is: casting the right spell with DC 13 is far better than casting the wrong spell with DC 15. (You'll know what I mean if you've ever seen a player upcast Chromatic Orb with 9th level spell slots in one of the first encounters of the session.)

Look, if someone wants to argue that they only have fun with high stats, go ahead and admit it. I have certainly gone through phases myself, back in the day, where only Str 18/00 was remotely fun for me. In 5E the equivalent would be wanting multiple 18s in your starting stat array and maybe a couple of extra feats. 5E is a game and there's no shame in wanting to enjoy a little power fantasy.

But that's an emotional argument based on preference, and let's just acknowledge that the actual magnitude of the effect of stats on play is pretty small, especially for spellcasters instead of warriors, because (1) most spellcasters don't get to add their spellcasting stat to damage anyway, unlike warriors, and (2) spellcasters have various options that would still be good even with a spellcasting DC of 0, including Wall of Force, Twin (friendly) Polymorph, Aura of Vitality, Conjure Elemental, Dimension Door, Teleport, etc. (3) since you can prepare only a limited number of spells, not taking spells that require high DCs to be effective (like Hold Monster) opens up more space for the spells that don't. Two steps back, one step forward.

No stat array can make you useless to the party or helpless in the game unless you choose to be useless/helpless.

[Avonar]

Here's the thing though, the rolled stats weren't a surprise. If you know that you will be rolling for stats going in and still choose to, you don't have much of a foot to stand on if things don't turn out fantastically. You can say that you don't like stat rolling but you still agreed to it, if you aren't willing to deal with low stats then don't agree in the first place.

Now, as for how to deal with it, it's not hard. I've seen players play characters with significantly worse stats than that and both still have fun and be useful. Hell, I had a guy roll 11, 11, 9, 9, 7, 7 once and despite me offering him a reroll, he took the stats, played them and was actively useful. The problem comes when people think that having worse stats makes you useless. Don't forget, this isn't a board game or video game, you're not trying to game the system to beat the system, you're trying to play your character in this story. It's entirely possible to play a character who is less effective in combat and still have fun. Sure, the CHARACTER might feel like they aren't carrying their weight, but the PLAYER shouldn't. Could even turn it into a character moment, trying to keep up with the rest of the part that they feel are just better.

If you contribute to the group having fun, stats are 100% irrelevant.

Also, having +2 instead of +4 makes an overall minor difference, so I don't know why this was an issue to begin with.

[huttj509]

Here's the thing though, the rolled stats weren't a surprise. If you know that you will be rolling for stats going in and still choose to, you don't have much of a foot to stand on if things don't turn out fantastically. You can say that you don't like stat rolling but you still agreed to it, if you aren't willing to deal with low stats then don't agree in the first place.

The player's choice was "roll or don't play."

[Rynjin]

To make it even more concrete, druid91, the person with a 20 in their stat is almost twice as likely to succeed at hitting that goblin as the person with an 8 in their stat. On top of that, they'll have a much larger effect when they do succeed.

And the same goes for other stuff - a 1st level Wizard with an Intelligence of 8 would have a save DC of 9, compared to the DC 15 that their much smarter colleague would have. A goblin would have a 70% chance of passing a save vs. the first Wizard's Burning Hands, and only a 40% of passing their save vs. the second.

EDIT: Also, both of you are slightly off - the difference is 30%, not 25%.

I had 30% at first but second guessed myself. The dangers of posting while doing 2 other things at once.

[diplomancer]

And stories and gameplay are influenced by dicerolls. If you don't like rolling dice, then you probably won't like D&D. Frankly, best to get that out of the way sooner rather than later. So you can move on to systems that allow diceless play.


Of course, the reasons for quitting can be reasonable or unreasonable. If I were to threaten to walk from your game because I had to roll, rather than just assume a 15 or so on every attack.... well wouldn't you balk a little? Think it unreasonable?

And likewise, it doesn't matter what they rolled, or what he rolled. Rolling stats is a valid form of stat generation, and can be fun if you aren't determined to hate it. What he's saying is he wants rolling stats but with none of the fun/risk of rolling stats. I honestly despise arrays, and point buy in D&D. I find they make characters that are dull, lifeless cutouts. You have the same 'standardly optimized' whatever it is 9/10. And I quite honestly hate it.

Interestingly enough, I was planning on taking a non-standard race for a Forge Cleric with point-buy (wood-elf), which is normally a Str/Wis build. Because even optimizers like to vary.

What happened when I rolled poorly? I picked a variant human, the most overused race in the game. So, ironically, in this particular case, rolling with no floor, led me into the "standard optimized" approach, when I was planning on something else.

For someone who cares at all about build optimization, rolling only allows "unusual" characters when you roll well, if you roll poorly you basically don't have a choice but to get the more optimized races. (If I'd rolled really well, I'd probably have tried yet another race, even less optimized for a Forge Cleric than wood elf).

Rolling with a floor, on the other hand:
1- will keep the characters different (unless they all roll poorly, in which case the DM can still suggest that they keep their characters and he'll adjust the game difficulty)
2- will ensure that intra-party stat variance will not be too big, keeping the DM's job of creating appropriate challenges for the whole party easier.
3- allows unlucky optimizers the chance to try non-optimal but still viable race/class combinations
I still think this approach keeps the best of both worlds (rolling stats with standard array, not point buy, as a floor), and I haven't seen one cogent argument against it, though I have received good advice on how to cope and still try to have fun with the worse method the DM insisted on.

@Christew, you may think you are "just purely highlighting that quitting has an effect on others", but this is really not how you sound. Let's switch perspectives for a moment; suppose, instead of the unhappy player, it was the unexperienced DM that posted here, saying:
"I prefer rolled stats, and even give players a more powerful than standard rolled stats method, but I have one player, who'd stated his preference for point-buy beforehand, who's rolled poorly, and asked me to use standard array. All the other players rolled better than standard array, so it's not like I am making him more powerful than the others. I said no, and he hasn't pushed the issue further, but I don't think he's happy about it. In fact, he dumped his constitution and I fear he might try to get his character killed. He also twice changed his stated preference for the race he wanted to play. Should I just let him have the standard array?"

Would you be telling the DM "you know, he probably had a character in mind that he can't now make with those scores, he might even have spent some time making up a back story that now he has to scrap. I'm not telling you that you should let him have it, but you should consider the effect your choices have on others", or would you be telling him "you are dealing with an entitled powergamer, you're probably better off kicking him away right now, he will be a source of frustration to you and, as the DM, you have the right to play the game the way you want to, and it's the player's job to adjust." or maybe something more neutral, but still affirming the DM's choice like "let him try the character out, but if you feel he's deliberately running unnecessary risks to get his character killed, kick him out, even if he denies doing so"?

[patchyman]

That's fine with me. I converted to preferring Point Buy last year, but I still hate 5E's implementation of it. My current favorite method is Pathfinder, P1 for being Point Buy and intrigued by P2's way of build your stats via background. Unfortunately 5E doesn't provide guidelines for that, so it's easier to use dice rolling.

It depends what you are looking for. Ironically enough, the PF2 method doesn’t really lead to a lot of variance, since you just put an 18 in your main stat, and your worst stat is a 10 (8 if you took a race with a flaw and did not compensate for it).

After you control for boosts to your main stat (and non-boosts to your dump stat) you really only end up with 3 different arrays (post-racial).

[Christew]

The point was not that optimized play is a necessity.

The point was that some stories, some character developments, do not fit in DnD. The wizard with no proficiencies? Novels and tv shows can pull off that character, that is a legitimate character that can be very interesting. But not in DnD.

Steve Rogers pre-serum isn't a character who works in DnD. The idea of being the 90 lbs weakling with heart, who will just get beaten up again and again? They aren't who the character is when the campaign starts. Instead, the player usually wants to play Steve right after the serum. They were a 90lbs weakling, now, they aren't because something fixed that problem, but they still need to figure out how to use that new strength.


Yes, the point of fun in DnD is usually the character, dealing with flaws and issues and working with that. But, that is not what a poor stat array is. It isn't a creative challenge, it isn't a heroic flaw that story can be built on. It is just being bad at something.

That a constructed narrative written by a single author featuring a single protagonist is different from a party based roleplaying game is axiomatic and therefore does not necessitate discussion. I prefer to celebrate what the game can do instead of opining what it can't.

The DM didn't force them to roll stats... they just said that if you want to play you have to roll stats.

It is their purview, but I have to wonder what the benefit of this situation is to the DM? What have they gained in a lot of players who are better than the last member of the party?

If Diplomancer isn't cleared from criticism because they decided to play the game, why is the DM cleared from criticism just because they are the DM?

Yeah. The use of the word "forced" is the problem. The DM choosing the stat generation method for his game is proactive decision making; it happens before the game group is assembled and becomes an extent fact about the game. A player choosing to quit after rolling stats is reactionary decision making. I don't really see the comparison.

So, why mention "no one else is leaving because of their stats"? What were trying to accomplish?

"Well, the game will go with or without you?" What does that accomplish? Especially this point in the discussion, when it has been almost 72 hours since they decided they were going to stay in the game.

Because that was the declared relevant difference between the listed players? Clarity?

It illustrates that while our choices have an effect on others, that effect is usually not catastrophic.

Wrong.

Doing worse than your party members makes you feel like an anchor. People don't want to be the weak link.

If you are spending an ASI to get a +1 to hit so you can start getting closer to where they are, while your party members are discussing which feat will give them new options to add even more, are you going to feel like you are doing a good job?

If you get a magic item that sets your stats to equal your party members, while they get magic items that let them do new and interesting things, are you going to feel like you are doing well, or that you are getting life support from the DM to catch up.


Being significantly weaker than your teammates is a problem.

False dichotomy again. Either you do the best of the party or you are an anchor.

I have never once felt anything approaching that in decades of play. If I am looking at my fellow player's sheet, it is to help them be more effective, not to compare their character to mine. Different strokes for different folks, but the whole mindset seems like one that gives you more opportunities to be unhappy then necessary. Why bother?

@Christew, you may think you are "just purely highlighting that quitting has an effect on others", but this is really not how you sound. Let's switch perspectives for a moment; suppose, instead of the unhappy player, it was the unexperienced DM that posted here, saying:
"I prefer rolled stats, and even give players a more powerful than standard rolled stats method, but I have one player, who'd stated his preference for point-buy beforehand, who's rolled poorly, and asked me to use standard array. All the other players rolled better than standard array, so it's not like I am making him more powerful than the others. I said no, and he hasn't pushed the issue further, but I don't think he's happy about it. In fact, he dumped his constitution and I fear he might try to get his character killed. He also twice changed his stated preference for the race he wanted to play. Should I just let him have the standard array?"

Would you be telling the DM "you know, he probably had a character in mind that he can't now make with those scores, he might even have spent some time making up a back story that now he has to scrap. I'm not telling you that you should let him have it, but you should consider the effect your choices have on others", or would you be telling him "you are dealing with an entitled powergamer, you're probably better off kicking him away right now, he will be a source of frustration to you and, as the DM, you have the right to play the game the way you want to, and it's the player's job to adjust." or maybe something more neutral, but still affirming the DM's choice like "let him try the character out, but if you feel he's deliberately running unnecessary risks to get his character killed, kick him out, even if he denies doing so"?

None of the above? I would ask said DM about why they chose rolled stats and what they were hoping to gain from that character generation method. Based on their answer, I would then formulate my response. In RL, my groups are all comprised of adult friends with whom I'm comfortable discussing things before, during, and after gameplay. It sounds like that is not the case for you and you have my sympathies for that.

But to the heart of your question, yes I affirm the DMs right to choose how stats will be generated for his game. If you were aware of said character generation method, then I don't recommend coming to the table with a character or backstory in mind. I similarly don't recommend sitting down to a game of Monopoly with the idea that you are going to be a railroad baron.

Ultimately, DMs and players are different and proactive and reactive decision making are different. I genuinely feel for you that rolling stats disrupted your plans and that you are not happy with the numbers you rolled. I just don't think that you are entitled to accommodation because of those plans and feelings.

[diplomancer]

I have never once felt anything approaching that in decades of play. If I am looking at my fellow player's sheet, it is to help them be more effective, not to compare their character to mine. Different strokes for different folks, but the whole mindset seems like one that gives you more opportunities to be unhappy then necessary. Why bother?

I didn't look at other player sheets. But we all rolled stats in the open, I know what they rolled, and I know what races they chose. I have a pretty good idea of what their stats very likely are. I usually don't look at other player sheets unless they ask me to, I find it rude to tell players what they should do with their characters.

None of the above? I would ask said DM about why they chose rolled stats and what they were hoping to gain from that character generation method.

His answer is, and I already mentioned it here, " I find it more fun that way".

Based on their answer, I would then formulate my response. In RL, my groups are all comprised of adult friends with whom I'm comfortable discussing things before, during, and after gameplay. It sounds like that is not the case for you and you have my sympathies for that.

But to the heart of your question, yes I affirm the DMs right to choose how stats will be generated for his game. If you were aware of said character generation method, then I don't recommend coming to the table with a character or backstory in mind. I similarly don't recommend sitting down to a game of Monopoly with the idea that you are going to be a railroad baron.

Ultimately, DMs and players are different and proactive and reactive decision making are different. I genuinely feel for you that rolling stats disrupted your plans and that you are not happy with the numbers you rolled. I just don't think that you are entitled to accommodation because of those plans and feelings.

Your experiences with your friends are basically irrelevant, both to the particular situation, and to the more general claim I'm making, I'm sorry. I also am more used to play with friends and work out any differences through frank conversation, but this is not the situation here, it's no use acting as if it was. The very first post mentioned this is an online game with strangers, which means the table mechanics are inherently different. Common courtesy demands that players have less leeway to make their case to the DM, and, if they disagree with the DM, to err on the side of giving him way. The flipside of that is that, if a player doesn't like the ways things go, for whatever reason, and quits, it's no big loss to the table or to the work the DM's been through. You projecting from your game experience to this totally different game experience is not helpful at all.

Not that I think it makes any difference to the situation, but when the DM put out the notice for the game, he did not say in advance what the character generation method would be. He said "I'll be having an online campaign with a lot of undead enemies. Requirements are a computer, an internet connection, discord and roll20". After the group was formed, and I'd chosen the race and class combination I wanted to play, he told players, a few days before session 0, that the character generation method would be rolled stats. Yes, I already had a pretty good idea of what I've wanted to play before knowing we'd be rolling stats. It's the reason I asked point-buy in the first place when told we'd be rolling.

[Chaosmancer]

And not rolling stats wasn't an option, so they're complaining that they can't have the benefits of not rolling stats, while rolling stats. I mean, it doesn't matter how high or low your stats are. But when everyone has the same set of stats every time it's dull and boring.


And I never said you should just 'go along' with whatever your DM says and ignore your own fun, but neither are you immune to criticism for what you find unplayable.

So you recognize that they did not choose to roll stats. And considering your opinion on point buy you would still criticize them for walking away from the game the moment they knew they had no choice.

And, I don't understand why everyone having the same stats is boring and dull. If it doesn't matter how high or low your stats are, then why does having the same numbers matter?

I have two archer characters that I am playing. One was meant to be a laid-back happy go lucky ranger, due to the game world being full of terrible people (seriously, our bosses didn't tell us about the abilities of the monster we were hunting for them "because you didn't ask" then the next time, specifically asked, and they lied about it "because they thought it was funny") he's become a face-palming father figure of the group trying to do what he can to save the civilians. The other is a stuttering, shy and broken rogue with a crossbow who has massive self-esteem and daddy issues.

If they both started with a 16 Dex, how would that fact make them lesser characters? How would they become more boring from that fact? If I build a duelist wanting to start her own dueling school and become known as the greatest swordswoman of all time, and she had a 16 dex, is she boring? What about a peasant girl who was forced to marry into a noble family, only to almost be sacrificed to a demon and offered a deal instead, 16 dex/cha make them boring too?

I mean.... unless you literally just want to be a big dumb fighter who does nothing but sword swing then there's a thousand things you could be doing to contribute without needing peak stats. You could buy a horse, and specialize in mounted combat for mobility. You could play an Entrenchment wizard. You could play an alchemist or do any number of things to allow you to contribute without needing to have a 20 or whatever arbitrary number you decide is playable.

Buy a horse, really? How quickly do you expect a level 1 character to come into 426 gold for a warhorse with saddle and tack? And how long do you expect that horse to live, with 20 hp and 11 AC? Oh, buy the horse armor for another 200 gold to get scale and AC 15? And then of course, you go into a cave, or an alley in a city, or what have you, and the horse is left behind. I had a paladin once, tried to use my mount as much as possible, got to use it three times in a year and a half campaign? Our biggest arc involved us traveling on a boat (no mount) to enter a cave system in a volcano (no mount) to get transported to Hell (no mount) and fight our way through Hell and various buildings (no mount) until we were transported to Sigil (no mount) and made our way to a town (no mount) where we were eventually sent back home and found devils invading so we snuck through the sewers (no mount) to infilitrate the city (no mount) and fight them off through another cave system (no mount).

And my Elk only cost a spell slot to summon, instead of having to find a physical horse.

No idea what an entrenchment wizard is, assume it is a variant on the buffing wizard, and yes, those can be effective without needing to make attack rolls or force saves. Of course, they don't help your AC or your concentration saves, and they do nothing for social encounters at all. But they can work. But the point isn't that you can make buff builds. The point is that rolling stats and being forced to make a buffing build doesn't make you happier about playing them. It gives them a stigma.

Not sure what you mean by an alchemist. The Artificer still needs stats, maybe you mean using the Alchemy kit? I don't know how a 1d4 of fire damage is going to stay viable ever, but maybe you've got some 3pp rules for alchemy?

Your minimum of 8, you need 14 to hit a goblin.

At a maximum of 20, you need a 9 to hit that same goblin.

It's significant, but not all that much. It's a variance of 5 at max. And that's comparing the most extreme ends. Your ability score variance is effectively eliminated by level 13 at the latest by proficiency bonus.

The idea that you have to play catchup at all is the issue. Not your stats.

Rynjin did a very good breakdown of this. That is the difference between a 30% chance to succeed and a 65% chance to succeed.

You can say "the numbers are only 5 apart" but we only have 20 numbers to begin with. And think about other enemies. Hobgoblins can have plate and a shield, that is an AC 20. Impossible for the 8 to hit without a crit, meaning they have a 5% chance of success. The 20 stat? They hit on a 13. They need a lower roll to hit AC 20 than you did to hit a goblin with AC 15.

This is why you have to "catch up" because you are nearly half as effective as you companion and once the numbers get above 15 for AC, you have nearly a 75% chance to miss. 25% accuracy sucks.

Again, that's honestly not a huge deal there are all manner of things you can do that don't require saves or attack rolls, or allow you to boost them. And also again, your only stuck with that character until they die.

It's not that significant.

So, suicide run the character and roll again to get better?

In a lot of games, your character doesn't die. And if they do, they get revived. I've only had one character bite the dust and it was not permanent (it was also in 4e) Every other character I've played has made it through the entire campaign, I have multiple characters I've been playing for a year.

Being markedly less effective for the entire year would have been a problem.

Are we really claiming that a 10% difference in success is enough to render a PC un-playable? If I cast Fear and scare away 6 out of 10 orcs instead of 7 out of 10 orcs because my Int is "only" 14 instead of 18 (DC 13 vs. 15), am I really so bad that the party would rather have no wizard than me as a wizard? I'm incredibly skeptical of that perspective.

10% difference in success rates: significant? Sure, in a statistical sense. If you pay careful attention to two spellcasters over multiple sessions, you'll probably be able to guess fairly well which of them has a higher spellcasting stat. But it's still much less significant in its effect on play than player skill is: casting the right spell with DC 13 is far better than casting the wrong spell with DC 15. (You'll know what I mean if you've ever seen a player upcast Chromatic Orb with 9th level spell slots in one of the first encounters of the session.)

I think your fear example is horrifically misleading.

DC 13 wisdom save vs a +0. That is the orcs having a 40% chance of success. That means a little less than half of them should make the save. DC 15 is a 30% chance. That means that 3/4's of them won't make their save.

So, after enough rounds of combat saves, your first person is effective about half the time, the other 75% of the time.

And yes, player skill matters. You could have the stats of a god with 30's across the board and choosing to cast a 9th level sleep on the balor will always be a terrible move. But, here is a little nugget of surprise.

You can teach a player to be better and more skilled. Explain to them why upcasting a 1st level spell in a 9th level slot is a poor move. You can't teach a player to roll higher numbers on a die. And once our inexperienced 9th level slot using wizard realizes what is actually effective, then you have two people, both making the same tactical decision, and one being far more effective than the other.

Don't forget, this isn't a board game or video game, you're not trying to game the system to beat the system, you're trying to play your character in this story. It's entirely possible to play a character who is less effective in combat and still have fun. Sure, the CHARACTER might feel like they aren't carrying their weight, but the PLAYER shouldn't. Could even turn it into a character moment, trying to keep up with the rest of the part that they feel are just better.

If you contribute to the group having fun, stats are 100% irrelevant.

And how is the player supposed to not feel like they aren't carrying their weight, when mathematically and objectively, they aren't? I mean, thea character thinks they are trying their best and can't do much better, but the player knows that if they had just done better before the game started, they would be an equal to their party members.

What if you don't want to play the character constantly striving to keep up with your superior teammates? What if instead of running behind them saying "you guys are so cool, I wish I was like you guys" you instead walked beside them and it was the NPCs who got to be impressed with the party, not another party member?

That a constructed narrative written by a single author featuring a single protagonist is different from a party based roleplaying game is axiomatic and therefore does not necessitate discussion. I prefer to celebrate what the game can do instead of opining what it can't.

Thank you for finally agreeing with me and seeing that rolling poor stats and then saying "but that just gives you flaws to write an interesting character with" is a bad argument that dismisses what stories games tell exceptionally well.

It was a long road, but I knew we'd get here.

Yeah. The use of the word "forced" is the problem. The DM choosing the stat generation method for his game is proactive decision making; it happens before the game group is assembled and becomes an extent fact about the game. A player choosing to quit after rolling stats is reactionary decision making. I don't really see the comparison.

So they should have quit as soon as the DM said they had to roll, instead of trying to keep an open mind and trying it out.

Because, you know, I bet that the OP would have been less concerned if they rest of the party was looking at 14's and 16's than they are now with the 18's and 20's of their teammates. But getting poor rolls on top of everyone else getting excellent rolls, is kind of a double edged sword.

Because that was the declared relevant difference between the listed players? Clarity?

It illustrates that while our choices have an effect on others, that effect is usually not catastrophic.

Clarity of what? That everyone else is doing better than them? We all knew that. It was declared a relevant difference because it was the problem. Saying "people without your problem aren't struggling with your problem" is kind of oxymoronic isn't it?

"Hey, people who aren't lactose intolerant have no problem eating this cheese pizza, what makes you different?"

False dichotomy again. Either you do the best of the party or you are an anchor.

I have never once felt anything approaching that in decades of play. If I am looking at my fellow player's sheet, it is to help them be more effective, not to compare their character to mine. Different strokes for different folks, but the whole mindset seems like one that gives you more opportunities to be unhappy then necessary. Why bother?

"Do the best of the party?"

You realize that never once, not even a single time, have I stated that a character should be better than the rest of the party, right? I've never advocated for taking those high stats of the other characters and lowering them either.

But, if you are the weakest of the party, you feel like the weakest of the party. If your spells are 25% less effective, so that your effect on debuffing enemies is a coin flip or worse instead of being close to certainty or a coin flip at worse, then you will notice it.

I think everyone in the party should be on equal footing. This is a team game about working together to solve problems. Everything about that sentence tells me that we should want our team to be of even power.

None of the above? I would ask said DM about why they chose rolled stats and what they were hoping to gain from that character generation method. Based on their answer, I would then formulate my response. In RL, my groups are all comprised of adult friends with whom I'm comfortable discussing things before, during, and after gameplay. It sounds like that is not the case for you and you have my sympathies for that.

But to the heart of your question, yes I affirm the DMs right to choose how stats will be generated for his game. If you were aware of said character generation method, then I don't recommend coming to the table with a character or backstory in mind. I similarly don't recommend sitting down to a game of Monopoly with the idea that you are going to be a railroad baron.

Ultimately, DMs and players are different and proactive and reactive decision making are different. I genuinely feel for you that rolling stats disrupted your plans and that you are not happy with the numbers you rolled. I just don't think that you are entitled to accommodation because of those plans and feelings.

You might choose none of the above, but after a few years on various forums, I can guarantee that there would be a decent chunk of responders who would advocate discussing with the "problem player" and trying to figure out if they are trying to get their character killed and then boot them. And some wouldn't bother with the "talk to them" part first.

[HappyDaze]

The player's choice was "roll or don't play."

That's still a choice.

[diplomancer]

That's still a choice.

So is quitting afterwards, though there are plenty of people here saying that making this choice makes you a worse person, or a worse player than not making this choice. According to others, the only thing worse than just quitting is trying to play the character you want to play, with the understanding that your low rolls may lead to your character's death with the tactics you prefer. It's the DUTY of a player to play a character he doesn't enjoy playing, doing everything he can to keep the character alive, sacrificing fun for survivability, and anything else the player is a poor sport.

Is it ok to quit a game because you don't like the DM's style? If yes, quitting a game because a DM believes "low stats are fun", when you don't have fun playing with low stats is surely justified. It's a difference in playstyle, that could be papered over if the player is lucky and has good stats, but can lead to unnecesary conflict if the player's unlucky.

[JellyPooga]

I think everyone in the party should be on equal footing. This is a team game about working together to solve problems. Everything about that sentence tells me that we should want our team to be of even power.

The point is that, roughly speaking, everyone on the team is equal, even though their ability scores may vary. At least as far as different characters are able to be equal. I mean, at the end of the day, it's quite rare for a party to include two characters with identical stats and role. Yes, a Cleric with Wis 18 is better at casting than a Cleric with Wis 14, but the Cleric with Wis 14 is still able to do things that the Fighter, Rogue and Wizard are literallly incapable of, regardless of whether those characters have 18's across the board or not. Ability Scores rarely offer niche protection and comparable "power" between team members is more about offering roughly equal contribution to solving encounters; something that most characters can do even with lower ability scores.

A Cleric with Wisdom 14 is not obligated to increase that score at any point during his career, if he wants Feats or to increase other scores; he's not "worse" than the other characters in the team, just because his Wisdom is comparatively low next to other characters primary scores. He's not always "catching up" unless he wants to. He's still a Cleric and the best Cleric on the team, assuming there are no other Clerics looking to fill the same role.

[BurgerBeast]

It seems to me that there are three lines of reasoning that have been presented in this thread that are either going unnoticed or unacknowledged.

(1) The OP had a choice.

People are insisting that either he did not, or that the choice offered was “not really a choice.” Yes, it was.

For dramatic effect, some people are saying: his choice was “roll or don’t play.” First of all, that is a choice, and it was offered before any rolling occurred. Second of all, it’s not like you couldn’t play D&D if you decided not to play. There are other games of D&D out there. Now more than ever, in fact.

What if the DM insisted on point buy? Do you think it would be justifiable to ask him to roll stats, and if he said no, to be outraged? They’re both valid choices. “I don’t like it” is a valid opinion, but “I don’t like it when it doesn’t go my way and I like it when it goes my way” is... not even acknowledging the method and it’s properties.

(2) The character is playable.

In order for a character to be playable, there must be at least one build option that will not be so far behind the other players as to be useless.

Just because you can’t build the specific character or type of character you want to build does not make the stat array unplayable. For almost any stat array, some builds are better than others. That’s just the reality.

(3) Player skill is a way bigger factor than your scores.

If you want to have a better character, play him better. See it as a challenge. Manage your resources better. Make use of your less commonly highlighted abilities. Think in character and come up with clever ideas. In every single campaign I have ever played, there was a person at the table who was a better D&D player than everyone else, and whether he or she also had the best stats was a matter of pure coincidence.

My general advice is, consider all possible options, build a flexible character, and when you’re at the table, get to gettin’.

My advice to you is: quit the game. Tell us when you have, so this thread can end. You will not be happy in the game, and you are not likely to make the game any more enjoyable for anyone else at the table.

Hopefully also learn from this mistake and discover how you may have avoided this situation, so that you don’t end up in a similar situation in the future.

Also, consider that your personal fun is not the only factor. Consider that, for a group that rolls stats, some of the fun comes from the fact that every 4th or 5th campaign, you are the one with the great stats. That can be fun for some people. But if everyone with the worse stats quits, then nobody gets to ever have that fun.

There’s also the general piece of advice that I think is very good advice: “see things through and don’t be a quitter.”

[Christew]

I didn't look at other player sheets. But we all rolled stats in the open, I know what they rolled, and I know what races they chose. I have a pretty good idea of what their stats very likely are. I usually don't look at other player sheets unless they ask me to, I find it rude to tell players what they should do with their characters.

Sounds like a healthy perspective, kudos. If you are implying that I am rude and looking at players sheets without being asked, I refer you to my use of the word "help." That was meant to imply collaborative assistance upon request.

[QUOTE=diplomancer;24563441His answer is, and I already mentioned it here, " I find it more fun that way".[/QUOTE]
And, as I already mentioned, that is his purview. I see no problem with it. To be more clear, I think my question and yours (I don't like my stats, can I reroll or take the standard array) are different and therefore the answer to one does not necessarily engender an answer to the other.

for whatever reason[/i], and quits, it's no big loss to the table or to the work the DM's been through. You projecting from your game experience to this totally different game experience is not helpful at all.

Not that I think it makes any difference to the situation, but when the DM put out the notice for the game, he did not say in advance what the character generation method would be. He said "I'll be having an online campaign with a lot of undead enemies. Requirements are a computer, an internet connection, discord and roll20". After the group was formed, and I'd chosen the race and class combination I wanted to play, he told players, a few days before session 0, that the character generation method would be rolled stats. Yes, I already had a pretty good idea of what I've wanted to play before knowing we'd be rolling stats. It's the reason I asked point-buy in the first place when told we'd be rolling.

I was highlighting the differences between my current experiences and your described one. My go to solution is not available to you because you lack a relationship with the DM, I merely made that explicit. Related but differing situations can sometimes provide insights to each other. If that post wasn't of value to you, then skip it.

In my opinion, that gave you "a few days before session 0" to adjust your expectations based on new information. I don't fault you at all for asking for what you wanted, but neither do I fault your DM for saying no.

[BurgerBeast]

So is quitting afterwards, though there are plenty of people here saying that making this choice makes you a worse person, or a worse player than not making this choice.

It does. Are we pretending that all choices are equal?

It's the DUTY of a player to play a character he doesn't enjoy playing, doing everything he can to keep the character alive, sacrificing fun for survivability, and anything else the player is a poor sport.

No. You are missing the point.

It is your duty to realize that, since you are rolling stats, you may not get the stats you want and you may have to face a choice between playing a weaker version of your desired character or playing a different character that works better your rolls.

If you do not realize that, then you are really not agreeing to roll at all. Rolling for stats means you get what you get. It does not mean that you roll to determine whether you’re going to play at all. If it did, it would be called “rolling to see who is playing,” not “rolling for stats.”

Is it ok to quit a game because you don't like the DM's style?

No. This is why you talk ahead of time about the commitment. If you are playing with a DM and you’re not sure if you’ll like it, talk about the length of the campaign. Maybe agree to a few sessions. Then stick to it. After that, decide to play more or quit. It’s not okay, generally, to be a quitter.

And especially don’t try to leverage your participation to try to influence the DM’s style.

If yes, quitting a game because a DM believes "low stats are fun", when you don't have fun playing with low stats is surely justified.

True. I think we have established that it’s not justifiable to quit. Most quitter know this, too. That’s why most quitters make up “little lies” to avoid the awkwardness caused by having to admit that they are quitters.

It's a difference in playstyle, that could be papered over if the player is lucky and has good stats, but can lead to unnecesary conflict if the player's unlucky.

The way to avoid the conflict is to not roll stats if you don’t think you can handle the results. That’s what this is really about.

If your commitment to the group is going to change based on the rolls, then you cant handle rolling for stats.

That’s what it means to “be able to handle” something - that it will not get to you.

[diplomancer]

Sounds like a healthy perspective, kudos. If you are implying that I am rude and looking at players sheets without being asked, I refer you to my use of the word "help." That was meant to imply collaborative assistance upon request.


And, as I already mentioned, that is his purview. I see no problem with it. To be more clear, I think my question and yours (I don't like my stats, can I reroll or take the standard array) are different and therefore the answer to one does not necessarily engender an answer to the other.


I was highlighting the differences between my current experiences and your described one. My go to solution is not available to you because you lack a relationship with the DM, I merely made that explicit. Related but differing situations can sometimes provide insights to each other. If that post wasn't of value to you, then skip it.

In my opinion, that gave you "a few days before session 0" to adjust your expectations based on new information. I don't fault you at all for asking for what you wanted, but neither do I fault your DM for saying no.

I had already created my character and sketched his background story. If it's "fair" to ask me to discard that, why is it "unfair" to say to the DM "I won't enjoy playing this character, feel free to invite someone else"? Finding 1 more person to play (with 1 week time before the next session, which is more than "a few days") is less work than creating a character and a background story from scratch.

And this is what I mean when I say you may believe you are "just pointing out that your choices involve others" when what is actually going on is that you don't like the way I play. You are totally fine with the DMs choices negatively impacting my enjoyment of the game, because you don't like the way I play the game, and you agree with the DM. But if my choices negatively impact the game, even if it's a negligible impact, than all of a sudden I have to consider the effects of my choices.

It does. Are we pretending that all choices are equal?



No. You are missing the point.

It is your duty to realize that, since you are rolling stats, you may not get the stats you want and you may have to face a choice between playing a weaker version of your desired character or playing a different character that works better your rolls.

If you do not realize that, then you are really not agreeing to roll at all. Rolling for stats means you get what you get. It does not mean that you roll to determine whether you’re going to play at all. If it did, it would be called “rolling to see who is playing,” not “rolling for stats.”

Do I have a duty to play the best possible character with my stats, even if that best possible character is not fun for me? And I thought I was an unreasonable optimizer!

No. This is why you talk ahead of time about the commitment. If you are playing with a DM and you’re not sure if you’ll like it, talk about the length of the campaign. Maybe agree to a few sessions. Then stick to it. After that, decide to play more or quit. It’s not okay, generally, to be a quitter.

I don't think you can possibly mean that. What if the DM was a horrible, abusive, cheater, but I'd made a "commitment" of 3 sessions? Do I have the obligation to play those 3 sessions which would be sheer unpleasantness? I don't know about your time, but my time is more valuable than this.

And especially don’t try to leverage your participation to try to influence the DM’s style.

Good thing no one here is doing this. Even if I HAD quit, I wouldn't be doing this. It could only be said that I was doing this if I'd threatened to quit, and then didn't after getting better stats. Notice that that's not even 1 of the suggestions I put on the first post, which was, admittedly, a rant.

True. I think we have established that it’s not justifiable to quit. Most quitter know this, too. That’s why most quitters make up “little lies” to avoid the awkwardness caused by having to admit that they are quitters.

No. No one has established this. No one actually believes that quitting from a game table is never justified.

The way to avoid the conflict is to not roll stats if you don’t think you can handle the results. That’s what this is really about.

If your commitment to the group is going to change based on the rolls, then you cant handle rolling for stats.

That’s what it means to “be able to handle” something - that it will not get to you.

Well, I sure am glad that my decision to try and play my preferred character the way I'd planned to do it, basically just changing the race to make him slightly less unoptimized, gets the BurgerBeast Seal of Approval TM.

[Christew]

Thank you for finally agreeing with me and seeing that rolling poor stats and then saying "but that just gives you flaws to write an interesting character with" is a bad argument that dismisses what stories games tell exceptionally well.

It was a long road, but I knew we'd get here.

Cute. A truly nonsensical interpretation of what I wrote, but admittedly cute.

So they should have quit as soon as the DM said they had to roll, instead of trying to keep an open mind and trying it out.

Because, you know, I bet that the OP would have been less concerned if they rest of the party was looking at 14's and 16's than they are now with the 18's and 20's of their teammates. But getting poor rolls on top of everyone else getting excellent rolls, is kind of a double edged sword.

Theoretically, if you are going to quit, yes it is better to quit as soon as possible to limit the impact on others. Yeah, I just still don't buy your base premise that a couple of points in a starting stat make that much of a difference.

Clarity of what? That everyone else is doing better than them? We all knew that. It was declared a relevant difference because it was the problem. Saying "people without your problem aren't struggling with your problem" is kind of oxymoronic isn't it?

"Hey, people who aren't lactose intolerant have no problem eating this cheese pizza, what makes you different?"

Again, not what I said and again, reductio ad absurdum.

"Do the best of the party?"

You realize that never once, not even a single time, have I stated that a character should be better than the rest of the party, right? I've never advocated for taking those high stats of the other characters and lowering them either.

But, if you are the weakest of the party, you feel like the weakest of the party. If your spells are 25% less effective, so that your effect on debuffing enemies is a coin flip or worse instead of being close to certainty or a coin flip at worse, then you will notice it.

I think everyone in the party should be on equal footing. This is a team game about working together to solve problems. Everything about that sentence tells me that we should want our team to be of even power.

Well, that ignores the fact that you wrote "Doing worse than your party members makes you feel like an anchor" -- as I quoted at the time. The only way to not "do worse than your party members" is to do the same as them or better than them. Since you balked at my earlier suggestion of giving everyone high stats, I made the logical leap that you don't want to do the same as your party. An inversion of your statement would be "doing better than your party members does not make you feel like an anchor."

I agree that everyone should be on relatively equal footing. I just think that a 14 and an 18 are on relatively equal footing in terms of the game and its mechanics.

You might choose none of the above, but after a few years on various forums, I can guarantee that there would be a decent chunk of responders who would advocate discussing with the "problem player" and trying to figure out if they are trying to get their character killed and then boot them. And some wouldn't bother with the "talk to them" part first.

Okay?

[JellyPooga]

I had already created my character and sketched his background story.

This is one of the places where rolling for stats falls down; pre-planned character ideas/backstories/builds don't always work when rolling stats. That just comes with the territory and it's something you have to accept once you've accepted that you'll be rolling for stats. Of course you'll be disappointed when you've written a character to be "stronger than an Ox" and don't roll any stats over 14...but that's kinda your fault for assuming you'll get an exceptional ability score roll. You'd be similarly at fault for planning a multiclass character and not rolling the stats required to play that character at all, let alone well.

On the flipside, rolling Ability Scores allows for some truly exceptional characters; largely speaking, one of the flaws of some classes is that they're MAD, but with good scores, those MAD Classes can really shine. Rolled stats allows for this in a way that Point Buy or Array rarely does.

At the end of the day, you have to accept a certain amount of flexibility in your characters design when you roll stats. If you don't then, simply put, you're going to get upset over something that you should have anticipated in the first place. It's like putting money on a horserace; you're allowed to be upset about losing a bet, but at the end of the day you should have been willing and ready to lose when you put the bet down in the first place. If you were gambling everything on that bet and had no contingency for losing, then you've already lost.

[diplomancer]

This is one of the places where rolling for stats falls down; pre-planned character ideas/backstories/builds don't always work when rolling stats. That just comes with the territory and it's something you have to accept once you've accepted that you'll be rolling for stats. Of course you'll be disappointed when you've written a character to be "stronger than an Ox" and don't roll any stats over 14...but that's kinda your fault for assuming you'll get an exceptional ability score roll. You'd be similarly at fault for planning a multiclass character and not rolling the stats required to play that character at all, let alone well.

On the flipside, rolling Ability Scores allows for some truly exceptional characters; largely speaking, one of the flaws of some classes is that they're MAD, but with good scores, those MAD Classes can really shine. Rolled stats allows for this in a way that Point Buy or Array rarely does.

At the end of the day, you have to accept a certain amount of flexibility in your characters design when you roll stats. If you don't then, simply put, you're going to get upset over something that you should have anticipated in the first place. It's like putting money on a horserace; you're allowed to be upset about losing a bet, but at the end of the day you should have been willing and ready to lose when you put the bet down in the first place. If you were gambling everything on that bet and had no contingency for losing, then you've already lost.

Clarification, when I said "created my character", I meant "chosen a race and class, sketching a backstory". Details would be left until I knew more about the rest of the party, but still I had to scratch out a lot of that and create a new backstory for this Human which I wasn't planning on playing.

[Chaosmancer]

The point is that, roughly speaking, everyone on the team is equal, even though their ability scores may vary. At least as far as different characters are able to be equal. I mean, at the end of the day, it's quite rare for a party to include two characters with identical stats and role. Yes, a Cleric with Wis 18 is better at casting than a Cleric with Wis 14, but the Cleric with Wis 14 is still able to do things that the Fighter, Rogue and Wizard are literallly incapable of, regardless of whether those characters have 18's across the board or not. Ability Scores rarely offer niche protection and comparable "power" between team members is more about offering roughly equal contribution to solving encounters; something that most characters can do even with lower ability scores.

A Cleric with Wisdom 14 is not obligated to increase that score at any point during his career, if he wants Feats or to increase other scores; he's not "worse" than the other characters in the team, just because his Wisdom is comparatively low next to other characters primary scores. He's not always "catching up" unless he wants to. He's still a Cleric and the best Cleric on the team, assuming there are no other Clerics looking to fill the same role.

I suppose that relies on two things.

The OP is in a 6-man party. They picked a cleric, but this is a stated "undead heavy campaign" how many other people also picked cleric?

If they didn't pick cleric and picked Druid or Ranger, are they still similiar enough to take the Cleric's roles? I don't mean in terms of "I can cast revivify" or "I turn undead" (though I'll grab that one in a moment) but I mean in terms of skills. Cleric's tend to be the most perceptive or intuitive (intuition) characters, because they have high wisdoms, but if the Druid is in the party and takes those same wisdom skills, and has a higher wisdom, what is the point of the low wisdom cleric rolling? What if instead of "everyone, roll perception." The DM says "okay, one of you roll perception." Well, it isn't going to be the cleric with the +4 total compared to the Druid with a +6 total.

Remember, there is a point where the person with the right skill (meaning highest mod) does the thing. If all your numbers are low, you don't have the right skill. Ever.


Grabbing Turn Undead, this is a heavy undead campaign, and the OP is a cleric. This is perfect for them right? Except, their Spell Save DC is 12. Even with a -1 wis, the Skeletons the OP might try and turn have a 60% chance of succeeding. Something only moderately stronger like the Shadow? 55% chance.

You are looking at a coin flip. This is the cleric's big move, their grand sweeping "I can solve this problem right now" in an undead campaign. It is a coin flip on how effective it is, against some of the weakest undead. What if the DM is using monsters that are lieutenants for these undead, giving them turn resistance to make them a bigger threat? Advantage is about +5 so we drop to 35% and 30%. That is, pretty much not worth doing right?

And also, the radiant damage clerics generally bring to stopping undead? Well, the advice has been to play a buffing cleric, so you won't have that. Your healing? Effected by your mod.

So, while yes, being the only cleric means you are still a cleric even with a 14, you are a poor cleric, you are not accomplishing the actions that generally are associated with being a cleric, especially in the context of the campaign we are being given.

It makes a difference.

It seems to me that there are three lines of reasoning that have been presented in this thread that are either going unnoticed or unacknowledged.

(1) The OP had a choice.

People are insisting that either he did not, or that the choice offered was “not really a choice.” Yes, it was.

For dramatic effect, some people are saying: his choice was “roll or don’t play.” First of all, that is a choice, and it was offered before any rolling occurred. Second of all, it’s not like you couldn’t play D&D if you decided not to play. There are other games of D&D out there. Now more than ever, in fact.

What if the DM insisted on point buy? Do you think it would be justifiable to ask him to roll stats, and if he said no, to be outraged? They’re both valid choices. “I don’t like it” is a valid opinion, but “I don’t like it when it doesn’t go my way and I like it when it goes my way” is... not even acknowledging the method and it’s properties.

It has been acknowledged. It isn't "dramatic effect" to say the choice was roll or don't play. It is the truth.

And sure, there are lots of games out there. Your point is that quitting isn't bad just because you have other ways to play later?

(2) The character is playable.

In order for a character to be playable, there must be at least one build option that will not be so far behind the other players as to be useless.

Just because you can’t build the specific character or type of character you want to build does not make the stat array unplayable. For almost any stat array, some builds are better than others. That’s just the reality.

At what point is it unplayable then? Is there any stat array that is unplayably bad?

If no, then you could have fun with literally anything, even if say, you had an array with your highest stat being an 8, so you chose to play a moon druid.... as did another player who is equally skilled in playing druids and has their lowest stat as a 12?

(3) Player skill is a way bigger factor than your scores.

If you want to have a better character, play him better. See it as a challenge. Manage your resources better. Make use of your less commonly highlighted abilities. Think in character and come up with clever ideas. In every single campaign I have ever played, there was a person at the table who was a better D&D player than everyone else, and whether he or she also had the best stats was a matter of pure coincidence.

My general advice is, consider all possible options, build a flexible character, and when you’re at the table, get to gettin’.

My advice to you is: quit the game. Tell us when you have, so this thread can end. You will not be happy in the game, and you are not likely to make the game any more enjoyable for anyone else at the table.

Hopefully also learn from this mistake and discover how you may have avoided this situation, so that you don’t end up in a similar situation in the future.

Also, consider that your personal fun is not the only factor. Consider that, for a group that rolls stats, some of the fun comes from the fact that every 4th or 5th campaign, you are the one with the great stats. That can be fun for some people. But if everyone with the worse stats quits, then nobody gets to ever have that fun.

There’s also the general piece of advice that I think is very good advice: “see things through and don’t be a quitter.”

Firstly, "Git Gud" is crap advice. "your skill as a player is what being challenged here" is elitist garbage. It assumes that A) you somehow have control of the d20, or B) you can have the same amount of fun trying to fight against your character as you can playing a character.

I mean, seriously. Everyone knows that Bless is an amazing spell, and it doesn't require a save... but what do you do on round 2 of the fight? Cast sacred flame, deal no damage, pass your turn. Round 3? Same thing. Round 4 well hopefully combat is over, all you've done is cast a single spell that let other people do things, and exist.

Fight 2, do the same? Fight 3? When you are 5th level... are you still concentrating on bless and that's it? We know you aren't healing in combat, that isn't efficient and a waste of spell slots. You are being maximally efficient though, really high skill play in making sure your allies are doing the best they can do.


Secondly, You advise the OP to be a quitter, essentially saying "If you can't play with skill, don't bother playing". Then you tell us that your general advice is never to be a quitter.

Finally, this hot garbage.

Also, consider that your personal fun is not the only factor. Consider that, for a group that rolls stats, some of the fun comes from the fact that every 4th or 5th campaign, you are the one with the great stats. That can be fun for some people. But if everyone with the worse stats quits, then nobody gets to ever have that fun.

I'm going to paraphrase this. To truly express how I see this.

"Consider it isn't about you. Consider that, sometimes, the fun of rolling happens only ever fourth or fifth game, when you get to be better than everyone else. That can be fun. But if everyone who rolls **** quits, then nobody ever gets to have the fun of being better than everyone else."


Which, not only makes me look back up to your "skilled players beat rolls" and wonder if playing skilled means you aren't having fun without being the one with great stats, then why does it matter? But also, just makes me furious. Because, you are revealing the lie behind the curtain with that line of "nobody gets to have that fun if everyone quits". The only way that is true is if the fun is being better than someone else.

And if that is the true point in rolling stats, then that system should never be used. Because if your fun relies on you being better than someone else, then the game should not support your fun.

Of course, you will likely try and say you didn't mean that, that I'm putting words in your mouth. But, I'm curious how else you meant it? Will you try and defend it by saying that "if everyone quits because they aren't the best then the game will never happen so you never get to play?". That seems to deny the possibility that everyone rolls well. And, if you point out that, well, it is incredibly unlikely that everyone rolls well, which is the point, that waiting for the game where everyone rolls well means you'll never play.... Then, again, I'm confused. Because, it seems the fun of rolling would then be having good stats. And that, again, would put a lie to the "fun in is skilled play" and it would raise the question.

If the fun of rolling is having good stats. Why not just give everyone good stats?

I mean, you never earn the stats either way. It is RNG. So what does it matter if you roll them or get them via an array or point buy? If the goal of rolling is to eventually have fun by being the person who rolled well, just bypass that and give everyone good stats. Then everyone gets to have fun every game, instead of one person every five games.

[Christew]

I had already created my character and sketched his background story. If it's "fair" to ask me to discard that, why is it "unfair" to say to the DM "I won't enjoy playing this character, feel free to invite someone else"? Finding 1 more person to play (with 1 week time before the next session, which is more than "a few days") is less work than creating a character and a background story from scratch.

And this is what I mean when I say you may believe you are "just pointing out that your choices involve others" when what is actually going on is that you don't like the way I play. You are totally fine with the DMs choices negatively impacting my enjoyment of the game, because you don't like the way I play the game, and you agree with the DM. But if my choices negatively impact the game, even if it's a negligible impact, than all of a sudden I have to consider the effects of my choices.

Hazards of the game? I have a literal stable of characters that I was excited to play and didn't get to. I wanted to play a warforged and my DM said no Eberron, I wanted to play a Spore Druid and my DM said no Ravnica. I didn't take my ball and go home, I made new characters that fit the game the DM wanted to run. Maybe I'll find a game to play those other characters in someday, if not they were still a fun exercise in theory craft. Really no skin off my nose either way. A DM put in the legwork to facilitate my gameplay so I accommodated his rules about said game.

I don't think the second case is unfair. If you are going into a game thinking I won't have fun to such a degree that it will be a negative impact on the game, then yes quit and let them find a player that fits their group/game better.

Everyone's choice impact everyone else in collaborative gameplay. Speaking maturely throughout to lessen the negative impacts of choices on others is good. I don't know anything about how you play the game. I agree with the DM because it is a required part of DMing to choose a method of stat generation. He is facilitating gameplay. I disagree with you because you are focusing entirely on your own fun in a collaborative game, feeling slighted because you didn't roll as high as other players, and discussing what amounts to ragequitting or suiciding because you are only a big damn hero and not the biggest damn hero. You are entitled to your opinions and I am entitled to mine. Beauty of an open forum.

[HappyDaze]

So is quitting afterwards, though there are plenty of people here saying that making this choice makes you a worse person, or a worse player than not making this choice. According to others, the only thing worse than just quitting is trying to play the character you want to play, with the understanding that your low rolls may lead to your character's death with the tactics you prefer. It's the DUTY of a player to play a character he doesn't enjoy playing, doing everything he can to keep the character alive, sacrificing fun for survivability, and anything else the player is a poor sport.

Is it ok to quit a game because you don't like the DM's style? If yes, quitting a game because a DM believes "low stats are fun", when you don't have fun playing with low stats is surely justified. It's a difference in playstyle, that could be papered over if the player is lucky and has good stats, but can lead to unnecesary conflict if the player's unlucky.

If you agree to take the chance of rolling and then decide to walk away because you didn't like what you rolled, I do consider this less favorably than someone that simply decides not to roll.

[JellyPooga]

Clarification, when I said "created my character", I meant "chosen a race and class, sketching a backstory". Details would be left until I knew more about the rest of the party, but still I had to scratch out a lot of that and create a new backstory for this Human which I wasn't planning on playing.

Even so, you still had an idea of what kind of character you wanted and it relied on a certain...quality, shall we say; melee Cleric is more MAD than buffer Cleric, after all. Rolled stats might have been able to give you that, but they might also have given you one 18 and a bunch of <10's...a stat-line that could be great for a Wizard, but doesn't really work for a melee Cleric or many, if any, multiclass concepts. Like I say, once you've accepted rolling as an attribute generation method, you have to accept a certain flexibility with regard to your character ideas.

The OP is in a 6-man party. They picked a cleric, but this is a stated "undead heavy campaign" how many other people also picked cleric?

Even if everyone else in the party is a Cleric, a Cleric with low Wisdom can still maintain concentration on a Bless or tank some damage while those with higher Wisdom cast spells that are more reliant on their superior score. It's truly rare for a character to be of leser value to a party, let alone entirely useless, even with low ability scores. In a party of Clerics with Wis 18, the Cleric who can't match that 18 still has the option of focusing more on other aspects; while the Wis 18 characters are pumping their ASI's into Wis to max it out, you can be taking HAM, Sentinel or Warcaster...sure, they might not have as high a DC or spell attack, but they can very much be better at maintaining concentration, tanking damage or many other things, despite the disparity in ability scores, because ability scores have a relatively low impact on the actual results of gameplay when compared to class features, feats and even Background features.

[Christew]

I'm going to paraphrase this. To truly express how I see this.

"Consider it isn't about you. Consider that, sometimes, the fun of rolling happens only ever fourth or fifth game, when you get to be better than everyone else. That can be fun. But if everyone who rolls **** quits, then nobody ever gets to have the fun of being better than everyone else."


Which, not only makes me look back up to your "skilled players beat rolls" and wonder if playing skilled means you aren't having fun without being the one with great stats, then why does it matter? But also, just makes me furious. Because, you are revealing the lie behind the curtain with that line of "nobody gets to have that fun if everyone quits". The only way that is true is if the fun is being better than someone else.

And if that is the true point in rolling stats, then that system should never be used. Because if your fun relies on you being better than someone else, then the game should not support your fun.

Of course, you will likely try and say you didn't mean that, that I'm putting words in your mouth. But, I'm curious how else you meant it? Will you try and defend it by saying that "if everyone quits because they aren't the best then the game will never happen so you never get to play?". That seems to deny the possibility that everyone rolls well. And, if you point out that, well, it is incredibly unlikely that everyone rolls well, which is the point, that waiting for the game where everyone rolls well means you'll never play.... Then, again, I'm confused. Because, it seems the fun of rolling would then be having good stats. And that, again, would put a lie to the "fun in is skilled play" and it would raise the question.

If the fun of rolling is having good stats. Why not just give everyone good stats?

I mean, you never earn the stats either way. It is RNG. So what does it matter if you roll them or get them via an array or point buy? If the goal of rolling is to eventually have fun by being the person who rolled well, just bypass that and give everyone good stats. Then everyone gets to have fun every game, instead of one person every five games.

Or maybe there's more than one way to have fun and you should stop setting up these manufactured binaries to try and support your points.

You can have the lower stat character having fun by using creative gameplay and suboptimal strategies (because while you don't have control of the d20, you do have control of everything your character does in anticipation of and in response to said d20) and the higher stat character having fun because they are enjoying natural aptitudes in comparison to their fellows in the same game. The fun is not oppositional or mutually exclusive. That is all coming from you.

[BurgerBeast]

Do I have a duty to play the best possible character with my stats, even if that best possible character is not fun for me? And I thought I was an unreasonable optimizer!

How much clout do you think “my fun” carries? Seriously. At what point does your fun not matter?

If your definition of fun is “all 18s,” then can you quit whenever the game isn’t fun?

If your definition of fun is “must have better stats than anyone else,” then can you quit whenever it’s not fun?

If your definition of fun is “can’t have the worst stats,” then can you quit whenever it’s not fun? (Incidentally notice that if everyone had this attitude, doling wouldn’t be a thing, because the worst would quit. Then there’s be a new worst, and he’d quit. Etc.

I don't think you can possibly mean that.

I do.

What if the DM was a horrible, abusive, cheater, but I'd made a "commitment" of 3 sessions?

Then you’d quit. But that wasn’t the question.

Do I have the obligation to play those 3 sessions which would be sheer unpleasantness? I don't know about your time, but my time is more valuable than this.

See above. A DM whose “style you don’t like” and a DM who “is an abusive cheater” are not the same thing. This is not the first time you’ve moved the goalposts.

No. No one has established this. No one actually believes that quitting from a game table is never justified.

I never said it was never justified to quit. I said it was not justified for the reasons you provided. You’re moving the goalposts again.

Well, I sure am glad that my decision to try and play my preferred character the way I'd planned to do it, basically just changing the race to make him slightly less unoptimized, gets the BurgerBeast Seal of Approval TM.

You said in the original post that you had planned to build a support/buff build, but changed to melee so that you could have your own fun because everyone else rolled better than you. So, no. You changed your build from support to melee. And when I suggested that you stick with support, because it is easily workable, you refuted me and told me I was t listening to you and what you wanted, which is a melee character. Now you want a melee character. After you rolled. Not before you rolled. Back then, you wanted a support character - the character that could still be built without much compromise - but you abandoned that idea for a less workable one because of your rolls.

Also, you may find that I do not hold that trademark. You may find that that trademark is almost as old as humans.

[Xervous]

I’m curious where the “14 to 16 is inconsequential” mindset lines up with “low stats enable better RP and creativity”. One seems to imply stats hardly matter, while the other conveys that even a slight -1 pass across the board to modifiers might be of great import. At what point does an array of rolled stats “help” or “hinder” RP and creativity?