D&D 5E Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats

[Tony Vargas]

That's one reason I like rolling, because it feels like I'm making the best of what nature gave me, knowing that some people are more naturally gifted than others.

So you decide, for instance, whether to put the 18 nature gave you in STR or INT?

I liked roll-in-order for that reason, and back in the day, like I talked about with Max, other aspects of the character that are accidents of birth.

For me, the game is about pretending to be an inhabitant of an imaginary but realistic world (in terms of internally consistent). Rolling fits in there. Point-buy would fit in there if my PC as created by a mad scientist; designed rather than born. Especially if the mad scientist made a group of them, it would not break my suspension of disbelief that they all added up to exactly 27 points in a way that just feels wrong for a group of realistic people who were born rather than manufactured.

So Warforged would use point-buy in your world? I like it. I could picture the coercive beginning for a warforged party: "You wake up on a slab, the human standing over you says 'I have manufactured all of you for a specific mission...'"

Meh. Just like every ogre has a 19 strength?

Well, sure, they're manufactured, just like tanks, howitzers, and G.E.V.s....

 

[Arial Black]

Or to look at it another way: point buy = skill, rolling = gambling (better lucky than good!)

That's why I like point buy. Success or failure depends on my choices and my skill at creating a character. I can understand why people who are less skilled might prefer rolling.

(Just to prove you can be super biased no matter which side of the debate you are on. )

I suppose that if you think of RPGs like they are a board game where players must start on an equal, 'fair' footing, then point-buy does that. After all, when you play chess you make sure that each player starts with the same number and kind of pieces.

But for me, RPGs are not only a game, they are also creating an imaginary world in which to adventure, and we want those worlds to make sense; be internally consistent. It takes me out of my suspension of disbelief when this enforced 'fairness' replaces the much more realistic 'life is not fair; people are all different' mindset which rolling provides.

If we were trying to simulate our real world, would we insist that all humans were equally blessed in the six ability scores? No, that would be a totally absurd idea, and it remains absurd when thinking about the worlds of our imagination.

Unless you are imagining a world populated by clones, designed by mad scientists.

 

[Caliban]

I suppose that if you think of RPGs like they are a board game where players must start on an equal, 'fair' footing, then point-buy does that. After all, when you play chess you make sure that each player starts with the same number and kind of pieces.

But for me, RPGs are not only a game, they are also creating an imaginary world in which to adventure, and we want those worlds to make sense; be internally consistent. It takes me out of my suspension of disbelief when this enforced 'fairness' replaces the much more realistic 'life is not fair; people are all different' mindset which rolling provides.

If we were trying to simulate our real world, would we insist that all humans were equally blessed in the six ability scores? No, that would be a totally absurd idea, and it remains absurd when thinking about the worlds of our imagination.

Unless you are imagining a world populated by clones, designed by mad scientists.

I guess some people are better at suspending disbelief than others and don't need dice as a crutch.

 

[Oofta]

I suppose that if you think of RPGs like they are a board game where players must start on an equal, 'fair' footing, then point-buy does that. After all, when you play chess you make sure that each player starts with the same number and kind of pieces.

But for me, RPGs are not only a game, they are also creating an imaginary world in which to adventure, and we want those worlds to make sense; be internally consistent. It takes me out of my suspension of disbelief when this enforced 'fairness' replaces the much more realistic 'life is not fair; people are all different' mindset which rolling provides.

If we were trying to simulate our real world, would we insist that all humans were equally blessed in the six ability scores? No, that would be a totally absurd idea, and it remains absurd when thinking about the worlds of our imagination.

Unless you are imagining a world populated by clones, designed by mad scientists.

Or if you just want people to be on even footing. Because it's a game. I know. Shocking.

I bet all of your wizards are intelligent, your rogues have a good dexterity and so on. I've never once sat down at a table to play and asked another person what their ability scores are. Why people give two figs is beyond me. To each their own.

 

[Arial Black]

Meh. Just like every ogre has a 19 strength?

For me, ogres have a +9 Str mod. We use Str 19 ogres all the time for the same reason we use Commoners with six 10s: we can't be bothered to roll up a unique character every time, even though intellectually we know that every individual is unique. Even ogres.

Except clone ogres.

For me the numbers don't define the character.

But they do dictate how each creature's Str/Dex/Con etc. interact with the game mechanics. That relationship should be reflected in both the fluff and the crunch.

Who really thinks that the stats have no relation to the concept? Who has a concept of 'strong but stupid' and stats him out with Str 10 and Int 10 because 'the numbers don't define the character'?

 

[Oofta]

For me, ogres have a +9 Str mod. We use Str 19 ogres all the time for the same reason we use Commoners with six 10s: we can't be bothered to roll up a unique character every time, even though intellectually we know that every individual is unique. Even ogres.

Except clone ogres.



But they do dictate how each creature's Str/Dex/Con etc. interact with the game mechanics. That relationship should be reflected in both the fluff and the crunch.

Who really thinks that the stats have no relation to the concept? Who has a concept of 'strong but stupid' and stats him out with Str 10 and Int 10 because 'the numbers don't define the character'?

I've never said there is no relationship. I have said that the numbers support the image of the character, the character isn't defined by their ability scores.

Just like class. Or race. Such cookie cutter concepts. Dwarves can only be hill or mountain? Good grief. Totally unrealistic.

 

[Arial Black]

I bet all of your wizards are intelligent, your rogues have a good dexterity and so on.

Nope. I imagine a hypothetical university where people go to learn wizarding. Just like any real university, we may believe that the students would be better-than-average to high intelligence, but that some are more intelligent than others. Also, that some will be strong and others weak, some agile and others clumsy, some robust and others sickly, and so on.

But they are NOT clones! They do NOT all have exactly 16 intelligence! I absolutely hate this about point-buy!

I've never once sat down at a table to play and asked another person what their ability scores are.

And yet, you harped eloquently about your bad experience of rolling stats in a game with your wife, where she rolled low and her friend rolled high. If you didn't give a fig about what other players' PC's stats are then this could not have bothered you. It did bother you, therefore you self-evidently did give a fig about their ability scores.

 

[Oofta]

Nope. I imagine a hypothetical university where people go to learn wizarding. Just like any real university, we may believe that the students would be better-than-average to high intelligence, but that some are more intelligent than others. Also, that some will be strong and others weak, some agile and others clumsy, some robust and others sickly, and so on.

But they are NOT clones! They do NOT all have exactly 16 intelligence! I absolutely hate this about point-buy!



And yet, you harped eloquently about your bad experience of rolling stats in a game with your wife, where she rolled low and her friend rolled high. If you didn't give a fig about what other players' PC's stats are then this could not have bothered you. It did bother you, therefore you self-evidently did give a fig about their ability scores.

Because it's the equivalent of having a football team where one is Tom Brady* and the other is Pee-Wee Herman. I see no benefit to different PCs having dramatically different capabilities from level 1 on.

When I play I want to play a hero. Because it's ... say it with me ... a game.

*Should I confess that I had to look up the name of a pro football player? No? Okay ... pay no attention to what I just typed.

 

[Caliban]

But they are NOT clones! They do NOT all have exactly 16 intelligence! I absolutely hate this about point-buy!

Then don't use point buy. Problem solved.

And if you already don't use point buy...then that means you are simply complaining about how other people play the game and should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[Arial Black]

I've never said there is no relationship. I have said that the numbers support the image of the character, the character isn't defined by their ability scores.

Just like class. Or race. Such cookie cutter concepts. Dwarves can only be hill or mountain? Good grief. Totally unrealistic.

Most of my PCs multi-class because I don't see the game construct of 'class' as a real thing that exists in the game world. In the world, the creatures cannot be aware of 5E game mechanics! They are no more aware of their 5E 'character class' than they are of their hit point total.

I also like fluffing my PCs as 'half-and-half'. For example, I might say that my (mechanically) human PC has some elven blood: one parent was human and the other half-elven. It allows me to describe them with unusual hair/eyes/ears and so on, and informs my choices regarding my placement of certain ability scores (or explains why those rolls were what they were). But I don't need to create a new PC race: 'quarter-elf'! I just use the mechanics for humans and have my concept inform my choices (or explain my rolls), because the stats must match the concept, whether the concept came first (point-buy) or the stats came first (rolling).

If I wanted to create a dwarf with one hill dwarf parent and one mountain dwarf parent I would pick one for game mechanics but blend the two fluff-wise.