D&D 1E 1e Play Report

[Water Bob]

You do realize that I DM'd 1e for almost 15 years right? Further, you do realize that I've essentially written my own gaming system for D20? Back when there was a house rules forum, I was a major participant because well I'm stubborn and arrogant enough to never let any game designer tell me how to play my game except me. I'm the guy who has taken Gygax's statements about all DM's being peers to heart. So exactly who the @#$# do you think is used to being in charge if it isn't me?

I don't know how you could be more off base. I'm a Rule Zero sort of DM.

Well, like I said at first, I meant no offense. I just told you how you were coming across. There are a lot of DMs who very comfortable wtih 1E. You don't seem to be one of them. At least, that's what it seems like when you say, "It's the extreme silence of the rules on reutine actions in play, forcing you into either thinking through things to come to fiat ruling or ad hocing some sort of fortune mechanic or alteration/modifier to the rules proposed system."

I'm completely at home with fiat ruling and ad hocing mechanics, and I'm mucho OK with doing it this way one time and that way another.

Player - "I want to climb that tree!"

DM - "Cool. Throw 3d6 for DEX or less."

Player - "But...last time you had me throw a d20 for STR or less."

DM - "This is a different tree."

2nd Player - "What about me?"

DM - "You're a Thief. Use your Climb Walls percentage minus 20%." Boom. Done. Let's move on.





You're right. I don't know you or your situation well.

I don't appreciate people making blanket judgements about me based on a few lines a write, either. So, I'll just leave it there and bow out.

Heck, maybe you just don't like 1E. That's fine. I'm not fond of point-buy, and some people are.

Different strokes.

 

[Celebrim]

Heck, maybe you just don't like 1E. That's fine.

Well yeah, I think I was pretty clear about that.

What I was surprised about was how quickly my dislike returned. I was thinking that my problems with the system lived in the edges of it and wouldn't really be issues in a one shot where we played 1e's core game of going into dungeons, killing things, and taking their stuff. I confess that I'd been lured by nostalgic feelings from all these people discussing the latest fad in retro gaming, so that I'd probably put my rose colored glasses on prior to starting play.

But it turns out that the game seemed even more clunky to me than I remember it being, and the rose colored glasses got smashed early on.

I'm not fond of point-buy, and some people are.

There are things I miss about random attribute generation. I can at least understand the feelings people have when they say, "I'm not fond of point buy.", or "I prefered rolling up stats." In fact, I did randomly generate stats for this game when I rolled up starting characters. (I used 4d6 drop lowest in order.) There are several things I miss about 1e - exponential increases in XP to level, simultaneous declaration and combat, casting times, weapon vs. AC modifiers, and a variety of other things that I've been tempted to fold into my 3e homebrew in some form. But random ability generation is a good case in point where I think that the pro's of the system are greatly outweighed by the con's. I should also point out that for the most part, none of the 5 characters had an ability score that had much in game meaning during the session anyway. Most of the ability scores were in the 8-14 range that is largely meaningless in 1e, and of the few above and below it several - a 4 Wisdom, a 7 intelligence, a 5 Charisma, and 17 Charisma - simply had no in game impact on play. The only character who's ability score was in any way defining, was the one that had 16 Str. This approach to ability scores in 1e helps mask the serious problems that random ability generation can lead to, especially over the course of one session. Far and away the bigger impact of randomly rolling up the PC's, was the elf Fighter/M-U that had only 10 hit points because of poor hit point rolls.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm completely at home with fiat ruling and ad hocing mechanics, and I'm mucho OK with doing it this way one time and that way another.

Player - "I want to climb that tree!"

DM - "Cool. Throw 3d6 for DEX or less."

Player - "But...last time you had me throw a d20 for STR or less."

DM - "This is a different tree."

2nd Player - "What about me?"

DM - "You're a Thief. Use your Climb Walls percentage minus 20%." Boom. Done. Let's move on.

The problem here isn't that I'm not comfortable smithing up rolls on the fly. The problem here is whenever I hit one of these decision points, I'm going to pause and reflect on how I should resolve the sitution. In other words, I'm going to think to myself in very rapid succession, "What's the most fair resolution here? Should this sort of tree in this situation be resolved with a straight up ability check on a D20? Or should I used 4d6? This is a fir tree, so it does have radiating limbs, but on the other hand, the limbs might be high up. How high up are these limbs anyway? Should I apply a modifier for the type of armor being worn, because I darn sure would apply one to the thief if he tried it in a suit of plate mail? Is the math I'm proposing fair the thief player, or did I in fact just propose a resolution that made it more likely for the cleric in plate mail to climb the tree than thief cat burgular?", and so forth.

That's a burden on play. It's also a burden on play if I don't think these things, and then the player thinks, "WTF, why does my thief only have a 60% chance of climbing the tree, and the cleric in plate mail has a 70%?", or the player thinks, "WTF, IRL I've been climbing trees since I was a kid, and now my character just fell out of the tree and took 2d6 damage? How hard is climbing a tree supposed to be anyway? If it was this dangerous, why did my character even try it, instead of backing out before he got so high?" In other words, bad decisions and overly brisk decisions designed to 'move things along' can sometimes land a DM in trouble, and tends to reduce player trust. Once you lose player trust, there is a greater temptation for the player to argue with your proposed fortunes and to move from proposing actions to proposing resolutions - which is just a headache if it starts happening.

Moreover, this is a burden on play I tend to want to remove to 'design time' rather than 'play time'. I want to be able to say generally, 'This is how trees are climbed', and be able to reference that at least mentally when the player proposes to climb a tree, or else I want to be able to say "Climbing THIS tree has this difficulty.", referencing the generic system in a clear way that doesn't require me to read a lot of notes.

 

[Water Bob]

But it turns out that the game seemed even more clunky to me than I remember it being, and the rose colored glasses got smashed early on.

I think 1E encourages DMs to make the game their own--homebrew rules and what not. It definitely encourages a strong DM.

3E/3.5E encourages DMs to become rule arbitrators but not rule creators. Where 1E is "Make up a throw!", 3E is more "Was that rule implemented correctly?" 3E encourages a weaker DM.

When I say "strong" or "weak", I'm not talking about that person's ability to be a Game Master. I'm talking about the role's influence on the game.

But random ability generation is a good case in point where I think that the pro's of the system are greatly outweighed by the con's.

We're definitely on two sides of the spectrum here. To me, random generation produces interesting characters that are actually more believeable than their point-buy, cookie-cutter, archetype brothers.

I usually see that DM's the favor point buy want everything to be "fair". Character generation has to be fair. Throwing for tasks has to be fair and uniform. Character classes have to be fair and balanced.

I'm of the exact opposite opinion than that. Life isn't fair. We're not all created equal. And, usually, the unbalanced something is, the more intersting it is.

If we were playing checkers or chess, then I'd agree. Things need to be fair. But we're playing a roleplaying game that is, at its heart, a method for experiencing stories. And, what makes stories interesting is drama. Drama is about conflict. Conflict occurs more often and is often more interesting when all factors are not equal.

Life is like that.

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Interesting thread. I am completely opposite the OP regarding 1e. I love it (along with most of the other pre-3e D&D rulesets)! A few years ago I started to realize that I really wasn't enjoying playing 3.5 and Pathfinder and I had no interest in 4e. I began looking at older D&D material again and was reminded why I fell in love with the game over 30 years ago. I still had some of my old materials and in the last few years have managed to build quite a large collection of 1e AD&D books, modules and other supplements.

I repeat, NONE of the problems had any thing to do with rules burden either on the DM or the players. The rules themselves aren't the problem. It's the extreme silence of the rules on reutine actions in play, forcing you into either thinking through things to come to fiat ruling or ad hocing some sort of fortune mechanic or alteration/modifier to the rules proposed system.

This seems sort of contradictory to me, Celebrim. On the one hand you say the rules themselves aren't the problem. But then you immediately say that their extreme silence on how to handle routine actions forces you to resort to DM fiat. Isn't that by definition a problem with the rules as you see it? I mean, if you want rules to cover routine tasks and actions and the rules don't cover that or the rules expect you to come up with something on your own, or vaguely touch on it at best, isn't that a problem with the rules at least as far as your personal expectations for a ruleset go? I understand that you aren't criticizing how the 1e rules handle routine actions, you are saying they don't handle them at all. That would still seem to me to be a problem with the rules, at least in your personal estimation. They don't live up to your expectations of what a set of rpg rules should cover.

The 1e rules are notorious for offering guidelines and suggestions on how to handle things in the game. They are presented with the assumption that you will add your own rules that are suitable for your own game. They are more of a framework for individual DMs and players to build upon. They are often vague and expect you to interpret the meaning. You are advised in many places in the PHB and DMG that the game is your own and that the rules in the books are merely guidelines. And yes, the rules do not cover every routine situation that might come up in the course of a game. If you are looking for that, 1e is definitely not your game. 3.5 certainly would fill that need a lot better.

I personally love the wide open nature of 1e. I love being able to make rulings without being bound by rules that I often forget and have to constantly refer back to 300+ page rulebooks to find. I like that a player can tell me what they want their PC to do and if it isn't covered by the rules in the book, I can come up with something appropriate. Often no dice rolling is even needed because what the player wants to do is something that their PC could easily accomplish or can be handled by roleplaying. I find this makes games run quickly and allows you to get to the good stuff without having to pause frequently to look up what a specific rule is or how a specific skill pertains to the situation at hand.

One of the things I was really annoyed with while running 3.5 was the tendency of players to be presented with a situation and then for them to look to the skill system to find the appropriate one to resolve the situation. Too often I found players expecting that they could make a simple skill check to resolve something in the game without any further input. Common situations that arose regarding this were Search checks to discover the contents of a room or Diplomacy checks to improve the City Guard's reaction or Bluff checks to talk their way out of a tough spot. With 1e I don't have to worry about that. When my players enter a room in a dungeon, I describe it to them. I then expect them to tell me specifically what they are doing in the room, what they are searching. Look under the bed and see what's there. Don't just make a roll and I reveal all that is there. I expect them to tell me what they say to the City Guard, or what they say to the member of the thieves guild, not just a simple skill roll.

I like being able to fall back on "player skill" as opposed to PC skills. Sure it takes some getting used to for those not familiar with that style of play or for those who have come into the hobby late and started with 3rd edition. Player skill takes time to develop in many cases. I like DM fiat. Like Water Bob, I don't care if I make a ruling on how to do something and end up making a different ruling on something similar in the future. To me, 1e runs smooth. Prep time is reduced. We get a ton accomplished each session. Players and the DM don't spend half the session with their noses buried in thick rulebooks. I like the grittier feel of the settings and the fragility of the characters compared to more recent editions.

Crothian said it best. 1e isn't for everyone. But from that same perspective, neither is 2e, or 3e or 4e. Everyone has their favorites based on personal preference. You obviously don't like 1e, Celebrim. I'm not trying to change your mind by what I have posted. You posted what you didn't like about the game you recently ran. I respect that. My post is simply meant as an alternative viewpoint, from someone who loves 1e AD&D.

 

[Celebrim]

I think 1E encourages DMs to make the game their own--homebrew rules and what not. It definitely encourages a strong DM.

3E/3.5E encourages DMs to become rule arbitrators but not rule creators. Where 1E is "Make up a throw!", 3E is more "Was that rule implemented correctly?" 3E encourages a weaker DM.

The first thing I do in my 3.0 campaign is give my players my 500+ page house rules document. I just don't think you really have a clue on this line of argument. If making up your own rules is the definition of 'strong DMing', then there is scarcely anyone who has more claim to that than me. I can hardly pick up a game, whether its an RPG or not, without wanting to rewrite the rules. After two games of Necromunda, for example, I produced a 30 page house rules document to make it more the game I wanted to play. And if 'Make a throw' is the definition of a strong DM, then 1e doesn't encourage one because the system itself doesn't really have that in the rules. "Make a throw", whether roll 3d6 under your ability score or roll d20 under your ability score, is a rule that was made up for the system because the system didn't provide for "make a throw".

So sure, I could do for 1e what I did for 3e, and years ago did, but me being able to make up enough house rules to make a system work isn't the same as the system working. With 3e much of what I needed was rule changes to make the system balanced at all levels of play. With 1e what I'd need was not only that, but a system itself - which you yourself admit when you say, "Make a throw" (a very 3e perspective on how propositions are resolved).

We're definitely on two sides of the spectrum here. To me, random generation produces interesting characters that are actually more believeable than their point-buy, cookie-cutter, archetype brothers.

That's not been my experience. It presumes for example that the players want to make cookie cutter characters and don't want to play with expectations, which is not necessarily true. It presumes the system doesn't reward investing in unusual builds, for example that there are not a lot of combat feats to be had for high charisma, intelligence, or wisdom fighters. And ultimately, I think it presumes that random isn't random in as much that random is more often than not going to kick up interesting stat arrays rather than bland ones were all the results are between 9 and 14, and that the players who are rolling up the dice don't want to have characters with optimal builds and so won't end up matching the class of the character to the abilities that they have. Again, none of this is true, and some of it I can prove statisticly.

If you allow your players to rearrange their random rolls, roll up characters away from the table, or create new characters if they are unhappy with their stats, you really don't have a preference for randomness. Indeed, the vast majority of random generation systems I've seen represent mostly discomfort by both players and DM's with the actual results of randomness.

The con's of random generation are:

1) Some characters will be much better than others. It's those characters which are likely to survive, as well as 'shine' (contribute to party success), so a lot of times the preference for random generation is simply a disguised preference for higher point by than normal.
2) Because there is often a disparity, percieved or real, between the guy who has the 'cool character' and the guy with the bland or subpar one, it tends to greatly tempt players into cheating on their die rolls. Once this happens, then there is a pressure on the other players to match it, often leading to an escalation to the point of absurdity where everyone ends up cheating. I've seen DMs control this by going to the UA method for generating high level NPC's and making that the default PC creation method, only to still have players cheating. Once again, this means that a perference for random generation is often simply a disguised preference for higher point buy than normal. In some cases its a disguised preference for wanting a higher heroic less gritty game than is being provided.
3) Bad luck by multiple players can be party wrecking in the sense that actually bad stats can leave the party subpar and unable to tackle the adventure. It's worth noting that none of the 'sample' characters in any published D&D module have stats generated randomly. It's very clear that the stats were chosen to make for survivable and interesting characters by the module writer because if you are familiar with random generation you know that a) such constistantly good rolls are impossible without players consistantly cheating, and b) that the distribution of ability scores will look differently. The module designers show a preference for better than random scores, which is once again, a disguised preference for higher than normal point buy.

 

[Celebrim]

This seems sort of contradictory to me, Celebrim. On the one hand you say the rules themselves aren't the problem. But then you immediately say that their extreme silence on how to handle routine actions forces you to resort to DM fiat. Isn't that by definition a problem with the rules as you see it?

Yeah, in a sense, but I'm trying to draw a subtle distinction here between two very different sort of problems. The criticism that starting players in a new system at high level would be confusing would apply well to 3e with its relatively complicated system. High 3e's problem is the fiddliness of the math and the complexity of the rules situations that can arise, the number of rules that cover those situations, and the vast number of powers and abilities that players acrue by that point.

But the problem of rules silence has, as I said, the opposite problem and appears more strongly at low levels of play. While these are both in some sense 'problems with the rules', they are problems of a very different sort and I'm trying to compare and constrast them.

The 1e rules are notorious for offering guidelines and suggestions on how to handle things in the game. They are presented with the assumption that you will add your own rules that are suitable for your own game. They are more of a framework for individual DMs and players to build upon.

This is kinda odd praise considering the wide variaty of games that were built from the D20 framework. Besides which, there isn't a game I've ever played that I felt constrained against making my own and smithing out if necessary dozens of pages of house rules.

Where I really think you are off base is that you are confusing DM style with the system. You seem to be saying that you can't use a particular style with 3e but that you can with 1e, and that just isn't true. Let's collect a few assertions here.

I like that a player can tell me what they want their PC to do and if it isn't covered by the rules in the book, I can come up with something appropriate.

Me too.

Often no dice rolling is even needed because what the player wants to do is something that their PC could easily accomplish or can be handled by roleplaying.

Yeah, that's true to.

One of the things I was really annoyed with while running 3.5 was the tendency of players to be presented with a situation and then for them to look to the skill system to find the appropriate one to resolve the situation.

Why did you let them get away with that then? That's not a requirement of the system. Nothing in 3e demands that you resolve an in game situation wholly through a metaproposition. Nothing in 3e demands that you the DM interpret abstract propositions into concrete propositions on the players behalf.

Too often I found players expecting that they could make a simple skill check to resolve something in the game without any further input. Common situations that arose regarding this were Search checks to discover the contents of a room or Diplomacy checks to improve the City Guard's reaction or Bluff checks to talk their way out of a tough spot.

Yeah, players do that. No, you don't have to let them get away with it. If someone says, "Search check.", you can and should always say, "Searching what and how?" If someone says, "Diplomacy check.", you can and should always say, "Yeah but what do you say?" And the really important thing to note is that this isn't system specific. Because I can remember the point in my early RPG development when I learned how to play the way that we both demand at our tables. I was an elementary school DM, and a player's high school age cousin agreed to run a game for me and my friends, and there was a social situation and I proposed something like, "My character goes over and introduces himself to the cleric", and the DM said, "Yeah, ok, but what does your character say?" And I distinctly remember this strong moment of embarassment at having to actually do what you and I would call role-playing, because it wasn't something that we'd learned to do at that point. We weren't used to acting in the first person. We had directed our characters in the third person abstract and now it had to get concrete.

You don't let players say, "Climb check", without saying what they want to climb. Why would you let them say "Diplomacy check", without saying what they want to say? Conversely, why would you let them climb a wall or pick a lock unless the climb was trivial or the lock was trivial without making some sort of check for success?

When my players enter a room in a dungeon, I describe it to them. I then expect them to tell me specifically what they are doing in the room, what they are searching. Look under the bed and see what's there.

Me too.

Don't just make a roll and I reveal all that is there. I expect them to tell me what they say to the City Guard, or what they say to the member of the thieves guild, not just a simple skill roll.

Me too.

With 1e I don't have to worry about that.

Yes you do. If you don't have to worry about it, it's not because of the system but of the culture. You lost control of your 3e game. It sounds like you have an easier time retaining control of your 1e game probably because of differences in how your players play the game, and how you run the game, and not because of differences in the system. That's Celebrim's Second Law of Role Playing: "How you prepare for and think about playing a system is more important than the system itself."

Sure it takes some getting used to for those not familiar with that style of play or for those who have come into the hobby late and started with 3rd edition. Player skill takes time to develop in many cases.

Yes, I find all of that is true. Those people who came from other tables without 1e experience often aren't used to the game being run how I run it. Often they take a while to develop good play skill. But, I should note that I ran my 1e game for years and years too, and that is also nothing knew. Players that entered our game and my game from other tables were also often deficient in these basic player skills and took a while to become accustomed to a different style of play. At the time, we used different language to describe the problem; we said things like, "His table played pure hack and slash.", but it was the same problem.

Players and the DM don't spend half the session with their noses buried in thick rulebooks.

Why do you let the players get away with that? I still do as I did in 1e. When its your turn to declare an action you have six seconds to state your action or you lose it. If you have to the rule up in a rule book, do it between your turns. If you are a spell caster and you don't know what your spell does, you aren't allowed to cast it. Most of my players have a small sheaf of relevant rules paper clipped to their character sheets for quick reference. I'm not going to let the players get away with bogging down the game in rules lawyering (again, the old term), and being indecisive. And once again, I note that this has nothing to do with edition. I can remember sessions of 1e (ran by people other than myself) where the players and the DM spent half the session with their noses in the rule book trying to find things in the notoriously badly organized 1e DMG and arguing over what the vague rule therein meant and how it was to be applied.

I like the grittier feel of the settings and the fragility of the characters compared to more recent editions.

Me too... oh wait a minute, you are saying 1e is grittier... nevermind. That is ALSO not an attribute of the rules, but rather something that depends on the culture of play at the table. The least gritty games I ever played were in 1e. Play balance in favor of the PC's broke really easily in 1e, to the extent that it was not unusual for me to meet people back then who had characters that had killed not only all the arch-devils but many of the gods. Especially post Unearthed Arcana, it was really easy for the players to dominate over stock monster manual entries unless the DM was very creative.

But characters in either edition are as frail as the DM wants them to be. There is no upper bound on the power of 3e monsters. It is much easier to challenge players within the 3e rules than 1e, which often required you making things up that broke or altered the rules in order to challenge the players.

My post is simply meant as an alternative viewpoint, from someone who loves 1e AD&D.

I'm ok with that. But you, like several others here, seem to be more willing to give viewpoints on my game - a game you are completely unfamiliar with - than viewpoints on the system itself. And most of you are flat out wrong about my game, and would be laughed at by my players for your cluelessness.

 

[Water Bob]

I personally love the wide open nature of 1e. I love being able to make rulings without being bound by rules that I often forget and have to constantly refer back to 300+ page rulebooks to find.

Yes!

I like that a player can tell me what they want their PC to do and if it isn't covered by the rules in the book, I can come up with something appropriate. Often no dice rolling is even needed because what the player wants to do is something that their PC could easily accomplish or can be handled by roleplaying.

YES!!

One of the things I was really annoyed with while running 3.5 was the tendency of players to be presented with a situation and then for them to look to the skill system to find the appropriate one to resolve the situation. Too often I found players expecting that they could make a simple skill check to resolve something in the game without any further input.

Sing it, brother!

I've had pains in this area too. I'm playing a 3.5 clone because we want to play a Conan game. I bought the entire game line before I was really familiar with 3.5.

There are things I like about the system, but the more I play it, the more I realize I'm more of a fan of 1E.

What you've touched on here is something I'm struggling with in my Conan game. I remember an axiom from 1E D&D: Never make a dice roll when you can roleplay - Never let a dice throw replace roleplaying.

3.5 E seems to embrace dice rolling instead of roleplaying.

 

[Water Bob]

The first thing I do in my 3.0 campaign is give my players my 500+ page house rules document. I just don't think you really have a clue on this line of argument. If making up your own rules is the definition of 'strong DMing', then there is scarcely anyone who has more claim to that than me. I can hardly pick up a game, whether its an RPG or not, without wanting to rewrite the rules. After two games of Necromunda, for example, I produced a 30 page house rules document to make it more the game I wanted to play.

Yeah, yeah. Most of us DMs have done a lot of tweaking on games. When Traveller The New Era came out, I was so incensed that they changed the flavor of the established Traveller mechanics I wrote my own rules set too. So what. That's not what we're talking about here.

Strong DM / Weak DM refers to influence on the game, just like I said. Just because you wrote the rules doesn't mean you're operating from a Strong DM perspective.

What I mean by Strong DM is having immediate impact on the game. A Weak DM simply judges if the rules are being followed. A Strong DM makes up a lot of rules as the game proceeds.

1E is a Strong DM's game.

3E is a Weak DM's game.

Neither is a comment on the ability of the person DMing the game. It's about the role of DM and that role's influence on the game.

The more rules used in a game, the Weaker DM you need.



I'll give you an example to highlight my point about Strong and Weak DMs.

You're playing a thief character, alone on the plain. You come upon a campsite. Nobody is there--just bed rolls and gear. The fire is burning, so you think whomever is camping here will probably be back soon.

You decide to check the place to see if you can take anything quick--especially water or food--but light valuables as well.

The Strong DM may decide to amp up the drama, roleplay a lot of this scene, and maybe make up some throws on the spot.

The DM here is doing a lot--having a decent sized impact on the game with how he runs this scenario.

The Weak DM simply implements a rule from the rulebook. The character moves around, makes a few Search and Spot checks, and the encounter is over.



Over the next rise, you, as the thief, find a second camp of about the same size. This one, too, is empty at the moment. It's like the camps of two squads on each other's flank.

Strong DM decides that, while the first encounter is interesting, it will bog the game down to play the exact same situation the same way. So, under this circumstance, the Strong DM decides to reduce this encounter to a few dice throws and moves the game on. "OK, in searching this campsite, it's a lot like what you just did over the ridge. Roll 3d6 for 10+, and if you succeed, I'll tell you what goodies you find."

The Weak DM handles the situation just like he did the first--he resorts to the rule in the book, has the character roll the Search and Spot checks, and moves on.



The point in this example is that the Strong DM actually directs the flow of the game. The Weak DM is more of a judge to ensure that the game rules (no matter what they are, RAW or something you wrote) is implemented correctly.

See the difference?

 

[Water Bob]

A CASE FOR RANDOM ROLL...

It's not just about stats, but what those stats mean...what they "say" about the character.

If you allow your players to rearrange their random rolls...

I do allow that in my current game, but that's the rules. So I play by 'em.

If I were running a 1E game, my preference is to be hard core. I'd probably go with the default 1E character generation rule.

....roll up characters away from the table....

I'd never allow that.

...or create new characters if they are unhappy with their stats...

Nope. What you roll is what you get.

Here's a real life example of a character in my game. He was created, by RAW (Conan RPG 2E rules), with no house rules. The player rolled stats exactly one time, in front of me, using 4d6, drop lowest, arrange to taste (which is the default Conan system).

After Racial modifiers were applied (1st level Cimmerian Barbarian), the character looks like this:

STR 19 (+4)
DEX 13 (+1)
CON 10 (+0)
INT 12 (+1)
WIS 7 (-2)
CHR 6 (-2)

A lot of players wouldn't be happy with this guy. He's strong, yes (rolled 17 with +2 racial STR), but many would see him as a one trick pony and a lot of negatives.

In my game, it doesn't matter. You get what you roll. My players are used to that.

So, we looked at this guy...what do his stats say about him?

First, he's unbelieveably strong. In a barbaric warrior culture, that's a good thing. He's better than average in DEX, and his CON is average. He'll make a good warrior for the clan.

But, he's got a problem. He's lacking in common sense. WIS 7. But, he's a cut above average in intelligence. INT 12. And, his personal charisma is quite low. CHA 6.

So, what does this say?

It says that he's shy, introverted, maybe a bit wierd, different, self conscious, and socially unacceptible on some counts. Maybe he's bitter--a real downer to be around.

This whole Charisma and Wisdom thing led to some brainstorming, and here's what we came up with...



Caelis is one of those warriors that you trust with your life to have your back, but you'd never invite him to your formal tea party or to meet your snooty friends (modern day example--think in Barbaric Cimmerian terms).

People meet him and don't like him. He's always putting his foot in his mouth.

To translate this to the Barbaric culture of the Cimmerians, we made up a pretty cool story:

Caelis' mother was pregnant. These barbarian had no idea that she was carrying triplets. When she gave birth, first Caels' brother was born (Branoc), and then Caelis. They found a third babe in the womb that was stillborne.

Well, these superstitious barbarians thought that Caelis and fought his brother (the dead one) and killed him in his mother's womb.

As Caelis grew up, villagers would give him the evil eye, stay away from him, treat him differently. This affected his social skills.

They attached a moniker to him: Redbirth. They call him Caelis Redbirth.

They fear him for his strength, but they also think that there is something unnatural about him.

Now, that's a pretty cool background story for a barbarian character, and it reasons why his CHR and WIS are so low.

This is why I love random character generation. It leads to this type of creativeness. I guarrantee you the character would not be as interesting (and he certainly wouldn't have those stats) if he were generated using point buy.

With point buy, we'd have a Caelis the hero, not Caelis Redbirth.







As far as your the Cons you cite against Random Generation:

Some characters will be much better than others.

Yes. That's like life. Why would you even want all your PCs equal? Is this a superhero group, or a group of adventurers?

Are Conan's companions as strong as Conan? Are Frodo and Sam, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Gandolf all balanced characters?

Diversity is interesting.

Because there is often a disparity, percieved or real, between the guy who has the 'cool character' and the guy with the bland or subpar one, it tends to greatly tempt players into cheating on their die rolls.

First, if I ever caught a player "cheating", I'd throw him out of my game.

Second, all characters can be "cool", and in my games, it's usually the weaker ones that are "cooler" because we've gotten creative to explain the character's stat weakness (as with Caelis Redbirth, above).

I have tons of examples of characters from my games with weak stats that became the "star" of the campaign.