D&D 5E Array v 4d6: Punishment? Or overlooked data

[Parmandur]

Solution to a below-par roll: roll again. Pretty standard practice, lets those who don't want to be lame move forward

 

[GMforPowergamers]

While I don't have a problem with rolling stats in of itself, what I don't like is the player problems that it has the potential to bring. Either the people who always seem to have the awesome godlike stats that they rolled at home before the game, or the player who will roll in front of the group but if gets less than godlike stats will pout and have the PC with a death wish which just gets disruptive as he goes through pcs.
As a dm, it just avoids those types of player problems but not having rolled stats.
That's based on my own person experiences. I know not everyone has necessarily seen those types of player issues, but I've seen them enough that I just would rather avoid the potential of those problems in the first place.

the most freeing experience I ever had was when I pick stats I wanted without touching d6's or point buy... the game was supposed to be roll 4d6 drop the lowest roll 7 times drop the lowest, then place where you want... but I knew more then half the players would cheat. I showed up game one and the first thing I heard was how bad my best friend rolled, so the DM let him reroll, now another player was getting ready to reroll... mean while the two I knew would cheat had way awesome stats.

I showed the DM my stats and he said "hey those are good did you really roll them" I said "no, just picked what I wanted" he didn't know what to say. I got asked 4 or 5 times over the first two games and I was always honest. Its not like it was un fair to anyone, I had far from the best stats in the game, I just didn't see the reason to lie about it...

 

[Thank Dog]

I hate rolling stats with such a burning passion, the likes of which cannot be cured with antibiotics. I don't like that you can get high rolls or low rolls, as a DM or as a player. I'm playing a PC in a game where the DM rolled our stats and we all got very good scores. I feel overpowered and had to alter my character concept to suit the rolls. But the alternative was to have a significantly less powerful character in amongst powerful characters, which is even less fun.

Point-buy isn't just about having balanced stats, it's also about being able to craft the character you want as opposed to the character you're stuck with because of a random set of numbers.

 

[Sacrosanct]

sounds like a lot of people have issues with people. Rules that limit options in attempts to correct cheating or whining players are bad rules in my opinion. Better solution is to stop playing with cheaters and whiners. Choose point buy or random if you want, but to take random off the table as an option because of immature players? No thanks

 

[Sacrosanct]

I hate rolling stats with such a burning passion, the likes of which cannot be cured with antibiotics. I don't like that you can get high rolls or low rolls, as a DM or as a player. I'm playing a PC in a game where the DM rolled our stats and we all got very good scores. I feel overpowered and had to alter my character concept to suit the rolls. But the alternative was to have a significantly less powerful character in amongst powerful characters, which is even less fun.

Point-buy isn't just about having balanced stats, it's also about being able to craft the character you want as opposed to the character you're stuck with because of a random set of numbers.

never had a problem playing the concept I wanted based off of random die rolling, especially in a game that no longer has min stats for classes

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I have a weird personal divide: I love rolling my character stats, but the game generally plays better when it's point-buy, so it's what I encourage as a GM.

Yeah ... over the years I've found myself turning to the dark side of the default array: simple, balanced, beautiful.

 

[dagger]

If in 1e if a player wanted to play a paladin and didn't meet the mins we would just put his best rolled stats at the min needed to be that class. Yes I still do this in 1e.

 

[Authweight]

The reason it's punishing is that many people prefer non-random stat generation for aesthetic reasons. So it's not just a risk-reward scenario, it's a scenario where one side is made systematically inferior due to their preferred style of character generation.

 

[Sacrosanct]

again, that's not what punishing means. And even if it was, it's debatable that they are "systematically inferior". The numbers above certainly seem to show that the total points is near identical. You might have a higher stat somewhere, but you'll also probably have a lower one too

 

[SilverfireSage]

Random has its place and it's not in stat generation or hit points.

In that case, where would it have a place? I find it much more frustrating to roll a string of ones on a d20 than having slightly less hit points than everyone else.