pming
Legend
Hiya!
I once came up with something I called the "Wheel of Pain" character creation method.
Basically, I drew out a "circle" with lines going form one side to the other, top to bottom, left to right, then five other lines, equally spaced; picture a clock without the numbers, basically (12 opposite 6, 1 opposite 7, 2 opposite 8, etc.). The vertical line had 10 on top and 10 on bottom. Then I had each player, in turn around the table, roll 4d6, keep high three; if the roll was 10+, it went on the top most left 'line start' (in the "11" spot); under 10 it went on the top most right 'line start' (in the "1" spot). Rinse and repeat until we had 5 scores all 10+ on the left, and 5 scores all 9- on the right. Those were the score "pairs"...line wise...the players could choose from. If you wanted that one 18 that was rolled, but it had a 5 on the other end of the line, you had a conundrum on your hands.
The result? One player went for the min/max choices (high scores, regardless of how low the other end of the line was). Most players opted for more "pretty good in one or two stats, as long as the opposite wasn't too low". Basically, most opted for a more balanced "nothing too high, nothing too low" character (characters ended up with stats like 13, 11, 11, 10, 10, 7, or maybe 18, 12, 10, 9, 7, 6). No character was "uber", but no character was "el whimpo" either.
Usually, however, for my D&D flavour games it's either 3d6 or 4d6 keep 3 (basic D&D/BECMI/Dark Dungeons/etc is usually 3d6, in order, 56 total points minimum; my PF and now 5e is 4d6 keep 3, with 65 points minimum). Nobody at my table really likes array or point-buy for any of our D&D-flavour games. Having all grown up with 2e or earlier, I guess it just feels "wrong" to all of us. *shrug*
^_^
Paul L. Ming
I once came up with something I called the "Wheel of Pain" character creation method.
Basically, I drew out a "circle" with lines going form one side to the other, top to bottom, left to right, then five other lines, equally spaced; picture a clock without the numbers, basically (12 opposite 6, 1 opposite 7, 2 opposite 8, etc.). The vertical line had 10 on top and 10 on bottom. Then I had each player, in turn around the table, roll 4d6, keep high three; if the roll was 10+, it went on the top most left 'line start' (in the "11" spot); under 10 it went on the top most right 'line start' (in the "1" spot). Rinse and repeat until we had 5 scores all 10+ on the left, and 5 scores all 9- on the right. Those were the score "pairs"...line wise...the players could choose from. If you wanted that one 18 that was rolled, but it had a 5 on the other end of the line, you had a conundrum on your hands.
The result? One player went for the min/max choices (high scores, regardless of how low the other end of the line was). Most players opted for more "pretty good in one or two stats, as long as the opposite wasn't too low". Basically, most opted for a more balanced "nothing too high, nothing too low" character (characters ended up with stats like 13, 11, 11, 10, 10, 7, or maybe 18, 12, 10, 9, 7, 6). No character was "uber", but no character was "el whimpo" either.
Usually, however, for my D&D flavour games it's either 3d6 or 4d6 keep 3 (basic D&D/BECMI/Dark Dungeons/etc is usually 3d6, in order, 56 total points minimum; my PF and now 5e is 4d6 keep 3, with 65 points minimum). Nobody at my table really likes array or point-buy for any of our D&D-flavour games. Having all grown up with 2e or earlier, I guess it just feels "wrong" to all of us. *shrug*
^_^
Paul L. Ming
