D&D 5E Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats

[Arial Black]

But, your presumption is that all PC's and NPC's are created using the same method. That is not necessarily true, nor is it even assumed by the game.

For human PCs (and the equivalent applies to each PC race) all PC humans are...human! However humans are generated/created, that's how ALL humans are created/generated in the game world (as opposed to the meta-game players around a table).

In D&D, from its inception, 'humans' are created/generated on 3d6 in order. It is assumed that, conceptually, all humans were created/generated this way, resulting in the human population of the world.

Every single one of these humans is a potential PC. Imagine that the players could review the character sheets of every single one of these inhabitants and then choose to play one as if it were a pre-generated PC.

That is and always was the presumption of D&D.

But Gygax realised that most people aren't going to be adventurers. So he thought of various ways to get better-than-average results for ability scores, based on the concept that most adventurers would be more gifted than non-adventurers.

He thought of 3d6 six times but arrange as desired (as opposed the the general population's in order). He thought of 3d6 twelve times, choose any (i.e. 'the best') six scores and assign them as you wish. He thought of 4d6k3, assign as you wish.

He thought of a few others too. But the crucial thing about each and every one of these 'PC generation' methods is that these humans are not a different species with different assumptions! This is just a way to choose the better humans to play. The assumption remained that, conceptually, whatever method the player actually used to generate those stats, the resulting PC is simply one of the luckier humans whose creation in world was 3d6 in order, just like everyone else.

This applies to NPCs and PCs alike. When you meet a commoner, conceptually, each of his ability scores was generated by 3d6 in order. Any of his stats could be as low as 3 and as high as 18, with no 'zero sum game' going on. Even if the DM can't be bothered to actually roll those scores, or go to the trouble of creating a full character sheet for this shopkeeper/beggar/prostitute/barman (and why should he go to all that trouble for 'window dressing'-type NPCs), conceptualy every single human has a full character sheet with six scores rolled on 3d6 in order.

The upshot is that, whatever method we actually use to generate the scores for our PCs, they will still be conceptually rolled on 3d6 in order. Therefore any combination of six scores of 3-18 are a valid PC or NPC, and any PC generation method that restricts those possibilities takes away valid concepts to play.

So 3d6 in order, 3d6 six times and arrange, 3d6 twelve times and arrange, 4d6k3 and arrange; none of these methods takes away any concept. Contrast that with 2d6+6 six times and arrange, which takes away every concept that includes a 7 or less.

What point-buy and standard array methods do is take away the vast majority of possible concepts, leaving a pitifully few when compared to 3-18 six times. If you want to play one of that huge majority of concepts you are S out of L with those methods.

Now, if you treat D&D as a board game where the priority of 'PC parity' is more important to you than realism, then these methods seem like they do that. Rolling almost certainly doesn't do that, so point-buy/array seem...'fairer' (meaning, of course, 'balanced').

It's an illusion though. The results of point-buy/array (the resulting PCs) are not really balanced, due to things like MAD versus SAD, the utility of each stat to each PC in the game, variations in system mastery, and so on.

So, for me, point-buy/array throw the baby out with the bathwater. Realism has been thrown away in favour of balance, without actually achieving that balance.

 

[Arial Black]

But I don't necessarily say that the rest of the population is realistically diverse. Indeed, I don't say anything about the rest of the population.

Why would you, as DM, deliberately create an illogical world? Why would you create an unrealistic population, one that didn't make sense even in the internal logic of your own world?

Are the PCs the only creatures that exist? If not, they must have been born from an existing population. They ARE members of that population. That population will be made up of individuals who vary in wealth, status, ability scores, personality, and so on. Conceptually, the PCs are members of that population.

Either you make a population which IS realistic (in which case my argument remains valid) or you deliberately make an UNrealistic population, in which case: how does your strange decision help the rest of us choose which stat generation method is best?

 

[Yardiff]

A level of realism I've noticed that no one is suggesting for their D&D characters, despite the supposed desire for realism claimed by some (not all) in favor of rolling for stats.

You understand that most of this thread is about the start of a character right? So this comment is pure . I for one like the age effects from the earlier games and I'm sure that most of those who favor 'old school' stuff in their game do as well.

And yes I'm aware of your (not all) qualifier, your comment is still .

 

[Satyrn]

Why would you, as DM, deliberately create an illogical world? Why would you create an unrealistic population, one that didn't make sense even in the internal logic of your own world?

Are the PCs the only creatures that exist? If not, they must have been born from an existing population. They ARE members of that population. That population will be made up of individuals who vary in wealth, status, ability scores, personality, and so on. Conceptually, the PCs are members of that population.

Either you make a population which IS realistic (in which case my argument remains valid) or you deliberately make an UNrealistic population, in which case: how does your strange decision help the rest of us choose which stat generation method is best?

I'm gonna start with your last question, because I think it illustrates what I was saying from the start: My strange decision doesn't help anyone decide which stat generation method is best. It doesn't help you since you want to judge how realistic it is and you can't. And it doesn't help me because I don't care about that at all.

Now, for that first question. I'm not deliberately making an illogical world, but it is a likely side effect of my decisions, I admit. Because, again, "creating a logical world" is not one of my goals. See, my platonic ideal of a D&D game is Xena: Warrior Princess, a show that throws facts and logic right out the window in order to tell a fun little story of fighting. Each episode might be internally logical, but if you try to make sense of the show as a whole, you'd fail horribly. Its History, for example, is horrendous. Xena is friends with Helen of Troy and an enemy of Julius Caeser, for example - two people who lived a thousand years apart.

Logic is simply not relevant to me the way it is to you.

More specifically: 1) I don't care if the stats model the world logically, and 2) I'm not using the stats to model the world, anyway.

 

[Oofta]

Why would you, as DM, deliberately create an illogical world? Why would you create an unrealistic population, one that didn't make sense even in the internal logic of your own world?

Are the PCs the only creatures that exist? If not, they must have been born from an existing population. They ARE members of that population. That population will be made up of individuals who vary in wealth, status, ability scores, personality, and so on. Conceptually, the PCs are members of that population.

Either you make a population which IS realistic (in which case my argument remains valid) or you deliberately make an UNrealistic population, in which case: how does your strange decision help the rest of us choose which stat generation method is best?

All ability scores we use in D&D are simplified abstractions and only have any real value in relation to other ability scores.

With any of the standard systems for generating ability scores for D&D the numbers are constricted. You can't have a 100 strength with any system; point buy merely has a narrower range of possibilities. That does not in and of itself make it more or less realistic.

The real fallacy is that the numbers mean anything in the real world or that they could be or need to be realistic. For me, D&D starts out with an action movie reality. I just watched the most recent Fast and Furious movie thanks to netflix (yes, I occasionally enjoy stupid popcorn movies). Is there anyone on the team that would not fit in the 8-16 starting range? Dwayne Johnson is probably what most people think of when they think 20 strength, yet none of his other ability scores would fall more than a little below average as far as I can tell.

I don't see a problem with movies like that being a starting point for what my "reality" is; I don't need to force someone to play someone who is mentally or physically handicapped.

 

[Hriston]

In D&D, from its inception, 'humans' are created/generated on 3d6 in order. It is assumed that, conceptually, all humans were created/generated this way, resulting in the human population of the world.

Although this seems to be a popular misconception, it is nevertheless wrong, IMO. Read D&D, Vol. I, Men & Magic, p. 10, where 3d6 in order is first given as a method for generating the scores of player characters. Nowhere in that volume, or anywhere else in the annals of D&D, can I find it stated that the same method applies to non-classed NPCs. You seem to be extrapolating from the PC creation rules based on the assumption that they model the distribution of scores found in the larger population. I don't believe there's any evidence for your position.

In The Dungeon Masters Guide, p. 11, Gygax finally gives us a method to determine the scores of "general characters", those NPCs without a character class. It is as I described in my post up-thread: three 'averaging' dice are rolled producing a score in the range of 6-15. 3d6 is reserved for the non-primary abilities of "special characters", NPCs with a character class.

So as much as you might like for D&D to have one monolithic ability score generation method that describes the distribution of scores in the general population, the closest you'll get is the averaging method to describe the masses of humanity. 3d6, the highest 3 of 4d6, and other methods exist only to describe subsets of the population that are exceptional for their abilities that lie outside, both above and below, the norm as defined by the averaging method.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You can just stop right there. Those three words invalidate everything you said after them. Nobody is talking about real life.

When we invoke 'realism,' that's exactly what we're doing (and, yes, that one word can neatly invalidate everything associated with it if not used very carefully, indeed), we're bringing in RL standards. In this specific case, the idea that rolling is more 'realistic,' it's even in the exact sense that Hussar brought up - the sense of what the character controls mapping closely to what the player controls. The character can't choose his parents, for instance, so the player shouldn't be able to just take a background like Noble. You're either born into a noble family or not - usually not - so roll on this table....

We established, up-thread, that both of us have used just that kind of extended random generation. For something like that kind of reason (I also liked to think of it as being part of world-painting....)

The False Dichotomy of "real life" and "no realism whatsoever" that you keep trying to use against me is getting tired. Come back and discuss this with me when you understand that there are a multitude of grades of realism and that a person can want more realism(not having control over your stats and higher and lower possibilities), without needing to randomly roll backgrounds.

Not s'much. That's just demanding realism selectively, which just kicks the issue back to arbitrary preference.

Why realism for stats, but not backgrounds? Why 'realism' for the numeric values of stats but not where they go?

Realism is a *ahem* real benefit for random generation, but, really(npi!) only when it's taken to the logical conclusion of randomly generating everything about the character that the character had no opportunity to influence in the course of his backstory....

One thing that would help is if each class were designed to make use of each Ability for various functions related to the Class. Then there would be no "dump stat", just different ways to be effective with each Class. Determine the benefits of an Ability based on the Class, rather than have them be universal.

Ooh, that's a nice concept. Don't know if it could actually be done (there's really not /that/ much to a D&D character class & it's abilities), but it's a cool idea.

As to the general argument on both sides of this thread, I think it comes down to the highly subjective issue of immersion

A little too subjective to be of any use, though. I mean, it might as well be an arbitrary preference.

Proponents of rolling for ability scores don't want this one decision, which generally couldn't possibly be in the control of the character, to be in the control of the player, regardless of what other decisions in the game are similarly given to the player even though they are out of control of the character.

See, that's just arbitrary. There's no difference between that and "'cause I wanna!" If your immersion can't handle your character choosing strength over CHA - spending all his time doing strenuous physical work & pursuits, and none developing social relationships, for instance (not every stat trade-off has a clear choice component like that, a lot of it IRL is also 'potential,' but there's /some/ rationale to to the character having some influence on his stats), but can handle choosing your race, assigned sex, and circumstances of birth (Human, M, Noble), then your standard of 'immersion' is just an arbitrary preference. It has nothing to do with realism or immersion, at all, just begging the question.

Let an arbitrary preference stand as just that: a personal preference requiring no logic nor justification.

Why would you, as DM, deliberately create an illogical world? Why would you create an unrealistic population, one that didn't make sense even in the internal logic of your own world?

Because it's more fun.

And, why would assigning NPCs the stats that you deem make the most sense for them w/in the logical consistency of your world be more 'unrealistic' than rolling dice to get those stats?

Are the PCs the only creatures that exist? If not, they must have been born from an existing population. They ARE members of that population. That population will be made up of individuals who vary in wealth, status, ability scores, personality, and so on. Conceptually, the PCs are members of that population.

Yeah, the ones who got into wizard school, studied at monasteries, served in and survived wars, or whatever, then made the unaccountable decision to take up adventuring... they're not /representative/ of the populations from which they are drawn... The methodology used to generate that population need have no direct relation to that used to generate the PCs.

 

[Satyrn]

Although this seems to be a popular misconception, it is nevertheless wrong, IMO. Read D&D, Vol. I, Men & Magic, p. 10, where 3d6 in order is first given as a method for generating the scores of player characters. Nowhere in that volume, or anywhere else in the annals of D&D, can I find it stated that the same method applies to non-classed NPCs. You seem to be extrapolating from the PC creation rules based on the assumption that they model the distribution of scores found in the larger population. I don't believe there's any evidence for your position.

I think there's lots of evidence for [MENTION=6799649]Arial Black[/MENTION]'s position. I can clearly see how he gets to his position from what he's read in D&D books.

I just disagree with his conclusion that it's the assumed method used, rather than one of the available methods. But I still see how he reaches his conclusion.

 

[Hriston]

I think there's lots of evidence for [MENTION=6799649]Arial Black[/MENTION]'s position.

I'd love to hear it.

 

[Satyrn]

I'd love to hear it.

I'm sure you've seen much of it if you've read through several editions. Here's a couple pieces of evidence:

-Ability scores of 10 and 11 described as the human average, which lines up with the average result of 3d6
-5e's DMG says you can generate NPC stats by rolling dice.

Theres's lots more, too - and there would have to be since what evidence I presented would certainly not be enough - but I'm not going through all the editions that Arial has played to find it all. Nor am I going to argue about how the evidence supports his conclusions, because I simply don't care enough to write a thesis on the subject.

Do you really believe that his view is an untenable reading of the rules?