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Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7254410" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>Fairness is critical in a competitive game. Balance is critical in a cooperative game (where all players are on the same 'side' or there is not win/lose condition, not 'cooperative' in the team sense, that's still team v team competition - just to be clear). </p><p></p><p>Fairness and balance would both be mere distractions from all-important accuracy in a simulation, though. Re-enactors doing the Alamo aren't going to modify the scenario so Santa Anna will have a fair chance of being beaten, or use build system to design the fortifications & defenders and the attackers on the same point total. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p> Then you're not actually playing a game anymore. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> You're running a simulation or engaging in tourism of the DM's imagination. You can use an RPG setting or even ruleset that way, and a system like 5e D&D, one that's designed to be extensively modded by the DM, can definitely be made to work like that more readily than many others, and, indeed, 5e is meant to be used in just that way (since some of us ran off and did that sort of thing back in the day, and 5e's not trying to exclude any styles as badwrongfun)...</p><p>... among many others. </p><p></p><p>So, while rolling is good for verisimilitude in being somewhat out of the player's control (more so if roll-in-order) and for realism in delivering potentially imbalanced results (ditto), it's less than ideal for a simulation in still being fair to each player. Now, if there were character types that simply rolled different (poorer) dice than others for realism (or genre fidelity) - halflings rolling 2d4+1 for STR, 'Heroes' 5d6k3 & arrange, side-kicks 3d6 in order, whatever - that'd be appropriately unfair, as well as imbalanced. </p><p></p><p></p><p> The imaginary world needn't be imagined as fair to it's imaginary inhabitants for the game to be fair - or even balanced - to the players. In fact, a goodly portion of unfairness & injustice would be almost required to generate some conflict for the PCs to deal with.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7254410, member: 996"] Fairness is critical in a competitive game. Balance is critical in a cooperative game (where all players are on the same 'side' or there is not win/lose condition, not 'cooperative' in the team sense, that's still team v team competition - just to be clear). Fairness and balance would both be mere distractions from all-important accuracy in a simulation, though. Re-enactors doing the Alamo aren't going to modify the scenario so Santa Anna will have a fair chance of being beaten, or use build system to design the fortifications & defenders and the attackers on the same point total. ;) Then you're not actually playing a game anymore. ;) You're running a simulation or engaging in tourism of the DM's imagination. You can use an RPG setting or even ruleset that way, and a system like 5e D&D, one that's designed to be extensively modded by the DM, can definitely be made to work like that more readily than many others, and, indeed, 5e is meant to be used in just that way (since some of us ran off and did that sort of thing back in the day, and 5e's not trying to exclude any styles as badwrongfun)... ... among many others. So, while rolling is good for verisimilitude in being somewhat out of the player's control (more so if roll-in-order) and for realism in delivering potentially imbalanced results (ditto), it's less than ideal for a simulation in still being fair to each player. Now, if there were character types that simply rolled different (poorer) dice than others for realism (or genre fidelity) - halflings rolling 2d4+1 for STR, 'Heroes' 5d6k3 & arrange, side-kicks 3d6 in order, whatever - that'd be appropriately unfair, as well as imbalanced. The imaginary world needn't be imagined as fair to it's imaginary inhabitants for the game to be fair - or even balanced - to the players. In fact, a goodly portion of unfairness & injustice would be almost required to generate some conflict for the PCs to deal with. [/QUOTE]
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