Setting the method for rolling ability scores

[Yora]

Sometimes I see GMs saying that they think it's great to have the players find ways to make a character out of a randomly rolled set of ability scores and think, "yeah, that does really sound fun."
I like how it mechanically communicates the idea that all PCs are just some random people trying to make this adventuring thing work (and maybe succeeding or not), and that as a player you are taking control of some character in an adventure, instead of creating your perfect protagonist for your personal dream story. There are many ways in which characters with really skewed or pretty low stats could be great and memorable PCs, but nobody really would bother attempting if custom tailoring is an option.
But at the same time, I can totally understand there being many players who are "I just want to play a dude with a big sword" and making that work with 6 Strength and 4 Constitution just won't be very fun for anyone involved.

While thinking about possible methods that result into some kind of middle ground that will be acceptable to a wide range of players, it did get me thinking on what good reasons there are for the GM to make this decision for all the players in the first place? As GM, I am not going to play the PCs that are being created with whatever method I decide to pick for the campaign. The people who will be having fun (or not) playing those characters will be the players. Not me.

Of course, at the start of a campaign, you can always ask the initial group of players to agree on a method that they want to use. But in such a situation, what are the odds that they woud decide in anything but the option that allows the highest degree of customization with the highest amount of total numbers? Playing an RPG is about dealing with challenges encountered by the PCs. The game is all about the obstacles and things that are not the way the players would prefer them to be. It is the job of the GM to present the players with problems and limitation that will be fun to deal with. The fun of the game comes from things being not ideal and inconvenient.

So my current personal opinion is that yes, the GM should make the choice of how ability scores are generated. But the big question is, which considerations should go into making this decision, and what things would speak for some methods and against other methods for different campaign concepts? And of course, I am sure there are plenty of people who absolutely don't think the GM should make this choice for the players. I am really interested for the reasonings of that stance as well.
Which systems of generating ability scores do you think are reasonable and conductive to having great campaigns and why do you think they are the best way to go for certain contexts.

 

[Maxperson]

Sometimes I see GMs saying that they think it's great to have the players find ways to make a character out of a randomly rolled set of ability scores and think, "yeah, that does really sound fun."
I like how it mechanically communicates the idea that all PCs are just some random people trying to make this adventuring thing work (and maybe succeeding or not), and that as a player you are taking control of some character in an adventure, instead of creating your perfect protagonist for your personal dream story. There are many ways in which characters with really skewed or pretty low stats could be great and memorable PCs, but nobody really would bother attempting if custom tailoring is an option.
But at the same time, I can totally understand there being many players who are "I just want to play a dude with a big sword" and making that work with 6 Strength and 4 Constitution just won't be very fun for anyone involved.

While thinking about possible methods that result into some kind of middle ground that will be acceptable to a wide range of players, it did get me thinking on what good reasons there are for the GM to make this decision for all the players in the first place? As GM, I am not going to play the PCs that are being created with whatever method I decide to pick for the campaign. The people who will be having fun (or not) playing those characters will be the players. Not me.

Of course, at the start of a campaign, you can always ask the initial group of players to agree on a method that they want to use. But in such a situation, what are the odds that they woud decide in anything but the option that allows the highest degree of customization with the highest amount of total numbers? Playing an RPG is about dealing with challenges encountered by the PCs. The game is all about the obstacles and things that are not the way the players would prefer them to be. It is the job of the GM to present the players with problems and limitation that will be fun to deal with. The fun of the game comes from things being not ideal and inconvenient.

So my current personal opinion is that yes, the GM should make the choice of how ability scores are generated. But the big question is, which considerations should go into making this decision, and what things would speak for some methods and against other methods for different campaign concepts? And of course, I am sure there are plenty of people who absolutely don't think the GM should make this choice for the players. I am really interested for the reasonings of that stance as well.
Which systems of generating ability scores do you think are reasonable and conductive to having great campaigns and why do you think they are the best way to go for certain contexts.

What I do, and it has never failed to give the player the character he wants to play while at the same time preserving rolling, is the following.

Players get to assign two stats(typically their prime and secondary) 5d6-2L, two stats 4d6-L, and two stats(their "dump" stats) 3d6 straight up. Then since 5d6 can occasionally yield a lowish number, I allow the player to swap one pair of stats. So if the one who wanted to play a fighter rolled a 13 for strength on 5d60-2L, but a 16 for wisdom on his 4d6-L, he could swap those two numbers.

 

[payn]

Modern design has been moving away from randomly rolled characters. A lot of that has to do with party and game balance. Some systems balance the game math around random rolls, and thus, work as intended. D&D has not been like that in at least 20 years. In this case, I don't want rolling at all, and prefer arrays or point buy. I understand that some folks like making the best of a random character, I don't like playing that as a character in a group, and I don't like gamemastering that as a GM.

That said, there has been point buy systems that I, as GM, have set. In PF1, you can go 15 point for low fantasy, 20 for higher, and 25 for higher yet. So, the entire party is formed around the baseline assumptions of challenge level and feel. You can also do this with set arrays that the players choose from in

I do still have the players roll for stats in Traveller. I find that the game's math system is more friendly to the idea and group balance is easier to maintain. The core assumptions make having random characters a much easier to adjudicate experience for the GM, and the players cant completely out strip one another in play.

 

[CleverNickName]

Modern design has been moving away from randomly rolled characters. A lot of that has to do with party and game balance.

I don't think this is true. It is still the default method of character generation in the most recent edition of the game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Modern design has been moving away from randomly rolled characters. A lot of that has to do with party and game balance.

Honestly, I think it has much more to do with a lot of people wanting to play what they feel like playing, not what the dice give them. Back in the days when at least some people were effectively just doing token play or expected to burn through a lot of characters earlier on, and/or when attributes meant less, this was less true, but moving away from that started as early as The Fantasy Trip at least, and that first came out in 1977.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think this is true. It is still the default method of character generation in the most recent edition of the game.

I suspect he was not just including D&D editions.

 

[payn]

I don't think this is true. It is still the default method of character generation in the most recent edition of the game.

Really? I don't know anyone that doesn't use stat array, order as you choose in 5E. Though, I suppose you are correct. You still arrange the scores as you see fit, so I suppose that would be a set method for generation that old school didn't often offer.

Honestly, I think it has much more to do with a lot of people wanting to play what they feel like playing, not what the dice give them. Back in the days when at least some people were effectively just doing token play or expected to burn through a lot of characters earlier on, and/or when attributes meant less, this was less true, but moving away from that started as early as The Fantasy Trip at least, and that first came out in 1977.

Exactly. I know some old school players that just "get what you get" and if you don't like it you suicide the character until you eventually get soemthing you do like. I have exactly one session worth of patience for that. Its called a DCC funnel.

I suspect he was not just including D&D editions.

This. I know I wandered a bit on the topic, but had a hard time thinking about it in just an older D&D edition reference. I don't think there was much need for the GM to set the method in the past, D&D lacked the nuance for such to really matter.

 

[delericho]

All my most recent campaigns have used a fixed approach for every PC (not the same one each time - two imposed the standard array, one gave a choice of arrays, one used point buy). However, my preference in general would be to offer each player a choice: random roll or standard array or point buy.

Ideally, the random rolls should be (on average) slightly better than array/PB, to compensate for the lack of ability to optimize. But, conversely, I expect players to roll once and play the result in good faith (so no suiciding a 'bad' character!). Similarly, the array should be slightly better than point buy, again because the latter allows for greater scope for optimization - the array would expect to include some odd-numbered stats, for instance.

Perhaps more importantly, though: it is my strong preference that ASIs should be removed from race/class/background entirely - if they're free-floating, then build them into the main stat generation approach(es).

Edit to add: I should perhaps note that as a player I'll no longer join a game where the GM imposes random rolls for ability scores or hit points. I don't mind if that is one of several options, of course, and I obviously have no objections to whatever is done in other groups. But it's not for me, so if that's something the GM insists on, I'll opt out.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Really? I don't know anyone that doesn't use stat array, order as you choose in 5E. Though, I suppose you are correct. You still arrange the scores as you see fit, so I suppose that would be a set method for generation that old school didn't often offer.

Over time there were a lot of hybrid methods that came up; I tend to view all of them as doing a mix of buffering really bad rolls, and trying to still keep in randomness in character gen while letting people aim towards the type of character they want (whether that was because of seeing some intrinsic virtue in randomness in character gen or simply being locked into rolling dice for character gen as a mindset I won't speculate on).

Exactly. I know some old school players that just "get what you get" and if you don't like it you suicide the character until you eventually get soemthing you do like. I have exactly one session worth of patience for that. Its called a DCC funnel.

In the old days the term often used around part of the group I played with was "swordbushing" a character (it was a Metamorphosis Alpha/Gamma World reference).

This. I know I wandered a bit on the topic, but had a hard time thinking about it in just an older D&D edition reference. I don't think there was much need for the GM to set the method in the past, D&D lacked the nuance for such to really matter.

About the only real issue in OD&D was character types that required particular scores or where it was pointless and perverse to play ones with a bad enough attribute in some particular attribute (dumb wizards, for example, who couldn't learn spells above second level).

 

[payn]

Over time there were a lot of hybrid methods that came up; I tend to view all of them as doing a mix of buffering really bad rolls, and trying to still keep in randomness in character gen while letting people aim towards the type of character they want (whether that was because of seeing some intrinsic virtue in randomness in character gen or simply being locked into rolling dice for character gen as a mindset I won't speculate on).

It's true, a lot of folks like the idea of random rolling. However, they build in so many failsafes to ensure the character is actually playable. One reason I mentioned non-D&D games becasue I think they do it better.

In the old days the term often used around part of the group I played with was "swordbushing" a character (it was a Metamorphosis Alpha/Gamma World reference).

Never heard that, but I like it.

About the only real issue in OD&D was character types that required particular scores or where it was pointless and perverse to play ones with a bad enough attribute in some particular attribute (dumb wizards, for example, who couldn't learn spells above second level).

Right. I suppose a GM setting the method to promote the likelihood of achieving/avoiding these things might be a consideration.