D&D 5E Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats

All I can say is that 3d6 may be what Arial uses, and they are free to assume whatever they want about D&D in general (in my opinion they are wrong, but they are free to assume it).

But I know with absolute certainty that it is false for any D&D game I've run in the last 20 years. Every NPC has either had no stats at all, or if they are important enough to need stats I've created them using point buy, or used one the NPC's from the back of the MM (usually with their stats beefed up a bit and a feat or two added).

3d6 is not and never has been "realistic". It's just been "good enough". Point buy isn't realistic - but it is also "good enough". Pretending that one is more realistic than another is patently ridiculous.

D&D has never been "realistic". Human abilities do not map onto 6 broad attribute scores, there are many physical and mental variations and nuances even between people who can lift the same weight (i.e. same Str score) or who score the same on an IQ test. Trying to be "realistic" about it would require many more physical and mental attributes, with a much finer grading scale than 3-18. As well as a host of possible talents and weaknesses that could apply to each and every attribute. But that's really not practical, so the game abstracts everything down six attributes and rates them on how they affect the game mechanics. Everything else is fluff. Important fluff for roleplaying your character, but still fluff.

Even if you want to assume that 3d6 is how NPC's are generated (even though I've never, ever, seen that done) - PC's are not expected to be "realistic" examples of the population. They are the athletes, gymnasts, scholars, and actors of the world. They are exceptional, from the beginning. Unless you want to RP someone who isn't exceptional, in which case you RP them as someone who isn't exceptional -even though it's never actually true. You are still going to be better than 90% of the population because you are gaining levels and magic items.

Because, despite everything else, this is still a game and short of death PC's just get stronger and more capable as time goes by, regardless of their starting stats. The only difference is in comparison to other PC's and whatever big bads the DM creates.

Getting all pissy and judgemental about how other people play the game doesn't actually make anything better, it just makes you seem immature and judgmental. And I include myself in that.

Caliban said:

3d6 is not and never has been "realistic". It's just been "good enough". Point buy isn't realistic - but it is also "good enough". Pretending that one is more realistic than another is patently ridiculous.

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No more so than prioritizing realism, in the first place. That is, it's not ridiculous unless you've already discounted realism as a desirable feature of a fantasy RPG. If you have, random generation has less to recommend it - it can, for instance, still spark an idea when you don't sit down with a concept already in mind...

Caliban said:

. Getting all pissy and judgemental about how other people play the game doesn't actually make anything better, it just makes you seem immature and judgmental. And I include myself in that.

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And I'll include myself , too.

I'm trying to counter that by appreciating Arial's point of view.

Satyrn said:

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?

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I believe it's an irrelevant reading of the rules; commoners have a 10 in every ability score tells me nothing other than from a game standpoint they are assumed to have no pluses or minuses to skills/attacks/saves based on ability scores.

An average 10 intelligence tells me no more about the distribution of intelligence than the fact that the average IQ score is 100.

As far as what was written decades ago, that is also irrelevant. I'm not playing OD&D. I know Arial wants to go through the history of the game, but there is no guarantee that he's not just cherry-picking or misreading as [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] is stating.

I can say that in my opinion 3d6 is a pretty horrible way of modeling ability scores. Far, far too many people would be mentally or physically handicapped using that system. The bell curve is simply too flat.

Satyrn said:

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

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It also lines up with the average of Gygax's averaging dice method for determining the scores of general characters, so it isn't really evidence for the use of 3d6.

-5e's DMG says you can generate NPC stats by rolling dice.

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NPCs with classes and levels are not representative of the general population. It also doesn't suggest rolling 3d6 for them, so I have no idea how you think this helps make your or [MENTION=6799649]Arial Black[/MENTION]'s point.

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

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I believe his view is wrong, but I understand how he got that impression. I used to think that myself before I looked into it. Now I know better.

Oofta said:

I believe it's an irrelevant reading of the rules; commoners have a 10 in every ability score tells me nothing other than from a game standpoint they are assumed to have no pluses or minuses to skills/attacks/saves based on ability scores.

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It doesn't /tell/ you "we had unpaid interns roll up every commoner in the Realms using 3d6, and, coincidentally, they all rolled '10' every time," no. But, it's not inconsistent with the idea that commoners are the most painfully mediocre of the average in a 3d6-in-order universe.

(Commoner: "We are the average of the mediocre of the run-of-the-mill! SIR!")

As far as what was written decades ago, that is also irrelevant. I'm not playing OD&D.

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It is relevant, because you are playing 5e, the design of which openly hearkens back to past editions.

Hriston said:

NPCs with classes and levels are not representative of the general population. It also doesn't suggest rolling 3d6 for them, so I have no idea how you think this helps make your or [MENTION=6799649]Arial Black[/MENTION]'s point.



I believe his view is wrong, but I understand how he got that impression. I used to think that myself before I looked into it. Now I know better.

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What is my point?

After you said "I don't believe there's any evidence for your position" I responded by saying "I think there's lots of evidence for [MENTION=6799649]Arial Black[/MENTION]'s position."

That's my point. I never called it convincing, conclusive evidence. I just said that it was there.

I'm confused now why you said there was no evidence for his position if you held the same position at some point. How did you arrive at that view if there was no evidence for it?

Tony Vargas said:

It doesn't /tell/ you "we had unpaid interns roll up every commoner in the Realms using 3d6, and, coincidentally, they all rolled '10' every time," no. But, it's not inconsistent with the idea that commoners are the most painfully mediocre of the average in a 3d6-in-order universe.

(Commoner: "We are the average of the mediocre of the run-of-the-mill! SIR!")

It is relevant, because you are playing 5e, the design of which openly hearkens back to past editions.

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Did you know that trains tracks are the size they are because of the Romans? That the width was based on ruts in the roads that were rutted because they roads were originally built by the Romans?

Except ... it's not true according to snopes. Whether ability scores for commoners were ever determined using 3d6 is also possibly a myth and not particularly relevant.

The scale chosen for ability scores in D&D may have been based on 3d6 (or 4d6 or 20d6 pick best 3). It's still irrelevant because it tells us nothing about what the distribution should be to accurately reflect realistic values.

Do you really think that it makes sense that every hamlet of 216 people has a village idiot who is as mentally handicapped as it is possible to be? That in the same village has someone that is as intelligent as humanly possible?

Oofta said:

Did you know that trains tracks are the size they are because of the Romans? That the width was based on ruts in the roads that were rutted because they roads were originally built by the Romans?

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I know that rail gauges vary with locality, for a variety of reasons, including intentional compatibility (or incompatibility!) with neighboring systems. And, though some of those reasons may no longer be applicable, it's a big deal to change to a different gauge, so it's usually easier to just keep using the same one and expanding & maintaining the current system....

The scale chosen for ability scores in D&D may have been based on 3d6

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It was, unless you figure EGG was intentionally deceiving his audience when he wrote 1e....

... It's still irrelevant because it tells us nothing about what the distribution should be to accurately reflect realistic values.

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That 3d6 was the original method in D&D, and its distribution was a significant part of that is not irrelevant to an ed that puts so much stock in the game's traditions. Whether it's an accurate reflection of actual distributions in some real or imagined population, though, does seem less than wonderfully relevant - unless you're really into that brand/degree of selectively applied realism...

Do you really think that it makes sense that every hamlet of 216 people has a village idiot who is as mentally handicapped as it is possible to be? That in the same village has someone that is as intelligent as humanly possible?

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No, /I/ don't. But, if you roll everyone on 3d6, that's approximately the kind of thing you might get, so it'd make sense, in that, circular, sense - which is the kind of sense some folks are after. "Internal consistency," call it.

Tony Vargas said:

No, /I/ don't. But, if you roll everyone on 3d6, that's approximately the kind of thing you might get, so it'd make sense, in that, circular, sense - which is the kind of sense some folks are after. "Internal consistency," call it.

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Nah, I'll just call it what it is: circular logic. Rolling a handful of d6s is more realistic because we use a handful of d6s to generate ability scores.

If you think having examples of both extremes for every ability score for any random group of 216 people is not realistic then a method that generates those numbers is not realistic.