D&D 5E Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats

Maxperson said:

Once again, the reason we don't have firemen with 3 int and police officers with 3 str is because the people doing the hiring don't hire them with those stats. Adventurers have no such overlords dictating what the minimums and maximums are. I also don't see you arguing that we don't have fireman and policeman cadets with higher than 15 int or str.

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Don't have to. If we presume that 16 is the highest you can get at 1st level, then poof, it's realistic. In order to be higher than that takes years of dedicated practice (ie. gaining levels). Besides that, I also don't have to since I'm showing that it's unrealistic to have adventurers with massive physical or mental problems.

Add to that the fact that your world has nearly 5% of ALL adult humans with massive physical problems, I'm pretty confident that the whole "it's more realistic" canard has been well and truly flushed. Since we're mixing and matching editions, by 1e standards a 3 Str nets you a max lift of 10 pounds. You're pretty much barely able to walk. A 3 Int is barely verbal. A dog has a 3 Int. If we include 4's in the range, then nearly 10% of your population has serious mental or physical problems. That's insane.

Unless, of course, you're running a world in the midst of some terrible plague or something. In which case, fair enough.

Hriston said:

No other method but pick a 3, an 18, or any number in between. But the other methods do give you a subset of the scores rolling gives you. If those numbers (8-15) are realistic when you roll them, how do they suddenly become unrealistic when you use a different method to get them?

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"Realistic", as I think most folks are using the term in the context of this thread, is not a property of a single stat array. Any particular stat array is neither realistic nor unrealistic, so your question is not meaningful.

I think [MENTION=6857506]Harzel[/MENTION] has the right of it. As I understand it, the idea is that since a person cannot control his or her own gross physical and mental characteristics, die rolling better reflects the random chances of birth.

And, to be fair, I get the appeal. We all want our games to be somewhat grounded in believability. Fair enough. To me though, I find the argument far too self serving. There's apparently no problems with choosing background, choosing where to place those die rolled stats (arrange to taste is apparently fine), choosing class and pretty much every other element of the character, none of which a person really has control over. But, apparently, while it's perfectly fine to declare that my character is part of the nobility, it's not acceptable to claim that I have a 14 Strength.

Again, to me, this is where the self serving element comes in. Because, if it's not true that die rolling is more realistic, then, well, there's nothing really else to recommend it. It's pretty much just power gaming. If die rolling isn't realistic, then, well, what other reason is there to roll other than to try for that 18 stat? As [MENTION=6799649]Arial Black[/MENTION] has repeatedly pointed out, playing a standard array or point buy character means that you can't be good at everything. If you want to play that charismatic barbarian, you have to give up a bit of combat power. But, if you die roll, and roll well enough, you can turn to everyone, secure in the fact that you are a good player, you did chance the dice after all, and play that character that's just flat out better.

Happy 2 month anniversary, thread without a natural stopping point! Long may you foster discord!

Hussar said:

Don't have to. If we presume that 16 is the highest you can get at 1st level, then poof, it's realistic. In order to be higher than that takes years of dedicated practice (ie. gaining levels). Besides that, I also don't have to since I'm showing that it's unrealistic to have adventurers with massive physical or mental problems.

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ROFL No, unrealistic things don't become realistic just because you presume something that isn't true in the game.

Add to that the fact that your world has nearly 5% of ALL adult humans with massive physical problems, I'm pretty confident that the whole "it's more realistic" canard has been well and truly flushed. Since we're mixing and matching editions, by 1e standards a 3 Str nets you a max lift of 10 pounds. You're pretty much barely able to walk. A 3 Int is barely verbal. A dog has a 3 Int. If we include 4's in the range, then nearly 10% of your population has serious mental or physical problems. That's insane.

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5% having massive problems is much more realistic than 0% having massive problems. Again, I reject your False Dichotomy where realism must always mean "exactly mirrors real life". You need to drop that particular hang-up, or you'll continue to automatically be wrong on tons of stuff.

Hussar said:

And, to be fair, I get the appeal. We all want our games to be somewhat grounded in believability. Fair enough. To me though, I find the argument far too self serving. There's apparently no problems with choosing background, choosing where to place those die rolled stats (arrange to taste is apparently fine), choosing class and pretty much every other element of the character, none of which a person really has control over. But, apparently, while it's perfectly fine to declare that my character is part of the nobility, it's not acceptable to claim that I have a 14 Strength.

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This failed argument again?!?!? Don't you ever get tired of the, "Well, since you accept X unrealistic thing, it's nonsense to want Y to be more realistic." argument? Realism isn't something that needs every last thing in the game to become more realistic in order to justify wanting some aspect of the game to be more realistic.

There are tons of different parts of the the game, and each of them is independent when it comes to realism. I can want stats to be more realistic, without necessarily wanting backgrounds, combat and weapons to be more realistic. Or I could want backgrounds and weapons to be more realistic, without caring if stats or armor is more realistic.

It all boils down to enjoyability. Not many people want to play a game that mirrors real life, but lots of us do want to play a game that is more realistic than the level of realism that D&D is produced at. So we shift portions of the game towards the more realistic end of the spectrum and increase the fun factor, without pushing those things too far and making them unfun. other aspects we are okay with at the level of realism they already sit at and it would either make those aspects less fun to shift them, or is just unnecessary to change and don't bother.

Being dismissive of our arguments based on the continued failed argument put forth above just makes you look bad. Agree or disagree with what we are saying, but don't just dismiss what we are saying just because we don't change or are okay with some other aspect of the game.

Oh, and I don't even understand how choosing class made it into your example above. We choose our professions in real life, so choosing class is already realistic.

Because, if it's not true that die rolling is more realistic, then, well, there's nothing really else to recommend it.

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It is true that rolling is more realistic than point buys or arrays.

It's pretty much just power gaming.

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It's only power gaming if you are doing it to power game AND you are guaranteed better stats than point buy or array, which you aren't.

If die rolling isn't realistic, then, well, what other reason is there to roll other than to try for that 18 stat? As [MENTION=6799649]Arial Black[/MENTION] has repeatedly pointed out, playing a standard array or point buy character means that you can't be good at everything. If you want to play that charismatic barbarian, you have to give up a bit of combat power. But, if you die roll, and roll well enough, you can turn to everyone, secure in the fact that you are a good player, you did chance the dice after all, and play that character that's just flat out better.

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First, you will almost never be good at everything when you roll, so that implication of yours is incorrect. Second, a charismatic barbarian who is charismatic without giving up combat power is far from good at everything, so that implication is also incorrect. Third, rolling well doesn't make you a good player, so you are wrong on that one as well. 0 for 3 in a single paragraph talking about my side of things. Not good. It means you should go back and re-read a lot of posts, because you've seriously failed to understand what we are saying.

I'm not sure if I should dip my toe into this thread or not ... but here is my opinion.

1) "Realism" isn't a factor. This is a fantasy role playing game. The players are playing characters that go out and adventure, meet people, travel, deal with challenges.

2) If you want to invoke "realism" ... although the general population in the fantasy world may or may not contain some number of people with physical or mental stats of "3". Unless the DM wishes it, you are unlikely to encounter these people either as adventurers or as NPCs because in a "medieval" type of setting these characters would need constant care just to survive and in many cases might not survive at all since they would be unable to either take care of themselves or fend for themselves.

3) The world is managed by the DM. If desired or useful, they can assign stats to any creature or being that might be encountered. However, unless there is a game mechanic that requires a number then in most cases there is no need to create any stats or use any particular system to do so. As a result, arguing over which system generates better stats is pretty much a waste of time .

4) In the context of random generation for player characters vs point buy.

- Player characters are supposed to be "above average" since they are adventurers ... some people will find it fun to play a disadvantaged adventurer with sub-par stats but not most in my experience. 4d6 drop one will on average generate above average stats ... but not always ... which is a problem when creating a group of characters. Some people will be lucky and roll well and others will not. HOWEVER, due to the bounded accuracy of 5e the variation of stats from random generation has a MUCH larger effect in 5e than in earlier versions. An extra +1 to hit/AC/initiative is a significant boost in this system while in previous versions it was somewhat less important. This means that the character with an 18 attack stat and +4 is better than a character with a 12 attack stat and +1 and will be for most of the character play experience.

- This is where the point buy or standard set comes into play. It allows the players to create characters that are more balanced when compared to each other. Everyone has pretty much a common starting level though how the points are allocated are up to the player. It does remove some of the more exceptional characters but it prevents the situation where one person rolls well and another poorly. If the inability to create even more exceptional characters is a problem then just increase the total number of points available to purchase stats. This will allow the creation of even more heroic characters. One other advantage of the point buy system is that if a player really does want to role play a character that has to deal with a particularly low stat then the system can be easily adjusted to deal with that situation. Simple modifications to the point buy concept will allow a complete range of character stats to be generated while keeping the total strength in stats between PCs roughly comparable.

- Basically, although rolling a great character is fun, rolling a bad one generally isn't and the point buy system can be easily adapted to create any range of characters you might like to use.
Examples:
adventurers usually have 27 points ... exceptional adventurers could have 32
average townsfolk could have a total of 5d6 points to spend
scores lower than 8 would be special cases since having a score lower than this is probably a significant hindrance for a typical humanoid.

Lanefan said:

Because the fourth player in group one might roll 18-14-13-11-9-7, which cannot be done via any other RAW-recognized method.

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In my example there is no fourth player, so what you're saying, if I have this right, is that potential results outside the 8-15 range make results within that range more realistic. While I understand the desire to simulate the frequency with which these scores occur, I don't think 4d6 drop lowest (or 3d6 for that matter) does a good job of that. Extreme levels of ability are far more rare in the real world, although they do exist. I would assume, however, that even in games that use the standard array or point-buy exclusively for PC ability score generation that it's an established part of the fiction that the potential for extreme scores does indeed exist, e.g. the existence of normal people with scores of 18. So the realism derived from knowing your high score of 15 potentially could have been an 18 is just as available in games that use standard array and point-buy as it is in games that use 4d6 drop lowest.

4d6x1 doesn't guarantee rolling a stat line outside that which point-buy can give, but the chance is there...and you'll get at least one stat outside the 8-15 range (higher, lower, or both) about half the time, if I remember the numbers given upthread.

Lanefan

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You'll get a high score above 15 nearly 57% of the time, and a low score below 8 nearly 30% of the time. I think it's interesting that a method that makes less likely results more likely is seen as more realistic. IMO, the most realistic game would have a realistic level of variation.

Maxperson said:

Intelligence goes down to 0, so a 3 isn't as mentally handicapped as possible. It's just as low as you can go without some sort of tragedy or birth defect to cause it to go even lower.

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Not according to the PHB. The normal range is 3-18. Certainly disease could knock that lower, I'm talking about naturally occurring low intelligence.

Maxperson said:

Exactly. I'm quite familiar with that tactic of yours.

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You mean the "tactic" of pointing out that no one (other than maybe you) has ever suggested that you use point buy/standard array for ability scores for the general population? Which makes your statement (paraphrasing here) that "the lowest ability score anyone in the world could have is an 8" something that you completely made up?

If you're familiar with the idea of not making **** up, why don't you try it sometime?

Maxperson said:

Because you are picking those numbers, and not rolling them randomly. Lack of control makes it more realistic as well. We don't control what our starting adult stats are in the real world, and those starting numbers dictate how far we can go.

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You aren't picking the numbers when you use the standard array either. Those numbers have been pre-selected for you, just as the dice do if you use them. It's simply one of the most likely outcomes of taking the highest three results of 4d6. And to be fair, in point-buy your choice is constrained to one of 65 possible combinations. You don't get to just pick whatever numbers you want in that method either.

Harzel said:

"Realistic", as I think most folks are using the term in the context of this thread, is not a property of a single stat array. Any particular stat array is neither realistic nor unrealistic, so your question is not meaningful.

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If it isn't about the actual result that winds up on the character sheet, though, then I don't know how realism can be a factor. The way the scores represent the character isn't affected by the method by which they were generated. So if it's about process and not results, then why is a fortune-based mechanic considered a more realistic way to represent the environmental forces that make a person who they are? Surely a karma-based mechanic like standard array or point-buy can just as realistically represent the forces of nature and nurture.