It's a practical and principle thing. Practical in that years of experience have made me dislike the actual results of rolling stats, and principle in being opposed to randomly determining something that will define the effectiveness of your character over the length of the campaign. The principle part in particular, as I don't like what it says about the game when the system makes ability scores so important and so permanent, then leaves it to dice.
I think you're conflating "practical and principle" with "the way I like to play."
Lots of people like rolling stats. There is nothing wrong with that in principle, no matter how many times or how loudly you claim otherwise, and there is nothing wrong with it in practice for those who enjoy playing that way- unless you're claiming that they're having badwrongfun.
Nah, I'm objectively right here. There's no conceivable way that "playstyle" can justify this. That word is not a magical aegis that makes bad game design not count.
Game mechanics have to support each other. If they work at cross purposes, nothing about "playstyle" will make the problem vanish.
Got you. Everyone who likes to roll stats is
doing it wrong, and you are
doing it right.
Oh wait, no, they have legitimate differences in playstyle. There really is nothing "objective" about your preference; the words "point buy" aren't a magical sword that cuts all the good of stat rolling away, nor is rolling dice an objectively bad mechanic. In fact, I find that it is so far superior to point buy and arrays that I have
never, not ever, not once allowed even
one player to use point buy or a stat array
even once. And I've been running D&D solid since 1981, without ever having a gap longer than three months or so between games that I have run. Nor do I have a hard time getting players, keeping players, engaging players, challenging players or entertaining players. So how you think rolling for stats is magically ruining the game escapes me.
See, there's nothing wrong with using point buy or an array- if it suits your playstyle. But claiming that you have the "right" playstyle and everyone else is having badwrongfun is not very persuasive.
D&D is presently designed for characters to be played over a long period of time. I think that's a objectively true statement that really can't be argued against.
You think so, but you're wrong.
First of all, do you have a citation from one of the designers?
D&D is designed not just for long time campaign play; it is also designed for one shot play, for a couple sessions of play, even for simply fooling around with character generation and never playing at all. If you think it is "objectively true" that D&D is designed for long-term characters, you will have to show me something stronger than your own assertion to persuade me that you're anything but conflating your own playstyle preferences with "how D&D should be".
Randomly cursing some characters with comparative incompetence to others works at cross purposes with this goal. The same is true of randomly blessing some characters with hyper-competence.
Again- I disagree. Vehemently, even. Some of the most interesting and fun games I've been a part of as either player or dm involve characters with a noticeable power disparity. Sometimes, for some players, it's really fun to play the weak man of the party. For some players, it's really fun to be the badass who nobody touches.
Not to say that some groups wouldn't agree with you 100%; that's fine,
for their playstyle. But I don't care how much you say it, it is not "objectively true" just because you say it.
EDIT: And that's not even addressing the basic assertion you're making that rolling stats leads to some characters being incompetent vs. others being hypercompetent. Is there a difference in ability? Of course! There is also a difference in ability between any two characters built differently but with point buy, or even two characters who have the same stats, class and race. Not the same as engendering incompetence and hypercompetence.
So, yeah. Rolling for stats is objectively bad even if people had fun in the past in spite of it, or if they had fun in the past in a game that had a different context (e.g., rolling for stats is perfectly appropriate if you play with disposable characters).
No;
you don't like rolling for stats is not the same as "objectively bad."
I find cheese to be disgusting. If I were to claim that cheese is objectively bad, that would be exactly the same as your assertion.
EDIT 2: At least you've backed away from your "objective" argument about how rolling stats is bad for the kids. Thanks for that much.
EDIT 3: And yes, cheese is the ultimate motivating force of all evil in the universe.