D&D 5E Array v 4d6: Punishment? Or overlooked data

[GMforPowergamers]

But you also seem to want to tell everybody who doesn't care to play that way that using point buy or a standard array is antithetical to the spirit of the game, bad role-playing, bad D&D-ing and a red flag for "cheating." That's not great. That's obnoxious, overbearing, presumptuous, self-righteous and inaccurate.

yea, I'm sick of people telling others they aren't playing the game we all love the right way... I don't care if you roll or not but don't pretend it is bad or anti D&D or anti roleplaying to play my way...

once again somehow the phrase "I don't like random stats" has morphed into the strawman "I don't let the dice determine anything..." because a dice game can only be 100% dice all the time, or 0% dice ever... and nothing inbetween

 

[pemerton]

dice rolling is the default in 5th edition and point buy is secondary, but both options are listed and presumed balanced. If you disagree, then you are in the minority because most people prefer dice rolling.

<snip>

you should have some humility to at least acknowledge the reality of the situation that more people agree with my stance than yours.

I didn't know the topic of the thread was "what is the preferred stat generation method"? Where's the poll?

The majority preference for stat generation doesn't have much relevance to me. More people like playing fighters than paladins; I prefer paladins. More people like playing MUs than clerics; I prefer clerics. More people like playing thieves than monks; I prefer monks. In each case, that others like different things doesn't give me a reason not to like what I like.

Why is life or death less important than how big your biceps are compared to your team mate?

This won't be randomly determined in any stat generation system that allows players to allocate rolls to particular stats. Which is the only "random" option presented in the 5e Basic rules. Of the four methods presented by Gygax in his DMG (p 11), all but one allows player choice.

In other words, strictly random determination of "bicep size" hasn't been the default for AD&D or WotC-editions for over thirty years.

randomness is integral to this game and the majority can easily recognize that fact and continue playing a game they enjoy.

D&D is a dice rolling game, if you hate rolling dice, play a different game. The dice matter in this game, they determine if your character lives or dies. Why is life or death less important than how big your biceps are compared to your team mate?

The dice have agency in D&D, and are a central defining aspect of this game, if you remove their agency to determine the outcome of the story, you are not playing by either the letter of the rules nor the spirit.

<snip>

I stand by my assertion that people who are wholly against stat rolling are probably undermining the dice agency in multiple other ways, whether it's by fudging dice rolls, taking average HP on level up, forced "balance" (PCs are expected to win, the game is rigged to make them win), or outright cheating or not playing by the rules.

The rules of the game - in 3E, 4e and 5e - all permit point buy/array. So I don't really see how using that sort of option is "not playing by either the letter of the rules nor the spirit". I also think that fixed hit point gain per level is quite consistent with the 5e rules (and is the only rule for hp gain in 4e).

Second, even if the rules didn't canvass these approaches, I thought house ruling was OK, especially in 5e. (We use houseruled options for PC build in our 4e game. The world hasn't ended yet.)

Third, you have not addressed the distinction between PC build and action resolution that has been outlined by me and others upthread multiple times. Rolling dice is part of action resolution - playing the game. That doesn't mean that it has to be part of PC building, which is not playing the game at all, but a type of prep or prologue.

If you look at any of the recent "fudging" threads you can see that I do not fudge dice rolls as a GM, when it comes to action resolution.

When it comes to content introduction, though - which is the closest GM-side analogue to PC building - I don't generally use random rolls. Generally I make choices. Gygax himself recognised that there is an important distinction between content introduction and action resolution: that's why, on page 9 of his DMG, he said

the rules call for wandering monsters, but these can be not only irritating - if not deadly - but the appearance of such can actually spoil a game . . . [if] everytime you throw the "monster die" a wandering nasty is indicated, and the party's strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area. . . . Expectations [may] be dashed, and probably interest too, by random chance. Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die. No, don't allow the party to kill them easily or escape unnaturally, for that goes contrary to the major precepts of the game.​

The distinction between content introduction and action resolution is found on p 110, too:

t is your right to control the dice at any time . . . You also might wish to give [the players] and edge in finding a particular clue, eg a secret door that leads to a complex of monsters and treasure that will be especially entertaining.​

Gygax saw the difference between a secret door check made to escape from a confrontation ("don't allow the party to escape unnaturally") and a secret door check made to discover new areas for exploration ("a complex of monsters and treasure that will be especially entertaining"). The former is action resolution, and it would be contrary to the major precepts of the game to fudge it. The latter is content introduction, and there is no special virtue to randomising this.

Building PCs is more like content introduction - it is introducing the fictional and mechanical vehicles whereby players will engage the game - than it is like action resolution. So randomness has no special virtue. It is one technique, that has some (pretty well known) consequences. Point buy or array is another technique, which has its consequences. I've already explained why I prefer the latter set of consequences in my game.

 

[spinozajack]

that's so funny because here you are doing what you say is not worth your time...

for the record I would love to debat in a non insulting way the pros and cons... it is not a waste of my time...

Not preventing players in my games from choosing either PB or rolling doesn't mean I think point buy is ideal. In fact, it proves how little regard I have for the difference between the two. If you pick point buy, I see it more like your character has a solid background and ate his wheaties and did his homework growing up, but wasn't either the class clown or the colossal quarterback either. So players can pick if they want the "safe, well rounded kind of guy", which is well represented in the restrictions that point buy allows, or they can take a risk and be from the bad side of the tracks, and maybe have an 18 charisma and be the Fonz, or that 18 18 18 str dex con and be Conan. No, I don't want Conan-esque characters to be selectable at-will in character creation. I want those characters to be rarer.

So my stance is entirely self-consistent. Allowing point buy doesn't prevent me from saying that disallowing dice rolling is irrational in a dice playing game. Randomness is inherent in the game, that is a fact, and if people don't want it to include natural aptitude, that's their decision. However much of the reasoning behind this whole "fairness" / unfairness spiel is indeed irrational. Is it that that one character gets dropped from that unlucky crit at level 1, while another lives on to become the hero? No, life isn't fair, and neither is D&D. Fairness of outcome is neither desirable nor rational, if you are playing a game designed around dice which are there to prevent the outcome from being pre-determined. The difference between point buy and rolling isn't very large, considering you can boost your stats where you want them, and the ability caps prevent anyone from running away to the finish line from a lucky start after the firing gun.

There is far more variability in character contributions to the outcome of a campaign from player skill, build choices, class choices, feat choices, than there ever will be in stat generation method, that much is guaranteed by the rules. So yes, I do think making a huge deal out of banning dice rolling on the grounds of "fairness" is irrational. Combat has dice that determine if an attack is a crit, a hit, a miss, if your character falls off that cliff or not. The list of things that can happen to your character that the dice will dictate is infinite. I, as a DM, would never directly kill a PC unless they were really, really stupid and got themselves hanged by a magistrate and their group couldn't do anything to stop it. Otherwise, I let the players decide if they jump into a fight, and if they don't retreat then let the dice fall where they may. That is more than fair.

I see there being different kinds of unfairness in the world, the kind that you can't do anything about, and the kind that you can. Being born with a certain intelligence (starting Int), doesn't mean in D&D that you can't study hard and reach that 20, unlike in real life. So D&D characters, by virtue of the rules of level advancement, are already blessed with the ability to perfect themselves to a far greater extent that humans can in real life. So no, I don't care if it's unfair that one PC has a +1 or +2 more total from a lucky set of rolls compared to a point buy character. The point buy character already can choose to min max their starting stats or ending stats (if they live that long), and pick and choose their total point buy total. Whereas a rolling character will have a couple outliers and the rest will be within range. What's not fair about that? You take a risk for a high score or two by risking getting a few low scores, or you take the safe path and guarantee you don't have either the best or the worst stats.

In early D&D editions, you were literally screwed if you didn't roll a high Int score and wanted to play a wizard and hoping to reach a high level. And even if you did, you probably wouldn't make it. Which means that high level wizards aren't just rare in-story, they are rare in-game, and required player skill to survive that long. It's like the board game Operation, we got a version recently and the holes are so big, anyone even my 6 year old nephew can play it without making a single error. When I was a kid, I don't remember the game being so easy, I believe they must have increased the size of the holes. There are like point blank shotgun shot exit wounds.

D&D, like many games before it, has trended towards becoming easier and easier in its history, the more "fair" it's become over many iterations. Sometimes it's warranted, but this entire debate is just absurd. With bounded accuracy, you really don't even need a 20 main stat anyway, and wizards can cast 9th level spells with a 10 Int, as others have mentioned. Nuff said. The game is already bending over backwards to be so easy to max out your end game potential. And people still complain that it's not perfectly balanced in every way. Well, there is no such game.

Character build choices, and weapon choices, do have real balance issues that lead to uniformity of builds. That's why I don't like them. Dice rolling for stats prevents uniformity of builds, and of characters, and does make a single group not full of Conans and Gandalfs. The negative space or white space is the low contrast, low profile region of an image which serves mostly to not draw attention to itself, so that the busy areas can. But in terms of stats, that's an illusion. I bet you I could play a wizard more intelligently and do more with a low int score than someone else with a 20 at level 1. But in second edition you literally couldn't even cast higher level spells unless you rolled well. And you couldn't boost your stats. No wonder why modern gamers don't play old school D&D, it's too "unfair". It also happens to feel more rewarding when you do achieve a high level, because that hardship and rarity and confluence of luck and wit and grit let you achieve it. Instead, nowadays you can practically play the game on auto pilot and do well. Definitely a different mentality. D&D has been on easy mode for about two decades now. It's way too easy to not just survive to high levels, but to dominate while doing so. I don't enjoy easy games where I'm guaranteed to win, I think it's a waste of time.

 

[DaveDash]

There is far more variability in character contributions to the outcome of a campaign from player skill, build choices, class choices, feat choices, than there ever will be in stat generation method, that much is guaranteed by the rules.

Contradicts

Character build choices, and weapon choices, do have real balance issues that lead to uniformity of builds.

Which is it?

 

[spinozajack]

yea, I'm sick of people telling others they aren't playing the game we all love the right way... I don't care if you roll or not but don't pretend it is bad or anti D&D or anti roleplaying to play my way...

once again somehow the phrase "I don't like random stats" has morphed into the strawman "I don't let the dice determine anything..." because a dice game can only be 100% dice all the time, or 0% dice ever... and nothing inbetween

You are right, of course, D&D isn't all randomly generated. But rolling for stats isn't random. You still get to pick where you assign the values, then pick your race to boost them, then pick feats to boost them further, and finally within only a few levels will have an 18 or 20 in your main stat regardless of which generation method that you choose.

It's only those who are virulently against dice rolling in stat creation, who I find have a misplaced rage against the element of randomness being present in the game, and it makes me wonder if they even understand they are playing a game with no fixed outcome, and that the surprise the dice give you when they are called for, is both fun and exciting, instead of a book. Of course you can play a game on rails, like there is only one path to success, and that's fine. But if you are going to play a game like that I believe a videogame achieves that kind of playstyle better.

I'm just saying, think about why people who hate dice rolled stats think that way, their arguments, and ask yourself if those arguments can't be extended to any time the dice are rolled, or even every time. I think you'll find that the initial stats don't matter all that much considering players can usually choose to avoid combat if they are feeling the pain, or run away to heal up then return later. Really, the main difference between a few points of DPR or not is how many short rests or long rests or time or healing potions you need to spend. Then it's just nit picking. If the outcome of your campaign requires intra-party balance to be so strictly enforced, then surely you don't allow inferior feats or build choices either, right? There is a much greater difference in character ability due to optimization and player tactics than there is between an extra +1 or -1.

And point buy is kind of a lie. If you hand pick your stats you are likely doing so to optimise, so the only reason to feel like rolling isn't fair is when someone rolls higher than someone else. That is just too bad. That happens in literally every single fight. Oh, I suck this fight, can't hit worth a d@mn. In 4th edition, the difference between my character who was optimized and 2-3 other PCs who were far less, was striking. I could hit all the time and they constantly felt useless. But then they kept ignoring my advice to retrain this or that feat. Why is that? They want to be suboptimal but still be optimal. They wanted their cake and have it too. They wanted to be as effective in combat without spending the time it took me to learn the rules and the build choices and know what options to pick, and it showed. In 5th edition, the difference between a well optimised character and someone who isn't isn't nearly as important, especially with bounded accuracy and the difficulty in finding +ses to hit or AC.

But back to your point about the story not being 100% random, I agree. But combat and combat-related stats, and skill-related stats, should be. Or at least allow the players to choose. If not, I do wonder what kind of fairness will actually be enforced. Will a character who dual wields daggers be told they should be dual wielding shortswords instead? Because they're more optimal. How about, fake this feat instead of this one? Where does this quest for "fairness" end? I think you'll find, in the end, "fairness" is an illusion, that the dice make a mockery of, and the players making poor character selection choices and tactical choices and spell selection choices do too.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But in second edition you literally couldn't even cast higher level spells unless you rolled well. And you couldn't boost your stats.

Well, you could wait until you're 90 years old (if human) so you'd get that sweet set of wizardly modifiers: IIRC +2 Int/+3 Wis/-4 Str/-3(?) Con/-3 Dex. It's not a straight-up boost but it's good enough to allow 5% of potential archmages to eventually achieve Int 18, instead of only 0.5%. Then you use Magic Jar to get good physical stats back by possessing the Tarrasque...

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm just saying, think about why people who hate dice rolled stats think that way, their arguments, and ask yourself if those arguments can't be extended to any time the dice are rolled, or even every time. I think you'll find that the initial stats don't matter all that much considering players can usually choose to avoid combat if they are feeling the pain, or run away to heal up then return later. Really, the main difference between a few points of DPR or not is how many short rests or long rests or time or healing potions you need to spend. Then it's just nit picking.

Many purely aesthetic choices don't matter all that much from an optimization standpoint, but still affect aesthetic enjoyment. I share your preference for rolled stats, and I even share your distaste for those who cannot handle randomness in outcomes--but I think you are painting with a pretty broad brush that clearly doesn't apply to some Enworlders who prefer point-buy. (One PC every five years! That game is clearly not about Gygaxian dungeon-crawling.)

Aesthetics are fundamentally nonrational. Why do I never play halflings? I just can't stand 25' movement rate for some reason. I know that it's possible to compensate for it with Longstrider, and I know that mechanically a halfling Sharpshooter or Sorlock is a fantastic consistent-DPR build which would suit my playstyle pretty well, but being restricted to 320' shortbow range with 25' movement utterly turns me off for some reason. There are some compromises I'm willing to make in the name of higher DPR, and apparently there are others I'm not willing to make. Similarly, I won't play clerics even though mechanically they're awesomesauce for a party, because I just don't want to roleplay someone who worships something that I as a player don't respect. It makes me not respect the PC, and playing a PC whom I don't respect just grates on me somehow.

Aesthetics is what it is, and if someone simply likes point buy more while acknowledging that mechanical differences are ultimately pretty minor (on the order of a 15-20% difference in effectiveness), all I can do about that is live and let live.

Semi-relevant quote: "If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way."

 

[Hussar]

It's funny. I use point buy because I loathe fudging. Die rolled characters get fudged often IME so I don't do that.

In other news, I'm still waiting for [MENTION=44640]bill[/MENTION]91 to comment about making presumptions about other people's games. Or is it only when I do it?

 

[pemerton]

D&D isn't all randomly generated. But rolling for stats isn't random. You still get to pick where you assign the values, then pick your race to boost them

disallowing dice rolling is irrational in a dice playing game.

Why not, then, roll for race? (This is how Stormbringer and some versions of Runequest go.) For class? (This is how Stormbringer and some versions of Runequest go, and Classic Traveller also has more than a hint of this.)

Even RQ and Stormbringer allow some player choice in PC building, and Classic Traveller allows the player to choose which service to try and enlist in, as well as whether or not to make a re-enlistment attempt (although double 6s mandate enlistment irrespective of choice).

Stats are not terribly special as an object of choice versus randomisation that means that choosing stats is obviously irrational whereas choosing class is not.

Fairness of outcome is neither desirable nor rational, if you are playing a game designed around dice which are there to prevent the outcome from being pre-determined.

But those who use point-buy or array are not playing a PC-building game designed around dice; they have chosen to permit the players to pre-determine the outcome of PC building. That's the whole point of using point-buy or array!

Randomness is inherent in the game, that is a fact, and if people don't want it to include natural aptitude, that's their decision. However much of the reasoning behind this whole "fairness" / unfairness spiel is indeed irrational.

How is it irrational, as such, to want every player's mechanical vehicle to be roughly comparable in starting mechanical capacity? You may not share the desire, but you've given no reason for regarding the desire as irrational.

It's only those who are virulently against dice rolling in stat creation, who I find have a misplaced rage against the element of randomness being present in the game, and it makes me wonder if they even understand they are playing a game with no fixed outcome

<snip>

I'm just saying, think about why people who hate dice rolled stats think that way, their arguments, and ask yourself if those arguments can't be extended to any time the dice are rolled, or even every time.

Is it that that one character gets dropped from that unlucky crit at level 1, while another lives on to become the hero?

That is play. Building PCs is not play; it's pre-play. This is the argument for why randomisation in PC building (or in content introduction) is different from randomisation in action resolution. It's an argument that you have ignored.

Traveller has a survival mechanic; PCs can die during the course of being built. Is it irrational for a game to lack such a mechanic? Does the absence of such a mechanic from D&D PC generation imply that infant and childhood mortality in the world of D&D is zero or close to it? Or do we choose not to roll for that because we would prefer that our PC not die before we even get to play it?

I think you'll find that the initial stats don't matter all that much considering players can usually choose to avoid combat if they are feeling the pain, or run away to heal up then return later.

Not everyone plays a combat-centric game. And not everyone equates game mechanics, and game mechanical capability, with combat ability. So I don't really see any very tight connection between the importance of stats and combat avoidability.

In early D&D editions, you were literally screwed if you didn't roll a high Int score and wanted to play a wizard and hoping to reach a high level. And even if you did, you probably wouldn't make it. Which means that high level wizards aren't just rare in-story, they are rare in-game, and required player skill to survive that long.

<snip>

D&D, like many games before it, has trended towards becoming easier and easier in its history, the more "fair" it's become over many iterations.

<snip>

I bet you I could play a wizard more intelligently and do more with a low int score than someone else with a 20 at level 1.

<snip>

nowadays you can practically play the game on auto pilot and do well. Definitely a different mentality. D&D has been on easy mode for about two decades now. It's way too easy to not just survive to high levels, but to dominate while doing so. I don't enjoy easy games where I'm guaranteed to win, I think it's a waste of time.

Obviously you are an expert player, and those of us who prefer other approaches to yours are simpletons who can only win games when we play on easy mode! That makes it much clearer why we should be rolling stats rather than point-buying them.

Of course you can play a game on rails, like there is only one path to success, and that's fine. But if you are going to play a game like that I believe a videogame achieves that kind of playstyle better.

Oh, and letting players choose their PCs' stats from an array, or via points buy, is railroading them too! Clarity abounds.

I share your preference for rolled stats, and I even share your distaste for those who cannot handle randomness in outcomes--but I think you are painting with a pretty broad brush that clearly doesn't apply to some Enworlders who prefer point-buy. (One PC every five years! That game is clearly not about Gygaxian dungeon-crawling.)

D&D doesn't have as much randomness as a FRPG might have. For instance, spell casting is always automatically successful caster-side - whereas in games like Rolemaster, HARP and Burning Wheel (just to name a few) there is the chance of spell failure, magical feedback, etc (in ways reminiscent of A Wizard of Earthsea or Fantasia).

So yes, painting with broad brushes has to be done pretty carefully. Having GMed Rolemaster for 20 years (which has a crit-resolution system for combat that makes combat outcomes far more random than in D&D) I have probably played with more, and more significant, randomness in action resolution than [MENTION=6794198]spinozajack[/MENTION], if spinozajack has only been playing D&D. More generally, there is no tight correlation between Gygaxian dungeon-crawling and randomness in action resolution (RM is more random than D&D, but not as suitable for dungeon crawling, in part for that very reason).

But that still doesn't give me a reason to think that rolling for stats would improve any of my current games!

 

[Manbearcat]

How is it irrational, as such, to want every player's mechanical vehicle to be roughly comparable in starting mechanical capacity? You may not share the desire, but you've given no reason for regarding the desire as irrational.

Oh but he has!

"Life is not fair."

Not only am I convinced by this but I think I'm going to start extending this airtight logic to all games and leisure pursuits amongst peers (eg not children that I'm castigating or educating).

Opposing runner: You can't start 100 meters ahead of everyone else!

Me: Hey buddy...didn't you get the memo?...life isn't fair. Why don't you stop being immature, put your big boy pants on and suck it up.

I'm expecting good results.