Worlds of Design: Rolls vs. Points in Character Building

Let’s talk about methods of generating RPG characters, both stochastic and deterministic.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

"Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will." Jawaharlal Nehru

When creating character attributes, there are two broad approaches to generating them: stochastic and deterministic. The stochastic method involves chance, while the deterministic method does not. Most any other method is going to be one of the other, whatever the details. The pros of one method tend to be the cons of the other.

Stochastic
The classic method is rolling dice, usually D6, sometimes an alternative like percentage dice. There are various ways do this. For example, some of the old methods were to sum the roll of 3d6 six times in a specific order of six character abilities. A variation was 3d6 and change the order as desired, another was roll 4d6, don’t count the lowest die, and then you might be able to change order or not; and so forth.

What are the pros of rolling the dice? First of all and primarily, variety (barring cheating). You get a big range of dice rolls. Dice rolling promotes realism, you get a big variation in numbers so you get some 3s, in fact you get as many 3s as 18s, and with some methods you have the opportunity to play characters with “cripplingly bad" ability numbers. Further, it's always exciting to roll dice, whether you like it or not. (Keep in mind, when I first saw D&D I said “I hate dice games.”)

One of the cons of rolling dice is that it's unfair in the long run, a player can get big advantages lasting for years of real-time throughout the campaign just by getting lucky in the first dice rolls. This can be frustrating to those who didn't get lucky. Perhaps even more, rolling dice encourages cheating. I've seen people roll one character after another until they get one they like - meaning lots of high numbers - and then they take that to a game to use. That’s not possible with point buy. Another con is that you may want to play a particular character class yet the dice just won’t cooperate (when you’re rolling in specific order).

Deterministic
The other method which I believe has been devised independently by several people including myself (I had an article for my system published a long time ago) is the one used in fifth edition D&D. A player is given a number of generic points to buy ability numbers. The lowest numbers can be very cheap, for example, if you are using a 3 to 18 scale, when you buy a 3 it may cost you one point, while an 18 may cost 20-some points. You decide what you want, for which ability, and allocate until you run out of points.

Point buy is very fair (FRP is a game, for some people). No one need be envious of someone who either 1) rolled high or 2) rolled many characters and picked the best one. It prevents the typical new character with sky-high abilities, it prevents cheating, so the player has to supply the skill, not rely on bonuses from big ability numbers. Of course, the GM can choose the number of points available to the players so he/she can give generally higher or lower numbers on average as they choose.

But point buy lacks variety for a particular class. The numbers tend to be the same. It's not exciting, it’s cerebral, and as such it takes a little longer than rolling dice. That's all the cons I can think of. Keep in mind I'm biased in favor of point buy. It's clean, fair and simple.

I haven’t spent much time trying to figure out yet another method of generating a character. The only other method I can think of that isn’t one or the other is to have some kind of skilled contest determine the numbers, such as pitching pennies or bowling. Then the question becomes why use one kind of skill over another?

Do you favor one method over the other? And has anyone devised a method that is not stochastic or deterministic?

 

[pemerton]

Actually, it's very easy to scope a random gen for it... you only got halfway to looking at it.
1 point in each as a base. Grab 5 coins. toss them. each head adds 1 to presence, each tail to brawn. 15 seconds to random character... but that's also automatically keeps it within the 7 point scope of starting PCs. A hybrid of random and deterministic.

That's the same as rolling for an array. I think I already said upthread that you could toss a coin for a 4/3 or 3/4 split if you're not sure what you want to play. I don't think that has much in common with rolling stats in the D&D sense.

 

[pemerton]

The only player I know who likes to play the same character is me - I've played it in AD&D 2nd ed, D&D 4e, Dungeon World, and Burning Wheel.

If the complaint about points buy is that some players like to build the same PCs, that seems pretty mild. Get them to roll for class before they build. (Or if we're talking about Champions get them to roll for power; etc.)

 

[Aldarc]

Only two who simply replaced the name.

I've seen a dozen who try to build the same character in EVERY game they play.

Seems like that this is not a point buy issue in the slightest. It's a "I have my one character type" player issue. You can easily permit point buy and say that you can't create the same character or even class. I'm not sure why obvious solutions are so easily passed over in favor of blaming it on point buy.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Seems like that this is not a point buy issue in the slightest. It's a "I have my one character type" player issue. You can easily permit point buy and say that you can't create the same character or even class. I'm not sure why obvious solutions are so easily passed over in favor of blaming it on point buy.

Yup. I often see rolling for stats as a fix to issues that really aren't at all about stat generation. It's like a solution looking for a problem.

 

[Fenris-77]

I have 73 clones of my uber-fighter Zargon the Unfortunate all done up, waiting in tanks for inevitable character death. Upgraded skills and abilities are magically transferred to my clone programming crystal on a regular basis so that of I do die I only lose a day or so of hard earned XP. And then I can hire a killer out of legend to make inquiries into what sort of DM malfeasance may have caused my death.

 

[Hriston]

As a player and a DM (limiting my remarks to D&D here), I prefer to roll the ability scores of characters I'm generating because it isn't a decision I'm all that interested in making myself. I find it's more fun to let the dice decide and play what they give me. That being said, I have on occasion used point-buy to set the scores of certain NPCs when my goal was to create a "balanced" stat-block.

 

[Aldarc]

To pick up an earlier point, I'm not entirely sure why the whole idea of "rolling to find out who your character" only applies (in the context of Dungeons & Derivatives) to six attributes and not to things like your race, background, class, or skills. It also doesn't really seem like you are rolling to discover your character if you making six rolls and then building the rest. It seems less about rolling to discover and more about seeing how effective of a character you can build with the stats you stumble upon.

 

[hawkeyefan]

To pick up an earlier point, I'm not entirely sure why the whole idea of "rolling to find out who your character" only applies (in the context of Dungeons & Derivatives) to six attributes and not to things like your race, background, class, or skills. It also doesn't really seem like you are rolling to discover your character if you making six rolls and then building the rest. It seems less about rolling to discover and more about seeing how effective of a character you can build with the stats you stumble upon.

Yeah, once assigning scores to stats is a thing....whether rolled or point buy....the “discovery through rolling” thing is pretty much out the window.

It only feels relevant if you roll scores and assign them in order, or if you roll class and race and other features as well.

Otherwise, it’s more about discovering what the dwarven fighter you’re making’s second best stat will be.

Oooo exciting!

 

[prabe]

To pick up an earlier point, I'm not entirely sure why the whole idea of "rolling to find out who your character" only applies (in the context of Dungeons & Derivatives) to six attributes and not to things like your race, background, class, or skills. It also doesn't really seem like you are rolling to discover your character if you making six rolls and then building the rest. It seems less about rolling to discover and more about seeing how effective of a character you can build with the stats you stumble upon.

I believe the idea of rolling to find the character applies mostly to variants of roll-in-order. Yes, at that point there's something of a game of finding an effective character in those stats. In my mostly-theoretical (as in, building characters for my own amusement) experience, marginal stats tend toward the classic/obvious combos, whereas really good rolls maybe end up with something a little more outre.

There was some discussion earlier about system mastery, and I think there are different aspects of system mastery floating around. There's a kind of system mastery that involves getting the maximum from every build point, and there's a different kind of system mastery that involves arranging random scores into something effective and/or fun, and there's yet another kind of system mastery that involves looking at a set of rolled-in-order scores and seeing what kind of character would be fun and/or effective with those as a starting point. I can see the appeal of all three (though I find the middle one somehow lacking).

 

[Ovinomancer]

While I've not played AW, I've run Sentinel Comics which is grounded in the same basic approaches. System mastery does matter in play ... but it's a different skillset from trad games.

In trad games, it's about knowing your odds, knowing the rounding points, knowing your character abilities, and knowing the rules well enough to make informed decisions.

In SC, system mastery is based on the knowing of how to describe so you get to use the best stats. It's much less mastery of the rules and more knowing the thresholds of the GM and other players.

That's a lower bar than in, say, BX, where knowing the spell list is a highly useful skill for players... even non-wizards benefit from judging NPCs by the spells they cast.

As I was talking about system mastery in character creation, not sure what you're responding to, here.

Even in play, though system mastery is not what you're talking about -- system mastery being using the in-depth knowledge of how the system works to achieve goals -- but instead just being good at manipulating play. That's not quite the same thing as system mastery. I can just understand my characters strengths and be just as effective at maneuvering to my advantage as I could if I understood the entire system. There's a good argument that you don't even really need to understand the system to promote your strong character using their strength to solve problems effectively. System mastery helps, but it's a slightly different thing than what you describe here.

Actually, it's very easy to scope a random gen for it... you only got halfway to looking at it.
1 point in each as a base. Grab 5 coins. toss them. each head adds 1 to presence, each tail to brawn. 15 seconds to random character... but that's also automatically keeps it within the 7 point scope of starting PCs. A hybrid of random and deterministic.

The issue wasn't being unable to figure out a way to do it randomly -- that's easy enough. The issue is whether or not it even makes sense to do so, and it doesn't.