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?

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, I do sympathize. I like playing sneaky fighter types, for example. I play them a lot, in a lot of different games. However, they don't actually resemble each other all that much except in the mechanics, and even then not completely. There's always something new to try, a different angle, class mix, a feat, a race, background, maybe some gish, whatever. Something.

 

[pemerton]

count me in the camp of strongly disliking players who repeatedly play the same character. It's boring, and it's lazy as all get out.

Stretch those legs a bit. Step outside of the comfort zone with just a pinkie toe once in a while. Yet another Man with no Name character with zero background and I want to drive a pencil into my left ear.

The same character needn't be man with no name.

In my own case, when FRPGing I prefer to play a religious character, sometimes a monk but normally a knight. I can create background(s) as needed.

My reason for this preference is that I don't play (as opposed to GM) all that often, and that character immediately invokes what I find are the key tropes of romantic fantasy. (Whereas man with no name is quite the opposite, being a REH-esque modernist trope.)

 

[pemerton]

I don't mind players who have a very specific tastes in characters and often play characters that resemble each other. That's more of a game to game thing though, not PC to PC in the same game. I don't like the feel of someone dropping a carbon copy of the same PC that just died.

This is now getting into a very specific sort of play context - the D&D-esque fantasy campaign in which some PCs die and new PCs join the party.

In that context I've had players bring in different new PCs (for the change) and variants of the dead (because they hadn't finished exploring everything they wanted to, mechanically and narratively, about that sort of character). Managing this is (in my view) part of a GM's job as lead of this particular aspect of social contract.

 

[Lanefan]

I've seen players literally photocopy their character sheet, and when the character died, simply pull it out, transcribe it on a new sheet, and change only the name.
It's not that the characters are the same across the group, its that the individual has ONE character they play, and they use it each and every time they play game X.

While having heard tales of such things I've never really seen it happen, in well over 35 years at this with - during that time - dozens of players.

With the one-time exception I can think of being, in fact, me.

I had what seemed like a cool idea for a character concept, rolled it up, and tried to bring it in. So much for that: she died while meeting the party! "Screw it", I said to myself, "that concept never got a chance." So I pulled out the roll-up dice and came right back with the same thing, only with lower stats this time as I'd used up all my luck on the first try. But at least this one made it into the party.....

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I've seen the "just change the name and play the same character over again" thing happen a few times over the years. The instances all fall into 3 cases:

1) The campaign begins, and a string of die rolls going as badly as they can means someone's character is dead. Instead of sitting out of play to make a new character, just re-use the one that was just finished and has barely even seen play.

2) The campaign has been going on a while, and making a replacement character would mean spending most of the session not actually playing... but wait, your character's oddly similar cousin has just showed up.

3) The campaign is extremely lethal, and characters have been dying left and right. Making a new character every time has grown boring, so just swap a name or add another tally mark and get back in the grinder...

And now that I've typed those out, I notice they share a trend in attitude: not wanting to spend the limited time available building a character rather than playing a character.

 

[S'mon]

You left out standard array, which like Point Buy is fair & lacks variety; unlike Point Buy it's quick and painless to assign the numbers.

Rolling in order creates organic-looking characters who feel more like 'actual people'; it works particularly well in AD&D I find, where attribute bonuses are rare and the ethos is very much 'life's not fair'.
Roll three characters in order then pick one is one good approach, so is roll in order then replace any one stat with a '15'.

Roll and arrange combines the worst of point buy and roll-in-order - like roll in order it's unfair, like point buy it takes time, like point buy it creates inorganic looking characters with predictable 'dump stats'.

 

[S'mon]

It's rarely a hard-coded rule, but it comes up in supers games; it comes up enough that there's a term for it--niche protection--and it's probably more of a table expectations thing than anything else.

Kinda makes sense in Superhero genre; doesn't make a lot of sense in D&D IMO.
I had a great time in a 5e Thule session where both players played Barbarians, and we hacked our way through the poor GM's scenario with great enjoyment!

 

[S'mon]

Oh, look, Bob's playing a human fighter... again. Way to stretch those wings out there Bob.

You must really hate real-world settings then!

 

[TwoSix]

This is now getting into a very specific sort of play context - the D&D-esque fantasy campaign in which some PCs die and new PCs join the party.

In that context I've had players bring in different new PCs (for the change) and variants of the dead (because they hadn't finished exploring everything they wanted to, mechanically and narratively, about that sort of character). Managing this is (in my view) part of a GM's job as lead of this particular aspect of social contract.

Exactly this. I generally move from PC to PC pretty quickly, but I did recently make a character that was similar to a character who just died (same race and class, different subclass and personality) because I hadn't explored all the aspects of that character type. And believe me, I'm one of the last people who in the world who would be said to have a "PC type".

I understand in theory the "same PCs get boring" argument, but I generally have enough players in my group that a little repetition isn't a problem. I have a player in one of my groups who's played a halfling rogue for the past 20 years across multiple systems, and they never get tired of it. Who am I to tell them they need to break out of their comfort zone to satisfy my own need for variety?

 

[pemerton]

I have a player in one of my groups who's played a halfling rogue for the past 20 years across multiple systems, and they never get tired of it.

Now there's someone who's found a niche!