D&D 5E Point buy vs roll

[Arilyn]

Would you mind posting them ?

I couldn't find the old files with all of the arrays but wrote up the arrays we currently use. The numbers are on the heroic side, as our table loves feats and rarely bump up stats, so they start bit higher but it's rare for us to have 20s.

 

[Bluebell]

My point was, the players would select the highest scores that they feel they could get away with. Social pressure and expectation are infamously unreliable; just look at (gestures broadly at the world at large)

Worst case scenario is that half the players have enough shame to limit themselves and the other half have no shame at all, resulting in a ton of unfairness at the table. I've seen that exact situation play out with other systems where players are given complete freedom to build whatever ridiculously OP monstrosity they want. The ones who meekly built weaknesses into their characters, thinking that everyone would be doing that out of courtesy, get shoved aside by the ones who went for the most broken build possible.

 

[CleverNickName]

Worst case scenario is that half the players have enough shame to limit themselves and the other half have no shame at all, resulting in a ton of unfairness at the table. I've seen that exact situation play out with other systems where players are given complete freedom to build whatever ridiculously OP monstrosity they want. The ones who meekly built weaknesses into their characters, thinking that everyone would be doing that out of courtesy, get shoved aside by the ones who went for the most broken build possible.

Sad but true.

 

[Maxperson]

Sad but true.

View attachment 150148

Yes, but he got better.

 

[TwoSix]

Does anyone here just let players choose their ability scores, without dice, points, or arrays?

I've done it. I'm a fan, but I find even well-intentioned players can sometimes struggle without any guidelines. It's the classic "I need some constraints to allow my creativity to flow" conundrum.

 

[Maxperson]

I've done it. I'm a fan, but I find even well-intentioned players can sometimes struggle without any guidelines. It's the classic "I need some constraints to allow my creativity to flow" conundrum.

I hate the idea. It was offered to me by a DM once and I turned it down. I hated being put in the position of struggling with, "Are these stats too high? I don't want to seem like I'm taking advantage of this, but I don't want to gimp my concept, either." Rolling takes away all of that stress. These are my stats rolled fairly in front of the group, and now I make the rest of my character.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I've done it. I'm a fan, but I find even well-intentioned players can sometimes struggle without any guidelines. It's the classic "I need some constraints to allow my creativity to flow" conundrum.

At the minimum there should at least be some sort of agreed upon guidelines what different numbers represent. Is int 16 "kinda smart" or "world-class genius"?

 

[TwoSix]

I hate the idea. It was offered to me by a DM once and I turned it down. I hated being put in the position of struggling with, "Are these stats too high? I don't want to seem like I'm taking advantage of this, but I don't want to gimp my concept, either." Rolling takes away all of that stress. These are my stats rolled fairly in front of the group, and now I make the rest of my character.

Yea, I got very similar feedback as well.

I've tried it twice, the first time was about 15 years ago with a group that was mostly newer gamers, and it ended up being a mess. New gamers definitely need a system.

I tried it again about 5 years ago as part of a more open-ended character creation test, where I pretty much said "Make a 3rd level character, but give them whatever stats, race abilities, class abilities, make sense for the concept." That also ended up being challenging, but the players in the group who also DMed regularly got it better because I described it as "Make your PC like you were building an interesting NPC."

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not surprised this was your experience but I still find it a bit odd personally because (as a player) I loathe having 8's or 9's.

For me a character becomes fun if it has a 7 to drop somewhere (usually Wisdom!), with at least one other stat of 17+ to compensate.

 

[Scruffy nerf herder]

I was surprised that rolling is getting the most votes. Would be interesting to see if the poll of ENWorlders matches a broader poll of players.

Point buy has always looked weird to me, and seemed like a video game type feature, something you would see in a D&D based video game. Having played since 98 for me making characters has always been a big part of playing the game, imo when you're doing it you're already playing D&D, and in my experience and that of most players and GMs I've known, point buy takes some great excitement and tension and discovery out of making characters.