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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 9397313" data-attributes="member: 12731">That is certainly the original idea. On the other hand, &quot;because realism&quot; has never been a great argument for anything regarding D&amp;D... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />That game indeed works better on average if everybody starts at equal footing, so the only way I would consider random stats is if a) stats doesn't matter as much as in D&amp;D and/or if b) the game features an equalizing mechanism somehow. Just to take the simplest possible example to show what I mean by b): if every player uses the SAME set of random stats, that'd be something, I guess. (Whether the group rolls 18, 18, 16, 16, 13, 12 or 12, 10, 8, 8, 6, 4 no longer matters as much since every player gets the same array to use for stats placement, and the DM can always make encounters harder or easier to match the party's abilities). Of course, a more involved solution would probably be preferable, but the main reason so few games try such solutions is because it's just not worth the increased complexity. In the end, just sticking with the standard array is much simpler and perfectly adequate. After all, it COULD happen that random rolls resulted in precisely this distribution... I mean, if you only play a single character in a year, why waste that on grossly imbalanced groups?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 9397313, member: 12731"] That is certainly the original idea. On the other hand, "because realism" has never been a great argument for anything regarding D&D... :) That game indeed works better on average if everybody starts at equal footing, so the only way I would consider random stats is if a) stats doesn't matter as much as in D&D and/or if b) the game features an equalizing mechanism somehow. Just to take the simplest possible example to show what I mean by b): if every player uses the SAME set of random stats, that'd be something, I guess. (Whether the group rolls 18, 18, 16, 16, 13, 12 or 12, 10, 8, 8, 6, 4 no longer matters as much since every player gets the same array to use for stats placement, and the DM can always make encounters harder or easier to match the party's abilities). Of course, a more involved solution would probably be preferable, but the main reason so few games try such solutions is because it's just not worth the increased complexity. In the end, just sticking with the standard array is much simpler and perfectly adequate. After all, it COULD happen that random rolls resulted in precisely this distribution... I mean, if you only play a single character in a year, why waste that on grossly imbalanced groups? [/QUOTE]

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