A Hope: Return Variability/Randomness

[Dragonblade]

Some variance in say monster HPs, treasure tables and such is fine as long as the default is explicitly called out for DMs who want transparency into exactly how much an item is expected to cost by default, or how tough a monster is intended to be.

No randomness in character generation except as an option in a sidebar, IMO. Someone always gets screwed. If two players are playing the same class, but one rolled better for stats and HP, how fun is that knowing that for the lifetime of that PC you will never be as good as that other guy's PC?

And for the DM, I've seen it be a real nightmare when he is trying to balance encounters for two PCs who rolled 16 or higher on every stat, while everyone else rolled 10's and 12's for everything.

Randomness for stats only ever worked in 1e because 95% of the time your stats were utterly irrelevant as anything but a roleplay tool, and even then could be completely ignored through clever play. But in 3e/4e, rolling poorly can cripple your entire character concept before you even put pencil to paper.

 

[Kaodi]

If we are now going to be simulating market economics with dice rolls, I think we should be careful not to make it too swingy.

Something like this, where you are rolling for the average cost of a random item in a given locale, with items that would be affected by the same market forces eyeballed by the DM:

Cost d100
+50% 1
+40% 2-4
+30% 5-9
+25% 10-16
+20% 17-23
+15% 24-30
+10% 31-37
+05% 38-44
Avg. 45-56
-05% 57-63
-10% 64-70
-15% 71-77
-20% 78-84
-25% 85-91
-30% 92-96
-40% 97-99
-50% 100

And I might try to adjust that even further to widen the chance of getting the average price to 20% or higher. Though having the odds of getting somewhere between +10% and -10% at 40% is probably not too bad.

[sblock=Edit: Additional Adjustment]

Cost d100
+50% 1
+40% 2-3
+30% 4-7
+25% 8-13
+20% 14-19
+15% 20-25
+10% 26-32
+05% 33-39
Avg. 40-60
-05% 61-67
-10% 68-74
-15% 75-80
-20% 81-86
-25% 87-93
-30% 94-97
-40% 98-99
-50% 100
[/sblock]

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think I've said this before, but often the boundaries/range of value is a much more useful piece of information than the average or median. Of course, both together are even more useful than either by itself. This, of course, assumes that the range is set with some thought ...

in character generation, random is a lot more palatable if it is self-correcting over time. For example, instead of 3d6, in order, you start with that, but every level you roll 3d6 for three of the six stats again. If your roll is greater than your current stat, bump up the stat by one. Or even better, randomly select the three stats to try to bump. It tends to equal out over time, with the great rolls at first merely a temporary boost. And if the campaign is deliberately slow leveling, you can always change those boosts to after every adventure or whatever fits. Not that such is necessarily a good idea, but it is more palatable than the original.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I both agree and disagree. This sort of variability has a major effect on both the tone of the game, and the choices that are made both in-character and out of character.

For the agree part, I really like the idea of random considerations that do not directly affect character creation or development.

I like to play in a world that feels like it’s real and doesn’t revolve around the PCs (by default), and therefore I use random treasure, random encounters, variable prices (and haggling!) maybe even random world events. Of course, I overrule such things in the interest of fun and story, if needed. This sets a backdrop of a living world, into which the PCs arrive, and which I as a DM get to be surprised by right along with the players. Do I always roll? Of course not. Some treasures are customized and encounters set, even outside of specific adventures (and most factors are controlled within a designated adventure). But there is a certain excitement to getting to see what happens. The dice are the spice.

For the disagree part, I intensely hate the idea of random hit points and ability scores. Hate it. To the degree that I’ll strongly consider not playing in a campaign if I have to use random hit points. If I have to use random ability scores, I will wait to come up with a character concept until after I’ve rolled my scores.

For me, I like to come up with a character concept ahead of time that I think will be enjoyable to play in a particular campaign. Random stats means that it might not work.

For example, let’s say I have a concept of a dwarf fighter that is tough as nails (not the most role-playing directed concept, but we’ll go with it for the analogy). Let’s say I even manage to roll an elusive 18 for Con, and end up with a 20 to start! However...what if I roll poorly on my hit points? Sure, it’s unlikely, but if the campaign only goes to 10th level, I can end up with a Con of 22 and 72 hp, while the bard with a Con of 14 ends up with 80. While this is an extremely unlikely example, when you’re dealing with 10 levels, the chances of severe probability variability aren’t as ridiculous as one might thing. Essentially, the dice have just taken my character concept away from me. If I had rolled a suite of 13s and 14s for my ability scores, think how much lowers that hp total would have been. And then the worse part: even if I had waited to come up with a character concept until I saw that natural 18 rolled, I could still get these results.

So I dislike the randomness primarily for the limitations it places on me in crafting my own character.

In other considerations, if hp and ability scores are randomized, why not randomize other permanent aspects of character creation? Feats, skills? Heck, why not race, class, and alignment. Let’s just use software that spits out a character at the beginning, and then when we level up, we wait to see what we’re going to get.

From a simulationist perspective, random hp add also add a fineness of granularity out of harmony with the rest of the stats. Con determines your physical make-up. Class determines the type of training you’ve gotten, and level determines how much of it you’ve had. Feats can add in extra focus on toughness. So...what else should be considered there? Is there any reason, from a consistency of D&D granularity consideration, that we need to vary hp between characters that are otherwise identical in those previous components? If we had a system where stats went from 1-100, then maybe. But on the scale D&D uses, it’s out of harmony. Same for monster hit points.

Now...all that having been said, I actually support random ability scores and hit points as the default rules for 5E. It’s traditional D&D, and that should take precedence over my personal preferences in terms of published materials. Although, you can bet I’m using the modules for non-random hp and ability scores.

 

[Stormonu]

If we are now going to be simulating market economics with dice rolls, I think we should be careful not to make it too swingy.

Well, I wouldn't so much say "simulate" as "give the illusion of".

Still, there are merits to using a single table instead of seperate values for each item, and the table approach is easier to present as an optional module.

I'd like to point out this isn't only about item prices though; its for a much wider scope that gives the DM a tool to take the edge off predictibility and inject a factor of the unknown back into the game. It's moreso a case of not letting the PCs predict that every NPC they encounter won't have base scores of 15,14,13,12,10,8 (the elite array) or that every Orc Piper will have EXACTLY 45 hit points and 100 gp in his pocket; instead his stats were generated on 3d6, he has 25-50 hit points and he's carrying 5d6x10 gp.

 

[Kaodi]

Heck, why not race, class, and alignment. Let’s just use software that spits out a character at the beginning, and then when we level up, we wait to see what we’re going to get.

That would be horrible as a rule in D&D. However, for an individual player to decide that they were going to create their character that way, I do not think it would be half bad. To take just the original 4E PHB classes and races (using Invisible Castle): 1d8 for Race = 3, 1d8 for Class = 8, 1d6 for Alignment = 4; Stat Base = 1,1,1,2 = 5 ; 3,4,4,4 = 12 ; 4,6,4,2 = 14 ; 3,6,2,6 = 15 ; 3,2,1,4 = 9 ; 5,3,5,5 = 15 .

With all that I would get about an Unaligned Eladrin Wizard with Str 8, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 17, Wis 10, Cha 15. I could probably live with that, and in this case I did not even rearrange the ability scores.

Now...all that having been said, I actually support random ability scores and hit points as the default rules for 5E. It’s traditional D&D, and that should take precedence over my personal preferences in terms of published materials. Although, you can bet I’m using the modules for non-random hp and ability scores.

I do not. A "tradition" need not survive if it only serves to hamstring the game.

 

[Fifth Element]

I'd support increasing the randomness/swinginess in combat somewhat from 4E. They purposefully reduced the winginess of combat for 4E, an idea which I was in favour of, but they went too far.

I have no use for random ability scores or hit points. It's a legacy issue, and there's no more reason to have those randomly determined than, say, race or alignment. If the default is being able to choose what race I am, why can't I also choose how strong I am? If the default it to roll hit points, why not also roll for skill points (or whatever)? This has all probably already been said.

 

[Skyscraper]

No support for random HP or ability scores? I'm surprised. I really wish for those to return, with point buy being an option only.

The disappearance of randomness resulted in PCs of a given class being all the same, except where sub-choices in that class exist, in which case all sub-choices are the same. In 4E you end up with the "big decision" of having 18 or 20 as your highest ability score - I hope no one is too stressed out about that kind of difficult decision making All PCs and monsters have at least 18 in their main score, there is absolutely nothing special about that value anymore. If everyone has it, and all defenses are geared accordingly, this means that this high value in fact means nothing mechanically speaking. It brings only illusion of being good.

What you want to avoid, IMO, is a very swingy chararacter creation where you can have, say, between 1-20 starting hit points because obviously the game plays out totally differently for the PC with 1 HP than for the one with 20 HPs. One solution is to give a base value and then a random value to top it off, for example 10 + 1-10 hit points. You can play with variability on a very few key stats like HPs.

As for ability scores, there are many ways to control the outcome to avoid disastrous 4 STR fighthers or 4 INT wizards: 4d6 drop lowest, roll 3 arrays and keep the one you want, swap two ability score values, ...

My point is: you need a system that avoids disaster values (such as 1 starting HP or below-average main ability score) but apart from that, random is cool. It's cool because it drives my imagination at character creation to explain why my character has 5 in Wisdom. It's cool because having high numbers is impressive, not the norm. It's cool because all of a sudden you have intelligent fighers and strong wizards (more rare than the other way around, but still existent. I haven't seen a single one of either of those in 4 years of playing 4E). It's cool because of the role-play that comes from weird values such as very low scores or a couple of high ones. It's cool because of skills that derive from those ability scores and suddenly you have stealthy clerics or learned fighters. It's cool because the lower-hit-point character needs to find ways to stay alive. It's cool because the game designers won't make a game that is so pre-set mechanically that everyone has just about the same number of hit points and does about the same damage and so on, that no one stands out; and challenges should be flexible as a consequence.

I hear people saying that they get screwed with low scores. Disaster values apart (see above), I say we get screwed with uniformity, by that I mean the entire game experience suffers. And, really, is there a better feeling than rolling a 10 on that d10 hit point die? Sure you'll also have the 1 to cry about, but I'll take the occasional coolness and the occasional badness, over constant indifference, anytime. I'm looking for a roller coaster of emotions, not a boring straight predictable line.

Let's roll baby!!

 

[hafrogman]

Put another one down strongly against rolling for hit points and ability scores. If you want ability scores to drive class choice rather than vice versa, that's still something that can be added in without allowing one character to vastly outshine the others. 4d6, drops lowest simply provides way too much discrepancy, even with rerolls for low scores. How many DMs will do the opposite (or get away with it), telling someone who rolled two (or three) 18s that they can't keep them and they'll need to reroll until they get lower scores? I've seen way more campaigns where ability rolling keeps getting bumped up to create even more powerful characters (multiple sets, reroll 1s, etc. etc.). In situations like that, you actually see lower scores coming out of point buy, where difficult decisions need to be made.

But you say, "Then every member of a class looks the same."? This is a fault of the prime requisite mentality that's been around since the very first iterations of the game. I want to see smart fighters and strong wizards not because there was an extra 18 floating around somewhere, but because there's actually some reason to WANT to be a smart fighter. Being smart or strong or fast should be a benefit whoever you are. Not just an 18 in your main stat and your next highest in constitution, king of all stats.

There's a phrase "system mastery" where hidden traps lie in the game, seeking to make new players weak. Play a bard? Ooooh, bad choice. Rolling for stats is another trap, where however smart you made your choices up front, a few dice rolls in the first minute of a campaign can affect the character for months or years into the future.

 

[Sunseeker]

- Monster hit dice. While having a stated "expected" hit point value for monster is good for the time pressed, having a hit point range lets the DM toughen or weaken opposition without having to scale other combat numbers. For ex, if the PCs tend to deal "more damage than normal", the DM can scale monster hit points upwards. In games where combat is de-phasized or the DM just wants to make a fight easier or quiker, hit points could be swung to the lower end. Also, minibosses or "tough guy" foes can be created by tweaking only HP.

Random monster and by extension player HD is sort of a mixed bag, on large groups of similar enemies, such as kobolds, gnolls, ect... it's fine, it adds a useful sense of variety. For larger "solo" type enemies, random hit dice doesn't really do anything other than make a fighter shorter or longer. If you want a serious level of randomness to a powerful fight, make the range of damage more variable. An enemy can dish out 25...or 100 damage, who knows?

I adjust most of my creatures HP on the fly in 4e games depending on how long a fight is taking vs how long I want it to take. Generally speaking I like my fights to be "spikey" with high damage and low HP and lots of enemies.

I wouldn't want this to be random though, because even though I already generate the numbers at the table, I don't like having to have a fixed range. If I want the HP to be 50, it's 50. If I want it to be 10, it's 10, the battle is exactly as fast or as slow as I want, I'm not limited to rolling 5d10 to get each HP number for my enemies, when there's a lot of them, this is also especially time consuming.

- Magic Item cost. In a world where magic items are individially crafted objects and not created from boilerplate post-industrial templates, each item should have a fairly unique value (based on materials, craftmanship and the general eccentriccies of magic). Also, again where time-pressed DMs might just use the average value, a generous DM could use variable pricing to reward a PC with an on-the-cheap magic item, and a RBDM can jack prices up to the max.

I don't think there's a real good way to simulate this through rules. There might be some useful guidelines that some merchants are price-gougers and some merchants are generous, but I don't think there's any real effective way to randomly generate these numbers without really becoming a waste of time.

- Treasure generation. Tying in with the above, variable hoard sizes and content allow the DM to customize treasure distribution in both value and content. Again, DMs could take the average, but the presence of a range and possibility of random generation allows for tweaking rewards within an acceptable range.

Again, I'm not really sure how beneficial this is to the game. Sure, it feels a little bit more natural, but as a long-time WoW player, RNG is one of the most annoying things on a boss fight. We all contribute, we all work hard, yet, only some of us get rewarded. Sometimes it can feel very, very unrewarding to have put in hours and hours and really get nothing in the end. Sure, some people are really big on the "experience" of the game, and that is indeed important, but given that hoards are well hoards, I think it's quite realistic that every player should be able to get something out of it.

I like to reward my players for a job well done, so even if I don't have the random treasure reward them with something useful, there will be some king or baron that will make up for it. Certainly not every treasure hoard will reward everyone, in fact in my games very very few will contain anything other than a pittance.

I don't feel random generation really benefits anyone here. Generally speaking it takes more time to look up a randomly generated item than it does to just pick one or say it's a "+1 item of your choice". I'm not here to build my players characters for them.

- Mundane items. This will likely be the most contraversial, as it hasn't been done before. D&D has always used a fixed price for the majority of equipment tables - and this really makes sense for initial character generation, but I'd like to see a variable range on prices for most items (at least anything worth a gp or more). It would make sense to use the average price when genrating PCs, again, having the variable prices built into the tables would give the DM a tool for those times when he may want to introduce some random (or semi-random) fluctuations to emulate some sort of economic fluctuation.

Simulating economics in a D&D session is I think, rather contrived. Sell high if you want your players to have a lot of gold or you expect to make them spend a lot of it. Sell low if you want your players to be poor, mix in a few merchants who may give better or worse deals than others sure. But attempting to adjust the prices of longswords because the grain fields of Edoras were burned by rampaging hordes, thus reducing supplies to some country which mines ore for sword production in some other nation is really silly.


I honestly don't appreciate randomness in rules. It's like handing the DM a wrench but forcing them to use it like a hammer. Yeah sometimes it produces good results(like random encounter tables), other times it's just simply the wrong tool for the job. At the same time, I also feel that "random" is a poor excuse for bad DMing, it allows the DM to say "well it's not my fault, it's random!" At some point, if everything is "random", why do we need the DM to roll the dice for us?