A Hope: Return Variability/Randomness

[Sunseeker]

I honestly gave up on dice rolling because as much as I want to, I rarely get a "character generation night" pre-game. I either trust people to be reasonable with their or give them the following "strengths and weaknesses" system.
18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, assign as you like, move two points from any score to any other, but no more than +/- two points.

So you could have 20, 14, 14, 12, 10, 8; 18, 18, 12, 12, 10, 8; etc...

Yes, I'm fairly generous with my points, but honestly I'd rather my players be super-powered than gimped, powering up encounters is easier than turning them down.

 

[Elf Witch]

I like random we roll for stats and hit points. I roll for starting funds. I roll to see how much something is going to cost. Good bartering skills helps get you a better price.

I kind of like the idea that two humans are the same except for twins. I have found that point buy has lead to bland characters for the most part.

I love the idea of maybe rolling so well I get a fantastic character but I also enjoy the challenge of playing a character who does not have great stats.

I will always have some form of random rolling in my game. I do allow players to use a 32 point buy and take 1/2 on their hit die if they don't want to gamble.

I have rules in place so no one gets stuck playing anything below a 20 point buy.

I also do a mix of random treasure with things put in just for these PCs.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I love the idea of maybe rolling so well I get a fantastic character but I also enjoy the challenge of playing a character who does not have great stats.

For a one or few session adventure I think rolling is a fine thing.

I find no attraction is investing more time or effort into a PC that is markedly different from my preferences for no good reason.

Rolling for stats made enough sense when proto-D&D was created because every adventure was soft of a one-shot, even if strung together. This was a wargame played by wargamers (that so happened to offer room for roleplaying), the character mortality rate was astronomical, and stats mattered much less. "3d6, in the set order" worked well enough.

Nobody does 3d6 in set order because the attraction of having PCs who are a cut above is so high. I do not see any reason to go halfway here. I am quite capable of making unusual PCs when I am in the mood.

 

[Stormonu]

I'd still like to know why we shouldn't also roll for skill ranks or feats, or saving throw values. The fact that it's only ability scores and hit points discussed as being random indicates that it's a legacy thing.

Mostly because these came later, when the game had moved more towards point-buy and "roll 4d6, drop lowest, arrange to taste."

However, Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor randomly assigned feats when you leveled. Absolutely hated that aspect of the game.

<edit> Rereading your statement, it's not an entirely bad idea to have a module that would allow random character generation (it might be really nice for NPCs), but I was more interested in acceptable "spreads" for values than randomization for acquisition. I.e., what's the value of that longsword you just looted off the captain's corpse, not so much as whether it was a broadsword, longsword, short sword, axe or inflatable club. Having the die range makes it easy for me if I want to just roll the value, or knowing the range and the situation, I can just pick a value in the range that feels appropriate.

While I personally have, for example, a die to randomly roll race, class, disposition and alignment I've only used it for NPCs - wouldn't ever force a player to use it for character generation. Considering the recent talk about race rarity by WotC, a table with a % chance of being a given race (or class) wouldn't be bad to show the "worldwide" expected distribution of races in the D&D game - though I'm sure many DMs would tweak it or throw it out to change the % values to match the breakdown in their world/region/city/5' square.

 

[FireLance]

I think I'd be fine with randomness plus what Skyscraper called a disaster avoidance system.

My favored approach would be a random roll system with safety nets. One character generation system that I've thought about before, but which I've never actually implemented in an actual game, would be to start with a standard array (say 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 or 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 if you want a lower powered game) and arrange as desired. This becomes your safety net - the minimum your character will have tin that ability score. Then, you roll 3d6 for each ability score, and if what you roll is higher than the number you assigned, your ability score increases to that instead.

So let's say you're using the 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 array, and you create a fighter with Str 16, Con 14, Dex 13, Int 8, Wis 12 and Cha 10. Then you roll 3d6 for each ability score. If you roll a 14 for Str and 9 for Con, your Str and Con remain 16 and 14 respectively. However, if you roll a 15 for Dex and 12 for Int, your Dex and Int will be 15 and 12 respectively.

The advantage (IMO) to this system is that you can do your character concept planning on the basis of your "guaranteed" minimum ability scores, and if you happen to have an unexpected high score somewhere, you don't have to change your plans if you don't want to. So maybe you wanted to be a fighter and assigned a 16 to Str, but then you rolled an 18 for Intelligence. You can continue to play as a genius fighter, or you could change your character concept and play an exceptionally strong wizard, or you might decide to multiclass.

I also like Crazy Jerome's idea of self-correcting randomness in character advancement. To tie it in with the idea of guaranteed minimums, I would run it something along these lines: if the ability score you want to increase is below a certain number, the increase in automatic. Otherwise, you have to roll. I'd peg that number to the highest "guaranteed" number you could assign to your ability scores. If the highest was a 16, for example, at the first stat boost, you could increase your ability score to 17 automatically. However, if it was already 17 or higher, you would have to roll higher than that on 1d20+1. Subsequently, for the Nth stat increase, an increase to 16+N is automatic. Otherwise, you would need to roll higher than your ability score on 1d20+N.

 

[Elf Witch]

For a one or few session adventure I think rolling is a fine thing.

I find no attraction is investing more time or effort into a PC that is markedly different from my preferences for no good reason.

Rolling for stats made enough sense when proto-D&D was created because every adventure was soft of a one-shot, even if strung together. This was a wargame played by wargamers (that so happened to offer room for roleplaying), the character mortality rate was astronomical, and stats mattered much less. "3d6, in the set order" worked well enough.

Nobody does 3d6 in set order because the attraction of having PCs who are a cut above is so high. I do not see any reason to go halfway here. I am quite capable of making unusual PCs when I am in the mood.

We play long running campaigns and we have always enjoyed rolling for stats.

DnD has not roll in order for a long time even they saw that was limiting.

We do 4D6 drop the lowest. So most of the characters end up cut above average.


I have yet to see anyone ever doing anything other than a cookie cutter character with a point buy. I have never seen anyone play with anything lower than an 8 in a stat and I have seen so many who feel the need for at least a 17 in a prime attribute.

Also everyone is the same which I dislike. The point buy gives you no differences in characters. You also will never have anything over that point buy.

If people want to play this way that is fine it is not how I like to play and so I will always have some way to do random rolls.

 

[Lanefan]

Just a quick note regarding random or variable item prices: while I love me the random this is one I'll avoid like the plague, mostly because as soon as some of my greedier players realize they can make a profit buying low and selling high (regardless what the commodity is - magic, spices, swords, slaves, crop futures) I stop running a fantasy adventure game and start running a fantasy economics simulation. Been there, done that.

Won't do it again.

Lan-"I detest economics"-efan

 

[FireLance]

Just a quick note regarding random or variable item prices: while I love me the random this is one I'll avoid like the plague, mostly because as soon as some of my greedier players realize they can make a profit buying low and selling high (regardless what the commodity is - magic, spices, swords, slaves, crop futures) I stop running a fantasy adventure game and start running a fantasy economics simulation. Been there, done that.

Won't do it again.

I mostly agree. I only take issue with the word "simulation". IMO, random prices are as much a simulation of economics as Monopoly is a simulation of the property market.

 

[Libramarian]

It seems like the OP wants more variability/randomness in order to have more control as DM. That's odd. I thought the point of randomness was to have less control.

 

[Libramarian]

I'd still like to know why we shouldn't also roll for skill ranks or feats, or saving throw values. The fact that it's only ability scores and hit points discussed as being random indicates that it's a legacy thing.

I'd like to know why we shouldn't make attack rolls nonrandom. The fact that it's only ability scores and hit points discussed as being nonrandom indicates that it's a novelty thing.