D&D 5E Array v 4d6: Punishment? Or overlooked data

[FrogReaver]

If you can't fathom why someone likes what they like, you could always ask them.

Don't have to. They already volunteered the info and it's still unfathomable to me. That probably means people prefer rolling because of nostalgia (which is something I can't comprehend since I don't have their nostalgia). I've not yet seen one example of someone describing something that rolling accomplishes that is a good thing.

I've read it gives greater variance in stats. I fail to see how this can be a pro at all. It's definetely something I'd list as one of the biggest cons.
I've read it makes someone feel like they aren't playing an NPC. I'm not going to say it couldn't but if that's the only legitimate pro to rolling that can be came up with then there is a problem.

I can explain why I dislike rolling. Too much stat variance is bad for balance and makes for spot light stealing and makes the DM's job to challenge the PC's that much harder.

Though if someone else can actually offer some good reasons for why they prefer rolling I'm all ears.

 

[guachi]

In my current campaign I allowed point buy only as it meant players could tinker with their PCs on their own. I also had no desire to hear any player complain about the die roll nor, since I did character generation one or two players at a time, did I want some players to think I allowed other players anything extra while they were generating a character. Heck, even the custom PC race my wife plays used the race creation point system derived and posted at this board so I could explain why it was fair.

If I had a Session Zero I'd have allowed rolling if all players agreed AND everyone could see the dice rolls. My favorite dice rolling method that I saw someone post to a thread either here or at rpg dot net about favorite dice rolling methods was one where all the players roll 4d6 drop lowest six times and then all the numbers are put into one giant array and the players together form the party. The poster said it worked great to have the players working together as a team to create a team of PCs.

 

[Crothian]

If I had a Session Zero I'd have allowed rolling if all players agreed AND everyone could see the dice rolls. My favorite dice rolling method that I saw someone post to a thread either here or at rpg dot net about favorite dice rolling methods was one where all the players roll 4d6 drop lowest six times and then all the numbers are put into one giant array and the players together form the party. The poster said it worked great to have the players working together as a team to create a team of PCs.

That is a cool idea. I've done the pooling attributes but we made it a draft so it was not collaborative which I think could be a real plus.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm thinking of a system where stat generation occurs by
11 +1d4
11 +1d4
11+1d4
7+ 1d6
7+1d6
7+1d6

This covers the typical stat range covered by the point buy. Three abilites in the range of 12-15 and Three abilities in the range of 8-13

This cuts down on the variance while still producing randomness. A reroll can still be allowed if no stats are rolled 14 or more.

 

[FrogReaver]

That is a cool idea. I've done the pooling attributes but we made it a draft so it was not collaborative which I think could be a real plus.

I would like rolling in that method.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I don't subscribe to the thought that the game world exists outside what has already been described as existing in it. So if you haven't described a ship with 7 skeletons yet then what is inside that ship is clay that can be molded however the DM desires.

There are times to mold that clay into the clearly this will kill you kind of challenges. There are times to mold that clay into very easy challenges. There are times to mold that clay into challenges that are just challenging enough.

But that clay is just clay until the DM describes it. You may choose to beforehand that you will always mold this clay into what you have preplanned for it but that's really taking away a large portion of your DM tools IMO.

I'm lazy, so I typically don't invent very much beyond what has been described to the players either. And there's probably a part of me that subconsciously molds what I create to the actual PCs. But in general I try not to do that, both on general principles and for practical reasons: if I create tomorrow's content under the assumption that everyone's going to be bringing three 12th level PCs and an army of skeleton warriors, I'll have to scramble everything when one of the players doesn't make it and the other two decide to they want to use their 4th level PCs instead. It's simpler to just make the world be what it is[1].

[1] In practice this sometimes means that I spend my prep time creating random tables instead of specific content. That way I can more easily use my re-use my table whenever the players hit a similar situation, instead of having it go to waste if they ignore it in the place where I originally prepared it. For tomorrow's game, for example, I already know that the barbarian is going to cast Commune With Nature first thing to see if they're alone on the air-island they landed on. Instead of a specific encounter, I've planned to have him roll it: 10% chance there's something interesting or deadly on the island in addition to the rocs and ropers which dominate the planetary ecology, and if there is it's a 1d8 roll for the threat. (1 = orc village, 2 = giant ant nest, 3 = phase spider brood, 4 = lone cerebral stalker, 5 = lone chaos knight, 6 = band of trolls, 7 = tyrannosaurus tribe, 8 = crashed ship full of Stygian Skeletons + Blackrazor) I don't know if he wants a safe island to migrate people to or an adventuresome island full of treasure and monsters, but either way I am now prepared.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Don't have to. They already volunteered the info and it's still unfathomable to me. That probably means people prefer rolling because of nostalgia (which is something I can't comprehend since I don't have their nostalgia). I've not yet seen one example of someone describing something that rolling accomplishes that is a good thing.

I've read it gives greater variance in stats. I fail to see how this can be a pro at all. It's definetely something I'd list as one of the biggest cons.
I've read it makes someone feel like they aren't playing an NPC. I'm not going to say it couldn't but if that's the only legitimate pro to rolling that can be came up with then there is a problem.

I can explain why I dislike rolling. Too much stat variance is bad for balance and makes for spot light stealing and makes the DM's job to challenge the PC's that much harder.

Though if someone else can actually offer some good reasons for why they prefer rolling I'm all ears.

You may not agree with verisimilitude as a reason, but you've got to admit that it isn't nostalgia. Among other reasons, I find it unaesthetic that stronger people under point buy are stupider and sicker than weaker people (due to limited point budget), that healthier people are less charismatic, that wiser people are less intelligent, etc., etc. As near as I can tell, in real life these correlations go the other way. Under random stats they are uncorrelated.

You don't have to agree that verisimilitude is a good thing (some people don't care) but it's a thing, and it matters to people like me (simulationists).

Edited to add: and yes, historical baggage (what you call "nostalgia") is a reason too. Specifically, the fact that with point buy it is physically impossible to have stats below 8 or above 15 offends me aesthetically. To my gut intuition, 3-18 is the "real" range of stats. If 5E were point-buy only I actually probably wouldn't be playing it because it would feel fake. So yeah, nostalgia is a factor. It's just not the only factor.

 

[FrogReaver]

You may not agree with verisimilitude as a reason, but you've got to admit that it isn't nostalgia. Among other reasons, I find it unaesthetic that stronger people under point buy are stupider and sicker than weaker people (due to limited point budget), that healthier people are less charismatic, that wiser people are less intelligent, etc., etc. As near as I can tell, in real life these correlations go the other way. Under random stats they are uncorrelated.

You don't have to agree that verisimilitude is a good thing (some people don't care) but it's a thing, and it matters to people like me (simulationists).

Edited to add: and yes, historical baggage (what you call "nostalgia") is a reason too. Specifically, the fact that with point buy it is physically impossible to have stats below 8 or above 15 offends me aesthetically. To my gut intuition, 3-18 is the "real" range of stats. If 5E were point-buy only I actually probably wouldn't be playing it because it would feel fake. So yeah, nostalgia is a factor. It's just not the only factor.

The problems with point buy you describe are also present in rolling:

1. Rolling 4d6 drop the lowest 6 times will result in a range of stats. Some high some low. The strong guy will still likely be stupidier and sicker than weaker people in the 4d6 drop lowest system. Healthy people will still tend to be less charismatic. That the rolling method provides a chance to get all high stats or all low stats doesn't really fix the problem since it's still very likely that these some characterizations will exist.

2. I could buy the versimilitude argument if I could see one reason how rolling stats provides more versimilititude than just using point buy. As it stands the reasons you gave for the increased versimilitude also apply just as strongly to your dice rolling method.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The problems with point buy you describe are also present in rolling:

1. Rolling 4d6 drop the lowest 6 times will result in a range of stats. Some high some low. The strong guy will still likely be stupidier and sicker than weaker people in the 4d6 drop lowest system. Healthy people will still tend to be less charismatic. That the rolling method provides a chance to get all high stats or all low stats doesn't really fix the problem since it's still very likely that these some characterizations will exist.

2. I could buy the versimilitude argument if I could see one reason how rolling stats provides more versimilititude than just using point buy. As it stands the reasons you gave for the increased versimilitude also apply just as strongly to your dice rolling method.

RE: point #1, mathematically that's plausible, and I almost included a footnote saying "This problem still exists in 4d6 drop lowest" before realizing that I wasn't actually mathematically sure if it was true. At the extreme upper ranges, yes, Str 18 anticorrelates with Con 18, but over the whole range of Str is it really anti-correlated or does Con just regress to the mean?

In any case, yes that's a good point, but I don't know if I could prove it. The anti-correlation is much stronger and easier to prove under point buy, but a strict 3d6 assign would have better verisimilitude, and of course the most verisimilitude would come from a system that enforced positive correlations... but I don't know of any such system, nor do I know that the added verisimilitude would be worth the complexity cost. Random rolling is good enough not to bug me the way point buy does. Your proposed system of compensating penalties might also be good enough not to bug me, depending on whether the disadvantages could be plausibly linked to the advantages. (E.g. "he gets move -5 because he's muscle-bound" might work.)

RE #2, isn't this the same point as #1? And no, it's not "just as strongly." The anti-correlation is stronger and easier to demonstrate under point buy: every +1 in Con is approximately -1/6 point in Str and -1/6 point in Cha over the space of all point-buy characters generated.

 

[aramis erak]

Fortunately, rolling lower on your stats than someone else at the table is nothing like sitting on tacks for the evening. I'd hate to see any kind of false equivalencies enter this discussion...

It can be quite like sitting upon tacks for the evening if player A rolled well below average and players B, C, and D all rolled above average. The feeling of utter uselessness and the pain at such, while not physical, can be very real.

Which is part of why I don't use rolled stats anymore. I'll allow randomized stats, but the total will be the same as everyone else.