Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6629032" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Well...uh...no, it's not. I could, in fact, link you to a forum thread I started where I asked, more or less, "What would I sacrifice if I went for the stats I'd like rather than balls-out best?" (I won't because it was posted on a different forum, but if you want the link, I can give it to you.)And the response generally was, "Not much, though your life will be a little bit harder. Try to pick up (mundane gear option), or consider (core character option) to help." It was not "how on earth could you consider that," nor was it "this is the best, never use anything else." Hell, even the charop threads I read (for cruft-filtering, not for hardcore optimization) almost always recommend at least three different possible ways you could go, AND give more general advice about all stats (some--I'd argue the really good ones--even mentioning how you can try to make them useful even if they wouldn't be).So...no, it's not just "use the ONE SINGLE *absolute BEST* set of stats, end of story." I've ignored the "standard" advice, which doesn't even make things as rigid as you claim, and asked others what they think, and been pretty much assured there's no real issue. Or, perhaps another way of putting it: You seem to be conflating "uses point buy" with "heavily optimizes." The two are not the same thing, and it is entirely possible to prefer point-buy while having minimal interest in (or even antipathy for) optimization. I have a minimal interest in it, in that I (as a player) wish to be sure that I'm not accidentally making foolish choices when I could make smart ones, all things *including the fiction* being equal.Wow. Just...do you really have to add this sort of thing? Totally needless aspersions cast on the moral fiber of anyone who doesn't share your preferences? Does this actually help people agree with you in any way?What do you mean by "the top" or "special"? Because, just as I said earlier in the thread, this argument is garbage unless you actually explain the meaning--it's the fallacy of equivocation. If "the top" means "the best at what they do," then it's patently foolish: "If everyone [in the party] is 'the best at what they do,' then nobody [in the party] is 'the best at what they do.'" If you define "special" as "has a unique ability possessed by no one else," it becomes even worse: "If everyone has a unique ability possessed by no one else, then no one has a unique ability possessed by no one else." Even as a statistical argument, it only holds if you sneak in a shift in the statistic, e.g. "if every PC is above person-in-this-world average, then no PC is above the party average" or "if every PC is above the old average, then no PC is above the new average." For both of these clearly-defined cases, it reduces to something useless: either a contradiction (the first two are "If X, then not-X"), or a trivial mathematical truism (changing the average means the average is different).Uh...No? Because, again, I have way more fun with point-buy than I do with rolled stats, which generally frustrate me and--in older versions of D&D--could have even overtly denied me access to the classes I actually wanted to play. And I roleplay to the hilt. I *will* take choices that are to my (character's) disadvantage, IF doing so is motivated by the fiction. I did it in Dungeon World, where everyone has the same starting array and gets +1 stat point per level (with the old style of bonus, not the new "every 2 points = +1 modifier" stuff).I'll also take advantageous ones, IF doing so is motivated by the fiction. And where there is no fiction to guide me? I'll do what sounds best to me--because I don't play characters who knowingly gimp themselves, as that makes no sense, and if *I* think something sounds pretty good, there's a good chance that, even in the fiction, my character would come to a similar conclusion.Rolling is un-fun, specifically for me, because I utterly loathe the concept of "ability roulette." I don't *want* the dice to tell me what character to play. The dice can go f*ck themselves, for all I care. It's almost effortless for me to come up with a character concept I'd enjoy playing, simply by looking at what options are available to me. Like, effortless to the point that I sometimes intentionally avoid reading the books too much once I've got a concept I like--because I'll start coming up with more, and then be paralyzed by indecision about which one I want to play *right now.* And once I do have a concept, I don't want some mindless dice to come along and say, "Nope, f*ck you, you don't get to play what YOU want, you HAVE to play what 'luck'(/highly complicated physical processes) decided you should. Which, incidentally, is nothing you're actually interested in most of the time!"</blockquote>

Verification