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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8116332" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Depends on the system, but probably not. I find characters who have little to no bonuses terribly boring, because they usually fail at least as often as they succeed, and that gets really grating. I deal with enough failures in my everyday life. Doesn't mean I want to have an unmitigated stream of successes when I game, but it does mean I'd rather the ratio be better than IRL.That's...a pretty broad swathe of characters though. Like, that's kind of definitional for a huge chunk of what TVTropes calls "Lancers": highly skilled and arrogant, needing to learn that being a team player is important.Sure. Charisma means you're compelling to other people, not that you're courageous yourself. Being courageous may come with being compelling, but I've known a real person IRL who was quite cowardly...and also somehow managed to get most people to go along with what they wanted. Wisdom means a lot of really unrelated things (transcendental understanding, physical observation skills, ability to resist certain kinds of mental control, survival skills), so having high Wisdom and having poor impulse control can totally go hand-in-hand. I'd even say that Sherlock Holmes is a great example there, where he has AMAZING observational skills (clearly both Perception and Investigation) but really terrible self-control (he is portrayed as at least mildly addicted to cocaine because he gets bored between cases, after all).Where are you getting this distribution information from? I don't know of any modern RPG which defines things so precisely. Certainly in old-school games this may have been true, but it need not be true of any particular game now.And, as stated, "adventurers" aren't sampled from all people. They're sampled from a highly divergent group that differs from the normal distribution (hah, I'm punny) in several ways. Why should we expect career adventurers to have a distribution of characteristics that resembles the distribution of all people? That would be like presuming that all people who make a reasonable living as performers in the entertainment industry should have characteristic distributions that resemble all people from their nation of origin. (As one simple example, left-handed individuals are over-represented in interactive sports like tennis and baseball, but have about the same representation as the overall population for non-interactive sports like swimming or pole-vaulting.)God no (and a little worried that you thought it was?) I was just giving it as an example of an unlikable but charismatic person. There are other more practical examples I could give, but those skirt the line of bringing controversial politics into an unrelated discussion, and I'd rather not do that. As a different example: Niccolo Machiavelli's titular ruler from The Prince. Note, here, that "feared" means "respected," as in, people know if they cross you, bad things will happen to them. "Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. [...] Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated...." That is, a monarch can get others to behave as desired by at least two means, being "loved" (what I would call likeability: people do things for you because they like you and want you to be pleased) or being "feared" (what I would call "impressiveness": people doing things for you because they know there are negative consequences if you are displeased with their behavior). Machiavelli advocates that, if you have to choose between them, you should choose the latter--because it's under your control, not someone else's--but emphatically advises against becoming hated, a condition where people will willingly endure problems in order to defy you. A king that is feared, but is not loved nor hated, is (I would argue) charismatic without being likeable. Or an attorney who specializes in prosecution, who rigorously pursues a guilty verdict, but holds no ill will toward anyone who is acquitted when she's at bat: probably not all that likeable (lawyers in general aren't all that well-liked), but it's entirely possible to be strongly charismatic and persuasive in  a courtroom even if no one likes you at all.Again, none of these are power fantasies for me. It's just demonstrations of plausible IRL individuals who are not "likeable" but are charismatic.Alright. Let's, again, take this hypothetical all-18s character. They attempt a task which they don't have proficiency (which...should still be most things). An Easy check is DC 10, they have +4 to the roll. That means 25% of the time (a roll of 5 or lower), they will fail to do that Easy thing. That's...hardly a negligible chance of failure. I dunno what things you would consider "easy" (as opposed to "very easy"), but if you had a one-in-four chance of genuinely failing to do something, would you be all that likely to presume you can just do it no sweat?And very few actual characters have all 18s, certainly none generated by point-buy methods in 5e. Most such characters have at least one 8, meaning they would fail at so-called "Easy" tasks (that they aren't proficient in) 50% of the time, and fail at even "Very Easy" (DC 5) tasks 25% of the time. Since you aren't proficient with most skills (most chars only have 4, max amount at 1st level is 9 AFAICT), a non-negligible portion of rolls may apply there--and there are further cases where only the raw ability check will be asked for. This really shouldn't be uncommon, especially if you've discussed your character concept with your DM.How do you mean "contradict what you are roleplaying"? Again, it is entirely possible to fail (25% chance) at "easy" things even for someone who has all 18s, and even for someone who (somehow) has a 4 in a given ability score, a Medium task (DC 15) is still potentially achievable, about 15% chance even without proficiency. So...even if you had scores wildly at variance with what 5e provides, you would still have a non-negligible (>5%) chance to succeed at things your character is supposed to fail horribly at all the time.I guess I don't get how what you're expecting ever actually happens. Unless you willingly throw away your chances (which means ability scores don't matter because you're choosing to roleplay around/despite them), you're going to occasionally succeed on things your character is "terrible" at, and going to occasionally fail at things your character is "amazing" at.I do not like resorting to this kind of argument, because it smacks of gatekeeping and the like:I think your interests and the design of D&D are just generally not copacetic. I think you would be substantially better-served by games that completely eliminate ability scores entirely (and thus cannot have the problem of "I'm supposed to be a fumbling idiot, yet I can do <thing X> 40% of the time??") and encode things by a different metric entirely. Fate, for example, comes to mind--it sounds like its Compels would be very well-suited to the kind of play you seek, where a weakness/fault/flaw/etc. really matters and is easily "used against you" on the regular. The whole "fate points" thing might be a turnoff, I admit, but I'm not super well-versed on systems like this and thus cannot think of alternatives that, I'm sure, exist.Well...uh...actually, that's...a thing you easily could have been in 4e. Charisma was a perfectly valid (and, initially, better) main stat than Strength, and a healing-focused Paladin wants high Wisdom (and, ideally, high Constitution as well), because Wisdom sets your daily number of Lay on Hands uses. (Incidentally, this is actually an area where 4e's mechanics DO back up the story you wanted: in 4e, Lay on Hands sacrifices your own resources in order to heal others. You literally sacrifice your own vitality in order to restore other people.) There was even a Paragon Path, from the Player's Handbook to boot, called Hospitaler, which specifically made the Paladin a really good healer, pretty much every bit as good as a Cleric in fact.A 4e Paladin that dumps Strength (8) and has no training in Athletics (normal, since Paladins didn't have that as a class skill for whatever reason) would seriously struggle with at-level Athletics checks even early on--in fact, just climbing a ladder (DC 5) has a 25% chance of failure! I dunno about you, but I'd call that a pretty good demonstration of physical weakness, if one in four attempts to climb a ladder causes you to fall on your rump. Forget trying to do something like "climb a rock wall" (DC 15)!Calling something bad design doesn't actualy make it bad design, you know. You kinda have to demonstrate why. Otherwise you sound a lot like the guy who says cupcakes are bad desserts because they're small and not big like regular cakes.No, it can't. Would you like to know how many groups I've been in that have played more than a single campaign together before breaking?One. Ever. And I've been gaming since 2005. It really can't "always be saved for the next character," because that presumes there is a "next character." If the (ability score) dice don't cooperate with the story I'm actually interested in playing, I've got a pretty good reason not to listen to them: I may only get one shot. I'm not interested in GUARANTEEING that a story plays out exactly the way I want (if I were, I'd just write it, I am more than capable of doing so), but I'm also not interested in a game that guarantees the story CAN'T play out even remotely LIKE what I would like to see.Why? Why should "you literally won't get to play anything like what actually excites you" be a red flag for the player's response to the journey not being guaranteed? I'm not asking for perfect success forever. (Anyone who presumes a desire for perfection from their opponents in a debate has ceded a point to those opponents.) I'm asking for having the opportunity to see a story with a particular beginning. I want that story to diverge from my expectations. I want that beginning to be only the vaguest hint of the places I'll go and the things I'll see. And I am far from alone in this desire. That's what most fans of point-buy want: the opportunity to begin with something they can actually enjoy watching evolve, as opposed to beginning with something that bores them or stymies them at every turn.All of which presume I get another chance, or can "re-concept on the fly" (I'm really really bad at that--appealing ideas stick to my brain). What if I don't get another chance? I've had numerous gaming groups that didn't stick together for one reason or another (usually Life Issues intervening so that there isn't enough game time anymore). What if my character dying means I'm probably now on another six-month-plus search for a new gaming group?Though...you do realize that such rules make it so that non-special people are specifically excluded, right? Like, that's literally what the rules are designed to reduce: characters who have no particular talents (no score above 14) and who aren't overall slightly better than average (low total modifier sum).Yes, because the truth always matters, even if it is concealed from me. But that's a can of worms we maybe shouldn't open. Suffice it to say that yes, it does matter to me, and this mattering is driven by deeply-held principles, not simply arbitrary whim.Sure. I wouldn't want it any other way. I don't see how this is relevant? These exact terms describe the vast majority of D&D parties regardless of edition--and yes, including 4e.As referenced above: I'd really like an entertainment experience that isn't isomorphic to reality, particularly on the subject of success and the role luck plays in getting to do anything you actually like doing.How do you square this with the pretty much explicit notion that in order to be a PC at all--having class levels and such--you do have to be special? The 5e Fighter practically shouts it: "Not every member of the city watch, the village militia, or the queen's army is a fighter. Most of these troops are relatively untrained soldiers with only the  most basic combat knowledge. Veteran soldiers, military officers, trained bodyguards, dedicated knights, and similar figures are fighters." That is straight-up saying that ordinary folk AREN'T Fighter material, that you HAVE to be special, at least a little bit, in order to qualify.Perhaps, then, the problem is that you are forcing a dichotomy where there is actually a spectrum. It's not "completely and thoroughly not at all even slightly special" vs "THE MOST DELICATE AND UNIQUE AND SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE EVER CONCEIVED." You can have someone who is a little stand-out, slightly above the norm--and, much of the time, it is the combination of unusual circumstances and being (at least) slightly abnormal that leads to greatness.I really don't get where this "born winners" thing came from. As demonstrated above, even someone with an 18 in every stat fails "easy" things relatively often if they aren't proficient, and non-negligibly even if they are proficient, at first level.Like...the difference between a 4 and an 18 is -3 vs +4, a total of 7. That's 35 percentage points on the die. If someone with an 18 in a stat has a 95% chance to succeed, someone with a 4 in that stat still has a 60% chance. If someone with a 4 in a stat just barely can't succeed, then someone with an 18 in that stat still fails almost two-thirds of the time (65%). How does this make the all-18s person a "born winner" when they still, relatively often, lose? How does this make the all-4s person  a born loser (if you'll allow the term) when they still, a non-negligible portion of the time, win?People are throwing these terms around as though having stats below 8 guarantees failure. It doesn't. Or that having stats above 17 guarantee success. It doesn't. If you want to roleplay being a consistent failure or consistent success, you have to either willingly "throw" your opportunities or have the DM actively working to support you. There has never been an edition of D&D where this wasn't the case--even less so for the earliest editions, where only comparatively extreme stats had any merit at all.</blockquote>

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