Atributes - To roll or distribute?

[Ragmon]

Hey guys.

So last night, the gang and I came together for some RP-ing. When we were deciding what to play I offered up to DM (very rare occasion). I had 1 significant restriction for character creation, they would have had to distribute the attribute points (32 points).

2 out of 3 players said HELL NO! They would rather go home, then and there, then to point distribute for a D&D character (any edition), unless it was noted specifically in the rules that point distribution is a must.

Now, the 2 players are relatively new players, about 2-3 years of experience. And the 1 player the regular DM always enforced rolling for stats.

I just would like to hear/read your thoughts on the situation. That and do you enforce roll or distribute?

I my self prefer and will not use the roll rule, cause I want my players to be on an even footing compared to each other (in the other DMs campaign I tend to roll high most of the time, I even got 18 18 18 17 17 17 one time for a character).

In the end I compromised and now I'm DM-ing 5th edition with the roll rule.

Just some rambling.

 

[Crothian]

I let the players pick their attributes. Once I allowed the players to pick everyone else attributes and that also worked well.

Letting the players pick their attributes shows a lot of trust in them and I do trust them. About half the time when doing this the players decide to restrict themselves in some way and I find that amusing. Every time I have done this and it has been happening for at least a decade now all the character made this way have only had one score over a 16, sometimes the characters are made with no score over a 16, and they always have at least one score lower then 10. I doubt it would work for every group but it works beautifully for ours.

 

[Li Shenron]

As a player, I like rolling for stats. But the rules system should support low-stats characters decently. I think 5e is better than 3e, for instance you don't need a minimum score to cast spells.

As a DM, I'd rather let the players choose whatever they prefer for generating stats, but last time I did that with a group of friends that have never played before, it was a disaster... all except one of them rolled very poorly despite the generous rolling method of 5e. I told them to scrap those stats, and they all used the good character's rolls for their PCs. So now I am tempted to use the standard array next time I play with casual gamers.

 

[N'raac]

I wonder whether the "Hell NO!" crowd would be enthusiastic about rolling for stats right here, right now, one try, whatever you get, that's your character for the campaign. He dies? Use the same rolls to make a new character. Point buy means "no under average rolls" as well as "no over average rolls".

It's amazing how few "rolled stat" characters roll under average, though.

 

[Grogg of the North]

I've gotta agree with Dungeon Bastard, there's nothing more fun than wrapping your character concept around the possibility of rolling a 3.

Rolling stats! It's like a 24d6 fireball that effects everyone except that lone half-orc named Charisma!

 

[Quartz]

I've gotta agree with Dungeon Bastard, there's nothing more fun than wrapping your character concept around the possibility of rolling a 3.

Make the PC a human and your minimum stat is 4!

 

[sjmiller]

I feel that for a D&D game I will always roll stats until the system changes and forces me to do something else. Now, granted, I roll my stats, write them down, and only THEN do I decide what kind of character am I going to have.

Oh, and N'raac, I have and sill roll stats right in front of the DM and used what I got. However, never in my 35 years of gaming have I heard of reusing the same stats if the first one dies. You always get new rolls if a character dies. Do I roll great all the time? No, but that is just fine. Bland, boring, always middle of the road assigned stats? No thank you.