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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9082275" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Sure. PB is the preferred method in most gaming circles I've seen. Rolled stats create inherently more and less powerful characters right out the gate--and with players generally wanting their characters to stick around long-term,* these discrepancies linger forever. It becomes further heightened because there is now an explicit, intended equivalence between stats and feats. Each feat is supposed to be worth, approximately, +2 to one stat or +1 to two stats. Which means that, if you roll a combined stat total of 66 (low but quite possible) and your buddy rolls a combined stat total of 78 (very slightly above average), you're now permanently 6 feats behind them. This gives a quantifiable gap.*Mostly because it's seen, by many, as frustrating and boring to get invested in a story and then have it end abruptly with no fanfare or possibility of alteration or continuation.A part of the early-edition style you did not mention, but which is extremely important for understanding why things have changed, is that early-edition fans as a whole were largely uninterested in narrative. Early-edition D&D is, in fact, often extremely gamist and doesn't give a fig about doing so, e.g. monsters would lose their darkvision if they joined the PCs because that would have been an inappropriate gameplay advantage. At least one person I've spoken to who played at Gygax's table, for example, had no patience for roleplayed descriptions of attacks. Just make the damn roll, get the result, and let's move on with the game. Ruthless murderhobo-ism and "metagaming" were expected parts of play in most cases.Narrative, where it existed at all, was exclusively in the "Story After" model, if you'll forgive my use of Forge terms. You would make stories out of the gameplay you had experienced. This, like most things, rises from the wargame roots of the hobby. War stories aren't about what you set out to do; they're about what you survived, what you stumbled upon as you went, etc. This is, in part, why connected sequences of games are called campaigns.Eh. Not really. Most of the imbalance is baked into the spellcasting rules and spellcasting classes; the dice do make things swingy, but not to so meaningful a degree. All the swingy design does is discourage people from doing things which depend on rolling to succeed. Cut out the dice middleman, as it were. Guess which part of the system is exceptionally good at removing or reducing the dependence on dice, or giving you special control over said dice? Spellcasting. Further, guess which classes are the most dependent on dice and have few to no tools for removing or reducing such dependence...unless they dip into the previously-mentioned part? Martial characters.I mean, you portrayed balance in the worst possible light, so you really shouldn't be surprised almost no one picked it. As I said, "balance" has been successfully poisoned. "Bad thing, but also bad thing and bad thing" isn't going to draw much attention.</blockquote>

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