Al, I think our difference of opinion comes down to basically what you said here:
Originally posted by Al:
Just for the record, I favour the infamous Organic Method (4d6 in order, drop lowest, reroll one stat and swap any two). I find that the 4d6 arrange to taste drop lowest creates the same characters over and over, and the point-buy will generate iconics. Despite this, if you want to use pont-buy, so long as Comeliness is independent of the main six stats, the system does not break down.
Your group seems to want a different roleplaying challenge each time, while in my experience most fans of rolling stats are either extraordinarily "lucky" (although exactly how much of that luck is natural varies from person to person), or else have a conservative style attachement to the feel of older D&D variations. Everyone else I personally know likes point buy for its ability to fine-tune your character and the general sense of balance. (Just to clear things up, you and your group sound like a different breed of rollers, and I can see and appreciate your position. You want organic, not necessarily "properly built" characters, while none of the rolling fans I personally know would settle for not being able to arrange their scores to taste.) So in your case, I guess something as important as appearance would be worth adding to the character sheet, while in mine, taking it entirely out of the player's hands leaves a bad taste in my mouth. So again, this strikes me as a house rule that only works well with a specific style of play, and so should be left to that.
So to revise my position, Comeliness is only a pointless stat in most gaming situations (I'm sure that point-buy and roll-and-arrange fans outnumber organic system fans by a large margin), but that if you and/or your group prefer the variability, more power to you. (Although I do wonder how you'd adapt it to point buy fans who, as a rule, prefer not to have a random roll affect any major aspect of their characters.)
And to the rest of your post, I'll just say that I see where you're coming from, that's just not the style of play I prefer. I prefer to translate my mental image into the numbers (sometimes going as far as to pull the numbers out of thin air if nothing else seems to fit), while you prefer to start with a blank slate and some general guidelines, and see how you can connect the dots. I may try it your way when I want more of a challenge, but for now... ehh, I have a hard time finding a group that plays without a heavy helping of ego-stroking and random violence as is. Dealing with them is challenge enough for me.
