Then here's something that might surprise you.
A few years ago I took a somewhat random sampling of about 100 characters that had been played in our games over about 30+ years (all using basically the same random roll-up system we've had since day 1) and ran a rough analysis of whether their initial rolled stats predicted their eventual lifespan using number of adventures played as a career counter.
There was a small difference - much smaller than I expected - in those characters that ran for less than 3 adventures, and no difference at all once you hit the 3+ adventure point.
What this means is that no matter what your initial rolls are, you're likely going to get just as much length of play (on average) out of any given character. Put another way, the high-stat guys die off just as quickly as the low-stat guys.
It's a good thing my metric isn't how long the characters last, then?
As I said on another thread, and touched upon on this one, it's the statistical difference it makes in potentially thousands of rolls over the life of a character, and determining whether or not they succeed or fail significantly more or less. It is a one thing when a half-dozen rolls determine whether or not a half-dozen individual checks succeed or fail, even if that means a dramatic success or failure. It's another beast entirely when a half-dozen rolls can affect, quite significantly when you look at the numbers, whether or not upwards of thousands of checks succeed or fail. In one instance, the statistics are affecting only the rolls directly involved, in the other the repercussions are vast, far-reaching.
As for the life of the characters in your own games? That's really cool. Truly. But strictly anecdotal. As I said, in
my own experience, my own anecdotes, it more often than not has led to people offing characters on purpose, or, more importantly,
not being happy playing them. It's that simple.
If one person with great rolls for stats has a mere +2 higher bonus on any given check than a person with awful rolls for stats, you're talking a rough average of them succeeding at most every roll in the game ~10% more often. While that might sound low, it's actually quite staggeringly high when you're dealing with the numbers of rolls involved. Why allow a half-dozen rolls to unduly influence the game in such a manner, when there is a completely viable mechanic, a well-tested mechanic, that simply prevents that from happening? I want my players to have fun, and to enjoy the characters they are playing. And in all seriousness, you can see the looks of frustration when someone has a character with awful stats failing many more rolls than everyone else at the table, or when a person with fantastic stats is succeeding at rolls more often than everyone else at the table, session after session after session.
Now here we have some vastly different expectations (and experiences?). As DM, when I start a new campaign my intention is that it'll last for as long as people are willing to play in it, or the rest of my life, whichever comes first. As a player I look for the same sort of idea behind a campaign I'm looking to join. It doesn't always work out, but if the intent isn't there going in then sure as hell it won't work out.
Experience, both as player and DM, tells me our campaigns are usually good for about 10 years. My current one is coming up on 8, and the one I play in is closing in on 9; both have some legs in them yet.
Yeah, that is, in my experience, a highly unusual length of time for an average campaign. 10 years? Life simply does not allow for that. And I say this as someone who has been in the same online gaming guild with my partner for ~17 years now, and we still get games in with the guild, even with two kids now over a decade old, etc. Since the beginning of the original Everquest, which came out in early '99. But tabletop games? No, the logistics of juggling schedules alone prevents those from lasting anywhere approaching a decade. Far too many friends working in IT, or in medicine, or the like, or that have or are starting families, or sending kids off to college at this point, etc, etc, etc. We'll play for as long as we can in a campaign, but 10 years? Yeah, that is unusually high.
And the numbers on this very forum agree. Only 26.86% of the people polled here have their longest campaign be 5+ years, a mere 8.68% have had their
longest ever campaign be 10+ years. The largest category by far was 1-2 years in length, at 33.47%. And that's on a dedicated, well-established roleplaying gamer board, hence much more likely to have a higher than normal percentage of dedicated gamers and grognards who've been playing RPGs for a very long time. As opposed to your average gamer. So yeah, your experience in that regard would appear to be very atypical.
Except to me being drunk (whether me or anyone else) is something I can trust, while being on other things (whether me or anyone else) is something I don't trust.
And why is that, exactly? Genuinely curious. Drunks are, statistically speaking, per capita, the most likely to become violent, sexually aroused, and to endanger others with reckless behavior. Considerably more likely to engage in domestic violence, and sexual assault. The most likely to black out and engage in behavior they don't remember after the fact. I do not trust drunk people, for so many reasons. Even people who you have been around many times drunk can get incredibly violent and belligerent at the drop of a hat, and bad things happen.
Statistically, research shows more and more that hallucinogens/psychoactives, opiates, even cocaine (except in the form of crack), and a great many synthetic drugs, have no real correlation to violent behavior whatsoever. Marijuana, certainly, has none. Alcohol, meth (amphetamines in general), and crack are the big three recreational drugs that correlate to violence, along with some SSRIs (anti-depressants, specifically anti-depressants linked to serotonin levels, whether causing increases or crashes in serotonin). In fact, I dare say it's quite likely that you have been around people actually ON other drugs at the time, especially psychoactives, research chemicals of various sorts, and pot, and had absolutely no idea. Something to consider.
But yeah, I am genuinely curious why you trust drunks? Is it just because it's legal?
