D&D General Having your players roll their stats

[jmartkdr2]

I think some people may be talking past each other because they’re conflating two very, very different things: roll-in-order and roll-and-arrange.

Rolling in order is a whole other ballgame than roll and arrange. Roll and arrange is much closer to standard array except some pcs are just better by some degree.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But that goes back to how you create characters. If I envision Sir McStabsalot, stalwart gnomish order of the owl paladin, it's because I want someone who wades into battle and doesn't give a hoot. If I roll poorly and have to hide in the back, that concept has flown out the window.



If you're saying that the guy who would normally die first is shored up by more capable PCs, sure. It's not about whether or not they could survive, it's how much they can contribute. I'd have to have a simulator of a group that happened to all roll poor stats vs a group that happened to all roll good stats to do a comparison. Because the point is, how much can that individual contribute mechanically to the group.

Obviously D&D is a team game. If you and yours find it more enjoyable to roll stats, coolio. I just don't see any advantage to it and plenty of downsides for me.



The guy that hides in the back and runs away at the first sign of trouble may survive longer. Doesn't mean I want to play that PC.

The fundamental issue here to my mind is some people generate their stats and use them to help determine a character concept, and others go the other way around. What stat generation method you prefer has a lot to do with which order you go in.

 

[Hex08]

I think some people may be talking past each other

What?!?! You're saying people talk past each other on the internet. That's just crazy!

 

[Orius]

On average, rolling will give you slightly better average ability scores about 55% of the time*. But it also means that in a standard group of 6, odds are one PC will end up with the intelligence of a chimpanzee or the charisma of an ugly tree stump. For some groups that may not matter because the only use for ability scores is to determine bonuses or penalties. Of course it does mean some PCs will auto-fail certain saving throws.

Ah that explains things. I don't run 5e. I prefer 3e, 2e, or even Classic D&D, and stats are not directly impacting saves. With 3e, only Dex, Con, and Wis affect saves, and then it's only a modifier. And who chooses to dump a lousy stat in Dex or Con? They're pretty much the last two stats used for dumps. In AD&D the stats have an even lower impact, only Dex or Wis affect certain saves, and Con only gives a bonus to saves against poison, and only starting at 19 Con, which only a dwarf can have with standard options. In Classic D&D, only Wis affects saves, and then only saves vs spells.

There's been a discussion going on over on Dragonfoot the last week about ability score generation, and there's a much stronger preference for random rolls, including the 3d6 in order method. Meanwhile, there's some disdain over point buy and/or arrays. However, the infamous Method V from 1e UA seems to be the most hated (Method V while available to humans only is ridiculously generous starting with a 9d6 for your most important score and then going down to 3d6 for the least important, including the Comeliness nonsense). One observation over there is that PCs with high stats sometimes die more often because players take more risks with them.

 

[Hex08]

If you roll and allow people to place the numbers where they want, isn't that also cookie cutter? Just that one cookie will be chock full of delicious chocolate chip while another only has a couple? If people have to play in order rolled, don't they just play the class most aligned with the roll?

I think you are really bending the intended meaning of "cookie cutter".

 

[Swarmkeeper]

It is distinctly measurable in better ability scores that directly help you succeed. I assure you that a 14 year old understands that +4 to hit and damage is a lot better than +1 to hit and damage. As for who is keeping track...have you met a teenager?

So 15% better to hit is the threshold?

Yes, I understand that life is not usually equitable. I don't think that needs to be a life lesson attached to D&D, where we can control the rules and make it so that everyone starts from the exact same place, and then what they make of it is up to them. We're playing the game for fun, not to model the systemic unfairness of the real world.

Not a point I made or even alluded to, but... sure, I agree with you here other than the bit that it is imperative that "everyone starts from the exact same place" with regards to stats.

It's the same reason we now let Halflings be just as strong as Goliaths, Dragons exist and can fly despite their mass, and so on: this is a fantasy game, and it is more fun that way. We're not running a reality simulator.

Agreed - I'm not looking for a reality simulator either. You must be including this to rebut someone else's point? Although I don't hear anyone saying they want a reality simulator so not sure what it has to do with anything.

From a personal perspective, I am fine with any method of character generation. I am old and have been playing for more than four decades, and I appreciate Lanefan's point. Though I have to admit that it has always seemed like an inherently problematic design to give some characters permanent advantages or disadvantages based on one tiny, initial set of rolls. Those initial stakes are very asynchronous with pretty much every thing else in the game.

Are you talking about comparative advantages or disadvantages? Like being 15% better at strength rolls compared to another PC in the party? I find this to truly be a matter of perspective. If my ally is 15% better than me at some things, I'm happy to have them on my team.

Edit: incidentally, though, some middle school Individuals and Societies classes (AKA Social Studies in our day) actually do role-play exercises where the kids are randomly sorted into various levels of haves and have-nots, often when studying something like the French Revolution. I can assure you that the have-not kids almost immediately hold kind of a grudge...which is the point in those lessons, but not something I want to run a whole campaign experiencing.

So... we're comparing a sociological experiment to the social contract of a game? And because of the very real-world results of that experiment we can't have variability in stats between characters in our fantasy world? This seems, at least on the surface, to contradict your earlier claims about not wanting a reality simulator.

 

[Oofta]

The fundamental issue here to my mind is some people generate their stats and use them to help determine a character concept, and others go the other way around. What stat generation method you prefer has a lot to do with which order you go in.

If someone wants to randomize their character at my table I'd give them a list of arrays made from point buy that they could randomly pick from. Then roll randomly to see where the numbers go (potentially swapping con with another ability score if they want).

Of course if it's your table do what makes sense to you. There's no wrong way, just preferences.

 

[Oofta]

I think you are really bending the intended meaning of "cookie cutter".

I don't know the exact ability scores of my player's PCs. I assume the wizard probably has intelligence as their best score. Sorcerers charisma, rogues dex. Except on that last one you would have been wrong on my first 5E PC who had a higher strength than dex because they were a mountain dwarf. Which was a really stupid combo to begin with but neither here nor there.

If you can rearrange numbers to suit the patterns will likely the same. Just some numbers will be higher or lower depending on luck.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Are they teenagers?

Some of them.

And, sure, they all cheer or groan when they get roll high or low scores, and during chargen you can see that the ones who got lower scores aren't happy about it.

Then we actually start playing and it never comes up again.

There is also a different feel...it's hard to put my finger on it...about how they roleplay when they've rolled the stats. Maybe it's just that they're willing to lean on their deficiencies. I don't know; it's hard to describe. But they seem to be having more fun since we switched over.

 

[Lanefan]

If someone wants to randomize their character at my table I'd give them a list of arrays made from point buy that they could randomly pick from.

Do any of those arrays have scores outside the 8-15 range? If not, I'm not all that interested.